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Chapter 321

It’s not strange for a knight to use poison.

In a world where winning justifies everything, anything goes.

Still, poison carries a certain stigma.

Especially if a renowned knight resorts to it—though not necessarily punishable, it stains his reputation.

And if that knight is a Sword Master, all the more so.

Yet Kashiv did not hesitate.

He even added threats.

Leon, who was about to swing his sword, flinched.

Seizing that moment, Kashiv pulled out another vial from his robes and downed it in one gulp.

At once, his body was covered in bulging red veins, and he swung his sword with speed beyond comparison.

“The more you move, the faster your body will collapse!”

Leon’s movements slowed, while Kashiv’s became ever quicker.

But in the clash that followed, it was also clear Kashiv’s body was deteriorating.

Still, both Kashiv and Marquis Veolas were convinced of victory—because Leon’s body seemed to be succumbing to the poison even faster than Kashiv was to the drugs.

“Throw down your weapon and surrender while you can!”

Leon calmly blocked his strikes, unshaken.

“Fine! If you insist on fighting to the end!”

Kashiv roared, unleashing a torrent of aura, his very presence pressing down with the might of a Sword Master—one of humanity’s transcendent beings.

Deflecting Leon’s sword strikes, Kashiv closed in for a decapitating blow.

“Useless, after all.”

Leon muttered softly, stepping forward.

Kashiv’s eyes widened.

Was he really sticking his neck into the sword?

Suicide?

At this point?

If his opponent wanted to die, Kashiv would oblige.

Just as his sword was about to touch Leon’s skin—

Time itself seemed to slow.

Kashiv, his senses heightened to the extreme by the drug, noticed something impossible, Leon’s movements, which had appeared sluggish until now, suddenly quickened.

Then, for an instant, he lost track of Leon entirely.

Slash!!

A wound he couldn’t even register sent Kashiv crumbling.

“This… insane… impossible…”

In his drug-heightened perception, where time seemed to crawl, Leon had suddenly accelerated beyond reason.

Something no one had ever witnessed.

Only Kashiv, a Sword Master who had destroyed his own body with drugs, could glimpse this fragment of the truth.

But it made no sense.

Heightened reflexes increased perception, not speed.

Yet the boy’s body moved freely in that realm.

And poisoned, no less!

Fear twisted Kashiv’s face.

Coughing blood, he collapsed, staring up at the boy.

Leon’s face was calm.

Too calm for someone poisoned.

And then Kashiv realized—

The symptoms were gone.

“So it was Pragala Death Snake venom after all.”

Kashiv blinked.

He had never even heard of it.

But the wounds on his body froze him.

Messy, jagged sword marks—not the clean cuts of a swordsman.

“They look familiar? They’re the scars you left on Meryl Dyne. Like them?”

All inflicted in an instant.

Blood gushed as Kashiv’s body collapsed again.

“You… have no honor as a swordsman…”

“Funny to hear that from the man who used poison.”

Leon crouched beside him, looking him straight in the eye.

“Got any more?”

“W-what?”

“The drug you took—it’s refined, specially processed, right? Got more? Hidden away? You threw away honor long ago, didn’t you?”

Even facing a Sword Master, Leon showed no fear—only curiosity.

The insult of it snapped something inside Kashiv.

He had abandoned honor to win, yet still couldn’t grasp victory.

His pride burned.

“You bastard!!!”

Fury surged.

His latent energy burst forth, his body rising once more.

Gathering every last drop of the drug’s power into his blade, he roared,

“A brat who’s barely begun the path of the sword dares lecture me—who devoted a lifetime to it—on depth and honor?! I will kill you!!”

His aura condensed into a terrifying blade, cleaving down to bisect Leon.

Clang!!!

But Leon’s body remained intact.

Kashiv’s sword shattered on contact.

“Wha… what is this…”

He stared in shock.

Leon’s foot flashed out like lightning—

Boom!!

Kashiv’s body shot like a bullet, smashing into the wall, limp and broken.

“Aura Blades only exist because you wrap aura around a sword. You seemed proud of your path… then tell me if this is also heresy.”

