Chapter 304 – JUDE BAYER (3)
Some correction: The Sword of Wind was actually created by a Bayer family ancestor and not Jude’s father, Count Bayer.
A strong wind blew.
A burst of lightning followed.
The Sword of Wind sharply cut the world, and the burst of lightning roughly tore the surrounding area.
The ultimate skill of the Sword of Wind.
The Sword of Wind that the Bayer family ancestor created after he reached the sword horizon in the past. The path of wind and lightning that he left behind.
A series of strikes unfolded.
Lightning burst in succession and twelve sword strikes led to one.
Elio mentally screamed.
He focused and concentrated in stopping the Sword of Wind that was raging in front of him.
He read the wind. He withstood the lightning strikes.
Bababababababang-!
All sounds were muted by the loud thunder.
Elio’s sword followed the trajectory of the Wind and Lightning Flurry Strikes with difficulty.
But he couldn’t keep up with all of it. Elio’s sword deviated at the time when he blocked the fifth sword strike because of the lightning that was added to the wind. It was hard for him to withstand the power of the sword. Every time he blocked a strike, his hand trembled and his arm suffered from strain.
‘No, this is not all!’
The Wind and Lightning Flurry Strikes was not just a series of slashing attacks.
The sword contained something.
There was a mysterious inner essence hidden in it that made the trajectory of the sword hard to read and impossible to block, causing him to miss.
Elio who was close to becoming a Grand Sword Master was able to realized that instinctively.
But that was it.
Even he whose swordsmanship was outstanding among the Sword Masters was powerless in front of such a sword.
His own sword had already been shaken by the Wind and Lightning Flurry Strikes.
Claclaclang!
He couldn’t properly stop the sixth strike.
From the seventh strike onwards, he was almost just forcing himself to block it.
He couldn’t even hold his sword by the tenth strike.
His sword’s trajectory shook, his arm twisted, and his grip on his sword was released.
Eleventh strike.
Twelfth strike.
He lost his sword but he tried to endure.
He tried to dodge by pulling his body back, but it was impossible. The prison of wind created by the sword strikes of Wind and Lightning Flurry Strikes did not allow him to do that.
He was sucked in.
He was bitten by the teeth of the ferocious wind.
“AACK!”
He couldn’t even scream properly. The thunder swallowed Elio’s scream. The rough wind tightened around his body even more.
And Jude prepared for the last thirteenth strike. He pulled his sword-like hand filled with the energy of the black dragon, and turned his wrist to strike down vertically. Staring straight at Elio who had been imprisoned by the wind prison, he performed the last strike of Wind and Lightning Flurry Strikes.
The true Wind and Lightning Flurry Strikes.
Twelve strikes that prepared for the final slash.
He swung his sword-like hand.
He cut his opponent down.
But it wasn’t just a slash.
It split the atmosphere, the s.p.a.ce, and the world.
Elio who was imprisoned in the wind prison collapsed with a silent scream instead of bleeding and splitting into two.
And as if to replace Elio, everything behind his back was split into two.
It was an instant, but it gave an illusion that the world itself seemed to split and crack.
“Haa…”
Jude exhaled as he stopped moving. The black sword he had created from the energy of the black dragon scattered and disappeared, and Jude coughed blood.
It was the price of forcefully opening the seventh door.
But Jude wasn’t that worried. His current body was able to endure such injuries. Rather, he was more concerned about something else.
‘The sword’s inner essence.’
What was contained in the Wind and Lightning Flurry Strikes.
An illusion he saw in an instant, a power that only those who had reached the horizon of the sword could obtain.
It scattered and disappeared.
As if his strikes were a midsummer night’s dream, it left Jude’s hands.
But the feeling remained.
It was impossible to completely forget the swordsmanship he had unfolded with his own hands.
The road leading to the horizon.
The man who stood on that road.
The Sword of Wind that Jude received from that man.
[My successor! My successor!]
Valencia’s voice made Jude come to his senses.
It woke up his consciousness that was aimlessly floating around, and made him see reality.
“Cordelia.”
The most important person of his world.
Jude softly spoke and turned around.
And met the gazes of numerous people who were looking at him with stunned faces.
Dumbfounded elves.
Terrified demonic humans.
