A spirit appeared behind him, radiating golden light. Hadjar had never seen anything like it before. He’d thought that a Spirit Knight could only wield the spirit of a beast, but now… Behind Sankesh, a three-foot-long halberd whirled in the air. The power emanating from it overwhelmed the very air around the warriors.
Sunshine kicked the shaft of his weapon and swung the tip forward.
“Sun Beam!”
At first, Hadjar thought nothing had happened. But then, a second later, he felt a stinging pain coming from his long-suffering left side. He looked down and saw blood running down his torso. It spurted out through a fresh wound. Only then did he see the beam that revealed the fast lunge Sankesh made.
“Damn it!” Hadjar cursed, understanding that things had just gotten a lot worse for him
.
Chapter 415
This time, Hadjar could see the sunbeam. However, that didn’t help him much. He tried to block it, but his sword sliced through nothing but a trail of afterimages left behind by the beam that represented Sankesh’s attack.
Hadjar gritted his teeth as a pea-sized hole appeared on his thigh, just inches away from the bone. All this time, he had thought that Sankesh’s main specialty was close combat, but Hadjar had been horribly mistaken.
The halberd wasn’t meant to be used up close. It had been created in order to keep one’s enemy away and to also pierce their body with quick attacks. Sankesh’s strikes, as he was someone who possessed the mysteries of the Light Spirit, were really instantaneous.
“It’s time to finish this!” Sunshine shouted.
The light of the spirit behind him grew stronger and brighter. His motionless halberd suddenly quivered, and this time, Hadjar saw three brief flashes. Three sunbeams that represented swift lunges flew through the space between them at incredible speed. Even so, Hadjar’s thoughts were faster than Sankesh’s. In recent years, Hadjar had done nothing but fight. He’d fought against armies, bandits, monsters, his own demons, and even mythical creatures.
His combat experience surpassed even those who had lived in this mortal world for centuries and had reached the Spirit Knight level. All this knowledge had needed only a small push to come together and give Hadjar the insight needed to progress further on the path of cultivation.
His transition to the Heaven Soldier level was only related to his soul. When his old heart had no longer been able to live in his body, he’d had to discard his mortal shell and acquire a new, more fitting one. A shell which didn’t see honor as something ‘to be followed’, but something you couldn’t not follow.
As for the path of his Spirit, Hadjar had already reached his current limits. After becoming a Wielder of the Sword, he had been left without any way to progress forward and advance his sword mastery even further.
Behind all of this was something Hadjar had been deprived of for seven long years. Once upon a time, in a cold grotto, Hadjar had sacrificed a piece of his soul to save his army and his own life. He’d given it to the Sword Spirit and it had given its power to him in return, and had then allowed him to approach it a little. A tiny fraction of its might had been enough to make Hadjar the strongest swordsman in Lidus. However, Hadjar had sacrificed the wind for it... no, the Wind.
However, was it really that simple? South Wind had once told him the old legend about the light, which was present everywhere and always, fighting a constant battle against the retreating darkness. Looking up at the night sky, Hadjar had realized that light was not ‘everywhere’, it was only the fastest thing that the eye could see. There were forces in the universe that were faster than even light. While invisible to the eye, they were truly present everywhere and always. For example, darkness. It would always be ahead of the light. Both literally and metaphorically.
Hadjar had never felt a kinship with the darkness. Even now, with the three deadly sunbeams rushing toward him, he couldn’t quite subdue the dark fog emanating from the black blade, nor the cloak on his back.
What else, also invisible to the eye, was always there? What force, despite the seal of the Sword Spirit, did Hadjar feel a kinship with? The Wind…
Even at such a dangerous time, Hadjar could hear the faint whispers of the wind as it swept over the horizon, where Hadjar’s own path and heart drew him.
Maybe that was why he’d felt a connection to the wind since his birth. An ephemeral, mystical relationship. As if the wind were an old friend he’d been separated from a long time ago. Maybe a few lifetimes ago. The wind was always with him. It had always been with him. And it would always be with him. Not even the Sword Spirit’s seal that had severed their bond could change that.
Hadjar sighed, feeling the wind seep into every cell of his body. It had indeed always been there, right by his side.
“Sixth stance: Wind!”
Hadjar’s movements were as light and silent as a summer breeze; as impetuous and rapid as a spring storm; as elusive as the Wind itself.
Sankesh, who had moments ago been confident in his victory, once again couldn’t understand what was happening. A few hours ago, he’d looked down on this unusually strong but still simple practitioner. One attack, imbued with the Halberd Spirit, had been enough to send him to his forefathers. However, he was still alive. Moreover, he’d broken through and become a true cultivator, which only one in a hundred thousand practitioners could do. Becoming a Heaven Soldier was a great achievement.
With every exchange of blows, with every second that passed, Sankesh felt his enemy… not just refuse to weaken, but actually become stronger. His foe had just made another breakthrough.
Sankesh had already seen Hadjar use the ‘Ten Ravens’ Technique, which was very popular among practitioners and weak cultivators. It didn’t require much talent, and resources needed to cultivate it were common even in the barbarian kingdoms. Its upper limit, accessible to a peak Heaven Soldier — merging the shadow of ten ravens into one — was considered the weakest of Speed Techniques.
Now, however, Hadjar wasn’t using this shameful Technique, but something completely different. Sankesh had little understanding of the Sword Spirit path, so he couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on. Even then, he’d never seen a cultivator or practitioner use a fighting stance for anything other than to attack.
For a brief moment, it was difficult to follow Hadjar’s movements. Sankesh only felt the wind swirling around his opponent, and then the three deadly sunbeams pierced not Hadjar, but the air behind him. The barbarian himself stood quite a ways away from where he’d been just a second ago.
“Who or what are you?” Sankesh roared.
He swung his halberd over his head. Moving his hands so quickly that his weapon turned into a huge sun disk, Sankesh roared:
“Dawn Sun!”
An exact copy of the disk above him detached itself from his weapon. The flaming disk spun with such speed that vortices of burning air formed both below and above it. This ‘hourglass’ was sent after Hadjar, burning a deep furrow across the ground, travelling at a speed only slightly inferior to that of the sunbeams. It promised only one thing — death.
Hadjar felt that his Call would soon disappear. Without it, the cloak that shielded him from the pressure of the Spirit Knight’s power and the black blade would disappear as well. Not to mention the power that allowed a Heaven Soldier at the initial stage of the level to wield the kind of might that only the ones at the peak stage had access to.