I stared at the queen standing before me at ease, Scathach, as if I could not believe what I was seeing.
"Then... this is the demonic realm, the Land of Shadows?"
At my question, Scathach lightly slung the blood-red barbed spear, Gae Bolg, over her shoulder and gave a faint smile.
"To be exact, you should call it the entrance to the demonic realm."
She pointed with her chin at Grandot's corpse lying on the ground.
"It seems this foolish beast forced open a gap, and that sent you tumbling past the gate of the Kingdom of Eden and all the way here. Eden's gate is a nexus connected to various other worlds that exist on the reverse side. Whether you should call yourself lucky or unlucky... with only the slightest deviation in direction, you crash-landed at the entrance to the demonic realm."
Her eyes gleamed coldly.
"If you'd been dragged in just a little deeper, you would have fallen straight into Annwn, the underworld. Under the laws of this age, now that the Age of Gods has ended, if a living body falls into the underworld, returning to the present world becomes forever impossible. This place is neither the underworld, nor the fairy realm, nor the divine realm, but the gap between them. It is the borderland of the demonic realm, where divine spirits and evil spirits that lost their destination and became countless wandering dead drift without end."
A cold sweat ran down my back at her explanation. Because of that lunatic Grandot, I had nearly become a lost soul in the underworld forever.
"Well, whatever the circumstances may be."
Scathach leveled the tip of her spear at me.
"Since you've set foot on the threshold of my domain, I'll have to see with my own eyes just how capable you are."
She had not even finished speaking.
Swoooosh!!
I did not even hear the sound of the blizzard being torn apart. As if shortening space itself, Scathach closed the distance in an instant and thrust her spear at my brow like lightning.
"Tch!"
I dropped my waist low to an extreme angle and seized the hilt of Chrysaor, still sheathed at my side.
Then, detonating the mana I had built up, I drew a golden arc with a sword-drawing strike that unleashed extreme speed.
Kaaang!!
The slash, combining the dazzling lightning discharged by Chrysaor and the acceleration of the draw, barely knocked aside the tip of Scathach's spear.
After that split-second exchange, Scathach glanced down at me as if intrigued.
"Ho... a draw strike. It's been a very long time since I've seen someone preserve the acceleration of the instant a sword leaves its sheath with such clean sharpness. That's not a style from our Celtic lands. Swordsmanship from across the continent, is it?"
I had no room to answer.
For the first time in my life, a true tension that felt as though it were strangling my breath had taken hold of my entire body.
My opponent was a master of the spear, and the pinnacle of it.
Even if one gathered dozens of Lancers of the highest rank from among countless Heroic Spirits, there was no one in human history who could match this woman in pure spear technique.
Scathach before my eyes was the world's strongest spearmaster.
I controlled my breathing to the utmost, like a man who had forgotten even how to breathe.
"Haaah!!"
The winds of [Invisible Air] and the lightning of Chrysaor coiled around my whole body. Driving my mana burst to its limit, I kicked off the ground and shot forward, unleashing dozens, hundreds of golden sword strikes with ferocious momentum.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-boom!!
The blizzard scattered in all directions under the pressure of my blade, and the earth was gouged apart, but Scathach neutralized and redirected every one of my attacks with movements so graceful and nimble they looked like a dance.
Rather, the tip of her spear slipped through the gaps in my swordplay with needlepoint precision, carving sharp bloody lines into my shoulder, thigh, and cheek.
"To think there was such a warrior in present-day Ulster."
Scathach smiled leisurely as she spun her spear.
"Celtic blood does run in me, but I'm a man of Britain."
When I answered through clenched teeth, a flicker of interest passed through her eyes.
"So you're from my homeland. It's been centuries since I last met a warrior of Britain."
The speed of her spear rose another level.
Not once had my attacks touched her body. The difference in skill was overwhelming.
Just batting aside, barely deflecting, and somehow blocking her scarlet onslaught as it came at me like a beast was enough to make every muscle in my body scream.
Then it happened.
Scathach twisted the trajectory of the spear she had been thrusting at me and drove it hard into empty air where nothing existed.
Kwaduk!!
A bizarre rupturing sound, like glass shattering.
The tip of her spear had pierced not a physical body, but space itself.
In that instant, the space around me warped grotesquely, and the axis of gravity twisted.
"Ghk?!"
With the sensation of the snow beneath my feet collapsing inward, my balance was completely destroyed. Even in the instant I slipped and fell, I instinctively tried to defend myself by swinging Chrysaor, but—
Kang!!
Scathach's spear punched through the vortex of my mana burst like paper and slammed into the flat of Chrysaor.
With an impact that felt as though my grip would burst apart, the golden sword flew from my hand and was flung far across the snowfield.
"Is that the end?"
At the very moment Scathach was about to bring her spear down without mercy—
"Not yet!!"
Grinding my teeth like a beast, I condensed a storm into my now-unarmed right fist and drove it at her face.
But without the slightest sign of panic, Scathach extended her empty left hand.
Her bare hand lightly tore apart the storm wrapped around my fist, then she brought the back of her hand down sharply on my right wrist.
Ppagaak!!
A horrifying pain, as if every tendon in my right wrist had been severed at once, numbed all sensation completely. In that despairing instant, my arm hung limp.
