Teogonia: Volume 1 (Premium)

by Tsukasa Tanimai

  Another step forward would probably reduce it to just one yule.

  Leaning forward at the waist would reduce the remainder to less than a yule.

  I have spiritual energy left... I need to make the sword longer than one yule.

  He gripped the grass with the toes of the left foot he’d just moved forward. He slowly began to shift his center of mass.

  The armored soldier had recognized Kai’s movements as being part of his martial arts.

  Kai gritted his teeth wishing his opponent would move toward him to close the gap even further. He watched the armored soldier who was standing ready to counter whatever trick Kai might have up his sleeve.

  The fact that Kai still hadn’t lost the will to fight even in this situation must have made the armored soldier realize that Kai had another trick left. It was guarding all of its vital areas with both arms in a stance that made it look like a heavyweight boxer.

  Heavyweight...?

  The meaningless term that came to Kai from his past life memories made him smile as he began to move.

  There’s nothing this sword can’t cut.

  With his forward left foot as the starting point, Kai focused his power into an explosive forward charge. He could feel the blades of grass under the sole of his left foot being torn up. Those blades of grass had been held fast to the ground, so the power that Kai unleashed was efficiently converted into kinetic energy that drove him forward.

  When Kai’s hand appeared from behind his back, the armored soldier looked surprised to see that it was still the same empty hand as before. The armored soldier prepared an iron defense to meet what appeared to be a bare-handed chop. It may have considered Kai inferior, but it didn’t take his attacks lightly.

  To call the armored soldier’s stance an iron defense was a perfect metaphor. The two thick arms it had guarded itself with weren’t just covered in skin that was as tough as iron, they also contained broad bones that formed a core harder than iron.

  Any ordinary attack with a weapon made from iron would have been stopped dead by those arms no matter how much power was behind it.

  However, there was something the armored soldier didn’t know.

  Although it hadn’t taken the attack from the human guardian bearer lightly, the concept behind the invisible sword was something beyond its knowledge.

  The armored soldier and the god that protected it were about to learn of the nature of this attack based on knowledge from another world.

  37

  The principles governing the microscopic world that humans could not see... How many of this world’s residents had ever turned their attention to the makeup of the matter that gives rise to the existence of solid objects?

  “***!”

  The armored soldier reverted back to its own language.

  It must have been the result of it being overcome with disbelief.

  The downward chop from Kai’s empty hand had not so much as grazed the armored soldier, and yet it had cut deep into its body.

  Kai’s invisible sword had met the left arm that the armored soldier had held up to defend itself, and the blade had entered near the wrist with virtually no resistance, severing the hand from the arm. It wasn’t until the blade was embedded deep in the flesh of the armored soldier’s shoulder that the power forming the blade was fully spent.

  The invisible sword had the power to interfere with intermolecular bonding, as Kai understood it, based on his past life memories.

  This power known as magic that followed his will could easily break apart bonds between molecules that would otherwise be firm and unyielding, with spiritual energy being gradually consumed in exchange.

  The principles that governed healing magic applied here too, meaning that the use of magic to affect a living creature without a well-defined objective was incredibly inefficient. Kai didn’t understand this, but he’d been able to make it work by brute force with all the energy at his disposal.

  As a result, the invisible sword squandered energy reserves when it was used. Much like it had when he cut through balen cedars.

  “**, ***!”

  The armored soldier took half a step back in shock while Kai continued moving forward under the same momentum to continue his assault.

  His magic might be ineffective next time he tried this same approach. This fear made Kai rush to deliver the next blow. While stepping forward he formed the sword once again at the tip of his right hand. He had to deal more damage to the armored soldier quickly.

  Without spending any time on fine adjustments to the blade, he threw his whole body towards his opponent. Then he slashed horizontally as if delivering the second part of a double-slash.

  The damage to the iron chest plate was minor, but the skin that bulged out from the gap was slashed open horizontally causing blood to spurt loudly from the flesh within.

  The armored soldier’s reflexes caused it to counterattack by throwing a punch at the left side of Kai’s head with the heavy fist of its uninjured right arm. The force of the punch swept away Kai’s head and neck causing him to lose consciousness for a moment. While Kai was on the ground, the armored soldier stepped back as if it were about to run.

  I’m not done. I can’t let it escape.

  Kai got up and checked the position of his prey. He started running, urged on by the same desperation, without waiting for his vision to become steady. In the phenomenal fights between two guardian bearers, a distance of several steps was equivalent to nothing.

  With a thud, Kai closed the distance like a dart shooting through the air, and the armored soldier tried to knock him back with a front kick. Kai cut away the skin from its leg as easily as peeling a potato.

  The sword Kai had made was invisible, so it was the motion of the armored soldiers leg that brought it into contact with the blade. Kai gritted his teeth as the sword disappeared and tried to muster up enough spiritual energy to create it for a fourth time.

  He realized that he’d been using energy more wastefully than when cutting the balen cedars. He no longer had spiritual energy to waste.

