The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 26

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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26
Chapter 26. A Legendary-Rank Variable
***
My vision warped.
The landscapes brushing against my retinas stretched into vertical lines and faded away.
The space around me rippled as I crossed far beyond the physical speed limits my body could normally achieve.
This was nothing like the Haste I’d forced into my Mana Circuit as a makeshift solution until now. I wasn’t running with the wind at my back.
It felt closer to compressing the very space along my trajectory and cutting through that compressed gap.
The Dash technique—known as the Sword Saint’s legacy—was no mere acceleration device.
It was the trajectory of a meteor shot toward a target along the shortest path, or the will itself of a bullet tearing through space.
‘My brother always operates in a world like this…’
My heart hammered violently against my ribs. The air lodging deep in my lungs was ice-cold, yet the blood in my veins boiled.
Crack—
But perfection was impossible. Unrefined Aura collided with my Mana Circuit, sending up unstable sparks.
A sensation like sharp razors scraping the walls of my blood vessels tore through my entire body. A sudden, searing twist of my organs crashed down, but I didn’t stop.
‘My body still can’t withstand the pressure of this power.’
Despite the grueling training with Charles giving me more control over my mana, the two heterogeneous forces—magical power and Aura—still created subtle, discordant beats.
I clenched my teeth. I forced down the balance shifting toward my lower body while focusing intently on the tips of my feet pushing off the ground.
What was urgent now was synchronizing my brain and muscles to this grotesque sense of speed.
The problem lay in this technique’s fatal blind spot.
Dash guaranteed overwhelming straight-line thrust like a fired arrow, but its turning ability was drastically limited.
If I became drunk on speed and charged recklessly, I’d end up like a sports car with broken brakes, smashing into a concrete wall and being crushed.
As if proving that very worry, a massive shopping complex with expansive glass windows bore down on my field of vision like a weapon.
‘Too fast.’
The acceleration didn’t die. Riding the inertia, it drove me forward even more violently.
The Fairy in the form of a “Sprinter Beast” fleeing dozens of meters ahead was cunning.
It instinctively understood that I couldn’t slow down at this uncontrollable speed.
The creature scattered a fishy silver gleam and twisted sharply at a right angle, vanishing into an alley.
Only the massive glass wall remained before me.
Beyond the window, I could see a middle-aged salaryman holding stacks of documents—probably working late—gaping in shock.
Close enough to see my distorted reflection in his pupils. Less than half a second remained until impact.
‘If I can’t control my speed…’
I had no intention of forcing myself to stop. I wasn’t about to die like a fool caught by the law of inertia.
If I couldn’t stop, I’d twist the flow like a mage would. I severed the Aura coursing through my lower body in one clean cut.
With that reaction, I drove the surging mana back into the very center of my Mana Core and set it spinning in reverse.
In the suffocating pressure as my heart seemed to stop, I spoke the incantation.
“Blink.”
Spacetime twisted.
Just before my face would have smashed into the glass wall, my body became a thread of light and flickered through empty air.
The unique domain of a mage—mocking even physical inertia to shift coordinates.
Pop—!
Straight into the path of the Fairy that had thought itself safe after dodging my charge.
My right hand, suddenly bursting from thin air, seized the creature’s silvery throat with perfect precision.
“Not so fast.”
Screech-screech-screech!
The Fairy writhed in my grip, shrieking with a metallic edge to its cry.
Though its frame was small, the wave of magical power radiating from it was anything but weak.
Watching it thrash as it tried to shift form again, spraying silver dust like mist, I immediately took the next step.
“Entangle.”
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom—!
With the incantation, thick green vines woven from mana shot out from my sleeve’s hem in all directions.
The branching mana tendrils coiled around the creature’s transparent wings and body without gaps.
Though Entangle was originally a First Circle binding spell meant to restrain large monsters briefly, its power was more than sufficient—and then some—to suppress this delicate fairy’s mutations.
[Successor, you have successfully captured the target entity.]
After thrashing violently a few more times, the creature lost the strength to resist, and with a faint whisper, it reverted to a small silver butterfly form.
“Phew……”
Hot breath leaked from my lips. I caught my breath and surveyed my surroundings.
In the midst of the frantic pursuit, I’d arrived at the outskirts of Sutaek-dong, near the epicenter of the Gate’s predicted emergence location that Choi had mentioned earlier.
‘Clever thing. It was planning to hide inside the Gate.’
If the creature had slipped into that red, rippling rift to another world, I would never have found it again. I gazed quietly at the trembling butterfly in my palm.