And yet I did not retreat. Rather, swallowing the pain that felt as though it would tear me apart, I stepped even deeper into her reach.
"...?!"
Then, instead of my paralyzed right arm, I shot out my intact left hand and seized the hilt of the other sword at my right hip, Caliburn.
Tat!!
My body flashed past Scathach's side like a streak of light, leaving not even an afterimage behind.
Slash!
A heavy silence settled over the snowfield.
I came to a stop, breathing harshly. Behind me, Scathach raised her fingers and lightly brushed her white cheek.
A very thin line had been drawn across her pale cheek. Red blood trickled from it and wet the tips of her fingers.
Scathach stared blankly down at the red blood on her fingers. Pain and blood flowing from her own flesh—things she had forgotten for hundreds of years.
"Haa... haa...."
Steadying my breath, I quickly turned and aimed myself at her again.
The [Strike Impact] Ushiwakamaru taught me really did work.
At that moment.
What entered my sight was Scathach's face, wildly excited, her pupils shrunk to pinpoints like a beast's, the whites of her eyes showing starkly as they gleamed.
"Ahahahahaha!!"
With a laugh of skin-crawling delight, her body sprang upward like a coiled spring.
Puhk!!
Scathach's spinning back kick, far beyond the limits of my reaction speed, smashed mercilessly into my cheekbone.
"Guhk!!"
My vision flashed white, and my body flew across the snowfield like a cannonball.
By the time I rolled through the snow dozens of times and barely managed to lift my head, Scathach had already leaped high into the air and was driving her blood-red spear down at me like a thunderbolt.
"Damn it!"
Still sprawled on the ground, I barely managed to raise Caliburn and block the tip of her spear.
But while Caliburn was a powerful Noble Phantasm, it was not a weapon with the same durability and mass as Chrysaor.
It was a ceremonial sword to begin with.
Crash!!
Overwhelmed by the monstrous gap in power, even Caliburn was helplessly knocked away. No—it broke. To think it would snap here before I could even release its true name.
Now I had lost both weapons.
It would be difficult to go retrieve Chrysaor, and even if I picked Caliburn back up, it was broken, which would only be a disadvantage against Scathach.
But Scathach's madness did not stop. She even threw away her own spear into the snow, then charged at me like a beast with her bare hands.
Since I had no weapon, was she going to fight barehanded as well?
A master of the spear had reached a divine realm even in hand-to-hand combat.
Fists and kicks, elbows and knees poured down like a storm. I was battered helplessly, doing nothing but desperately trying to defend myself.
At this rate, I'll die without even leaving a body behind!
Amid her relentless assault, I desperately searched for an opening.
The instant Scathach's right fist flew toward my jaw, I barely twisted my head aside to evade it and instead stepped into her guard, throwing a counterpunch.
"Not a chance."
Scathach tilted her head with absurd ease and dodged my fist.
But that had only been a feint born of improvisation.
I bent back my right arm, which should have cut through empty air, and in an instant changed its trajectory into a sharp elbow strike.
Puhk!!
My elbow struck Scathach squarely in the temple.
Her head snapped to the side for an instant. At my exceptional physical ability and quick improvisation, the corners of Scathach's mouth split nearly to her ears in a mad smile.
"Excellent!!"
Craaack!!
Her counterattack was merciless. Her iron-like fist exploded into my solar plexus.
"Kuh...!!"
My insides twisted, and my breath was completely cut off. My oxygen-starved brain flashed white, and all strength drained from both my legs.
At the instant my knees were about to touch the snow—
I gathered what remained of my crumbling willpower, forced strength into both legs, and barely held my collapsing body upright.
Because I was a king, and because I was a man destined to become emperor. Even if there was no one here to see it, I could not kneel.
Blood streamed from the corner of my mouth, yet I remained standing straight as I glared at her.
Watching me, Scathach spread both arms wide and cried out in delight.
"I like you!! What magnificent spirit!"
Licking away the droplets of blood splashed across her face with her tongue, she spoke in an excited voice.
"It has been the first time since that brat Setanta that anyone has wounded my body this clearly and made my blood run hot! From this day on, I shall take you as my disciple!"
Even breathing was painful, but I panted and forced my mouth open with difficulty.
"I-I'm honored... but I need to return at once...."
"I do not accept refusal."
Cutting me off at once, Scathach raised a finger toward empty air and rapidly traced primordial runes imbued with the mystery of the Age of Gods.
The dazzling light of the runes spread outward, and a massive bounded field unfolded, sealing off a space hundreds of meters wide with the two of us at its center.
"For the next month, time inside this bounded field will be isolated from the time outside. One month here amounts to no more than ten minutes in the world beyond."
With a smile like a devil's, she pronounced my sentence.
"If you survive and keep up with my hellish training here for one month, I will send you back to your original world."
I closed my eyes in despair. Since I did not even know how to leave this place, I had no choice but to accept the offer of this battle-crazed queen.
"Haa... fine... but go easy on me...."
The moment I gave in and showed my reluctant acceptance—
Thud!!
Scathach's vicious uppercut smashed into my jaw and cleanly knocked me unconscious.
As my senseless body toppled into the snow, she caught it in her strong arms and lifted me up.
Like a child who had gained a new toy, or a queen who had seized the finest prey, Scathach looked down at my fallen form and smiled—a wicked, alluring smile.
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