Journey to Become the Zenith

Origin Swordsmanship!!!

”Origin Swordsmanship, first stance, {GOD SLAYER}.” Victor(?) then swung his newly formed sword downward. It wasn’t fast that one couldn’t see the motion of the swing, but that move still felt undodgeable.

The blade descended with an almost unsettling calm.

There was no earth-shaking roar.

No violent burst of energy.

No dazzling display of power announcing its arrival.

The sword simply came down.

Yet the instant Evelyne saw it, every instinct inside her screamed that she was witnessing something that should not exist.

The air seemed to grow heavier.

The faint glow surrounding their materialized souls flickered beneath the pressure of the descending blade. Even the dust floating through the cavern appeared to hesitate, as though the world itself had momentarily forgotten how to move.

Evelyne stood directly beneath the attack.

She had faced countless swords throughout her long existence.

She had studied sword intent until it had become part of her very being. She understood killing intent, sword aura, sword domain, and the countless variations of swordsmanship that had been developed throughout the ages.

But this was different.

There was no unnecessary movement.

No complicated technique.

No waste.

The sword carried an indescribable completeness.

Evelyne’s pupils trembled.

For one brief instant, she felt as though she wasn’t looking at a sword.

She was looking at the heavens themselves.

The attack descended.

Evelyne braced herself.

And then—

Nothing.

Her body remained intact.

There was no pain.

No blood.

No sensation of being struck.

She was still standing.

Evelyne slowly lowered her gaze toward herself.

Her hands moved cautiously.

Her chest rose and fell.

Everything was still there.

”What...?”

Her voice was barely audible.

She had expected death.

Yet death had not come.

The silence that followed was almost more frightening than the attack itself.

Victor(?) remained standing in front of her, his expression unchanged.

Evelyne looked at him.

Then at the sword in his hand.

Then back at herself.

Her mind struggled to understand what had happened.

Did he miss?

No.

That was impossible.

She had seen the blade descend.

She had felt the terrifying sword intent.

There was no mistake.

Then what—

A faint breeze brushed against the back of her neck.

Evelyne froze.

The breeze was cold.

It carried the scent of the night outside.

Her eyes widened.

Slowly, almost unwillingly, she turned her head.

What she saw made every thought disappear from her mind.

The cave behind them had been sliced open.

Not damaged.

Not shattered.

Sliced.

The enormous stone structure had been divided with such absolute precision that the cut looked almost unnatural. The darkness beyond the cave had been replaced by the open night sky.

Stars glittered above.

The cool night wind flowed freely into the cavern.

Evelyne stared upward.

Her lips parted.

She couldn’t speak.

Then she noticed something else.

The clouds were split.

A perfectly clean line ran through them, separating one half from the other.

And beyond those clouds—

The moon.

The full moon hanging peacefully in the night sky had been cut in half.

A perfectly sliced moon now hung above the world.

Evelyne’s breathing stopped.

But that wasn’t the end.

Her gaze followed the direction of the slash.

The sea of stars occupying that section of the heavens was gone.

Not obscured.

Not covered by clouds.

Gone.

The sword had passed through them.

For several heartbeats, Evelyne simply stared.

Her fingers began to tremble.

A realization slowly formed in her mind.

That sword had not merely attacked her.

It had cut everything in its path.

Stone.

Clouds.

Moonlight.

The heavens.

Even the distant stars.

A sword that could cut everything.

Evelyne’s throat tightened.

”What kind of...”

She couldn’t finish.

Her confidence, which had been so overwhelming moments ago, had collapsed into something almost unrecognizable.

She had once considered herself a supreme swordsman.

She had once stood proudly beneath the title of Heaven’s Sword.

But what had she just witnessed?

Even in the immortal world she remembered, where terrifying beings could destroy planets with a single fist, she had never seen swordsmanship like this.

There were monsters capable of destroying worlds.

There were ancient existences capable of tearing apart space.

But this—

This was different.

This wasn’t simply destruction.

It was precision taken to an absurd level.

A single sword had separated everything along its path without apparently disturbing anything outside that path.

Evelyne’s body trembled.

For the first time in a very long time, genuine fear settled deep within her soul.

She looked at Victor(?).

The man hadn’t even changed his expression.

He looked almost distracted.

As though what had just happened wasn’t worth mentioning.

Evelyne swallowed.

”How...”

Victor(?) suddenly spoke.

”I didn’t kill him as you asked... What are you talking about, I already held back a lot, and that was already my weakest attack. It was just the first stance.”

Evelyne stared at him.

Her mind went blank.

For a moment, she wondered if she had heard him correctly.

Weakest?

First stance?

Held back?

Her gaze slowly drifted toward the enormous opening in the cave.

The night sky was still visible through it.

The moon remained divided.

The stars beyond the slash remained absent.

That was his weakest attack?

Evelyne’s lips twitched.

She had no idea who Victor(?) was talking to.

There was no one beside him.

Was he speaking to someone within his soul?

Or perhaps some strange existence only he could perceive?

She didn’t know.

At this moment, she didn’t even care.

The words themselves were enough to crush what remained of her pride.

Evelyne lowered her sword.

Her fingers loosened around the hilt.

The thousand blades she had summoned were still suspended in the air, but they suddenly seemed ridiculous.

A thousand blades.

She had proudly summoned a thousand blades.

And he had answered with one.

One sword.

One swing.

Nothing more.

Evelyne let out a quiet breath.

Then another.

A strange laugh escaped her lips.

”Heh...”

She covered her face with one hand.

The laugh became slightly louder.

It wasn’t amusement.

It wasn’t happiness.

It was the awkward laughter of someone whose entire understanding of their own strength had just been shattered.

The woman who had once been feared as the Heaven’s Sword could only laugh at herself.

’What greatest swordsman under the heavens? What true power?’

Evelyne remembered how Victor(?) had looked at her from the beginning.

That faint smile.

That relaxed posture.

Those eyes that never carried the slightest trace of urgency.

At the time, she had interpreted his behavior as arrogance.

Now she understood.

He hadn’t been arrogant.

He simply hadn’t considered her a threat.

The realization was humiliating.

Evelyne’s laugh gradually faded.

Her expression became hollow.

’So in the end, I was nothing more than a clown in front of his eyes.’

[Reader Note: Victor(?) is not a different person or a separate soul. He is the original soul of Victor’s body—the soul from his first incarnation. The question mark is only used here because Evelyne does not yet understand his true identity or realize that the soul standing before her is the original Victor.]