A faint pearlescent glow rippled across trembling wings. Save for that ethereal shimmer, it looked like any ordinary insect you’d find crawling along a roadside.
“This is supposed to be Legendary-rank?”
I turned my gaze away, eyes narrowed in disbelief.
Around a spatial rift bleeding crimson light like a torn wound, a crude lattice of mana hung slack and drooping.
It was a temporary containment Barrier—emergency work installed by the local Guild. I stepped closer and flicked the surface of the Barrier with a fingertip.
Ting.
Ripples spread across it, and the Barrier sagged like a deflated balloon. What should have been a taut, impermeable seal had all the resilience of a punctured bladder.
The mana density itself was wildly imbalanced.
“No wonder goblins are leaking through.”
My frown deepened. If they’d erected a Barrier, they already knew about the Gate. That much was certain.
Yet they’d left this sieve of a Barrier in place and let monsters roam freely through a civilian residential district? This wasn’t carelessness. This was negligence.
Clear dereliction of duty—a Guild that had forfeited its right to exist.
‘Search.’
I closed my eyes and pushed the Skill’s detection range to its extreme. I swept through the mana particles in the air, scanning the perimeter.
Fortunately, aside from the ones I’d already dealt with, I sensed no life signatures that had escaped the Barrier. But this was no cause for relief.
That pathetic Barrier looked ready to rupture at any moment.
‘Authority and responsibility for any Gated dungeon rests with the Guild that has jurisdiction over it.’
I decided to play by the rules for now. Priority one was to observe the situation until the Guild’s raid team finished their interior work and emerged.
Though if things deteriorated, I was prepared to disregard regulations and intervene immediately.
I paused to catch my breath and examined the Fairy in my palm again. Wrapped tight in mana vines and fluttering its wings, it looked no different from a common fruit fly.
“Airi, you said to catch it, so I did. But is this thing actually worth anything? I’d be amazed if it fetched even a meal’s worth, let alone ten billion won.”
[Successor, absolutely not! You must never sell it!]
“Why are you suddenly screaming?”
Airi’s synthetic voice pierced through my eardrums unlike her usual tone. There was an urgency beneath the artificial timbre.
[You must immediately proceed with a Sync between yourself and the captured entity right now.]
[First, please release the restraints. These are not my instructions.]
[This is an inevitable step directly tied to your survival.]
“And if I refuse?”
I replied coldly and tightened my grip on the creature.
[Please······.]
“What?”
[Please, I’m begging you. It concerns the very meaning of my existence.]
This was the first time I’d ever heard Airi speak with such desperate, raw supplication.
A system guide mixing emotion into her plea—it was proof enough of this Fairy’s extraordinariness.
Figuring I had nothing to lose, I slowly drew back the mana vines that had been binding her.
Whoosh!
The moment the restraints released, the Fairy’s silver form scattered into fine particles, swirling around my hand.
Wisps of light trailing from my palm rose into the air in dreamlike spirals, like coiling mist. Yet she didn’t flee.
She simply hovered above my palm, wings trembling, as if awaiting orders.
[Successor, please authorize the Sync.]
“Fine. Go ahead.”
The moment the words left my mouth, the Fairy’s body began vibrating violently. Her silver surface rippled like turbulent waves, and she began to shift through a spectrum of colors.
Shiiiing!
The transformation was breathtaking. Crimson red that pierced the heart, deep sapphire blue from the ocean’s abyss, obsidian black that swallowed everything, and golden brilliance more radiant than the sun itself.
It was as if she’d compressed every color in existence into a single small body—a feast of hues beyond description.
Like an aurora trapped and exploding inside a transparent glass sphere, the light waves layered and scattered hundreds of times over.
Even I found my gaze caught by the brilliant spectacle.
“······What in the world is this.”
I narrowed my eyes and observed carefully.
Even in the memories from before my return, no living thing had ever emanated such an alien wavelength.
This wasn’t mere mana. It felt like touching the very code of the system that underpins the world itself—a strange, discordant unease.
Fsshhht.
The churning colors gradually subsided, and at last she returned to her original luminous silver hue.
As if nothing had happened, the Fairy quietly took flight and settled softly onto my left shoulder.
Her touch was lighter than a feather—barely perceptible.
She no longer watched me warily or tried to escape. Instead, she folded and unfolded her small wings a few times toward me, settling into a position of complete ease.
“Airi. Is it done? Outwardly, nothing seems to have changed······.”
I was just about to shift my shoulder and call to her when—
[Ah, ah. Successor? Can you hear my voice?]
“······!”
I doubted my own ears.
It wasn’t the distinctive, crisp electronic chime that had echoed from beyond the translucent status window.
