Any hot water that came in contact with that instantaneously froze, remaining in the form of a ripple.
Despite how the whole of the vast bath had been frozen pure white, it had merely been several seconds. Eugeo gasped at the absurd chill engulfing his entire body that was now rendered utterly immobile. It wouldn"t be this cold even if he stood stark naked in Rulid Forest in the dead of winter. He wouldn"t even be able to tel if it was ice on his skin, or scorching iron, if he were to close his eyes.
He wanted to wipe away the white frost clinging to his eyebrows, but he held down Bercouli with his left hand deep in the bath and kept his reverse grip on the Blue Rose Sword with his right, both firmly stuck where they were. Reluctantly blinking with all he had and shaking off the ice crystals, Eugeo confirmed the enemy"s state through the dense mist.
Integrity Knight Commander Bercouli had half of his neck sunk within the ice. Due to his attempt to get up a moment ago, both his left hand and his right hand, that should had been 114.
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holding onto the Time Piercing Sword, were deep in the bath, near the bottom. With that, he could move no longer, just like Eugeo.
Brittle chimes ringing out from the smal icicles hanging off his eyebrows and hair, the knight commander groaned.
"I didn"t think there would actual y be a swordsman who would throw his sword away in front of an enemy... You"re the one who came up with this fighting style?"
"...No. My partner taught it to me. That everything in a battlefield can be used as a weapon or a trap."
Eugeo somehow replied with his mouth stiffened from the excess cold. Bercouli momentarily closed his eyes and mouth as though he was thinking about something, but soon showed a brazen grin. Loose fragments of ice fell from his mouth.
"Hmm, I get it. Using what"s there, huh... Wel , I"l admit you got one up on me, but I can"t just lose like this."
He took in a breath and held it.
What could he be planning at a time like this; that weighed down on Eugeo"s mind. He would have to immediately prepare a counter in the off-chance of him starting a chant for a sacred art.
Bercouli"s light blue eyes flashed open. From the s.p.a.ce between his teeth, bared like a beast, a ear-piercing shout rang out.
"Nuuuuuuuhn!!"
Numerous thick blood vessels surfaced upon the knight commander"s brow at once. Several bunches of muscles stood out on his slightly exposed neck, dying his skin bright red.
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"Wha..."
Eugeo couldn"t help but to let out that surprised cry. Bercouli was recklessly attempting to break through the thick ice with the strength of his muscles alone.
That couldn"t be possible. Even with unrestricted movement and sufficient s.p.a.ce, a ma.s.s of ice of such thickness should be difficult to shatter with bare hands. Let alone with the knight commander"s current condition, stuck in place without even a hair"s breadth to move.
Those clenched white teeth grinded together, producing a noise like creaking steel. Those blue eyes wore an intense bril iance, as though they radiated light themselves.
Despite engulfed in a chil below freezing point, a shiver beyond that stroked along Eugeo"s spine.
Right after which a faint, yet decisive noise rang out.
A crack was produced in the ice separating the pair. Another diverged from that. And continuing on, yet another.
Eugeo was once again forced to understand that the giant man before his eyes was no mere human. He was one who stood on the summit beyond the valiant group of integrity knights picked from the best swordsmen among the four empires-the strongest man of the Human World. He had probably spent a hundred or two years" worth of time in the midst of battle; a living legend.
A battle against such a foe did not allow for even an instant of negligence. Eugeo had never real y believed the battle could end just by freezing the enemy and himself in ice, from the very 116.
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beginning. His true aim lay beyond-to force it into a mutual struggle for Life.
Firmly holding his beloved sword by its grip below the ice, with it stil in its recollection released state now, Eugeo sharpened his senses.
If the memory Eugeo had seen proved true, the Blue Rose Sword possessed a slightly different origin when compared to Kirito"s black sword, the knight commander"s Time Piercing Sword, or Fanatio"s Heaven Piercing Sword. That would be how there were two existences who served as the roots for the sword. The eternal ma.s.s of ice and the single rose shut away within it.
The ma.s.s of ice"s ability froze everything and anything. And the rose"s ability-made life blossom.
"Bloom-Blue Rose!!"
Responding to Eugeo"s scream, countless flower buds came to life on the ice surface. They opened apart while rotating, spreading out blue, razorlike petals that were faintly translucent.
