Chapter 17 – The Heavy Sword – ‘Bladeless’
Book 7, Heaven and Earth Turned Upside Down – Chapter 17, The Heavy Sword, ‘Bladeless’
This naturally generated bolt of lightning slashed down at high speed, and was many times faster than electrical bolts which thunder-element magi could produce. Nobody present was able to react in time, and the lightning bolt crashed onto the upraised heavy sword.
“Ah!” Vincente let out a pain-filled scream as his body was suddenly enveloped in a wild blue flame, which even had some silvery white flame mixed within!
“Thud!” The heavy sword fell to the ground.
At the same time, Vincente collapsed as well, his entire body twitching, especially his right arm, which had been charred badly enough that the scent of burning flesh could be smelled. Even after collapsing, Vincente’s body continued to jerk about, and blood was pouring from his mouth.
“Father!” The two brothers Yotian and Trey let out simultaneous cries as they immediately ran forward.
“Mr. Vincente!” Both Linley and Monroe Dawson were shocked as well.
This natural bolt of lightning had carried an enormous amount of energy. It wasn’t unheard of for even powerful combatants to die due to being struck by lightning. All of them ran over, surrounding Vincente, as Monroe Dawson roared out, “Quick, have Mr. Armand [A’man’da] come, quick!”
Armand was a light-style magus under Monroe Dawson’s command who also specialized in medicine. He was extremely skilled at healing people.
“Yes!” Seeing this, the gate guard also was frantic, and he rushed to find the magus Armand.
Magus Armand arrived shortly afterwards. He was an old man with a snowy white beard. Without saying a word, he immediately invoked a light-style spell. The totally burnt and charred right arm of Vincente began to quickly and visibly heal. Soon, all traces of the injury were gone.
“I…I’m fine.” Vincente managed to force out these words with difficulty.
“How are your internals?” Armand asked immediately.
A powerful warrior was easily capable of sensing his body’s internal condition. This assessment would be more accurate than a magus’ external observations.
Vincente shook his head. “I’m fine. I just need a little time, and I will be alright.”
“Mr. Armand, there’s no further need for you to concern yourself with my father’s injuries.” Yotian said bluntly as well.
These words raised the suspicions of Monroe Dawson, Linley, Reynolds, George, and everyone else. They could all see that right now, Vincente was very weak. Vincente was a very powerful warrior; for him to be so weak now meant that he clearly had suffered an enormous injury.
But suddenly, Linley remember a passage from his clan’s records regarding the Violetflame Warriors.
A Saint-level Violetflame Warrior possessed a power known as the Nirvana Rebirth. Generally speaking, they were able to recover from any wounds at an astonishing speed.
“This Master Vincente is only at the ‘blue flame’ level, and has just barely managed to enter the ‘white flame’ level. He is quite a distance away from the highest ‘violet flame’ level. Most likely, he doesn’t have the Nirvana Rebirth ability yet, but he should still be able to heal his wounds.” Linley understood.
The Four Supreme Warriors.
The Dragonblood Warriors could be considered as the warriors with the greatest combat potential, while the Violetflame Warriors were famous due to their Nirvana Rebirth ability. The Tigerstriped Warriors were known for their attacking speed, while the Undying Warriors were famed for their strength and endurance.
“Uncle Dawson, Master Vincente has secret techniques for recovering from his wounds. There’s no need for him to take any medicine.” Linley spoke.
Monroe Dawson nodded, then gave instructions to Armand. Armand spoke some well-intentioned words of guidance to Vincente, then left. As for Vincente, he lay down and rested for around ten minutes, after which he looked much better.
Linley couldn’t help but feel astonished. The regenerative capabilities of the Violetflame Warriors really were something special.
“Linley, your heavy sword.” Immediately after recovering a bit, Vincente began to worry about his masterpiece. “Quick, bring it over and let me take a look. I hope no damage was caused to the sword.”
Only now did any of them pay attention to the discarded heavy sword. All of them were amazed! The formerly pitch-black sword now had a faint blue glow on its surface, as though a layer of frost had formed atop it.
“Let me see!” Vincente said urgently.
