Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 173

From the day he collapsed standing, Leon slept without moving so much as an eyelid for four full days.

Outwardly, he seemed peaceful. His wounds had closed, and the flesh wasted by extreme exhaustion had begun to fill out again, restoring his usual appearance. The pallor that lingered on the first day gave way to a healthy flush by the second, as though he might open his eyes at any moment.

And yet, he did not wake for one simple reason.

During battle, he had crossed into the realm of a Master, and his unstable body now demanded time.

Inside him, a great transformation was underway. His essence—energy, spirit, and mind—had expanded and surged, shattering the near-perfect balance he had carried and reshaping itself anew. In a way, fainting had been a blessing. His consciousness sank deep, letting his body recover into its best form on its own, at its best pace.

The strong parts grew stronger. The supple parts grew suppler. He stepped several paces beyond the limits of mankind.

“Mmm.”

After four long days of sleep, Leon slowly lifted his eyelids on a soft bed. A strange ceiling greeted him.

He threw off the blanket and sharpened senses dulled by rest. Instantly, the awareness that had once pressed outward only a few meters spread to tens, then hundreds. The tide of information stabbed at his mind, making him dizzy enough that he braced against the bed.

“Urgh! What the...?”

The range and precision were incomparable to before. The flutter of bird wings fifty meters away, the murmur of voices two hundred meters off—he could feel them. Sight and sound alike etched themselves into his mind. Without distinction of the senses, everything came together as one unified synesthesia.

Not long ago, extending his senses this far had required utter concentration. Now, it was effortless.

The dizziness lasted only moments. As soon as he adapted, which didn’t take long at all, tuning his senses was no great task.

Blinking a few times, Leon soon noticed not only the change in his senses but a deeper strangeness throughout his body. When he moved, muscles followed. Business as usual. However, the force and suppleness he felt now were far beyond what he had before.

He clenched his right fist. The grip felt strong enough to crush rock like clay. And that without channeling Aura at all.

His body had clearly changed during his sleep, to a degree that would astonish even warriors accustomed to treating their bodies like finely wrought crafts.

Then, El-Cid spoke.

—You’re up? You slept long enough.

“How long was I out?” Leon asked.

—A little over four days.

“That’s pretty long.”

Even after being hunted for nights by Nephren-Ka, half a day’s rest had sufficed. To have been knocked out for four days straight, the fatigue had been immense, and as if that weren’t enough already, unexpected burdens had struck.

He had not only become a Master mid-battle, but awakened and manifested an Aura Blade, burning away every last reserve. Anyone else who attempted such recklessness would have been crippled with lasting damage.

—Be grateful to that idiot goddess. Without the recovery of the Stigmata, you might not have won that night.

“You’re right,” Leon admitted without hesitation.

The Stigma of the Guardian lent him power against the enemies of the world, turning both sunlight and moonlight into energy.

The other three Stigmata had played their roles as well, but none had aided his endurance and fighting ability as much as the Guardian. Above all, it had responded to the Aura Blade he manifested—the light of the Sun Sword.

“I didn’t expect the Stigma of the Guardian to work with my Aura Blade, though.”

That was why Leon, though hopelessly outmatched in sheer scale of power, had managed to meet Nephren-Ka head-on at the end. Without it, he might have dried up to the marrow and died instantly the moment he unleashed Solaris.

—Don’t fool yourself. That dumb goddess didn’t plan for that. You were just lucky. Don’t start relying on luck.

El-Cid was right. Luck may tip the scales, but if one stopped struggling and depended on it, the end was never going to be good. Leon nodded in agreement.

—Anyway, you’ve gone through quite a change. A metamorphosis, even. How does it feel?

“Huh? What change?”

—Body-Change.

It was the threshold, the mark of an Aura Master. Karen was still considered incomplete precisely because she hadn’t undergone it yet.

Through a process that purged all tainted energy and impurities, muscles and bones became reshaped beyond the limits of normal life.

A Master who had undergone it wouldn’t fall ill, and a bit of poison became as harmless as seasoning. Their Aura control improved drastically as well.

“You’re saying I’ve undergone Body-Change? Really?”

Leon accepted the words but wore a puzzled look. What he’d heard of Body-Change was far more dramatic. Supposedly, it involved foul-smelling fluids oozing from every pore with old skin peeling off like a lizard’s molt and even the bone being replaced, somehow.

But Leon was the exception. El-Cid chuckled, reading his thoughts.

—Not wrong. That’s how it usually goes. In short, Body-Change is the body’s reconstruction triggered by the energy released in crossing the Master’s wall. From the smallest units—cells—up through bone, vessels, flesh, skin, and nerves, everything is reinforced to withstand even an Aura Blade.

“I see...”

—Normally, impurities are expelled, inefficient muscle and bone are corrected, leaving behind the grotesque mess you’ve heard about.

