[Current Balance: 4,755,411,970,700 Mon]
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The throne room of Gyeongbok Palace was a tomb of silent, broken bodies. The air, thick with the acrid smoke of gunpowder and the ozone tang of spent chakra, was heavy, oppressive.
Caroline, or the entity wearing her face, stood on the dais, her expression a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. The triumphant, cold smile she had worn just moments ago had vanished, replaced by wide-eyed disbelief. Her perfectly laid trap, an overwhelming storm of steel and lead designed to obliterate any conceivable threat, had failed. The man in the crimson coat, her cousin, the anomaly she had so badly underestimated, was still standing, completely unharmed.
The sheer impossibility of it was a physical blow.
Her shock, however, quickly curdled into a new, more potent emotion: fear.
And fear gave way to rage.
When he tried to destroy her barrier, she was surprised by her… the apple's abilities. His fist was so powerful that she could feel that the moment those fist were to touch her, she would disappear from reality. However, the barrier was automatic and sturdy.
However, the second time…
CRACK.
With a shriek that was not entirely human, she leaped backwards, landing gracefully on the steps leading up to the Phoenix Throne. She thrust both hands forward, the two Apples of Eden she held flaring with a blinding, malevolent golden light.
"You will die!" she screamed.
A concentrated beam of pure, golden energy, thick as a man's arm, erupted from the Apples. It shot across the ruined throne room with incredible speed, aimed directly at Alaric's stomach. It wasn't a projectile; it was a lance of pure, weaponized Isu power, designed to unmake whatever it touched.
Alaric just sidestepped.
He moved a single foot to the left, a casual, almost lazy motion. The beam of golden death tore past him, missing by inches, and slammed into the far wall of the throne room. The resulting explosion blew a ten-foot hole through the ancient stone, sending debris and dust showering into the courtyard outside.
He didn't even look at the hole. His blue eyes remained fixed on Caroline, a flicker of genuine surprise in them now.
"Now that," he said, his voice holding a note of grudging respect, "was interesting."
Caroline stared, her chest heaving. The attack had clearly taken a toll, the Apples dimming slightly in her hands. She had expected him to be a pile of ash. Instead, he was standing there, looking… intrigued.
A desperate, cornered look entered her eyes. She looked down at the two golden spheres in her hands, a sudden, mad idea taking root. She brought her hands together, pressing the two Apples against each other with a determined grunt.
Alaric watched, his eyebrows raising in curiosity. "What are you doing now?"
The Apples resisted at first. The golden light around them flickered violently, arcs of energy snapping between them. Caroline cried out, her body trembling from the strain of forcing two such powerful artifacts to merge. It was an act that defied their design, an unnatural fusion.
Then, with a low, resonant hum that seemed to shake the very air, they began to combine.
The brilliant gold light twisted, warped, and was slowly consumed by an encroaching darkness. It was like watching a star die. The light folded in on itself, collapsing into a single, perfect sphere of polished, obsidian black. Intricate, glowing golden carvings, patterns of Isu script and complex geometry, swirled across its dark surface like captive constellations.
The new artifact pulsed with a deep, malevolent power, far greater and more sinister than the sum of its parts. It felt ancient, hungry, and utterly corrupt.
Caroline held the Black Apple in one hand, panting heavily, a triumphant, crazed smile returning to her face. With her free hand, she reached to her hip and unsheathed the Sword of Eden, the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi. The blade shimmered with its own faint, otherworldly light.
"Hehehe… let's-"
She was about to launch into another tirade, another boast, but the words died in her throat.
Her eyes widened in absolute, stupefied shock.
In the hand of the man opposite her, a sword had just appeared from thin air. It was a chokutō, a straight, single-edged blade, its steel a simple, unadorned, deadly grey. It looked plain, almost mundane, compared to the glowing Isu artifact she held.
"W-What!?" she stammered, the sight of the materialized weapon completely derailing her train of thought.
"Let's see which Kusanagi is sharper," Alaric said, his voice a low, dangerous purr as a predatory smirk spread across his face. "Yours, or mine."
He began to walk forward, his steps slow and deliberate, the simple steel of his own Kusanagi held loosely at his side.
The entity controlling Caroline, for all its ancient knowledge and Isu power, was momentarily thrown. This was impossible. It had scanned the host's memories. This man, this Alaric, was just a human, a strange anomaly, yes, but still human. He shouldn't possess such abilities.
It recovered quickly, its fear replaced by a surge of arrogant fury. It didn't matter. It had the power of two Apples and a Sword of Eden. This human would fall.
With a scream of rage, it charged, the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi held high.
The duel began.
The throne room became their arena. Caroline, or the entity, moved with a speed and grace that was utterly inhuman. The Apple wasn't just guiding her; it was physically boosting her, pushing her body far beyond its natural limits. Every slash, every thrust, was executed with perfect precision, informed by the combat data of millennia stored within the artifact.
But Alaric was faster.
He met her furious assault with a calm, almost lazy defense. He parried her glowing blade with his own simple steel, the clash of their swords ringing through the ruined hall. He sidestepped her lightning-fast lunges, deflected her wide, powerful slashes, his movements were a masterpiece of efficiency.
