Chapter 160

Unsheathing the greatsword from his lower back with practiced ease, the dwarf swung the blade despite the immense distance of nearly twenty meters separating us.

‘From this distance?’

Immediately after, to my surprise, a metallic Clang! rang out as a silver aura blade appended itself to the weapon. The greatsword, which was barely two meters long to begin with, transformed into a length of nearly thirty meters.

“Whoops.”

Ducking my head to avoid the silver blade split down toward my skull, I took a long leap to the side.

With just a slight flick of his wrist, he easily controlled the thirty-meter blade to pursue me.

Oh, now this is a fun technique.

This silver blade… it felt like an intermediate stage leading toward the aura materialization Duke Orléans had demonstrated earlier. Perhaps because of that, it possessed virtually no mass despite its length of nearly thirty meters.

And taking full advantage of that fact, this dwarf was keeping the entire space within a thirty-meter radius as his effective striking range just by snapping his wrist from a fixed spot.

‘Sharp. An acuteness that cannot be replicated by a physical sword. If a monomolecular cutter existed, would it feel like this? And it’s fast to boot… He can probably adjust the length at will, so close-quarters combat would be a breeze too. A simple yet powerful aura conversion.’

But well… if he thought he could harm me with just that much… I would have dropped dead the moment I arrived in this world.

After driving Astraphe completely into the ground, I concentrated pure spiritual power into both of my hands.

Then, catching the silver blade that he had thrust like lightning—viewing my stationary posture as a critical opening—I clamped both of my hands over it like a clap.

Smack!

“Uh…!?”

Perhaps never expecting me to react in such a manner, the dwarf gasped in surprise and tried to dissipate the captured portion of the blade, but by then, I had already usurped a significant amount of control over that silver aura.

‘You see… just because I don’t have body mana doesn’t mean I can’t manipulate energy, you know?’

In other words, once an aura or magic spell is manifested externally like this, it is entirely within my reach to grab.

Molding the blade that had fallen under my control in the blink of an eye, I flashed a smirk.

“This aura is mine now.”

Zzzzzzt!

The dwarf’s eyes widened in sheer horror as he watched his own silver aura blade transform into a pure white whip, looping back to bind his own body.

“What!? What is the meaning of this…?!”

“Ah, I guess it’s your first time seeing an aura NTR? Tsk tsk. That’s why you should have treated it better while you had it.”

“What kind of absolute nonsense is—ugh…!”

Screeech!

The dwarf Master named Doten gritted his teeth, wedging his greatsword between his armor and the aura whip tightening around his body.

For the record, despite his master’s guarantee, and despite his hotshot senior brother getting broken to pieces without even knowing what hit him… he still refused to acknowledge the entity before him as a Grand Master.

Because he revered his master more than anyone—even more than Ahel Orléans, who was his senior brother and the master’s son—and because his own abilities as a Master were faithfully retracing his master’s footsteps… it was difficult for him to readily accept that someone ‘equal to his master’ existed.

However… at this point, he had no choice but to change his mindset.

‘Usurping someone else’s aura? And a Master’s aura that has already undergone qualitative transformation at that? Is such a thing even possible?’

For that to be possible, one would first have to revert the aura—which had undergone a qualitative transformation by the Master’s hands—back into a standard, raw aura.

That premise alone was nonsensical. It was a task no different from separating a massive pool of randomly mixed inks back into their individual pristine colors before they were blended. It was a miracle on par with a cooked omelet reverting into pristine rice and raw eggs… no, even greater than that, like a man who had been bald for ten years suddenly growing a lush mane of hair.

And that wasn’t even the end of it. Even if he conceded a hundred times over and accepted that the aura could be unraveled back into raw body mana, seizing control of someone else’s body mana was also mind-bogglingly difficult.

Why was body mana called body mana to begin with? Because it was heavily imbued with the unique traits of each individual Steel Body user. That was exactly why the color of every person’s mana or aura was completely different.

Therefore, unlike a mage’s mind mana, the only type of body mana an outside Steel Body user could absorb and control was pure mana from which all individual alignment and direction had been stripped (with mana stored inside magic stones being a prime example).

Ultimately, it meant the monster standing before his eyes had taken someone else’s qualitatively transformed aura, reverted it back into a standard aura prior to conversion, unraveled that to translate it back into body mana, stripped that body mana into pure mana to seize control, and then refashioned it completely to suit his own tastes—all during that tortuous, horrifyingly complex process…

‘…Did he accomplish all of that in the exact split second he clamped his hands over my aura blade?’

