Chapter 046: Wendigo (3)
It was before Jayden could even respond.
Bihen, springing to his feet, leaped off the cliff in a single bound.
Bonnie’s face turned ashen in an instant.
Her large eyes looked like they might pop out.
“Eek! Honey!”
Fearing her voice would carry, she hurriedly clamped her mouth shut. A gasp of shock had escaped her unbidden.
Watching her, Jayden spoke in a low voice.
“No need to worry so much.”
“W-What kind of nonsense is that! It’s suicide! He looks perfectly fine, so why would he do something so insane…! Why didn’t you stop him! We need to hurry and…”
“Haha.”
“…?”
Bonnie furrowed her brow deeply.
Laughter, in a situation like this?
At that moment, Bill, who had been peering down the cliff with his chin practically glued to the edge, muttered to himself, stretching his upper lip.
“Bihen cuts magic.”
“…?”
Cuts what?
What kind of gibberish is this?
“Captain. If Bihen draws their attention, it’d be best for us to handle the rest.”
“…?”
Janson spoke while tightly gripping his spear shaft.
Bonnie let out a hollow laugh, dumbfounded.
It was dawning on her that every single one of these people—every last one—was utterly bizarre.
“H-Honey. Over there…”
It was Clyde, who had been silent all this time.
He spoke cautiously, wary of upsetting his wife.
As Bonnie’s gaze followed where he pointed, her eyes widened.
Kiiiiiing—
Bihen’s sword was enveloped in a brilliant white frost.
‘Enchant?’
It was a technique that imbued a blade with magical properties.
It was said to be a skill used by sword-wielders born with mana circles to turn the tide against unfavorable matchups.
‘An Imperial wielding mana…?’
Bonnie was so shocked that her common sense was shaken, and she couldn’t continue her words.
Meanwhile, the wendigos, prowling on all fours, began to halt one by one.
They had sensed Bihen.
Their eerie, glinting eyes started to converge on him all at once.
Groooo…
White steam poured from their protruding snouts.
Some had already turned, tucking their arms tightly between their bent legs—a preparatory stance to leap and pounce on their prey in one swift motion.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
The sound of their steps was ferocious.
The mid-tier wendigos, two heads taller than the lesser ones that walked on all fours, also began to move toward Bihen, as if they had just grasped the situation.
It was then that the leader turned its head to look at him.
‘My sword power is still too weak to sweep them all at once.’
And that wasn’t all.
The range he could cover was clearly limited.
‘Come closer. Closer.’
Bihen pulled the sword in his right hand back tightly behind his left chest.
His left hand stretched forward, gauging the distance.
Thud, thud, thud!
From above, the scene was nothing short of horrific.
It looked as though a writhing mass of wendigos was converging on a single point.
“Kyaaa—! W-What do we do! Stop him!”
“N-No, ma’am, calm down…”
“What? Ma’am? Wanna die?”
It was the moment when Bonnie, who had been yanking Bill’s hair, shot him a sharp glare.
Saaaaaaa—
Bihen swung his sword horizontally.
It wasn’t flashy.
It could be called an honest horizontal slash.
Even the three members of the Easton Guard, who trusted Bihen implicitly but didn’t know what secret technique he might unleash, were no different.
They, too, tensed up and could only swallow hard.
All they felt was the wind blowing up from the canyon below suddenly turning cold.
Only Bonnie saw it.
She clearly witnessed the frost spreading in a fan-shaped arc from the sword Bihen swung.
Kwa-za-za-zak!
A sharp noise grazed their ears.
The wendigos advancing toward Bihen froze in place.
The front line was especially rigid.
Only then did it become visible to the naked eye of the group watching from the hill.
Frost had formed in chaotic patterns across the beasts’ bodies. Some were completely frozen solid, others had their legs bound by ice like shackles, and some had only their arms or chests frozen, barely escaping fatal wounds.
Jayden shouted.
