Fiore set off alone toward the region of Française.
When his retainers urged him to take troops along, Fiore replied firmly, “If you all go, the Empire will sense something’s wrong and launch an attack. Are you suggesting we just hand Bezos over? I’ll go quickly by myself.”
From the start, Fiore was never one to listen to others.
Even as king, the fact that his own safety was tied to the fate of the nation didn’t weigh heavily on him.
He simply did what he wanted.
Perhaps he was lacking the qualities to be a proper king.
Though hailed as the strongest swordsman, sending the king off alone was unsettling. Many retainers and knights tried to follow him.
But Fiore brushed them all off with sheer force.
“You’re no help.”
Without hesitation, he left Bezos behind.
When Fiore arrived in Française, what greeted him was a sky choked with dark clouds and thick black mist.
It was as if the entire region had shifted into another world.
Without hesitation, Fiore stepped into the gloom.
A dense, tangible atmosphere brushed over his body.
He raised his sword upright, surrounding himself with a blade’s aura.
The darkness receded.
Fiore muttered, “Cedric.”
His father.
But just as he was lacking as a king, he was also lacking as a father.
Though he suspected his son Cedric wasn’t the gentle man others claimed him to be, he had brushed it aside.
To Fiore, that too was unimportant.
“Father.”
Beyond the mist, Cedric stood.
Fiore looked at him and recalled the years gone by. Though a distant father, he remembered how his son had grown.
The boy who was once small and fragile had matured, becoming someone even Fiore could no longer read.
He thought to himself: maybe it all went wrong from the very beginning.
Cedric had learned to speak early and observed the world keenly. He watched the servants, eavesdropped on their conversations, analyzed their actions.
One day, Cedric asked him, “Father, what should we do when there are too many foolish people?”
At the time, Fiore was still obsessed with his sword, caring for nothing but swinging it.
He gave a half-hearted answer, “Well, it can’t be helped.”
“Shouldn’t someone fix them?”
“That would be good.”
“If we killed them all, wouldn’t foolishness disappear?”
Though unsettled, Fiore thought it was an innocent slip of a child’s pure mind.
Still, he deliberately wore a stern expression and radiated intimidation to teach Cedric a lesson.
“What nonsense is this?”
Cedric stepped back, looked up at him, and fell silent for a moment.
Satisfied that the lesson had sunk in, Fiore turned away.
From then on, Cedric never asked such questions again.
He always smiled and said whatever pleased others.
Cedric hadn’t been corrected—he had learned to perform.
Would things have been different if Fiore had paid more attention?
As he pondered this, Fiore gripped his sword.
“No.”
Cedric answered.
“No?”
“What do you mean no?”
“I mean the thought you’re having right now—it’s not true.”
“What am I thinking?”
“You know.”
Cedric smiled faintly.
“Just as you are who you are, I am who I am.”
“Are you comforting me?”
“No. I’m done pretending.”
Suddenly, a man dressed in black appeared beside Cedric.
Fiore raised his sword.
“You probably weren’t surprised, Father. Maybe you even sympathized.”
“No.”
“Lies.”
Cedric stepped back.
The man in black drew his sword and stepped forward.
The aura he gave off was formidable.
“You’ve thought like me, haven’t you?”
“What kind of thoughts?”
“Why are humans like this?”
“No.”
“Why can humans only wield swords like this?”
Fiore fell silent.
Cedric was right.
He was a prodigy with the sword, wielding it as an extension of his own body from the start. The only thing that sparked his interest was the sword itself.
So sometimes, he couldn’t understand how others wielded theirs.
“I’m the same. The difference is, I try to correct it myself.”
“I see.”
“Using dark magic to manipulate the Empire is simply the most efficient method. I hope you understand.”
Fiore nodded.
“Very well. Let’s see how prepared you are.”
With that, the man in black stepped forward, sword drawn.
He said, “My name is Dan Sochun.”
“Fiore Briol.”
Fiore fixed his gaze on him.
The name Dan Sochun suggested he was from the East. His aura rivaled the Ten Strong. He was likely the author of the Shadowless Sword.
Fiore smiled without realizing it.
Finally, a worthy opponent to fight properly.
He began to reveal his own aura gradually. A sharp, cutting energy enveloped his entire body.
Within a certain radius, no other energy could penetrate.
Dan Sochun swallowed hard and muttered, “So, this is the greatest swordsman of the Western Regions…”
Fiore moved.
His form vanished and suddenly appeared right before Dan Sochun, swinging his sword.
The sound of a blade piercing the air rang out.
“Ugh!”
Dan Sochun was pushed back.
“Is that all you’ve got?”
“No.”
Dan Sochun gathered his energy, releasing a dark aura.
Their sword energies clashed.
Thunder cracked.
Fiore began to laugh.
He had always fought alone, always feeling something was missing. There had never been an opponent worthy of receiving his blade.
But Dan Sochun was different. Though pushed back, he did not break.
“Good.”
Fiore muttered, raising his energy once more.
His cloak fluttered as his sword aura soared skyward.
Dan Sochun’s face paled.
“Indeed…”
Fiore swung his sword.
A single strike swept the area.
The terrain collapsed, leaving a deep crater everywhere except where Dan Sochun stood.
Blood dripped from Dan Sochun’s mouth.
“Impossible…”
“This can’t be the end.”
Dan Sochun’s eyes widened.
“A true monster. But…”
His eyes darkened.
