Episode 292: Sita (1)
The moment their swords clashed, Damian felt a powerful vibration reverberate through his entire body.
This wasn’t just any ordinary vibration. Left unchecked, it was strong enough to penetrate deep into his body and tear his organs apart.
Damian pushed Sita’s sword away and retreated, but the vibration that had invaded his body refused to subside. It lingered like poison, threatening to destroy him from within.
He stomped hard on the ground, channeling the vibration from his body into the earth beneath him.
The soil trembled and crumbled into fine dust under the force.
Had he been a moment slower in retreating, his organs might have been severely damaged by the vibration.
“I never imagined you’d have mastered the Dark Sword already.”
The Dark Sword was a technique that utilized sound and vibration in combat.
It was fast and could attack a wide area, though it lacked raw destructive power. Still, it was not a technique to be underestimated.
“Impressive. Most knights can’t withstand the vibration and end up dead. I didn’t expect you to adapt so quickly,” Sita remarked with a faint smile.
“I’ve been eagerly awaiting our reunion. As a fellow swordsman, I wanted to cross blades with you. Please, show me your swordsmanship…”
“That’s enough,” Damian cut her off sharply.
“How long do you plan to keep pretending to be a knight, undead? Drop the swordplay charade and fight like the undead you are. You’d be much stronger that way.”
Sita’s expression hardened, her eyes burning with anger as she glared at Damian.
“Our true form isn’t something you can easily see, even for someone like you.”
“Then I’ll just have to force it out.”
“That’s impossible.”
Without any signal, the two of them charged at each other simultaneously.
Their swords clashed, tracing countless arcs in the air.
Each time Damian parried Sita’s sword, he felt the vibration seep into his body.
He continued to channel the vibrations into the ground with each step he took.
“Do you really think that method will work forever? You might want to find another way to deal with this,” Sita taunted.
She was right; Damian’s current strategy wasn’t sustainable.
There was a limit to how much vibration he could dispel by grounding it. If this continued, the accumulated vibrations would eventually tear his body apart.
“Can’t you hear me? Or is this the best you can do…?”
Damian swung his sword, Dawn, at Sita’s blade, releasing all the vibrations stored within him.
The unleashed vibrations concentrated on Sita, forcing her to stagger backward.
She coughed up blood, the internal damage evident from the vibrations that had assaulted her body.
A swordsman skilled in the Dark Sword had been wounded by sound.
Sita looked at Damian in disbelief.
“Who are you to worry about me?” Damian said with a displeased expression.
He had been enduring Sita’s attacks to acclimate himself to the vibrations. Only then could he learn to control them.
Once he was ready, he returned all the accumulated vibrations to Sita.
“You’re more remarkable than I thought,” Sita admitted, no longer coughing up blood.
Being undead, she could recover from such injuries almost instantly.
“But don’t think you’ve won. I still have more to show you.”
Sita ran her hand along her blade, causing it to hum with a resonant sound.
With each touch of her fingers, the sound grew louder.
When the resonance reached its peak, Sita swung her sword at Damian.
A sound like a tearing explosion erupted, and Damian swiftly moved out of the way.
The ground where he had stood was scarred with countless sword marks.
The sound waves had sliced through the earth.
“I didn’t expect you to have mastered the Dark Sword to this extent.”
Sita had wielded the Dark Sword in her past life, but her current progress was far swifter than before. Even Damian couldn’t fathom why.
“Don’t get too comfortable. There’s more to come!”
Sita swung her sword again, unleashing a barrage of sound-infused slashes.
Just before they reached him, Damian tapped his sword, Dawn, with his fingers.
A clear, resonant sound spread in all directions.
“Dawn, let your voice be heard.”
Damian ran his thumb along Dawn’s blade, amplifying its resonance.
The incoming slashes shattered in the face of the amplified sound.
Sita’s eyes widened in shock.
“The Dark Sword? I’ve never heard of you using it before…”
“I haven’t used it often, so it’s no surprise.”
In his past life, Damian had faced a swordmaster known as the Sword Virtuoso.
The Sword Virtuoso wasn’t the most powerful master, but he understood the Dark Sword’s properties better than anyone.
Damian had defeated him and absorbed his techniques and insights.
He flicked Dawn with his fingers, and the sword vibrated, releasing a resonant sound.
“Are you planning to fight me with the Dark Sword?”
“Why not?”
Even without the Dark Sword, Damian was confident he could defeat Sita. In fact, it would be easier without it.
Yet he chose to wield it because of Sita’s provocation.
The Four Demon Lords were born by mimicking Damian’s soul.
Their talents all stemmed from him, though they were mere fragments compared to his true self.
The problem was that such a crude imitation dared to provoke him. It was an insult Damian couldn’t ignore.
“No matter who you are, you can’t defeat me with the Dark Sword.”
“You never know until you try.”
Sita summoned her dark magic in response to Damian’s challenge.
The overwhelming dark energy spread out, threatening to engulf him.
