Chapter 406
Episode 119: The Banquet of the Sword Emperor’s Castle (11)
Even with his head shattered, the Master didn’t fall. He swung a fist wrapped in brain energy at Jin.
Jin flicked Sigmund back into place and struck the Master’s fist with the hilt of his sword.
As the fist was driven downward, the Master’s front opened up, and Jin thrust his blade through the gap.
Thud! The blade pierced the chest, but still, the Master didn’t collapse. Instead, he grabbed the blade with both hands, preventing Jin from moving.
Two other Masters charged in. Jin quickly assessed their attack trajectories from left and right, then sliced the Master’s body in half while parrying the incoming blows.
His movements weren’t bad.
The Masters twisted the paths of their punches just as Jin dodged. It was a motion so complex that even skilled warriors would struggle to imitate.
‘These guys were wizards until just now, but now they move like top-tier warriors. Their regeneration is almost immortal-level.’
And on top of that, there was that irritating brain energy.
A surge of anger and frustration welled up deep inside Jin’s chest.
The Master, whose head was shattered and body split in two, was rapidly regenerating.
Veradin’s guards gagged at the grotesque sight.
The gray-robed one who had died first was no different. Though clearly lifeless moments ago, he had already risen again, a blue glow radiating from the gem embedded in his chest.
The four Masters, now fully regenerated, seemed unable to use magic anymore.
“Did you really want that fake power so badly that you’d deny your entire life as wizards?” Jin’s voice was cold.
The Masters burst into laughter.
“How dare a mere mortal call immortal flesh fake…”
“Stop laughing. Are you insane?”
Swish—!
Sigmund sliced through the air, and the newly risen Master’s head rolled to the floor. Jin unleashed a flame jewel to incinerate the severed head, then drove the King’s Sword’s “Waterfall” technique into the torso.
Brain energy poured out like a waterfall, engulfing the Master’s body. When the torrent finally subsided, all that remained where he stood was a large crater.
Only a few small, charred lumps lay scattered nearby.
No one could easily imagine those were once flesh and bone.
But Jin instinctively knew this wasn’t the end, and the Masters’ smiles hadn’t faded.
“You don’t seem to understand the true meaning of ‘immortality,’ Runcandel’s 12th Division.”
The charred flesh quickly regained its original color.
Bones and organs, scattered beyond recognition, began to reform in midair where the Master had stood.
The Masters looked proud of this fact. Jin guessed it was because his expression remained impassive, as if shocked.
But Jin just felt disgusted. It was like a cockroach suddenly crawling out from under his bed—he shuddered.
Reflexively, as if crushing a bug, he struck the regenerating body with lightning once more. The other Masters didn’t defend, so the body was torn apart again, scattering in all directions.
And regeneration began anew.
By then, the Masters’ expressions had shifted from pride to intoxicated triumph.
Normally, at this stage, anyone would be gripped by an inexplicable terror. The instinct to flee would rise, knowing they faced an enemy who couldn’t be killed no matter what.
The Masters naturally assumed Jin would feel the same. After all, he was only nineteen and had no experience fighting immortals.
“Hah.” Jin shrugged and sighed.
“You guys really go to extremes. Immortality? This is just hyper-regeneration. You’re no longer human or anything else—just abominations.”
Jin had seen hyper-regeneration before. Even the ancient internal beast Ozdok, whom he’d fought recently, possessed this ability.
“To think so-called archmages would be so easily fooled by empty power—it’s almost laughable.”
Crack, tszzzt!
Suddenly, ice crystals formed in Jin’s palm. The rapidly growing and shrinking ice shards emitted an ominous sound.
“You won’t kill us anyway.”
“Is that so?”
The Masters still hadn’t grasped the situation.
‘So this is how it’s done, huh?’
The frost magic Jin unleashed was the “Freezing Seal” technique taught by his master, Valeria Hister.
He recalled watching Valeria seal the corpse of a mine beast in the Vantaramo Forest.
‘It seems like a versatile spell. I asked about it a few times, but I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off in one go.’
During the days he spent with Yona and Valeria after leaving Vantaramo Forest, Jin had sought magical advice whenever he could.
He remembered some clues about the Freezing Seal spell:
Anyone can use the Freezing Seal magic. But to properly seal and maintain it, you must perfectly separate your mana within your body. That separated mana forms a kind of lock.
