Chapter 25

If this had been the Demon Realm, I wouldn’t have wasted words. I would have just killed him. But here, I chose restraint and cut off only one of his arms. Dumaine hadn’t even noticed my movement before the limb was gone.

“Guaaaah! My arm! My arm! Khhh, you bastard! Hahhahahaha!”

He was laughing? With his arm severed?

“Khhh! It hurts, but I can endure it. Guaah! Huff, huff… now give me strength. Strength! Hahaha!”

He was even madder than before. His disheveled hair stuck to his bloodied face, making him look utterly grotesque.

“Haaah, hahh… kukuku. Dizzy… kukuku. Strength! Give me strength! Strength like a Dragon Heart!”

Blood kept spilling out, a vivid red. Judging by how much he’d lost already, he couldn’t stay standing for long. I struck the air, channeling formless qi to seal several of his vital energy points. His movements stopped at once.

“Khhk… stronger power, that’s what I want… eh? Why can’t I move? Why, why, why! O…! Is it you, coming to give me power? Yes… power! Hahaha!”

Abandoning all attempts to resist, he only moved his lips, repeating demands for strength over and over. His expression had shifted from pain to rapture, drenched in madness. His body temperature must have plummeted, for he was chattering his teeth.

“I am Dumaine. Power! Can you feel it? Hahaha, I hear it calling me—a great power! Hahhah! Cough, cough!”

He was undeniably insane.

“Yes… finally, it’s coming to me. Immense power… kukuku.”

Coming? I raised my senses sharply, scanning the surroundings with sword in hand. But there was nothing. No sign, no presence.

“Are you here to give me power? Then give it. Give it, no matter what it takes. Hahhahaha.”

His rambling grew more unsettling, muttered so poorly I couldn’t even make out half of what he was saying.

Then…

“!”

I froze. I couldn’t comprehend what I was witnessing. There was no presence, no trace of movement, yet…

“Vanished…?”

Deep within a place hemmed in by towering trees, a sinister force was taking shape.

Woooong.

In a hollow shrouded in gray mist, a heavy resonance thrummed through the air. At its center, a haze of pure darkness spread outward in all directions. As the black haze clashed with the encroaching gray fog, sparks of deep ocean blue flared violently, twisting the atmosphere with raw power.

The phenomenon rippled across the entire area. The dark haze carried a malignant aura, pushing back the fog bit by bit until it claimed dominance over the space. Slowly, inexorably, all of it began to collapse inward—sucked toward a single point. The pull quickened, wind roaring as everything was swallowed into the heart of the convergence.

And at the place where the haze had been devoured, something emerged. A stone outcropping, just large enough for a person to sit and rest upon. From its center jutted the blade and hilt of a sword, driven deep into the rock.

Wooooooong—

The resonance deepened, swelling louder than before. It wasn’t the same as the first hum—it carried a strange familiarity. It was the same kind of vibration once felt when that “presence” revealed itself in the Demon Realm.

[…close …from …power …seek… …crave power… destruction…]

The voice seemed to ripple from the heart of the Forest of Demons, a vast woodland lying south of the Cross Kingdom. At its center stood a lone sword, planted firmly in stone, and around it the resonance continued to echo.

On a small hillside.

“Khhhk… power, yes… I need power… power like a Dragon Heart… give it to me… ughhh….”

Dumaine’s entire body trembled violently, the kind of shudder impossible to miss with the naked eye. Yet despite the convulsions, he stood frozen, unable to move even a step.

Two hours passed like that. Then, suddenly, a voice resounded in his head—a voice that carried will of its own.

[Do you desire power?]

Thump—

Dumaine’s cooling heart thrashed violently at that one phrase. Though he had already lost consciousness, words slipped out of his mouth as if he were mumbling in his sleep.

“Pow… er… kukuku… I want it.”

The voice was lifeless, devoid of vitality, yet it filled the air around him. Had it heard his answer? Because once again, the sound pressed into his skull.

[Do you desire the power of destruction?]

“……”

This time, Dumaine gave no reply. No—he could not reply. His blood had nearly stopped flowing, his heartbeat reduced to a faint flutter. He hovered at the edge of death.

But the voice returned, echoing inside his skull once more.

[Do you desire the power of destruction?]

And then, against all odds, words slipped from Dumaine’s cracked lips—clear, precise, and quiet. It was the so-called “last light before death,” when a dying person briefly regains lucidity at the very edge of life.