He was surprised, he admitted to himself. She was good. Far better than she had any right to be. The Apple was feeding her combat solutions in real-time, turning a girl who had never held a sword into a master swordswoman.
CLANG!
Their blades locked, pushing against each other. Caroline snarled, pouring more of the Apple's energy into her strike, expecting Alaric's mundane-looking sword to shatter.
It didn't. It held firm, not even a scratch on its surface.
"How!?" she shrieked, her eyes wide with disbelief. "This is the Kusanagi! A blade of the First Civilization! Your piece of scrap metal should have turned to dust!"
"Mine's special," Alaric grunted, easily pushing her back. He flowed into his own attack, a series of quick, probing thrusts.
She parried them, her movements still precise, but a flicker of uncertainty had entered her eyes.
"You're just a human!" she screamed, her attacks becoming more wild, more desperate. "A flawed, weak, insignificant little creature! How are you doing this!?"
"Maybe I'm just better than you," Alaric taunted, easily sidestepping a wild slash that carved a deep gouge in the marble floor. He spun, the pommel of his sword connecting sharply with her elbow, making her cry out and nearly drop her own blade.
"Is that all the Pieces of Eden can do for you!?" he mocked, pressing his advantage. "Give you a fancy sword and make you throw a tantrum? I was expecting more!"
"SHUT UP, YOU FILTHY APE!" she roared, the Black Apple in her other hand flaring. A wave of psychic force slammed into Alaric.
He stumbled back a step, a grunt of effort escaping him. It felt like being hit by a physical wall. The fused Apple was powerful, far more so than a single one.
"Finally," he grinned, "something interesting."
He stopped playing defense.
His speed increased, becoming a blur that even her artifact-enhanced senses struggled to track. He moved, his own Kusanagi a silver streak in the dim light. He wasn't just parrying anymore; he was counter-attacking, his blade dancing around hers, forcing her onto the defensive.
He was testing her, pushing her, analyzing every move, every reaction. He saw the way the Apple guided her, the slight hesitation before each "perfect" counter, the way her body strained to keep up with the commands being fed into her mind.
"Come on, Caroline!" he shouted, his blade locking with hers again. "Fight it! I know you're in there! This isn't you!"
"Caroline is GONE!" the entity shrieked, pushing him back with a burst of energy from the Apple. "There is only ORDER!"
Alaric sighed. He had tried.
"Alright then," he said, his voice turning cold. "Enough of this."
He moved.
It was a single, fluid motion. He feinted a high slash. As the entity instinctively raised its Kusanagi to block, Alaric dropped low, his own sword sliding along hers. He didn't try to overpower her. He simply… let go of his own sword's hilt for a fraction of a second, his hand continuing its motion to grab the hilt of her Kusanagi, right below her own grip.
Before the entity could even process what had happened, Alaric had a firm hold on her weapon.
With a sharp, powerful twist, he wrenched the Sword of Eden from her grasp.
He held the glowing, ancient blade in his hand for a single, fleeting moment, a triumphant smirk on his face.
Then, he mentally accessed the System.
'Sell.'
The Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the legendary Grass-Cutting Sword, an artifact of immense power sought for centuries, simply… vanished from his hand. It disappeared into thin air, leaving behind only the faint, lingering scent of ozone.
[+ 614,400,000,000 mon]
[Current Balance: 5,369,811,970,700 mon]
The entity wearing Caroline's face stared at its empty hand, then at Alaric, its mind utterly broken by the impossibility of what it had just witnessed.
That moment of stunned shock was all Alaric needed.
He lunged forward, ignoring the desperate blast of energy that erupted from the Black Apple. He pushed through it, his hand closing around the dark, pulsing sphere.
The moment his fingers touched its cold, smooth surface, his world exploded.
It wasn't a physical explosion. It was a psychic one. The combined, corrupted power of two Apples of Eden, amplified by the entity's rage and fear, slammed into his mind with the force of a supernova.
He felt a thousand alien voices screaming in his head, a billion conflicting thoughts and desires trying to tear his consciousness apart. He felt the weight of millennia of Isu arrogance, their hatred, their despair, their lust for control, all pouring into him at once.
His own formidable mental defenses, the ones that had allowed him to resist Juno and shrug off lesser Genjutsu, buckled under the assault.
His Kusanagi, its connection to him momentarily severed by the psychic chaos, automatically sealed itself back into the tattoo on his shoulder.
He staggered back, his hand still clamped around the Black Apple, but his other hand flew to his head, his fingers digging into his temples.
"URGHHHHH!!!"
A raw, agonized roar tore from Alaric's throat.
At the same time, Caroline, her connection to the artifact abruptly and violently severed, collapsed to the floor. Her body began to convulse, her limbs jerking uncontrollably, her eyes rolling back into her head as foam frothed at her lips. She was having a violent, terrifying seizure, her mind and body rebelling against the sudden absence of the power that had sustained and controlled her for so long.
Alaric fought against the psychic storm raging in his mind, his vision blurring, the throne room twisting into a nightmare landscape of swirling colors and screaming faces. The Black Apple in his hand pulsed malevolently, a dark, hungry heart trying to devour his very soul.
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