The Sword Emperor Transmigrates

It was a fatal blow.

The attack would have killed a human instantly, even if they were a Demigod Tier expert, but gods rarely had anything resembling vital points on their bodies. Leonard’s attack only went through because the brain was closely connected to the soul. Had he aimed for the heart, Aiolos would have counterattacked immediately.

After splitting Aiolos’s skull in half, Leonard took a few steps back and pulled back his sword. He watched as the god’s eyes grew dimmer and dimmer.

“…Ah, I have been defeated.”

Aiolos didn’t die instantly because his divinity was superior to Pollux’s.

But his fate was sealed.

Aiolos’s divine giant soldiers had dissipated, and he was growing transparent. He wouldn’t last long. His death was inevitable.

Leonard had made his decisive attack not with a normal sword but with one made from the remains of a dead god. Only high-ranking deities and those with divine powers that made their bodies particularly durable would be able to survive his blow.

“So it was all in vain. Burning in the war flames with Aeolia was an injustice enough, but to think that I would fall at the hands of a mortal once more.”

His hazy eyes were looking not at Leonard but at the Aeolia that existed during the God-Slaying War, when the entire pantheon of Olympus had been annihilated.

At the final stage of the war, his kingdom had become a refuge for the weaker gods. Had they only been fighting mortals, even the lowest-ranking gods would have been very formidable in battle, but it had been an all-out war with the other pantheons, so the lowest-ranking gods only got in the way.

The peace on his island did not last for long.

The hammer of the thunder god Thor reduced the fortress walls into rubble, making some of Aiolos’s divinity vanish, and the Agneyastra of the fire god Agni burned his island into a pile of ashes.

“Are we at an age ruled by wicked mortals who exterminate gods?”

Though Aiolos had less than a fifth of the power he had in the olden days, humans should not have been able to fight him as an equal.

At least, the humans he remembered shouldn’t be able to.

They had only lived in fear and awe of the gods.

“There’s only one thing I can say for sure,” Leonard said.

The remorse he saw in Aiolos’s eyes was something he had seen and sneered at ever since his days in murim. Aiolos was no different from those who clung to their glory that was decades to centuries past and cursed the present. Their remorse proved that the only thing separating gods from humans was their superior power.

“The age of the gods is over. And it will never return.”

For a moment, a clear fury blazed inside Aiolos’s eyes before subsiding. As a god himself, he felt a small sense of resistance to Leonard’s words, but he assented.

The Void Deity accepted that his time was past and gave a forlorn smile.

“You are right. I merely sought to keep living, but I see now that I was unable to let go of the past. I called myself a god, but I am nothing but the shell of a dead deity.”

Aiolos began to fade even faster until only his head was left. Perhaps it was because he had finally let go of the small amount of lingering feelings in his heart. At this rate, he would disappear in less than a minute.

His eyes stayed fixed on Leonard until the very end, making Leonard a little uncomfortable. Aiolos watched him with interest until the very moment before his death.

“You are at a crossroads, boy.”

“Crossroads?”

“Choose your path wisely. It is a shame that I will not be able to see how you transform…”

As he rattled off those heavy words, Aiolos disappeared completely.

The god of the winds was dead, and the mission was over.

* * *

“Oh, you’ve returned,” Calantha said as the knights approached. He had been waiting on the boat.

“Aiolos is defeated,” Leonard confirmed. “We didn’t touch anything in the Divine Territory, so the Wickeline family can excavate it however they wish.”

“Ooh! Very good. Aeolia Island is known for its riches. You will all likely be paid with very fine artifacts.”

“Is that so?” Leonard replied absentmindedly before heading down to his cabin.

Highest-grade artifacts would be very helpful in multiple ways, but relying on tools too much would stunt his martial arts training. His skills were already beginning to enter the Demigod Tier, so while external resources were useful, they wouldn’t help him much in reaching his goal. And if his Dragon Heart broke another valuable artifact, it would only end up being a waste.

Besides, battle spoils and rewards were the furthest things from his mind right now.

I’m at a crossroads? Me?

Aiolos’s last words kept coming back to him. If the Void Deity had only said them to torment him, Leonard’s instincts wouldn’t be telling him that they were true.

I don’t think he was talking about reaching the Demigod Tier.

He wondered if his martial arts had significantly improved after he finished crafting the Western God Style, but that wasn’t true either. His only achievement was that the One Origin Five Elements had improved a little bit.

As long as his Yellow Dragon Forms, which were the heart of the Five Elements Style, remained incomplete, he would still be far from officially reaching the Demigod Tier. But since the prerequisite of reaching the Transcendence Tier was body, essence, and spirit, he had an idea of what he needed to do to reach the Demigod Tier: perfecting his Mindscape.

Though he could temporarily manifest his Mindscape, it only brought him to the edge of his goal. He had to make the microcosmos within him into its own little world. Only then would he be able to reach the Demigod Tier. And to do that, Leonard had to finish harmonizing the Five Elements.

“‘Choose wisely,’ he said,” Leonard muttered to himself.

Aiolos had told him he had a choice to make. Even though he had only been a remnant of a deity, his wisdom and insight were not to be taken lightly. It didn’t take a genius to know how much weight the words of a god carried.

I would have ignored him if he was just some minor god, but his power was considerable. I don’t think I should disregard what he said, Leonard thought.

Though Aiolos had been a slightly weaker fighter than Pollux, whose divine powers were tailored for combat, the White Dragon Knights would have needed at least ten knights to get away unscathed had Leonard not been there.