“Bonnie! We need your support!”
His cry was like a signal.
As Jayden leaped down, Janson followed.
At the same time, Bihen charged forward.
‘Immobilizing them for a moment is enough. I’ll end it in one go.’
The wendigos’ breath and the frost Bihen had unleashed mingled, creating a thick mist in the area.
Bihen’s cloak fluttered fiercely, as if trying to clear his vision.
Naturally, his blade gleamed dazzlingly as well.
Chwa—ak!
Black blood sprayed, and severed limbs flew in all directions.
It was utter chaos.
No matter how advanced these creatures were, they were, in the end, a pack skilled at hunting.
They could hardly have experience facing a human who charged into the heart of their group.
“Groooo—!”
Wendigos rushed at him from all sides, thrashing instinctively.
Kwa—ang!
The ground shattered under the punches and kicks of a mid-tier wendigo.
The lesser ones, darting like flying squirrels, snapped at the air.
All of them aimed at where Bihen had been.
‘I can’t let my guard down.’
Bihen gritted his teeth.
The wendigos at the rear were less affected by the frost than those in the front.
Some moved so swiftly they seemed entirely unaffected.
Kwarrrrung—!
A thunderous roar echoed from behind, so powerful that even Bihen’s gaze was momentarily stolen.
“Chain Lightning!”
It was Bonnie.
Her voice was loud enough to swallow the thunder.
‘The higher the rank, the shorter the incantations and spells become.’
Bihen recalled something he’d overheard in his past life.
It meant Bonnie was a high-level mage.
Pajijijik!
A yellowish flash tore through the wendigo pack.
Sparks and the smell of burning rose from the thin ice scattered across their bodies.
“Bihen! We’ve got your back!”
It was Janson, roughly pulling his pike from a wendigo’s nape.
Jayden and Clyde each took a flank, forming a protective ring around Bonnie, Janson, and Bill in the center.
‘…’
Bihen’s face flushed hot.
He was embarrassed to look at them.
He didn’t care about the wendigos behind him.
He thought all he needed to do was take down the leader before they thawed.
It was arrogant, but he believed it was the only way.
In that moment, he reflected on himself.
His comrades, covering his back, were proving his thinking wrong with their actions.
At least Jayden and Janson were.
They were more than capable of handling the wendigos slowed by his frost sword.
Instead of gauging whether he could handle it alone, he should have considered his comrades.
‘…Comrades.’
Bihen felt a thrill.
Thanks to them, he was completely relieved of worries about his rear.
Now he could focus entirely.
It was the moment he turned his gaze back to the front.
‘…!’
Was it the dust mixing in?
The silhouette emerging through the thickened mist was utterly grotesque.
‘A… giant!’
Had it been a mistake to roughly estimate its size from its seated back?
The leader wendigo, now fully standing, was as massive as a mountain.
Bihen’s eyes widened.
A pair of red eyes flared brightly.
They were so high up he had to crane his neck to see them.
Kwa—ang!
A step imbued with the mystery of footwork.
Bihen’s form shot up to the height of those red eyes in an instant.
‘Just a beast, nothing more.’
It was just before he swung his sword.
A sensation like thick glue clogging both ears.
A strange feeling, as if all the world’s noise was blocked at once, enveloped Bihen.
‘Already within its domain?’
The moment stretched infinitely. Bihen’s thoughts raced.
What if dark magic had no form? What if this situation was him stepping into a trap of his own accord?
“Ugh…!”
Bihen grimaced.
The burning pain in his left eye, the Ghost Eye, was intense.
It was then that he began to see the form of the undulating waves.
‘Ah.’
In that moment, Bihen let out a small gasp.
Instantly blocking the senses focused on hearing and instead amplifying the senses of sight…
It wasn’t something he could simply dismiss as instinct kicking in; the sense of incongruity was significant.
Of course, since the level of the Curse of the Spectral Body had undeniably risen, he pushed the questions aside for now.