Linley grabbed the heavy sword and immediately gave it to Vincente. Of all the people present, only Vincente had any true knowledge regarding weapons.
Vincente still hadn’t fully recovered from his injury, and so even lifting the sword up was hard for him. He was only able to grasp the hilt after allowing the tip of the sword to rest against the ground. Vincente’s face was extremely solemn, and with his left hand, he began rap against the flat of the heavy sword’s blade.
“Dang!” “Dang!” “Dang!”
A series of crisp, clear sound could be heard. Vincente began to apply more and more force to each blow, and the ringing sounds were growing louder as well. Vincente rapped every single part of the heavy sword, constantly changing positions.
While doing so, Vincente was staring intently at the sword while listening to the sounds.
Next to him, Linley, Monroe Dawson, and the others had stopped breathing. They knew that most likely, Vincente was assessing the heavy sword to see if the bolt of lightning had caused any damage to it or had altered it somehow. After all, the bolt of thunder had struck it just after it had been quenched in the liquid solution.
“Riiiiing.” With a single flick of Vincente’s finger, the entire heavy sword emitted a beautiful sound. Hearing this almost perfect, rich, smooth sound, a look of wild joy appeared on Vincente’s face.
“Heaven’s will. Heaven’s will.”
His face filled with wild joy, Vincente turned to look at Linley. “Linley, it must be that heaven itself desired for you to possess this divine sword.”
“Mr. Vincente, what’s the situation with this heavy sword?” Monroe Dawson asked.
Vincente explained, “The hardest part of forging an adamantine weapon is bringing out the full potential of the adamantine, since the alloyed metals are all significantly inferior to adamantine. Although the secret method of my clan allows me to alloy a high percentage of the other metals with the adamantine, I of course am not able to alloy it 100% perfectly.”
“In other words, the internals of the sword that I had just forged were not perfectly consistent, and there were minute inconsistencies in each spot.”
A look of disbelieving joy was on Vincente’s face. “But I didn’t expect that right after I finished quenching the sword, I would get struck by that bolt of lightning, which caused all of the remaining internal irregularities in the sword to be fused perfectly. The full potential of the adamantine has been released. I simply can’t believe that something like this happened. This is heaven’s will. Heaven’s will!”
Linley was overjoyed as well.
“Third Bro, congratulations.” Yale, Reynolds, and George all began to grin. They all understood. After having withstood this lightning strike, the quality of Linley’s heavy sword had just improved by another level.
“And not just that. Look. There’s a faint blue glow on the surface of this heavy sword. I’ve touched the surface of it, and it is unbelievably slick and smooth. Most likely in the future, when you kill someone using it, no blood will stick to it.” Vincente chortled.
“Killing without being stained by blood.” Monroe Dawson sighed in praise as well.
The creation of this heavy sword was indeed miraculous, causing everyone present to sigh in amazement.
“This heavy sword was originally pitch black, but now it has a layer of blue light on it. At first glance, one would say that it was dark blue.” Yale sighed in amazement.
This sword really did have quite the majestic aura to it.
“Yotian, Trey, bring me the measuring sticks.” Vincente instructed. After finishing the smithing of a sword, naturally he would have to see what the sword’s exact dimensions were. Linley could feel that this sword was very heavy, but he couldn’t say exactly what its weight was.
Monroe Dawson only chortled happily as he watched them take the measurements for this sword.
“The sword is 1.41 meters long. It weighs…” Yale and the others quickly began to weigh the sword, but when they saw the figures, they were all astonished.
“3600 pounds! The heavy sword is 1.41 meters long, and 3600 pounds heavy!” Reynolds began screaming in a high-pitched voice. This was an extremely domineering heavy sword! And as far as it was length-wise, it was just about right for Linley.
What’s more, Linley wasn’t finished growing yet, and his strength would continue to increase as well. Naturally, this sword would only grow more and more easy to use in the future.
“Third Bro. What is the name of this heavy sword? Quick, pick a name.” Yale was the first to say.
Vincente and the others all looked at Linley.
Reynolds interjected, “This was hit by a lightning bolt. I say, how about calling it Heavenly Thunder? That’s really cool, right?”
