Chapter 334: The Talk with Gordon (2)

“

Cough... cough...

”

Karyl opened his eyes, the frigid air piercing his lungs.

[...Are you alright?]

Allen’s faint voice came through.

[See? What did I tell you? Mercy is only granted when the sword is raised in front of the condemned at the guillotine.]

Just... shut up for a moment.

Karyl tried moving.

The pillars surrounding the canyon stretched endlessly into the skies, and the snowstorm that had previously been hidden by the clouds had stopped.

[Who would’ve thought you’d be caught off guard like this... A proper surprise.]

[That’s why there’s always a variable in battles. If the weak could never defeat the strong, the very idea of defying the gods would be absurd.]

[But the problem is that this time, the variable has affected us.]

The Spirit Kings spoke up at the same time.

Irritated by the overlapping voices, Karyl cut in,

I know you’re all eager to mock me, but aren’t you guys a bit too laid back? Haven’t you thought that if I died, you’d all vanish as well?

[Hmm... You’re not the kind to die so easily.]

[Sounds like you're complaining about us not helping enough.]

[Calm down,] Ramine chimed in, trying to calm Duaat and Ethereal. [As you said, without you, we cannot manifest our power. But it’s not like we did nothing.]

[In the moment of the fall, Allen barely managed to pull you out of Gordon’s grip with Duaat’s power. Otherwise, you would’ve ended up like that.]

Hearing that, Karyl lifted his head and saw Gordon in the distance, lying motionlessly.

“...”

Before worrying about his adversary’s condition, Karyl knew the priority was to check his own state.

I can’t believe I screwed up like this...

Karyl bit his lip. He had long since learned that a single moment of distraction could mean the difference between life and death. Yet here he was, repeating the same mistake, allowing himself to be shaken by the mention of some secret about the north.

Was it because of their shared history in the Ghost Castle? Or was it the fearless way Gordon carried himself?

In fact, Karyl had always felt strangely at ease around Gordon Fabian, treating him with a leniency he rarely showed anyone else.

“Ghah...?!”

Just lifting his arm was enough to send a wave of searing pain through him. His arm wouldn’t even move, yet the pain was unbearable.

[Be careful. You're in bad shape.]

Hearing that, Karyl inspected his body and saw that one of his forearm bones had pierced through the skin, protruding beneath his elbow.

When he tried to move his legs, they too refused to respond. He recalled hitting the rocks during the fall and looked down to see his ankle twisted completely in the wrong direction.

Karyl sighed.

Both my arm and legs are broken. Because of Automata, I took the fall with just my body, no shield. Then again, that lunatic fell the same way... No one else on this continent would pull off such madness.

He slowly drew in his magic, warming up his mana veins. The only fortunate thing was that he had managed to shield one arm in time. If all his limbs had been broken, recovery would have taken far too long.

[No matter how much power he draws from the element, absorbing divine energy makes no sense. If it were possible, Maktuun, the Earth Spirit King, would have been the natural enemy of the gods. But even he cannot contain divine power. At most, maybe Kungen’s thunder could do something, but there’s no way to trap divine power.]

Ramine looked at the collapsed Gordon and continued, [Perhaps the secret of the north that he spoke of has something to do with that man who vanished.]

Karyl recalled the golden-haired man he had seen in the Thousand-Year Ice Cave, a figure absent from his past life.

[That man is connected to Rasis, the Spirit King of Light. Since you found traces of Rasis in Narh Di Maug’s lair, if his seal has indeed been broken... it’s possible that Gordon made contact with Rasis.]

“...”

Karyl pondered over Allen’s words.

In his previous life, Gordon Fabian had already died by this point in time, so Karyl had no way of predicting his actions now. His intention had been to preserve powerful forces, like Sword Masters, for the war against the Tarak, but Karyl hadn’t known Gordon would be connected to the north.

I need to figure it out. If Gordon Fabian’s involvement with the north led Kuwell to reveal its secrets to me, then... I need to understand what they’re planning.

That understanding would weigh heavily on the future of the current world.

“Hey! You’ve made me waste so much time. Are you alive, Gordon Fabian?” Karyl said quietly.

“Khh... Aaahh...”

Far in the distance, Gordon began to stir.

“...You really are a monster of a man.”

“You’re so weak... You and I are enemies, and yet you still worry about me?”

“Think what you will. I asked if you’re still alive because I intend to kill you myself.”

“Khehe...” Gordon chuckled, but his voice was hoarse, and with every rise of his chest, blood spilled from his mouth. Given the fall, it was a miracle he was alive at all.