“Khhhk… I want it.”

[Drawn by your desire, I have come. Will you form a contract with me?]

The voice echoed in Dumaine’s skull, but he showed no surprise. For the sake of power, he had already resolved to give anything—even his soul.

“If it gives me strength, I’ll do anything. Even if it means selling my soul. Kukuku.”

[The contract is sealed. From this moment, you and I are bound as one.]

The words reverberated in his mind, and in the same instant, Dumaine’s body vanished from sight.

My blade cut only empty air.

“Vanished…?”

All that remained was the imprint of his boots pressed into the earth. Beside them lay the severed arm and the pool of blood he had left behind. No mana flow, no trace, no lingering presence—he had simply disappeared.

What was this?

I felt a chill as confusion gnawed at me. This was beyond anything my senses could explain.

In a grove where a sword was wedged into stone, a one-armed man lay collapsed as if dead.

[I am the Sword of Ruin. Pahshaz. By the contract, I now become one with you.]

Wooooong.

The resonance shook the air as the black haze that had forced back the gray mist earlier began to rise once more from the sword. Slowly, that haze streamed into the body of the fallen human.

Twitch.

A faint shudder ran through his left index finger. At once, the haze that had been flooding into his flesh reversed course, flowing back into the sword.

[Awaken. Human, rise and grasp me.]

The echo thundered inside his skull.

“Urgh… cough, cough, cough! Khh…”

The man groaned faintly, then broke into harsh coughing fits.

[Awaken. Human, by the contract, rise and grasp me.]

The same voice as before pulsed clearly in his mind.

“…Khh… alive? Kukuku… how dare you… cough… how dare you sever the arm of Dumaine… grraaahh!”

Clarity returned to him in fragments. As sensation spread back through his nerves, the agony from his missing right shoulder made him howl.

[Awaken, human. By our contract, rise and take me in hand.]

The sound rang low but undeniable in his head. Dumaine blinked in confusion before muttering in realization, his voice rough with pain.

“Contract? Khhh… yes… I did make a contract… kukuku… That sword called me?”

[Indeed. Take me.]

The sword before him was simple—pure black from hilt to blade, without patterns or ornamentation. But its body was wide, nearly twenty centimeters across.

With only his left arm remaining, Dumaine began to crawl toward it.

“Cough… yes. Finally… kukuku. I can feel it. The power… kukuk.”

Dumaine let out a low laugh as he finally dragged himself close enough to the rock. Stretching out his left hand, he realized the hilt was still just out of reach.

“Khhrk… haaah… haaah…”

He grit his teeth and forced himself to crawl again, only to stop a moment later, chest heaving. To move so soon after skirting death drained him completely.

Wooooong.

The closer he drew to the sword, the louder the resonance became. With ragged breaths, he pushed himself one more time and stretched until his fingertips brushed the hilt.

Wooong.

The fluctuating resonance smoothed into a steady tone as soon as his hand closed around it. A black haze surged out, seeping into his body through his left hand.

“Khhk? Th-this power…! Khahahaha! Yes… kukuk… this is it! Khahahaha!”

As the haze flooded into him, the pain ebbed away. Strength surged back into his limbs. His whole body trembled as wild laughter ripped from his throat. Ecstasy, euphoria—this was the power he had craved. The power to crush and destroy anything.

When the last trace of haze vanished, the voice returned inside his skull.

[Draw me.]

Ssshhk.

The blade slid free with absurd ease. Fully revealed, it measured about a meter in length. From the twenty-centimeter hilt upward, the first twenty centimeters of the blade were equally wide—forming a thick square. Beyond that, the blade narrowed sharply until, at the tip, it was no more than five centimeters across.

Seen upright, the sword looked like a perfect square stacked beneath a towering triangle. The black steel had already shifted into a deep, ominous gray.

[Now you and I are one. To any fool who dares block your path, we shall show the power of Ruin. The contract will last until the end of your life.]

The voice echoed through him, and Dumaine burst into wild laughter once more. He swung the sword recklessly, cleaving through trees as he staggered forward.

“Yes, with this power! Kukuk… khahahaha!”

With this power, he could do anything. And first, he would march for the Widav Kingdom, to slaughter the mages he believed had betrayed him.

Thus, one of the continent’s three great treasures—the Sword of Ruin, Pahshaz—had revealed itself to the world.