This was absolutely not something a human could do.

Let alone a Master, it was a miracle that even his own mentor, Duke Orléans, could not perform.

In the end, there was only one answer.

‘It must be a unique world capability belonging to a Grand Master, similar to Master’s materialization.’

Yes. If it was that, all of those tedious processes could be bypassed.

Because a Grand Master’s unique capability was not governed by logic, but was a type of miracle.

Even his mentor could materialize his aura as naturally as breathing, yet he could not explain the underlying principle behind it.

He finally acknowledged the monster before him in his heart.

‘So he really is a genuine Grand Master. Dammit.’

Well, it was an acknowledgment born from a massive accumulation of misunderstandings and delusions, but an acknowledgment nonetheless.

However, that did not mean he had completely run out of ways to fight. He still possessed one final card to play.

‘Didi.’

The beautiful elf junior sister whom he secretly adored.

Although her realm of strength was slightly lacking compared to his senior brother or himself, that was merely a paper-thin margin. With her, with whom he had traded blows and synchronized countless times, even if they couldn’t win, they could at least push him to the brink….

Bzzzzzt! Screeeeech!!

However, his train of thought could not continue any further.

Before he could even call out to his junior sister for assistance, the whip binding his body suddenly grew sharp edges and began to spin rapidly like a buzzsaw.

Screeeeech!

“Are you insane…?!”

Witnessing his passive aura getting shaved away in an instant, he urgently expanded the thickness of his passive defense while simultaneously funneling fresh aura into his greatsword to sever the whip.

“Huuup…!”

Rip!

The aura whip began to tear away bit by bit under the strain. Compared to his continuously replenished aura, that whip was merely a finite construct being consumed, so it was a natural outcome.

‘Good. Just a little more…!’

Yet, for some reason, his passive aura—which had been gradually thickening as it pushed back the whip—suddenly stopped accepting his body mana at a certain point.

‘Hmm…?’

Filled with bewilderment, the dwarf Master caught a glimpse of his own reflection upon the polished surface of the greatsword he was using to pry the whip away.

Immediately after, a breathless gasp slipped from his lips.

“Ah!”

Before he knew it, the passive aura enveloping his body was no longer dyed silver, but was instead being stained with the same pure white light as the whip.

“N-No… what is this?”

The monster before his eyes grinned mischievously.

“I already took your aura blade, so why did you think your passive aura would be any different?”

“……!!”

“Now then, what will you use to resist?”

As he watched his own passive aura—which was supposed to protect him—constrict to crush his body instead, the light completely died from his eyes.

“Senior brother!!”

Didi bit her lip as she watched her senior brother pinned down, entirely unable to move under the weight of his own aura.

Every fiber of her being wanted to rush forward immediately and punch a wind tunnel straight through that black-haired man’s torso. But….

‘How?’

In truth, it wasn’t as if she had been idling around while her senior brother was trading blows with that man.

While her senior brother was swinging that thirty-meter silver blade he had proudly dubbed the ‘Silver Sword,’ she had also deployed her capabilities as a Master to covertly target the man.

And it had failed catastrophically.

‘To think a person capable of such a thing actually exists…!’

Aura usurpation. The compatibility was simply atrocious from the very beginning.

Her unique aura conversion capability as a Master was ‘Aura Mistification.’

It allowed her to convert her aura into particle-sized dimensions, scattering it to completely dominate the surrounding space. Then, whenever necessary, she could condense those particles into sharp awls, piercing from any location and any direction she desired—a capability that even her mentor had praised as astonishing.

However….

“Elf lady. You know what happens if you move, right?”

Even while casually deflecting her senior brother’s Silver Sword, the man had effortlessly parried the transparent aura awls she sent targeting his blind spots from a whopping thirteen different directions, and he had caught the final thirteenth awl with his bare hand.

‘And then it was stolen.’

It didn’t even take five seconds for the aura mist connected to that awl to fall entirely into his hands.

By the time the panicked elf urgently tried to recall her mist, the glowing white particles had already surrounded her own body, sparkling ominously.

Crunch! Crack!

“Groan…!”

The choked moan of her senior brother, whose body was currently being half-folded, reached her ears.