Wooooong—
It approached slowly.
It emanated omnidirectionally, starting from the creature’s eyes.
‘Even if I fall, I’m still within its range.’
Bihen halted his attack and raised his sword horizontally.
He assumed a defensive stance in midair.
… … … … Ting—
The formless wave that touched his sword dissipated with a clear sound.
In both his past and present lives, Bihen had countless experiences breaking magic with his sword.
The sensation of cutting through magic was as familiar to him as the act of killing.
He clearly recognized that he had blocked the formless dark magic.
‘I did it…’
He couldn’t even finish his self-congratulation.
Kwaang!
Bihen’s body plummeted to the ground.
He hadn’t had the chance to brace for the recoil.
“Bihen!”
The attention of the group at the rear turned to him.
The wendigo pack was no different.
“Grooo…”
“Gaooo!”
The beasts charged toward Bihen’s landing spot in unison.
Their movements were swift and coordinated, as if controlled by the leader.
“Stop them! Don’t let them get close!”
Jayden shouted.
His cracked voice was thick with urgency.
Janson gritted his teeth, and Bonnie and Clyde hurriedly turned their gazes as well.
Swaaaaak!
A series of sharp sword paths appeared in layers.
Bihen’s afterimage surged fiercely through the gaps in the encircling wendigo pack, instantly swapping places with his real body.
It was the third stage of Ghost Swordsmanship, the mystery of Afterimage and Transformation, which he had awakened during his skirmish with Yeats.
“That giant ape…”
Drenched in black blood, his face twisted in a scowl, Bihen looked like a demon himself.
Gripping his sword tightly, he glared.
The leader wendigo’s massive palm was right in front of him.
“I’ll butcher you.”
Kwagagagagagak!
A spiral trajectory shot up like lightning.
The vortex wrapping around the leader wendigo’s forearm quickly reached the vicinity of its red eyes.
Chk—!
When Bihen stopped spinning and stood, he was perched on the wendigo’s shoulder.
The beast’s face, filling his entire field of vision, felt surreal.
Puk!
He stabbed first into the eye emitting the red glow.
“Woooooo—!”
The giant beast’s roar shook him to his core, as if every organ in his body was rattling.
“Ugh.”
Bihen barely maintained his balance.
The wendigo’s thrashing continued.
Its arm rose as if trying to swat a fly on its nape, but the other arm, shredded by Bihen, hung limply, unable to exert force.
“Hoo, farewell.”
He raised his sword high and brought it down with all his might.
Swaak!
A thin silver line sliced through the beast’s rock-like, massive neck.
Of course, Bihen hadn’t expected to sever it in one strike.
Pabababapak!
The next strikes followed in rapid succession.
Amid the spraying black blood and the cold air currents swirling chaotically, layers of silver trajectories flashed like lightning.
“Wuaaaa—!”
As expected of the pack’s leader, its life didn’t end easily.
The moment its rising arm moved to crush Bihen.
Shwik! Shik! Shik! Shik! Shik!
Above Bihen’s head.
The sound of cutting through the air was chilling.
As he looked up to assess the situation, a sudden downpour fell.
Bihen’s pupils dilated.
The leader wendigo’s massive hand wasn’t just being torn apart—it was being pulverized into fine fragments.
By the swift sword of Eugene, who was unleashing a flurry of strikes in midair.
“Ha.”
In the midst of it all, Bihen marveled.
He couldn’t help it, being a swordsman by nature.
Even as blood mixed with flesh rained down on his face, he felt it.
Chk.
Eugene landed beside Bihen.
His free hand, not holding the sword, was still clasped behind his back.
As he gazed down at the beast’s nape, he looked infuriatingly calm to Bihen.
“…Are you kidding? Always showing up late.”
“There were circumstances on my end. Let’s finish this thing first.”
The Empire’s pinnacle swordsman and the Kingdom’s Sword Master brought their swords down in unison.