Kashiv raised his head weakly.

And froze.

Leon’s sword gleamed—not with a simple Aura Blade, but with something far greater.

An aura so dense, it didn’t just shape a blade—it carried the weight of an entire world.

The graveyard of swordsmen.

None dared to seek beyond, save perhaps the Sword Saint Osberg.

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Yet this boy, still so young…

“How… how is this possible… unless…!”

A memory flickered, rumors whispered among nobles of the capital.

Tales of a boy from the allied micro-kingdom of Bata.

Stories dismissed as absurd, exaggerations too wild to believe.

But the truth was here before him.

Why… why was the kingdom’s monster in imperial lands?

“S-stop… stop…”

Kashiv trembled.

Leon’s blade pulsed, the weight of a world crushing the air.

With a smooth swing, Leon slashed.

Boom!!

The underground passage shook with a deafening roar, yet miraculously held firm.

When the dust settled, Kashiv’s broken, bloodied body lay limp in its wake.

“Don’t worry, Marquis Veolas. Plenty of people still want to see you. You called them here, so you’ll take responsibility.”

Leon’s cold gaze turned to the trembling marquis.

* * *

The guards arriving later wondered only one thing, How had the tunnel not collapsed?

But the survivors they found—Kashiv’s ruined body and the marquis groveling in terror—gave them all the answers they needed.

“Handle the rest yourselves.”

“And you?”

“Don’t forget why we came. If we delay, the people here will die. I have to spread the antidote.”

Leon held a small vial in his hand.

“That’s not nearly enough.”

“If I gave up because of that, I wouldn’t be here now.”

Passing their leader, Leon left.

Outside the tunnel, Leon was met by Lilia Berner.

“Are you hurt…?”

She sighed in relief when she saw the vial in his hand.

“But… that amount isn’t enough to save the territory.”

The plan had been to mass-produce antidote and distribute it.

But supplies and time had run out.

Then—

Beep!

Serqet appeared, clutching a huge flask.

“Serqet?”

The spirit squirmed, then spewed a torrent of clear liquid.

“That’s… antidote?”

Leon realized, the Spirit of Poison was more capable than expected.

It had absorbed poison, transformed it, and now produced antidote.

Serqet looked up expectantly.

Leon chuckled, gave it a snack from his subspace, and the spirit poured more antidote into the flask.

“Will this be enough?!”

“With a bit of processing, yes.”

Leon touched the flask.

His Heart of the Machine God activated.

Whummm!!

The reaction spread, refining the antidote.

“Open the window.”

Lilia hurried to obey.

Leon hurled the vial out, then crushed it midair.

“My lord?!”

Boom!!

The antidote vaporized into a mist, spreading rapidly with a [Fog] spell.

A great wave of antidote-laced mist rolled out, engulfing the Berner estate and the entire county.

Anything less wouldn’t work—because everything, from animals to people to even the buildings, had been poisoned.

The only way was to drown the land in antidote.

The mist spread, colliding with moisture in the air, swelling to cover the entire territory.

“I apologize for blanketing your lands in mist.”

“No… thank you. You’ve saved countless lives. Truly, thank you.”

Though the sight triggered her PTSD from past trauma, Lilia endured, grateful.

“You really are incredible, Instructor Leon.”

Leon froze.

Few called him that.

And one in particular made him uneasy.

Memories resurfaced—an accident at the Imperial Academy, a princess who mistook her infatuation for love.

“Why… are you here, Princess?”

“I begged to come oversee the aftermath.”

“…I see.”

He grimaced.

Entanglements with imperial royalty were troublesome enough.

A princess infatuated with him was worse.

The princess nodded firmly.

“I have things to tell you, Instructor. But first, let’s handle the aftermath. Lady Lilia Berner?”

“Y-yes, Your Highness.”

“Can you explain the situation in detail?”

“Of course… but, Your Highness, did you come alone?”

“No. The Sword Saint Osberg himself graciously came as my guard. He’s surveying the territory now.”

Eilena Lu Pascalia.

The princess, seeing her again, radiated more confidence than before.

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