How do you separate mana?
That’s hard to explain. I gave you the basic concept, so practice on your own.
Valeria’s explanation had been flawed from the start.
Among frost magic, sealing was the most difficult spell. Even among frost specialists, only a few could wield it.
Moreover, maintaining the seal as intended was a whole different challenge. Most mages’ seals lasted only until their mana ran out.
Valeria was, as far as Jin knew, the most talented mage in the world. And Jin was her only acknowledged disciple.
Separating mana within the body.
Suddenly, Jin recalled his first mission as a cadet.
‘When I fought Quazito Truka and opened my sword with spirit energy, I separated the spirit energy inside me during the rampage. It must be a similar sensation.’
He felt it. The chaotic ice crystals on his palm gradually stabilized.
“You won’t die. Instead, you’ll be sealed and become research subjects.”
Jin extended his hand, and white energy poured from the ice crystals, enveloping the regenerating Masters.
Crack!
Frozen instantly, the Masters seemed to stop regenerating.
The horrifying part was that the heart of the ice-encased Master still beat.
Jin spread more mana, separated within his body, to maintain the seal.
He felt no further mana depletion—this meant success.
‘One try and it worked. When I was learning from my master in my past life, nothing ever came this easily.’
He sealed the remaining unregenerated bodies the same way. As the ice crystals sealing the Masters’ bodies fell to the floor, the smiles vanished from their faces.
“You’re the ones who don’t understand the meaning of ‘immortality,’ aren’t you?”
“You…!”
“If you think immortality is just infinite regeneration, that’s because your world is nothing more than that. You say people like me denied everything you built in your lifetime?”
Jin chuckled.
“You only denied yourselves because you lost the will to achieve anything. And is the measure of life’s value really only the absence of action?”
“…Your mana isn’t infinite. You can’t maintain those seals forever.”
“You’re still mistaken. I can keep it up, but I don’t have to. You’ll be sealed in pieces and handed over to research mages. From then on, your juniors will maintain the seals for you.”
Suddenly, the Masters felt the vast distance between their so-called “immortality” and reality.
As Jin said, being locked away in a mage’s lab, unable to die as they wished, was a cruel curse.
The Master who feared this most was the first to turn and run.
He tried to escape.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
A slash of sword energy cut through his legs. Though they regenerated quickly, his terror-stricken mind did not.
The reattached legs wouldn’t move. The brain energy he dropped in panic spread wildly, threatening not only Jin but the other Masters as well.
“Tch.”
While the other Masters dodged the brain energy, Jin skillfully weaved through them, swinging Sigmund.
It didn’t take long to cut them into pieces, perfect for sealing.
‘Honestly, they were more troublesome when they were wizards.’
Watching the chaotic lightning strikes with no distinction between friend or foe left a bitter taste.
So many strong warriors in the world were throwing themselves away for Kinzell or Ziphl’s empty promises.
Fzzzt, crack, pop…!
Soon, all the Masters lay sprawled on the floor, trapped within Jin’s Freezing Seal.
“Hey.”
Jin turned and called to Veradin’s guards.
“You two return to the Sword Emperor’s Castle separately. I’ll take Veradin with me first. Shuri, finish these off.”
[Meowwww.]
Shuri bit down on the seals, and Jin climbed atop her, extending his hand to Veradin.
Veradin stared at the hand for a moment.
“I can’t believe you were taken down by these things. Watching you fight in the Ventica conflict, it’s hard to accept.”
He couldn’t quite wrap his head around it.
That she never asked for help from the start, and that Veradin had been pushed to the brink of death by these scoundrels—if it were the power Veradin had shown in Ventica, dealing with such so-called masters would have been no problem at all.
The more Jin thought about it, the more he began to doubt Veradin. More precisely, he doubted Ziphl, the one controlling him.
“I wasn’t myself back then, Jin.”
“You could still be the same now. The offer I made before still stands.”
—I want to make you a proposal.
—What is it?
—Drop the name Ziphl.
Those were the words spoken near the end of their training, at Veradin’s villa.
Both of them recalled that moment simultaneously.
Without answering, Veradin took Jin’s hand and climbed onto Shuri.
After that, the two didn’t exchange a single word until they returned to the Sword Emperor Star.
That was because Veradin had fainted from blood loss, but even if he had been fully conscious, it likely would have been the same.