“Fine. Let’s see how this plays out!”
The greatest advantage of the Dark Sword was its overwhelming volume.
With a single swing, it could create dozens of blades.
Most enemies were overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacks and lost their lives.
‘But… it should be working…!’
Sita swung her sword, and the sound blades spread out like a net.
Damian mirrored her, swinging his sword to unleash his own sound blades.
The sounds collided, clashing, canceling each other out, and disappearing.
‘I acknowledge your strength, but this isn’t right.’
Sita had been granted the power of ‘sound’ by Dorogo.
Thanks to this, she had mastered the Dark Sword faster than anyone and reached the level of a master.
She was confident that no one could wield the Dark Sword better than her.
…Until today.
“Your rhythm is off,” Damian taunted from across the battlefield.
Sita bit her lip, unable to deny his words.
‘I will win! I must defeat him with my sword!’
From the first day she saw Damian Haxen, Sita was consumed by a singular emotion.
Even she didn’t fully understand it, but the intense desire to fight him overwhelmed her.
“I will win!”
Sita ran her hand along her sword, which vibrated like a person in a frenzy.
It wasn’t just her sword that began to vibrate.
The very air around them started to tremble. She could feel it on her skin.
This was the level she had achieved—Resonance.
It allowed her to vibrate everything around her simultaneously, destroying, breaking, and collapsing it.
“Oh?”
Damian Haxen watched the vibrating world with interest.
“This might be fun.”
Sita felt a surge of anger at Damian’s casual dismissal of her achievement as merely ‘fun.’
She would wipe that smile off his face.
Sita swung her Dark Sword, and the world vibrated even more violently.
The ground cracked, and trees shattered. The vibrations reached Damian Haxen.
‘I’ve won!’
No matter how strong Damian Haxen was, he couldn’t withstand Resonance.
Just as Sita was certain of her victory, Damian lightly tapped the ground with his sword.
A wave spread from that point, swallowing the world.
As the wave engulfed everything, the vibrations Sita had created vanished.
“What?”
In her moment of confusion, the wave Damian had created reached her.
Suddenly, the world fell silent.
‘What kind of technique is this?’
Sita opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
‘Huh? What?’
She tried again, but the result was the same. It dawned on her that this space was completely silent.
‘I’ll just tear it apart!’
Sita ran her hand along her blade, but it only vibrated without producing any sound.
“Surprised?”
Sita turned to Damian Haxen, startled.
In this silent space, his voice was the only thing she could hear clearly.
“It’s called the White Realm. A master who used the Dark Sword just like you once wielded it.”
Sita’s mouth opened and closed silently, as if she were a fish gasping for air. No sound emerged.
“This space can absorb all sound,” Damien said, gesturing toward Sita. “Or, it can do this.”
Suddenly, the once silent room was filled with a cacophony of noise, as if from nowhere. The sound was so loud it felt like it was drilling into Sita’s skull.
‘It’s too loud! I’m going to lose my mind…!’
Yet, her voice remained trapped within her, unheard.
With a snap of his fingers, Damien intensified the noise assaulting Sita. The sound reached a crescendo, and at that breaking point, Sita’s body seemed to tear apart.
Damien released the spell, stepping closer to Sita.
“Gasp… gasp… gasp…”
Sita lay on the ground, bloodied and battered, as if her entire being had been shredded.
“Why are you just lying there?”
But Damien wasn’t fooled by her appearance. The woman before him wasn’t human; she was undead.
“Show your true form. Use the power you truly possess.”
The four demon lords only revealed their full strength when they unleashed their true forms.
“I stand before you today… as a knight…”
“So, you’re saying you want to die like this?”
Sita nodded weakly, and Damien looked at her with disbelief.
“Are you trying to appeal to my sympathy? It won’t work. I have no intention of letting you live.”
He raised his sword high, the blade catching the sunlight and flashing brilliantly.
Sita gazed at Damien with a vacant expression, then quietly closed her eyes, as if accepting her fate. Her resignation caught Damien off guard.
At that moment, a fireball plummeted from the sky.
Damien leapt back as the fireball struck the ground, exploding and melting the earth where he had stood.
“Sita!”
A man with bat-like wings descended from the sky. It was Iota, one of the four demon lords.
“What happened here? Why are you so badly hurt?”
“Iota? How did you get here…?”
Iota hurriedly supported Sita, speaking urgently.
“Don’t worry! I’m here now! Let’s kill Damien Haxen together! Mother said not to capture him, but to kill him on sight!”
“I didn’t expect an ambush,” Damien remarked, resting his sword on his shoulder. Sita lifted her head at his words.
“No… I…”
“Was not revealing your true form a ploy to catch me off guard? Clever.”
In that instant, a fierce emotion ignited in Sita’s eyes.
“Sita! You don’t have to listen to him anymore! Kill him now—”
Suddenly, blood splattered.
Iota looked down in shock at his abdomen. Sita’s hand had pierced through his back and emerged from his stomach.