Blade Over Magic

Bloom III

The speed at which the ant improved was truly obscene.

It made sense, considering that adaptation was its whole thing, but even then, seeing it in action was a whole different matter.

With every second that passed, its application of its own abilities soared, and its mastery of combat climbed with every clash.

Even though it was beaten down and battered, the truth was that if the current ant replaced the one that defeated the Lunatics, they wouldn’t have even lasted a moment against it, even with Aubrey’s interference.

It went without saying, but the ant was growing into its potentially brilliantly. It wasn’t just a specimen, it was akin to a magnum opus, and its mother, the queen, would feel proud even with her limited emotional range.

And yet...

Xander was simply better.

The ant fought with everything it had and improved in real time. And to be clear, it wasn’t that Xander was untouchable. He was still receiving wounds from time to time. He hadn’t suddenly become infallible...

But it still wasn’t enough.

As the fight progressed, the ant noticed something startling.

As Xander had stopped relying on his vibrations to deal damage, the ant used its body far more in their exchanges since it no longer needed to worry about receiving more internal damage. So more often than not, Xander’s sword would strike its shell but deal minimal damage.

However... this was rapidly changing.

It first felt it in its energy. The shroud of demonic energy never stopped coating its body. But other than being there to disrupt Xander’s extra-sensory abilities, it was kinda just there. And since Xander was no longer relying on vibrations, it just surrounded it passively.

Now, when Xander clashed with the ant, this shroud would sort of behave like mist that would coil about when the sword swung through it.

But that changed.

It wouldn’t have even noticed it under normal circumstances, but with its concentration peaked, it felt it clearly. Now, whenever Xander’s blade moved through the shroud to strike the ant, be it a thrust, slash, or parry, the ant felt its energy get...

Carved away, almost.

It wasn’t just being dispersed. No. When Xander’s blade met its energy, it ’felt’ the same sensation as when his sword actually harmed it physically.

It wasn’t just sustaining damage to its body, but the demonic energy was also getting cut!

Then it happened to its body as well.

When Xander’s sword struck anywhere that wasn’t its bladed limbs, it was shocked to discover its shell which had been holding up quite well despite everything was suddenly getting damaged!

But that made no sense. Xander wasn’t using his vibrations. In fact, he was barely using anything. He was just swinging his sword. So why was it taking damage?

While the ant was having an existential crisis, though...

Xander was having the time of his life.

He wasn’t fighting to win anymore. He was genuinely just having fun. The more the ant progressed, the more his enjoyment soared. And ironically, that made him even more dangerous.

His mind felt more open, and he began to ’see’ more. Beyond simple physical strikes. That’s why he was suddenly able to ’harm’ the ant’s demonic energy.

It was weird. He simply considered if he could strike it with his sword, so he tried it. And he did.

Same with the ant’s shell. When he struck it, he stopped thinking about breaking through it, and rather, he thought about ’attacking’ the ’integrity’ of the armor itself. The thing that made it so durable. And when he did... it worked.

And all of this was thanks to the ’lines’ he was seeing. They were unstable and incomplete, appearing haphazardly in his vision. But when they did, they seemed to guide him towards his desired target, and when he followed them, he managed to strike the way he wanted.

’... This is nice.’ Xander sighed with glee, suddenly feeling like he was a kid again.

He remembered his first ”Sword”, if it could even be called that.

In reality, he had snuck out one day and found a metal pipe. He left the bottom part as a handle and used rocks to smash the rest flat, making it somewhat resemble a blade.

Then he watched tutorials online to practice.

He remember that he practiced like that for nearly a week before the ’Sword’ pretty much became unusable.

That was the first instance.

As he recalled that, he subconsciously performed the last ever swing that Sword had performed before its demise.

As he did so, in his mana pool, another change occurred.

The image of the sword graveyard trembled, and the image of his first ever sword, worn down and broken, vanished.