Even with their bodies honed to the extreme, Sword Masters were still human without mana.

Falling from the airship’s maximum altitude should have shattered them completely. The fact that they were still breathing was nothing short of a miracle. Or perhaps, it was simply the result of their abilities.

“Intend to kill me? Then come, boy. If you can walk all the way over here with your broken legs, that is... Hahah...” Gordon laughed wryly at Karyl’s claim.

Crack―

Karyl didn’t bother healing his broken leg. He slammed his good arm into the ground, using the momentum to rise. Then he moved—step by step. With each one, his twisted ankle crunched with a sickening sound. Yet he pressed on, limping toward Gordon resolutely.

“Think I can’t do it?”

Crunch!!

Karyl pressed down on Gordon’s throat.

“As long as we’re breathing, this fight isn’t over,” he sneered. “Gordon, you’re the one underestimating war. What I regret most is feeling even a shred of pity for you, which led to this mess.”

“...You’re crazy,” Gordon responded with a calm expression, despite the fact that Karyl’s grip was threatening to crush his neck.

“...”

“....”

After what seemed like a long silence, Gordon spoke up first.

“Heal yourself. You can kill me anytime. As you know, I can’t use healing magic.”

Even without reaching the level of a Sword Master, warriors who trained in Mana Blades often studied magic to some extent. Naturally, they learned basic healing spells.

But Gordon’s path to sword mastery was exceptional. Instead of relying on a Mana Blade, he had pushed his raw physical strength to the level of a Sword Master, relying on the defensive technique of Automata, a single extreme skill, instead of any other magic.

It was stubbornness, but perhaps that very stubbornness was what had allowed him to ascend to the rank of Sword Master.

“Why go to such extremes?” asked Karyl. “No matter how I think about it, it seems like you’re forcing yourself, almost as if you orchestrated this just to talk with me in private.”

At that, Gordon smirked.

“Be honest. You anticipated I’d come looking for you, didn’t you?” Karyl demanded.

“So you figured it out? Does that mean you deliberately let me throw us from the airship? You sly devil.”

Karyl released his grip from Gordon’s neck.

“Gordon, you jumped off the airship with me, from a height that would make anyone assume you died. Plus, we’re in the middle of a war. No one’s going to hurry to look for you. That means that from now on, you’ll be able to move more freely.”

“...”

“You tried to stage your own death, something uncharacteristic of you. Since I played along with it, now tell me the truth.”

“...Karyl, why do you think Kuwell brought you along during the Extermination Decree of Heresy?”

At the mention of Kuwell, Karyl furrowed his brow slightly.

“Why are you bringing him up now?”

“Honestly, when I found out you were Kuwell’s son, I couldn’t help but be surprised. I thought about it a lot.”

“I’m merely his adopted son. And if you’re going to try to appeal to any sort of familial bond regarding the war with the empire, drop it.”

“That’s not what I was going to say. But when I learned that you are the son of Kaliak and that Kuwell saved your life, I realized that you needed to know the secret of the north that we uncovered.”

“The secret of the north?”

“Yes, about who the rightful king is.”

Thud―

Karyl felt his heart sink. He stared at Gordon wide-eyed.

After discovering in the Thousand-Year Ice Cave that the first Blader was the ancestor of the immigrants, Karyl had been wondering who the true ruler of the continent was.

Each word Gordon spoke made Karyl feel as if he truly knew the secret of the Thousand-Year Ice Cave. Yet, doubts crept in.

In his past life, he hadn’t questioned it—the cave lay within land long absorbed by the empire. But now, with the immigrant tribes still there, they couldn’t have seen it.

He needed to find out. As someone with an unbiased perspective, unshaped by the complexities of the empire, what truth was Gordon aware of?

What had been hidden from Karyl in his past life but known to Gordon Fabian before his death?

“In the third canyon, beyond the northern lands where the Wolf Fox tribe once lived, there’s a cave.”

“...What?”

“I led Kuwell to that cave when he was carrying out the Extermination Decree of Heresy.”

“...Say that again,” Karyl asked with a stiff expression. “The ice pillar you saw—where exactly was it?”

“Why are you so shocked?” Gordon asked back with a puzzled look, but Karyl couldn’t answer.

“...You’re so annoying. Anyway, remember it clearly. The third canyon in the northern lands—follow that path, and you’ll find the cave.”

Even after hearing it again, Karyl’s expression remained stiff. The reason?

The cave Gordon mentioned was in a completely different location from where Karyl knew the Thousand-Year Ice Cave to be.