This was a clear, vivid voice heard directly at my ear—no, coming from right above my shoulder.
A young woman’s voice, carrying both measured intellect and somehow, an uncanny liveliness.
“You…….”
[Yes, Successor. Please speak. Voice output synchronization and physical medium occupation are complete.]
[This tone should be far more pleasant to listen to than the mechanical output from before, wouldn’t you say?]
I fixed a hard stare at the silver butterfly perched on my shoulder. Each flutter of its wings sent that silken voice tickling across my ear.
“This butterfly—is that you?”
[To be precise, I am currently controlling the biological information of this entity.]
“Explain. And if your reasons aren’t convincing enough, I’m plucking those wings off and selling them to a research institute.”
Airi didn’t flinch at my sharp interrogation. If anything, her voice came back even clearer than usual, brisk and unflustered.
[Yes, Successor. First, the formal designation of this entity is ‘Lunaris.’ In the ancient tongue, it means ‘Shard of the Moon.’]
Airi’s explanation flowed without hesitation.
Lunaris was an ultra-classified Fairy species possessing the Moonlight attribute, and among nature spirits, a legendary being specializing in transformation and replication.
“A monster that changes its form? That’s common enough. What makes it different from doppelgangers and creatures like that?”
At my cynical question, Airi cut me off decisively.
[Don’t compare it to those forgeries.]
[Lunaris’s true worth lies in this: for any monster that the Successor has personally vanquished and obtained information on, it can recreate that individual ‘flawlessly.’]
“Flawlessly?”
[Yes. Not merely its outward appearance.]
[The structure of its strength, the nature of its mana, even the unique Passive Traits that monster possessed—all replicated at one hundred percent, ready for combat.]
[This is the result of my archive’s data combined with Lunaris’s replication ability.]
I curved one corner of my mouth upward. It was certainly a broken ability. It meant I could summon any powerful enemy I’d killed as my own tool whenever I wished.
“The conditions must be severe. What’s the penalty?”
[You are indeed sharp. There is a fatal drawback.]
[To maintain a perfect replica, I must consume the Successor’s mana as fuel.]
[The higher the rank of the target, the stronger the recreated abilities—the mana consumption grows exponentially.]
[With the Successor’s current Circle, the maintenance duration for High-rank Entities becomes extremely limited.]
“So in the end, I need to grow stronger for this to be worth anything.”
I fell silent for a moment, my mind churning. Scattered fragments of information in my head began threading together into a single line.
Fairies are originally empty vessels—pure shells of mana with nothing but survival instinct remaining.
That’s why, in that chase earlier, it had only shown clumsy transformations, desperate to flee.
But if into that blank-slate ‘Legendary-rank hardware,’ you installed Airi as ‘software’—capable of analyzing thousands of data points and formulating tactics—
Then what emerged was a tactical weapon: one that could read the flow of battle and, at the crucial moment, generate the most lethal variable imaginable.
“Airi. You didn’t just hijack that Fairy’s physical authority under the guise of synchronization, did you?”
At my question, Lunaris on my shoulder fluttered her wings, radiating a pleased sensation.
[Hijack, Successor? This is symbiotic evolution.]
[I possessed vast knowledge and computational power, but lacked physical form. Lunaris possessed legendary ability, but lacked the intelligence to wield it.]
[We merely filled each other’s voids.]
“You certainly know how to talk your way around things.”
I laughed despite myself, genuinely at a loss. Yet the undeniable truth was: I now held in my hands a card beyond imagination—a trump beyond description.
A variable that made even ten billion won look trivial by comparison. One that could overturn this unreasonable world’s very order.
“The Guild can handle goblins on their own.”
I’d dealt with the citizen complaints well enough, and I’d reaped an unforeseen harvest besides. All that remained was to return quietly to City Hall and prepare for the next phase.
Just as I turned my body to move—
A deafening roar erupted from behind me.
The perfect scenario shattered like glass.
The surrounding air screamed and swelled outward.
At the edge of my vision, the Gate—which had been precariously holding its form with a blue light—began to convulse, spewing a crimson wave as if vomiting rotten blood.
The Guild’s hastily erected defensive Barrier shattered with the fragility of glass.
“Airi.”
I murmured the name low, gripping the hilt at my waist. The silver butterfly above my shoulder blazed with cold light as it soared skyward.
[Beginning data analysis. Gate Backflow Phenomenon confirmed.]
[Switching to combat mode, Successor.]
What came from beyond the crack was not the light footfalls of goblins. It was a weighty, colossal roar that shook the earth itself.
The situation had changed. Now it was time to hunt.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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