“I am a monster too.”
Dan Sochun raised his sword.
Dark sword energy flowed like waves, coalescing into a massive orb of power around him.
But it didn’t last long.
Fiore swung his sword.
A thin line of light sliced through the air, severing Dan Sochun’s energy cleanly.
The immense power collapsed, triggering an explosion.
Dan Sochun collapsed.
“What on earth…”
Fiore’s sword was coated with a faint glow.
This was no ordinary sword energy.
Dan Sochun could feel the miraculous level of mastery within it.
A sword that cuts through everything.
Literally, even the uncuttable.
Fiore was already a warrior on a higher plane.
For the first time, Dan Sochun felt powerless.
“You!”
Dan Sochun summoned his energy again, preparing to unleash his strongest technique.
Black flames flickered along his sword. His eyes glowed red.
An attack born from sacrificing even his own safety.
“Arrgh!”
But after only a few exchanges, his sword shattered.
There was no time even to be surprised.
“Dan Sochun.”
Cedric, standing behind, spoke.
“At this point, you can’t even tell me not to interfere, right?”
“…”
Dan Sochun was speechless.
You need a worthy opponent to even muster the will to fight.
At first, he had boldly tried to defeat the greatest swordsman of the Western Regions to prove his own strength.
Even if he lost, he believed he could at least put up a good fight.
But it was nothing like that.
No matter what he did, he could not defeat Fiore.
He had seen many skilled warriors from the East, but never a swordsman who had reached such heights.
No matter how hard he struggled, Fiore simply cut through with an indifferent expression.
“I’ll step in now.”
“…Very well.”
Dan Sochun nodded.
“That’s a monster.”
Father and son were both monsters.
Cedric chuckled softly, then summoned dark magic.
The mist thickened, growing darker until Fiore, standing ahead, was nearly invisible.
“This is my poison, created by sacrificing all of Française.”
Something moved within the darkness.
Then, something strange happened.
The darkness began to be drawn toward a single point.
Suddenly, the surroundings cleared.
Fiore’s body was engulfed in shadow.
“Take this.”
Cedric handed a new sword to Dan Sochun.
It was better than the last.
“Understood.”
Dan Sochun gripped the sword and approached the shadow-wrapped Cedric.
He knew what was contained within.
It was the materialization of the grudges and curses of all the humans sacrificed by Cedric’s dark magic.
Touching it would unleash thousands upon thousands of screams echoing in the mind.
No human could endure it.
Dan Sochun swiftly advanced and thrust his sword into the darkness.
Clang.
But then, something unbelievable happened.
“Huh?”
Fiore should have been completely enveloped by Cedric’s dark magic, unable to see or hear.
He should have been defenseless, pierced and killed by Dan Sochun’s sword.
Then, from the darkness came the sharp clang of blades striking each other.
And something even more astonishing happened.
The darkness split open, and from within, a gleaming white sword energy shot forth.
“Ugh!”
Dan So-cheon, caught off guard, was slashed and stumbled to the ground, blood spilling from the wound.
Though it wasn’t fatal, the bleeding was severe.
He lifted his eyes.
Within the dense, coffin-like darkness surrounding Fiore, a blade suddenly jutted out.
It moved up and down.
Fiore’s figure gradually emerged more clearly as he pushed through the shadows.
He was smiling.
“Cedric!”
But the dark magic Cedric wielded was no less formidable. It twisted and writhed around Fiore’s body, tormenting his flesh.
The darkness opened and tore repeatedly.
Like an insect shedding its cocoon, Fiore tore through the shadows and took a step forward.
“Huff…”
But soon, the darkness wrapped around him again, tightening its grip until he vanished from sight once more.
Cedric shouted, “Keep going!”
“Y-yes.”
Dan So-cheon raised his sword again.
This time, he didn’t just swing blindly. He summoned energy, infusing his blade with sword qi, and struck directly at the darkness enveloping Fiore, using the martial arts of the heretical cult.
Klang.
A section of the darkness exploded outward, and from it, the sword’s blade reemerged.
Then, Fiore’s bloodstained face appeared through the shadows as he stepped forward.
With every step he took, the darkness clung to him.
But he didn’t stop. He kept moving forward.
Fiore felt like an immortal—someone who couldn’t be killed no matter what.
“Cedric, do something.”
“Wait.”
Cedric began chanting again. The words were not from Inse’s language.
Dan So-cheon glanced back.
Cedric, who usually seemed calm and all-knowing, looked desperate this time.
He repeatedly formed hand seals, amplifying the dark magic’s power.
“Huff…”
No sooner had Dan So-cheon turned his head than Fiore’s attack came flying at him.
He barely managed to block it.
The darkness shifted into the shape of a human hand, defending Fiore. Countless black hands burst forth, grabbing and restraining Fiore’s limbs.
Now, Fiore commanded an even greater mass of darkness.
But he didn’t stop.
Carrying it all on his body, Fiore took step after step.
One step.
Another step.
The closer he came, the more Dan So-cheon retreated.
“Did the calculations go wrong?”
Cedric’s weary voice came from behind.
“Seems like sacrificing all the Francais still wasn’t enough.”
“Do something.”
“I’m trying.”
Thousands of hands rose again, grasping at Fiore.
But Fiore paid them no mind and raised his sword.
In the pitch-black darkness, only the pure white blade gleamed brightly.
Shaking off everything, Fiore swung his sword.