If this dragged on any longer, her senior brother was going to end up as a split word or a pile of loose consonants.

With a glimmer of hope, she stole a glance toward her mentor, but as expected, the Grand Master stood with his arms crossed, completely motionless. Far from being concerned by his disciples’ mortal peril, his face was flushed with a deeply satisfied, hearty grin.

‘Right. You’ve always been that kind of man. I was the fool for expecting anything else…!’

Abandoning all lingering hope in her mentor, she prepared her final move. She had already thought of a solution.

‘He steals aura? Then I just need to use an amount of aura that won’t matter even if it gets stolen.’

Yes. The reason that ability had backed the two of them into a corner was ultimately because they had relied on their qualitative aura conversions, which constituted their finishing moves. To be more precise, the massive amount of aura they had invested into those conversions had been handed over to him on a silver platter.

If she simply reinforced her weapon with a standard aura without any qualitative conversion and engaged in a pure sword fight, that ability would become meaningless.

What if he usurped the aura channeled into her weapon? What could he possibly achieve with such a minuscule handful of aura?

‘On the other hand, I can just inject fresh aura to replace whatever gets stolen.’

Furthermore, stealing aura seemed to require at least a small amount of focus and time. Could he really afford to do that in the middle of a fierce, rapid exchange of blades?

‘If he can maintain that kind of leisure in the middle of a clash… then I wouldn’t be able to win no matter what I did anyway.’

She accelerated the circulation of her body mana, steadying her breath.

‘I will exploit his carelessness and charge, driving a full-powered strike directly into him. That won’t end the fight, but it should at least secure a temporary advantage.’

‘…After that, I’ll just have to rely on my speed and thrust like my life depends on it.’

Of course, the aura mist that had fallen into his hands would likely materialize into awls to block her path. But she knew her own capabilities better than anyone.

‘My technique is stealthy and sharp… but if a Master-class powerhouse focuses entirely on their passive aura, it doesn’t pack enough raw destructive power to pierce through it.’

In other words, as long as she focused completely on her passive aura, she could safely ignore the aura awls erupting from the mist.

She regulated her breathing. Infusing strength into her lower body muscles, she bided her time.

And the exact split second his breathing shifted from an exhale to an inhale, she kicked off the ground, closing the distance like a flash of light.

Boom!!

And then—

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!!

“Cough…!!”

Completely impaled through her arms, legs, chest, and stomach, she went rolling violently across the floor.

“Groan….”

Staring down at her wretched state, the black-haired man let out a wry chuckle as he approached her.

“Tsk, tsk. Foolish girl.”

Even while coughing up blood, she managed to force her mouth open.

“H-How… my technique shouldn’t be capable of this kind of power….”

“Well, that’s because it’s no longer ‘your technique,’ but ‘my technique.’ Did it never cross your mind that the person who stole it might wield it far better than the original owner?”

“T-That’s impossible. How…?”

“Skillfully.”

Ultimately, feeling a golden divine power flood into her body, her consciousness faded into black.

And…

Finally, the Grand Master stood up.

“Ha… my friend. Have you warmed up a bit?”

Without even waiting for the Emperor’s permission, the colossally built beastkin turned his back on the throne and strode down the steps.

I let out a hollow laugh as the thoroughly infuriated Emperor gestured toward the Grand Master, sliding a finger across his own throat as if ordering me to slaughter him on the spot.

“Oh, seeing you chuckle so brightly, it seems you were also fiercely anticipating our clash.”

“No, that’s not really it… More importantly, isn’t your treatment of your disciples a bit too harsh?”

“Hahahat. An unnecessary worry. Every single one of my disciples possesses a sturdy constitution. After all, isn’t it a universal truth that kids grow stronger through a good beating?”

“Sounds to me like an admission that all the weak ones died off early.”

At my remark, he laughed uproariously.

“Spot on! Now then… let us leave the discussion on disciple-teaching methods for later… and fight right now.”

I shook my head, staring at the Grand Master whose eyes were glittering like a child’s.

“Good grief. Fine, let’s fight. Let’s do this. Just look after your own life. I don’t think you’re the type who knows how to hold back.”

“Ha… you are the very first person to ever say such a thing to me.”

“Cut the chatter and come at me.”

“Here I come.”

CRAAAAAAAAANG!

And with a violent screech of tearing metal, his longsword and my blade collided.