Cordelia blinked with her mouth wide open as she looked at him, and reflexively gave a thumbs up when she realized that their eyes had met.
Awesome.
My Jude is seriously awesome! Really awesome!
He could see Cordelia jumping from her spot as she let out her admiration. So Jude laughed. It was right after he had coughed blood, and he had used up all his energy into the Wind and Lightning Flurry Strikes, so his remaining strength was low. He said as he slowly raised his sword-like hand.
“Shall we continue?”
If Scarlet was next to him, she would have crossed her arms and asked him why he kept surprising people, but it looked completely different to those who were present.
The elves felt fear.
The demonic humans had already began to flee.
And Cordelia covered her mouth with her hand and began to tremble.
‘Y-you’re so cool!’
How can my Jude be this cool?
Kyaaa!
Cordelia who blushed because of her love filter was going ‘kya-kya’ in her mind, and the elves and demonic humans who could not overcome their fear began to disperse.
Some elves tried to take Elio who had collapsed, but all they could do was try.
The moment they made eye contact with Jude, they squeezed out their entire courage and opened their mouths, but Jude gave them a reason to run away.
“I won’t kill you. I don’t want to fight all the elves.”
At Jude’s words, the elven knights gritted their teeth and looked troubled before they turned around and began to flee.
And their reaction convinced Jude of one thing.
‘As I thought, it’s only Elio who betrayed.’
It wasn’t the will of all the elves.
Then, as he thought, they would be able to secure their safety once they got out of the Orange Gate that was under Elio’s jurisdiction.
‘He didn’t use the power of demons.’
Elio only used the power of spirits.
In other words, it meant that he was in a pure state without any contract with a demon.
‘As expected, he was deceived.’
He must have thought that the Chancellor he joined hands with was using the demon followers as his hunting dogs rather than the Chancellor belonging to a group of demon followers.
He held hands with the Chancellor and the House of Lords to overthrow the emperor.
Elio must have likely thought that their current treason was a power struggle within the empire.
‘Anyway, it would be impossible for him to become the Lord President of the Privy Council since he tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate the emperor.’
That was it.
After Jude stopped his thoughts, he gasped again before staggering and sitting down.
“Jude!”
The surprised Cordelia quickly ran to him and squatted in front of Jude who unconsciously smiled.
“Why? Are you hurt? You vomited blood, right? Why are you smiling when you’re hurt?”
Jude smiled again at her concerned expression. It was a strange feeling. He had always seen Cordelia and was seeing her right now, but he felt like he hadn’t seen her for a long time. And that was why he missed her very lovely self so much.
He wanted to thank the world just for the fact that she was sitting right in front of him now.
“Jude?”
Instead of replying, Jude reached out and embraced Cordelia. Both of them were sitting, so their position was awkward, but he didn’t care about that.
“Jude? Are you crying?”
Cordelia was startled by what she said unconsciously, and she wanted to check Jude’s face, but that was impossible. Jude tightly hugged her in his arms, so she was unable to move.
As Cordelia had said, Jude was crying.
But Jude himself couldn’t figure out why.
Tears just flowed down his eyes.
[My successor, are you okay? Is there something wrong with the process of opening the seventh door?]
In response to the worried Valencia’s questions, Jude reflexively recalled several things.
The road leading to the horizon.
The man who stood in front of that road.
The female sage whom he saw after a long time and stretched out her hand as she pa.s.sed some words to him.
What she had said.
Her words that he was Jude himself.
The sword’s inner essence.
The Sword of Wind.
“Jude. I’m fine. Everything’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”
Cordelia hugged Jude back and warmly said.
She said something she did not exactly understand herself, and Jude was relieved at those words. Although he was afraid that the small and slender Cordelia would be crushed, he hugged her as tight as he could.
“I’m sorry, I’m going to sleep for a bit.”
Having felt fully relieved, Jude softly whispered and released Cordelia from his hug.
It was the aftermath of exploding the Yin and Yang energies that had caused the Black Sun to run wild.
The cost of using Wind and Lightning Flurry Strikes, which he shouldn’t originally be able to use yet, was not small.
“Okay. Leave it to me. I will take care of everything.”
Cordelia patted Jude on the back.
Hearing those words that he trusted so much, Jude smiled and closed his eyes. He fell asleep quickly.