“That’s way too vulgar.” George shook his head.
“How about Lightning’s Majesty?” Reynolds continued.
Yale and everyone else began to laugh. Monroe Dawson teased, “Reynolds, why call it Lightning’s Majesty? Let’s just go ahead and call the sword Reynolds.”
[Translator’s note – There is a pun here. In Chinese, Reynolds name is Lei Nuo, with Lei meaning thunder. Heavenly Lightning is “Tian Lei”, while Lightning’s Majesty is “Lei Wei”. Everyone is teasing Reynolds for picking names that sound similar to his own.]
Reynolds pouted and fell silent after letting out a ‘hmph’. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be related to lightning.” Linley laughed. “Since there’s no way for this sword to be sharpened, then let’s just call it Bladeless.” Linley casually picked this name. It was a very simple one, but Linley liked it.
“Bladeless? The heavy sword, Bladeless? Not bad.” Yale nodded.
“Bladeless.”
Vincente, Yotian, Trey, and the others all savored the name for a while, then nodded.
That day, Monroe Dawson gifted Linley with a fine sheath for a heavy sword. It was a deep blue color and forged from precious metals. It was only half a meter long, but had openings on both ends. Linley could sheath his heavy sword into it from either direction, with half of it remaining visible.
This was how sheaths for heavy swords were usually designed. Scabbards that were meant to cover the entire sword were simply too long, and once the warrior removed the sword from the sheath, the meter-long sheath would be very impractical and get in the way. This half-meter long scabbard was very light and wouldn’t cause any hindrance.
That night at a banquet.
Linley dressed in his warrior clothes and carried this heavy sword with him. Thanks to his long-term training, his 1.9 meter tall body was rippling with muscles, and his warriors clothes put his charisma on full display. With this heavy sword on his back, he did indeed have the aura of a powerful heavy swordsman.
“Haha, Linley.” Monroe Dawson laughed as he looked at Linley. “In my opinion, nobody who sees you would believe that you were a genius magus.”
Linley was slightly startled, but then he laughed as well.
Dressed like this, naturally it would be hard for others to tell that he was a magus.
“I remember when we first arrived at the Ernst Institute, when we were in our first year, Third Bro was only nine. Even then, he was able to easily lift up and throw that nine year old who won the tournament quite a distance. Ever since then, I knew that Third Bro was extremely talented as a warrior as well.” Yale chortled.
Everyone was enjoying this banquet immensely, and after having acquired this heavy sword, Linley felt very pleased as well.
“When I have some time, I’ll definitely have to analyze and train in using heavy swords.” Linley made his decision. When he had originally acquired the Bloodviolet Godsword, Linley had also spent several months before totally comprehending all the best ways to use a flexible sword such as Bloodviolet.
But Linley had the feeling that, comparatively speaking, training with Bloodviolet wasn’t that hard, only fast and strange.
But this heavy sword weighed 3600 pounds.
On the surface, it would seem that the techniques for using a heavy sword were simple. Block, smash, etc. But Linley knew that was just the most basic of movements. Using this sword to its full potential definitely wouldn’t be that easy. He knew this because his clan’s records had described the ways in which that ancestor of his had used a massive warhammer. Clearly, there were deep mysteries with regards to how one used weapons.
To bring out a heavy weapon’s full power and potential?
This was very hard.
But upon succeeding, it would possess tremendous power.
The banquet ended.
Linley began to engage in some simple sword stances in an empty courtyard within the Dawson Conglomerate’s estate, trying to feel for the heavy sword’s balance, and how it felt when thrusting and chopping. Just as Linley was beginning to totally immerse himself in getting a basic feel for the technique behind using such a sword…
“Boss, boss! Come back, quick! That Clayde has finally appeared!” Bebe’s excited voice suddenly rang out in Linley’s mind.
Linley instantly came to his normal senses.
“Clayde is back.” Linley felt his previously calm heart suddenly fill with excitement, and his body suddenly began to brim with power. He didn’t have time to explain too much to his bros. He bid a simple farewell, and then headed for his own residence at high speed.