Chapter 151: Night Slash: Divider
Daito instinctively frowned.
Something was wrong.
It wasn't merely the sword's appearance, nor was it the strange distortion that seemed to cling to the edge of its dark blade. Something about Gyoran's posture, the way he held the weapon, and the unnerving stillness that had settled over the battlefield triggered every instinct Daito possessed.
No...his body screamed at him to run.
But his legs refused to respond quickly enough, and the injuries accumulated throughout their battle made even the thought of escaping feel like a cruel joke.
Across the battlefield, Gyoran slowly inhaled.
He raised the sword with deliberate precision, his movements so restrained that they almost appeared ordinary. There was no dramatic gathering of energy, no explosive surge of power, and no elaborate sequence of movements to announce what he was about to do.
Then, without any visible effort, he drew a single horizontal slash through the empty air.
Nothing happened.
At least, that was what it appeared to be.
A perfectly straight black line emerged in the air, extending from the edge of Gyoran's sword toward the distant horizon. It was so thin that Daito might have mistaken it for a crack in his vision if not for the way the surrounding world seemed to react to its presence.
For one brief moment, everything remained still.
SLING!
Then the view split.
The air separated along the invisible line, while the thick clouds of smoke divided cleanly into two halves. The flames opened like curtains, exposing the ruined landscape beyond them, and tiny pebbles suspended in the air were severed before they could fall back to the ground.
Daito's eyes widened.
The Salvation Duo weapons were still in his hands.
Both were cut apart instantly.
Their barrels separated from their bodies, their mechanical components splitting along a perfectly straight line as the remains began to fall from his fingers.
But the slash didn't stop there.
The enormous mountain behind Daito separated as though an invisible blade had passed through its entire structure. Its upper half shifted slowly away from the lower section before gravity took hold, sending the severed mass crashing toward the ground in a catastrophic collapse.
Far beyond the battlefield, clouds stretching forty, perhaps fifty kilometers toward the horizon were sliced apart, their formations dividing along the same impossibly straight trajectory.
Everything touched by that line was cut.
Not shattered, blasted apart, nor destroyed by overwhelming force.
'Divided.'
For a moment, Daito couldn't comprehend what he was seeing. His mind struggled to reconcile the impossible sight with the principles of combat he had spent his entire life studying.
Then a strange warmth spread across his chest.
"...?"
He looked down.
A thin crimson line had appeared on his left shoulder, extending diagonally across his body. It crossed his chest, passed over his ribs, and continued toward his right hip, marking the path of a wound that had somehow appeared without his awareness.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then—
PSSSH!!
Blood erupted into the air.
Daito staggered as his knees buckled beneath him, his breathing stopping abruptly when the pain finally reached his consciousness. He dropped to one knee, one hand instinctively reaching toward the wound that stretched across his torso.
"...Kh...!"
His eyes were wide.
Not merely because of the pain, but because he couldn't understand what had just happened.
'He hadn't seen the slash.'
'He hadn't felt the blade pass through him.'
'He hadn't even perceived an attack.'
There had been no recognizable movement to react to, no visible projectile to evade, and no warning that would have allowed him to adjust his stance before the technique reached him.
He had perceived only the result.
Across the devastated battlefield, Gyoran slowly lowered his sword.
The black blade gave off no glow, emitted no visible aura, and displayed no obvious sign of the destructive power it had just unleashed. It looked almost ordinary in his hands, which somehow made what Daito had witnessed even more disturbing.
Gyoran regarded his opponent quietly, his expression almost solemn.
Then he spoke.
"...Ultimate Technique."
He exhaled, allowing the silence to settle over the ruined landscape before revealing the name of the attack.
"Night Slash..."
A brief pause followed.
The desert itself seemed to hold its breath.
"...Divider."
The words echoed across a battlefield now marked by a perfectly straight scar stretching beyond the horizon, as though the very world had been ruled with a blade.
Daito remained on one knee, blood running between his fingers as he struggled to comprehend the technique that had just cut through his defenses without giving him the opportunity to react.
For the first time since entering this monstrous dimension, Daito Greyhell found himself wondering whether he had just witnessed an attack capable of cutting through more than matter.
Perhaps it could cut space itself.
To be continued...