Led by a single rose, blooming with a chime resembling that of a bell, countless-beyond several hundreds-roses bloomed one after another. It was an extraordinarily beautiful, yet ruthless sight. After al , these enormous roses were only fully bloomed by absorbing Eugeo"s and Bercouli"s Lives.
Energy left his limbs and even his vision began to darken. He no longer had any tactile sensation from the ice on his skin, let alone the chil . He could only al ow the paralyzing numbness engulf his entire body.
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Powerful as he was, even Bercouli would now have had the strength needed to smash the ice prison sapped away from the root; his red-hot skin visibly turning white, its color draining away. The composure vanished from his manly facial features for the first time since the battle began.
"You rascal... don"t tell me you"ve been aiming for a draw...
since the start, boy?"
"Don"t... get me wrong."
Giving his al to lift his increasingly heavy eyelids, Eugeo forced out a hoa.r.s.e voice.
"There is only one thing I have a hope of winning you in... That is... our amounts of Life. Fanatio-san sustained nearly the same amount of injuries as my partner and they collapsed at the same time... in other words, even if you integrity knights don"t die from old age, your amount of Life is no different from ours... am I right...?
Even as his mouth moved, sparkling beads of light flowed out from the ice roses that continued blooming. The fact that he hadn"t been hearing the thunderous roar of hot water pouring down for a while now must have been proof that even those spouts were frozen.
Thick ice had already encased both Bercouli and Eugeo without anyone"s notice, leaving alone only the center of their faces. If their Stacia Windows were to be opened, one should be able to witness their Lives reducing at a terrifying rate.
Enduring the growing impulse to sleep, Eugeo desperately continued speaking.
"...Based on your appearances, you must have been over forty when you became an integrity knight... naturally, your 118.
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maximum Life must have went down. In comparison, my Life have been approaching its maximum... even if I suffered a single sword blow, I should stil have more. That was what I bet on."
Bercouli"s two eyes flashed open hardly any time after Eugeo finished speaking. His whole face distorted severely, breaking the icicles hanging from his brow and nose all at once.
"Boy... what was that just now?"
Despite how difficult it must be to continue maintaining his consciousness in such a situation, an intense light surfaced in the knight commander"s eyes.
"Became an integrity knight... you said...? Why are ya mouthing off like ya know what we were like in our last lives?"
Eugeo blinked once before sc.r.a.ping together what strength he had left and replied.
"That"s... what I can"t forgive about the lot of you."
The strong emotions swel ing from the depths of his mind made him forget about the despair his whole body was in, even if it was for a mere instant.
"Forgetting all about who you were... dedicating your sword to the Axiom Church without even knowing its true form...
putting on that facade that insists that you"re justice, that you"re the one who enforces the law. ...You aren"t some holy knight summoned from the Celestial World by the highest minister.
Your mother gave birth to you and gave you the name, Bercouli, you"re a human just like me!"
It happened then, in the particular moment when he shouted that out- 119.
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Eugeo final y recal ed "who" was the giant man in front of his eyes.
The overwhelming surprise squeezed a short gasp from him.
Bercouli... that was the name of that individual who appeared in that old story he heard from his grandfather when he was young.
The renowned swordsman who founded Rulid Vil age three hundred years ago and became the first guard leader. The hero who went exploring the cave at the mountain range at the edge and tried to steal a precious sword from the sleeping white dragon"s side... the Blue Rose Sword Eugeo was holding onto right now.
He pondered if this was a descendant of the original Bercouli, bearing the same name, but refuted that instantly. The integrity knights, who have had their natural reduction of Life frozen, would not age. In other words, this was the man himself. The main character of that fairy tale, "Bercouli and the White Dragon of the North", he loved as a child... and one that he could recall no longer than that summer Alice was taken away, was now before Eugeo"s eyes. With his memories of his time in Rulid lost, and as an integrity knight.
Recovering, somehow, from the ephemeral yet immense shock, Eugeo spoke in faltering words.
"...Bercouli. You... should remember seeing my sword somewhere."
The Blue Rose Sword, now with al the strength it held awakened, continued shining a cold light roughly ten cen beneath the ice surface.
The commander of the integrity knights, also the main character of that fairy tale from three hundred years ago, 121.
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lowered his gaze to glance into the ice. His burly chin went rigid and he forced out a hoa.r.s.e voice from between his clench teeth.
However, Bercouli"s words betrayed Eugeo"s expectations.