Even then, part of the reason they won was that Aiolos had used up a lot of his divinity to summon the storm winds after recognizing Leonard’s sword. If he hadn’t done that and simply used his four giant soldiers to face them head-on, the battle would have been much tougher. In other words, his excessive caution had ended up being his downfall.

Suddenly, Leonard heard a voice yell from the other side of the door.

“Leonard!”

He opened his eyes and opened the door to find Calantha standing there. Leonard didn’t know why his face was so pale, but he knew that there was something serious.

“What happened?” Leonard asked.

“W-Well, you see, th-the head family of the Cardenas…” Calantha’s voice was quivering so much that he couldn’t speak properly.

Calantha hadn’t acted like this even when he was suddenly sent to the Order of the Black Dragon and thrown into battle. That meant that the current situation was even graver than Leonard thought.

Leonard grabbed Calantha’s shoulder and poured some of his own energy into him.

“Um, Leonard? What is…?” When his body stopped trembling, he looked at Leonard in shock. As soon as his panic melted away, curiosity took its place. He was a mage through and through.

Leonard ignored his question. “Tell me why you’re here first. What in the world did you hear that has you shaken up like this?”

That made Calantha come back to his senses.“O-Oh! Well, a message came in saying that you should go to the Dragon’s Head instead of the Forest of Swords.”

Leonard’s face fell.

The Dragon’s Head. They’re not even trying to be subtle.

As with the Forest of Swords and the rest of the Cardenas’ territories, the Dragon’s Head was named based on its characteristic features. The island looked like the skull of a dragon.

But that wasn’t why people marveled at the Dragon’s Head. It was because the Order of the Golden Dragon was stationed there.

If this were an order from Archduke Cardenas himself, they would have sent a written summons, not a verbal message. Nor would Calantha have been the one to tell me.

Sure, the mage seemed to like him a bit, but not enough to blatantly disrespect one of the heads of the Three Noble Families by opening a letter addressed to someone else.

There was a high chance that this was a rogue decision made by the Golden Dragon.

Leonard was very familiar with how conflicts between factions worked thanks to the memories of his past life, so he saw through their true intentions. It was likely that the Golden Dragon had noticed that high-ranking members of the Seven Great Orders were trying to prevent them from recruiting him, so they were trying to quietly carry him away between missions.

“—You must keep any abilities that could attract the attention of the Golden Dragon hidden, including Draconic Words. They say that they respect the wishes of the selected, but there are extremists in our family who revere the Ancestor above all else.”

Audrey’s words came back to him. Leonard’s eyes narrowed. Is this a move by the extremists she mentioned?

He couldn’t be sure, but the fact that they were trying to trick him into going with them wasn’t a good sign.

Leonard made a decision without a moment’s hesitation. “I will return to the Forest of Swords. I’ll have to ask Commander Demian why my destination was suddenly changed to the Dragon’s Head.”

“I-Is that allowed?”

“I’ll take full responsibility for the consequences.”

Only then did Calantha’s agitation seem to die down a bit. He gave Leonard a single nod and left his cabin. If Calantha had planned to betray him, he wouldn’t have come in secret to give him the message.

An old murim proverb flickered through Leonard’s head.

“Well-intentioned strangers rarely come knocking, and strangers who come knocking are rarely well-intentioned.”

It was a very fitting way to describe the Golden Dragon’s move.

They still had about an hour left until they reached shore and teleported back to the Forest of Swords. Leonard checked Mimong, which was in his left hand, and his divine sword, which was fastened to his waist. He even took out a backup sword from his subspace pouch and prepared himself for the worst.

The adrenaline from the battle with Aiolos hadn’t even stopped pumping yet.

* * *

Sure enough, when the party teleported to the Forest of Swords, they suddenly sensed people approaching them from all directions.

Isaac didn’t try to hide his suspicion. “What is this? No one told me that a large fighting force would be dispatched.”

“I think they’re looking for me,” Leonard said.

“What?”

The mysterious forces moved faster, surrounding them before Leonard could answer.

The White Dragon Knights drew their swords a moment later as they sensed something ominous in the air.

It was hard to believe that this was happening not only in the Cardenas territory but right next to one of the bases of the Seven Great Orders. All of them were shocked and confused, but their decades of battle experience made them react formidably.

And then, four knights armed with golden fullplate armor stepped forward.

They were covered from head to toe, without a single crack in their armor.

The knights surrounded them from each direction as if to cut off their escape paths. Their sharp presence spread over an area of nearly a hundred meters, weighing down on the White Dragon Knights.

They would draw their own swords if someone made the slightest move.

What—unbelievable!! Leonard was inwardly alarmed when he sensed their power. These people… they’re too strong. I knew that the Order of the Golden Dragon was made up of the most powerful Cardenas knights, but I can’t be sure whether I’ll win against a single one! They don’t give off the aura of Demigod Tier experts. Does that mean there’s some way to become this powerful while staying in the Transcendence Tier?

It was a different feeling from when he faced Demian and Audrey. There wasn’t even the slimmest chance of victory against either commander, but Leonard saw that he likely had a chance of perhaps winning against these Golden Dragon Knights once or twice every ten battles.

But that was only because Leonard’s power surpassed the standards of the Transcendence Tier. The rest of the White Dragon Knights wouldn’t be able to defeat a single Golden Dragon Knight even if they fought four against one.

I won’t be able to fight my way out of this one.

Leonard felt sweat trickle down the back of his neck. The hand resting on the hilt of his sword tightened into a fist.