It was truly no more than an instant.
The sword streaked forth like twilight dividing day from night. An intangible blade slipped into the gaps between flesh and mind, reality and illusion, consciousness and unconsciousness, cleaving the world in two.
Swordsmanship? No. It was closer to a miracle.
It was a technique honed over an entire lifetime by a genius favored by God. How immaculate was the slash of a madman who, in the end, had refined even his own soul into a blade?
It was lamentable only that so few existed who could witness that sublime trajectory.
Body and soul fell apart from one another. The connection between the two worlds was severed, and until they were joined once more, the very concept of time became meaningless. After all, this was an event that transcended common sense and cognition.
Thud!
A majestic reverberation.
By the moment time and space overlapped once more, the contest was already over.
Gurk.
Black mud spilled through the elder’s lips. The knees buckled, and the body collapsed face-first to the ground—all of it, quite literally, in an instant.
The Sword Duke, who had been trapped in that grasp, had not emerged unscathed either. Spilling what seemed like a bucketful of blood, the swordsman who had finally regained his freedom stumbled backward on both legs.
His body was already grievously wounded. And had that last strike not distinguished neither friend nor foe?
It had been a sword intended to cut himself in the first place.
Expecting to remain unharmed would have been stranger. If there was any consolation, it was merely that he was in slightly better condition than the monster wearing the shell of the…