  “How can you cut!?” the armored soldier howled.

  It was enraged and hollering about the unfairness of the situation as it tried, but failed, to understand the paranormal phenomenon that Kai was using.

  If the blessings of the land god protecting the armored soldier were going to offer resistance against Kai’s magic, it would have to provide that resistance soon.

  But nothing was happening.

  Or perhaps something had happened.

  Perhaps the god had offered new forms of protection, but none of them worked.

  It may have been that, despite being capable of changing the living tissue of the guardian bearer, the land god’s protection had no way to protect against a sword capable of cutting through intermolecular bonds.

  The armored soldier had lost a large piece of flesh from the side of its leg, and now its stance was unbalanced. It had lost the muscle it needed to stand its ground.

  Kai had no time to think about anything else. He lunged at the chest of the armored soldier while reforming his sword.

  His sole target was the godstone. The godstone within the chest that was one of the vital areas of a guardian bearer.

  The godstone that formed inside the bodies of living creatures was usually hidden somewhere in the chest, but that wasn’t always the case. Kai knew that its location varied enough that it was always necessary to search for it by hand. What he was doing was a gamble. If he couldn’t deal a hit to the godstone with a single strike, he’d try to remove the nearby heart instead.

  When the opponent was a guardian bearer, even the destruction of the heart might not be enough to be fatal, but it was still the next best option.

  The armored soldier’s crude helmet slipped back and fell to the ground.

  The reddish black face of the org, covered in wounds and lit by the light of the stars, was now exposed.

  “******”

  “**, ***!”<
br />
  “***, ****”

  There were cries of dismay from the nearby orgs that had followed them.

  They must have gathered around to watch the fight while thinking there was no way that this great warrior of their people could ever lose. No low-ranking soldier dared to approach the ground where two guardian bearers fought each other. The same custom existed in the village of Lag. Anyone who dared to interfere with such a fight would be made to regret it later.

  Kai’s hand sank into the flesh of the armored soldier through the opening in its skin made by his invisible sword. The strength was gone from the armored soldier, and it was falling towards him, so Kai’s hand sank deeper and deeper.

  Then when the reaction ended and the invisible sword disappeared, Kai’s bare hand touched against a rough lump. Kai had been in a frenzy, but this snapped him out of it. He used his shoulder to push against the body of the armored soldier as he gripped the lump tightly and pulled it out from within its body.

  It was the armored soldier’s godstone.

  The moment that the orgs gathered around them and knew that the armored soldier, a great warrior of their people, had been defeated, they threw their heads back and unleashed wild howls. Kai couldn’t tell whether they were howls of rage or howls of despair.

  “***”

  “****! ***, **!”

  If he’d understood the orgish tongue, he might have understood the reasons for their strange behavior.

  For the first time, one of them spoke in the human tongue.

  “Won’t let you!” The org sprayed filthy saliva as it spoke shrilly.

  Kai supposed that these might have been the blood relatives of the armored soldier.

  “You leave it!” As it moved toward him, its words sounded as though they came from some deep hatred that burned within it like black flames.

  The others then followed and began moving closer to Kai.

  “You leave it!”

  “You ****!”

  “That belong us!”

  Wild rage spread among the orgs. There must have been dozens of them. Great pigs burning with hatred closing in on him from every direction.

  He was surrounded.

  Their determination to stop their precious land god from being taken away from their people was enough to make them forget their fear of the strong and unknown guardian bearer known as Kai.

  Although he had very little spiritual energy left, he was confident that his power as a guardian bearer was enough for him to scatter a crowd of foot soldiers using violence. But then, countless more orgs appeared from outside the circle they’d formed. With the entire army of orgs that had wiped out the macaques now charging toward Kai all at once, it was more than he felt he could handle.

  Kai broke into a run, following what he’d determined was the shortest route back to the human country—the route that had previously been blocked by the armored soldier. Any orgs foolish enough to try to stop him were knocked away effortlessly by the incredible power that his guardian gave to him. Kai broke free from the circle, sending orgs flying backward as if they were barely an obstacle. However...

  This is endless.

  It was as if every org in the region was gathered in this one spot. Their army formed a swarm that tried to stand in his way in every direction.

  Kai thought frantically for some way to escape this place as furious org soldiers attacked him from every side. He sent countless orgs flying back, but then one grabbed his leg. The org was already half dead, but it held tightly to Kai’s leg and tried to bring him down.

  Kai cut off its head using the invisible sword without any thought for what would happen next and then struggled free from its body. The axes belonging to the org soldiers he’d failed to kill then came swinging down at him.

  Kai rammed one of them with his shoulder and knocked its large body down while scattering the soldiers that flocked around him. Kai jumped straight back up and swung with an iron axe that had been dropped by a fallen org. He hoped to kill any orgs he was lucky enough to hit.