Then, in his mana pool, a... flower bloomed.

And from within that flower, a ”Sword” could be seen.

In reality, it looked like a pipe which had been flattened to resemble a blade, the bottom part left alone to be used as a handle.

It was Xander’s first ever sword. But rather than appearing dead, it seemed to have gained a new life. A new beginning.

A new path.

Xander continued down memory road.

His second sword was a wooden practice sword he used after he managed to get into a sword fighting program. That one broke after he completed a complicated thrust against his sparring partner, one he shouldn’t have been able to pull off at his level but did so anyway. It had been unable to withstand the stress and snapped into two.

His tenth was the first ever real sword he bought. A standard longsword. That one accompanied him for a few months, but even after repeatedly sharpening it, the blade couldn’t keep up with his progress, so eventually it broke down.

His 15th came from his first ever competition win.

His 34th came from his first ever success at forging one himself.

His 50th came from when he traveled to another country to learn its sword history.

His 100th came as a gift from a master he defeated.

His 178th

His 219th

And so on.

With every sword he remembered, he performed the final strike he had ever done with that blade, and when he did, the sword disappeared from its place in the graveyard and materialized in his mana pool inside a blooming flower.

Then he got to where he first entered Tatonia, and he broke that first training sword he’d taken to practice.

There, something changed.

In his glee and reverie, Xander began to ponder on the graveyard itself.

It represented his psyche, showing off every sword he had ever used and broken.

But what was a graveyard?

It was a place where the dead were laid to rest, yes. But what about the symbolic meaning? What did they represent?

Finality.

An end.

This also showed the state of Xander’s mind.

He loved the sword, he truly did. But perhaps, somewhere along the way, maybe when he realized that swordplay was simply treated as a form of entertainment despite its beauty, or when he mastered it so much that no one could appreciate it but him, or when even with all his skill, all it took was a bullet to end him.

Either way, perhaps even with his love for the craft, and even with him continuing to polish it. Maybe... he too had begun to consider it a dead path.

And the graveyard was the reflection of that.

He’d used those swords, and he’d loved every moment when he used them. He’d loved the swords themselves. But when they failed, when they died... that was it.

Ultimately, it was their fate. To be used and forgotten in a graveyard.

...

But then Xander arrived in Tatonia.

And finally, Xander met the ant.

And after being pushed to the state he was in. After being reminded why he loved swordsmanship so much, he thought...

Why does it need to stay dead?

Why do THEY need to stay dead?

He’d already proven that it had far more potential than the locals gave it credit for. And now that he collided with the ant and his swordsmanship was doing things magic failed to do against this creature, why did it need to remain a dead path?

No, that wasn’t the case. Not anymore.

He’d had his love for the craft rekindled. But more than that, he’d seen a path forward.

The ant stabbed forward, and Xander moved, but his side still got shredded.

In response, his sword cleaved down, and it went straight through the ant’s shoulder, removing its arm.

And in response, the ant’s remaining arm flicked upward, slicing across Xander’s face and getting rid of one of his eyes.

But he only grinned.

He swung his sword, and he recalled the last blade he had wielded in Tatonia, as well as the last sword he’d wielded till this point.

Only, the sword had not broken yet.

It was the one he held in his hands. The longsword he’d had made before he left the Lowell estate.

And even without it breaking, it still had its own flower bloom in Xander’s Mana pool.

The image of the sword graveyard overlapped with his mana pool, and the two fused. But it was no longer a graveyard.

It was now a garden.

A garden filled with countless flowers, each holding a different blade in the center, and each one depicting a different path with the sword.

This wasn’t like Curtis of Falael’s constructs that were based on existing concepts, nor was it like Aubrey’s construct which came from a high leveled existence like the Information River.

No, this came from Xander himself.

As such, he instinctively knew the name.

Swords of Myriad Paths.

And when he had that realization. He saw them.

The thing he’d longed to see after his fight with Mia.

The Paths.