However, what if the body were already efficient, already free of impurities?

—I’ve been correcting your structure for years now, and when you were given the Stigmata, the impurities were burned away. So, all that power focused solely on strengthening you. You started levels ahead of others.

Without the dramatic process, Leon’s body had grown far stronger still. To be precise, it was because he didn’t have to go through that dramatic process that he was able to undergo such a massive change. The energy that would normally go into purging and correcting had gone entirely into reinforcement.

He wanted to quantify the change, but before he could say it, El-Cid spoke first.

—From Master level on, numbers are meaningless.

“What? Why?”

—Because once the ‘will’ reaches the realm of warping physical law, you can change those numbers however you like. If it were that simple to quantify, I would’ve been giving you readouts every time an enemy appeared. I didn’t, because I didn’t want you picking up bad habits.

Aura Blades proved the point. Al Razzaz’s and Varg’s raw physicality was far greater—especially Varg, a Fenrir beastkin. Yet comparing their battle strength required seeing the hidden cards each kept. A habit of judging by numbers could lead to underestimating dangerous foes.

“So, I just need to trust my own eyes.”

—A man who can’t discern strength from weakness dies quickly. That hasn’t changed from my day to yours.

Leon agreed, and at that moment, he felt familiar presences approaching. Intimate, with not a trace of hostility. Soon, two figures entered his room.

“Hero Leon! You’re finally awake!”

“Leon, how are you feeling?”

Elahan and Karen hurried to his bedside, smiling in relief.

Al Razzaz’s and Varg hadn’t been able to linger long, but these two had stood watch in shifts. They had sensed instinctively that Leon was passing a critical threshold. Because of that, he had been able to complete his Body-Change without interruption.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I slept a bit long, didn’t I?” Leon said and smiled sheepishly

The two only smiled back, shaking their heads.

“Of course not! Congratulations on your great achievement, my hero.”

“Didn’t think I’d be overtaken like this. I’ll have to push harder myself.”

Each in their own way, Elahan and Karen congratulated him. Since he made no effort to hide it, his presence now prickled tangibly against their skin, much stronger than before, even comparable to Al Razzaz and Varg.

That could only mean one thing: Aura Master.

Leon had stepped onto the level of an absolute, a title held by only a handful in any nation.

“Thanks, both of you. You’ve been watching over me all this time, haven’t you?”

Leon rose as he spoke. Four days in bed had not stiffened his body. His muscles had evolved beyond such limits.

“Can you tell me what happened while I was asleep? Four days isn’t long enough for anything major, I guess.”

“Of course!”

“I figured you’d ask the moment you woke up, so I prepared a report.”

For some reason, the two of them were in far better sync than before. Until now, Elahan and Karen had quietly competed to prove their worth. However, after Leon slept and woke, they seemed to have forged a perfect partnership.

No matter how he turned it over in his head, he couldn’t make sense of it. El-Cid, however, seemed to have an idea.

—Pahaha! So, that’s how it is. Clever girls, both of them.

What?

—Not telling. Some things you just need to figure out on your own.

El-Cid offered not a hint more. Regardless, good was good. Leon thought nothing of it and simply listened to the two. Then, a presence unmoving in the distance made him tilt his head.

Recognizing who it was, Leon thought, What is Hati doing up there?

***

Only one battle, and already he was hailed as a hero by both Bedouin and beastkin. Just a few hundred meters from the tent where Leon had slept, a tall tree had grown.

And perched at its peak, black-haired, ears pointed high, and beastlike feet gripping the branch, was a woman.

Hati, the closest to the chief among the direct bloodline of the Fenrir clan.

“Right now, I am not worthy to face you,” she muttered in a voice so low and dark, unlike her usual self. “The law of the savannah is survival of the fittest. The strong claim food, love, and land. And the females at your side are far stronger and more beautiful than I. To you, I must be invisible.”

From birth until today, she had been strong. Daughter of the Beast King Varg, a prodigy who mastered Sirius, and competed with her siblings.

Famed monsters. Famed warriors. Barring the chieftains, none could stand against her. She had believed that once she crossed the wall of a Master, she would become the next ruler of the great plains.

“A frog in a well. That’s me exactly.”

However, even her dream of becoming Chief had been far too small. The first male to stir her heart was already a warrior who stood as her father’s equal, and the women around him were all far too powerful for her to even challenge.

So, Hati admitted it at last. Right now, she was the weak. A female with no appeal in Leon’s eyes, unworthy to even join the competition.

“But, that’s right now.”

And yet her eyes shone with resolve. They were not the eyes of one broken and resigned.

They were the eyes of one who would rise again, and again, no matter how many times she was beaten down.

“Wait for me, Leon the Hero.”

Whispering the title her father had revealed, Hati turned from the distant tent and leaped away.

Next time, she would face him with greater dignity. The second growth of the future Beast King had begun.