“Haa…”
And Cordelia let out a small sigh.
He was very tall and thus was incredibly heavy, but she thought that he was over a hundred kilos in weight, so she carefully laid Jude down and stretched out her shoulders.
[They’ve retreated, but we do not know what they will do since their leader was caught. So we should quickly run away.]
Melissa’s words were right.
Cordelia stroked Jude’s face for a moment before she nodded and stood up.
“All right, where should we go?”
Cordelia tapped her foot on the ground before she used her telekinetic powers to carefully lift Jude up. She then approached Elio who had fainted.
“Did he really pa.s.s out?”
She poked his face with her foot, but there was no response. It didn’t seem like he was pretending to have fainted.
‘Still, you never know.’
Cordelia firmly tied him with magic and even paralyzed him before lifting Elio with her telekinesis.
Melissa who was silently watching then said.
[Which way are you planning to go now? The Red Gate? The Orange Gate?]
It seemed like they could move either way if they took Elio as a hostage.
“Hmm…”
If there was a variable, it was the high-ranking demonic humans who appeared in the Red Gate.
Those demonic humans had not appeared yet.
Perhaps they went to catch Lucas and Kajsa.
‘If the two of them are together, maybe they can fight a high-ranking demonic human.’
There was the Moon Crystal on the emperor’s side, so it was very likely that they had somehow escaped to the agreed upon place.
“Let’s go to the Orange Gate.”
[The Orange Gate?]
“Yes, Jude is defenseless right now. To be honest, I used a lot of mana to help Lucas and the others escape earlier, and I tried too hard to shake off the interruption magic.”
Since Cordelia had archwizard-level mana, she clearly had enough mana to fight, but she didn’t want to risk it in the slightest as Jude was defenseless now.
“The Red Gate is dangerous.”
Because they didn’t know what else was hiding.
“Besides, they originally planned to kill us and the emperor at the Red Gate, right? I’m sure the defense there would be much tighter than the Orange Gate.”
And perhaps the Orange Gate’s forces were completely unaware of the incident.
[Then we use him as a hostage to cross the Orange Gate?]
“We can do that, or use Elio to threaten those who are beyond the Orange Gate… Like those true elves? The good elves? Anyway, we can call the elves who live in the Yellow Gate. The point is to inform the non-traitorous elves about Elio’s treason and get their cooperation.”
It would be better if the emperor’s side also joined them there.
[Wow.]
“Why? Are you admiring me?”
[Yes, because you could actually think for yourself? You could actually do it, but you did not. It’s not that you could not do it!]
“Hey, should I break this?
[Eh? Ah, this…eh?]
While Melissa was confused, Cordelia clicked her tongue once before she lightly relaxed her hands and feet.
Cordelia always left the thinking to Jude because of her thinking ‘the right person for the right job’ but she herself was able to do some thinking too.
No, isn’t that obvious? There’s no way I can’t think for myself!
“I hate you, I hate you.”
[Mistress Cordelia?]
“I won’t talk to you for a while.”
Cordelia childishly stuck her tongue out and turned to the Orange Gate as she held Moonlight that had the complaining Melissa.
The elven realm.
This was the first time she had visited this place since she was reincarnated as Cordelia.
But strangely, she had a bizarre feeling.
She felt like she was going to meet someone she was very happy to be with.
‘I’ll find out when I get there.’
Cordelia stroked the fainted Jude’s cheek again and kissed him on the lips before using magic to head towards the Orange Gate.
And like always, Cordelia’s beastly intuition was not wrong this time.
The Orange Gate.
An unexpected person awaited her at what could be said as the beginning of the true Shadow Forest.
For those who didn’t get who the person that Jude saw in the road leading to the sword horizon, read along.
The person he saw there was Jude Bayer himself.
That was why the female sage said ‘Indeed, you are Jude himself.’ Or to be more exact, ‘Indeed, you (the present time Jude) are Jude himself (the Jude Bayer who stood in the sword horizon).’
That was why Jude cried and felt like he had not seen Cordelia for a long time. (He felt that Jude Bayer’s emotions.)
That was why Jude was able to use the Sword of Wind which he never properly learned in this life. (That Jude Bayer knew how to use the Sword of Wind.)
And finally, that was why this chapter is t.i.tled ‘Jude Bayer.’