  When blood and fat made the axe slip from his grasp, Kai struck another close-by enemy and stole its weapon. As the endless swarm of orgs continued their frenzied attack, Kai’s energy, which he had once thought was inexhaustible, began to run down. He’d already lost his chance to escape and was gradually climbing higher on the pile of org bodies forming at his feet. Before he knew it, Kai was covered in blood and standing on a pile made from the bodies of a hundred ordinary orgs.

  He had lost the ability to think.

  The ordeal was enough to leave Kai completely depleted of energy and wordlessly panting for breath.

  The sight was enough to make the orgs that surrounded him hesitate, and now they simply surrounded the pile of corpses on which he stood.

  I’m so hungry...

  Kai remembered his empty stomach.

  The food that he pictured in his mind was the black triangle known as onigiri. He began to salivate, but he didn’t have even a single slice of dried potato with him.

  Then Kai absentmindedly looked at the white lump in his hand.

  It turned out that he did have something to fill his stomach. The blood-soaked boy began to smile.

  Ah...

  Cries came from the orgs.

  He heard many orgish words, none of which he understood.

  Somehow, he knew they were saying things like, “please stop,” and “have mercy.”

  Kai considered it.

  Yeah, right.

  On the small mountain of bodies, he took the armored soldier’s godstone in his hand and used his invisible sword to cut off the top.

  From the opening he’d made, he scooped out the first mouthful. He quickly became impatient and used both hands, thrusting his fingers into it, to break the whole thing into two halves.

  Liquid from inside flew out and was scattered in all directions.

  “Aah!”

  “***!”

  “Dohd! Dohd Adohra-kahn!”

  “Adohra-kahn!”

  “***!”

  “Ooh...”

  No matter how much they pleaded, it was the victor’s right to feed on the godstone of the defeated. Kai was exercising that right.

  Adohra-kahn must have been the name of the armored soldier. The orgs continued to cry that same word over and over.

  He tilted his head back, poured the overflowing juice into his open mouth, and gulped it down. The flavor that filled his mouth seemed to be spreading through his body.

  Once the rich juice was gone, he began to bite at the marrow. The godstone was as big as it was flavorful, and it was incredibly filling. The core had a deeper red color to it than the translucent, amber-colored parts at the outside, and this core tasted even better.

  Kai could barely hear the cries of the orgs anymore. He was drunk on this sublime taste that was enjoyed by only the victors.

  He bit and chewed at it in a daze. Then a certain feeling came as the marrow slid down his throat.

  It’s all my power now.

  Kai felt something inside him struggling to escape.

  Before that sensation was over, he swallowed the remaining marrow. Then the land god of the armored soldier, with its divine power drained from it, left Kai like a fine mist.

  In that instant, Kai’s own godstone filled with heat. It felt as though Kai’s own land god, the existence of the god the valley within him, was being renewed. It was the second time he’d felt this sensation, so he didn’t lose his sense of self this time, but he felt he wouldn’t be able to remain standing much longer as the heat within him grew.

  It had been a mistake.

  If he lost consciousness here, he’d certainly die.

  Kai cursed his own lack of foresight as he looked down on the orgs who were still stunned by the loss of their land god. Then he suddenly felt the ground shake, and one of his feet slipped from under him.

  Part of the pile of corpses crumbled without the whole thing collapsing, and Kai was left awkwardly cl
inging to one of the stable bodies. A moment later there was another great tremor.

  As a resident of this world who was unfamiliar with the natural phenomenon of earthquakes, Kai’s mind was calm as if this was a familiar event, but his body couldn’t help but cower.

  The orgs had a similar reaction.

  “**!”

  “***!”

  The dense swarm of orgs was thrown into turmoil. They had stopped looking at Kai and were bumping into one another as their instincts made them fight to find some path to escape.

  Then came a third tremor, which caused the orgs to scatter like a cluster of baby spiders.

  Kai was lying on his stomach on the pile of bodies and couldn’t easily move. He watched the orgs run off into the unfamiliar landscape from high above.

  Then it happened.

  Countless sparkling lights appeared before Kai’s eyes.

  It was like phosphorescence in the night sky, but the countless lights were being born from the ground and rising into the sky with a shimmering faint glow. Then, not long after it had appeared, each light would fade before melting away into the deep blue world of the night.

  Kai wondered how many people had ever witnessed this ghostly phenomenon. He was lost for words as he gazed at the scene.

  Something unusual was happening in the land of demi-humans.

  Then came the most violent tremor yet.

  The strong vibration caused the mountain made of flesh to shake like the jelly produced when boiling the fat of a wild beast, and then it collapsed in spectacular fashion.

  Kai was thrown off his feet and became caught up in the avalanche of corpses.

  Those... those lights...

  That was his final thought before his thinking stopped. Kai’s thoughts were cut short as his consciousness slipped away from him.

  The body of the young boy was an empty shell devoid of consciousness lying there defenseless as it became buried under a great number of corpses. For anyone else, it would have been a dangerous situation, but his breathing could soon be heard and it sounded like the healthy breathing of a sleeping boy.

  The faint sound of the young boy’s breathing was the only sound in this otherwise silent field strewn with countless corpses.