Echinacea Roaz was a peerless genius.
To be more precise, she possessed an almost impossible level of talent in both swordsmanship and affinity with mana-gifts so rare that perhaps only one person in a century might be born with them.
Until the age of twenty, Echinacea had been the sheltered only daughter of a count—delicate, refined, completely unaware of the monstrous talent sleeping inside her.
Then she touched Valdergiosa.
'It would've been better if I'd never found out.'
That was what Echi thought.
The sensation of sticky blood clinging all over her body was revolting. By the time she turned twenty, she had grown all too familiar with something she could never have even imagined before.
'This isn't how I ever wanted to discover I was a genius.'
Echinacea stared blankly ahead.
Or rather, her eyes stared forward of their own accord-for her body was no longer under her control. Her right hand, grasping a cursed blade, had stolen her will away.
The sword's blade was as transparent as glass, wrought from human malice, and its hilt was pitch-black, forged from hatred itself.
From it radiated an aura that spread up her right arm, dyeing her flesh black and leaving dark blotches across her once-fair skin.
Her soft pink hair-where her name Echinacea had come from-and the violet eyes she inherited from her father were all stained in the same malign shade of darkness.
Swollen veins stood out across her body, her eyes were bloodshot, and her form was smeared with dried blood and dust. She was a wreck.
Even those who knew her well would have struggled to recognize her as Echinacea Roaz.
Echi had been the only daughter of an imperial count, with a younger brother who would inherit the title.
Her family, though not politically powerful, was wealthy and of long, respectable tradition.
There had been no scandals, no illegitimate children, no affairs. The siblings got along well, and the count and his wife were a harmonious couple. All they wished for Echi was that she marry well and live happily.
She had had no objections to this. Her life was comfortable enough. She maintained her beauty with marriage in mind, learned proper etiquette, and practiced suitable refinement.
She liked pretty things, detested sweating through strenuous exercise, considered coarse speech vulgar, and carried herself with modest dignity. She was a little lazy, and disliked anything unbecoming of a noble.
That was how it had been-until she turned twenty.
The cursed sword ValderGiosa.
That was the name of the weapon she now held, the reason she discovered her genius, and the very thing that overturned her life and wrought tragedy.
ValderGiosa seizes its wielder's body, and through that vessel commits slaughter and devastation. More than once, massacres had been carried out in this way, and because of them the sword had come to be known as the Cursed Sword.
Its power was immense. Even a person with no talent at all for swordsmanship, once possessed by the sword, could wield a sword-mana-charged strikes-capable of rivaling masters.
Yet there was always a limit. The Cursed Sword could only exert its might through its host's body.
Inevitably, the body would collapse under the strain, leaving the sword without a vessel. That was always its fate.
Perhaps knowing this, the blade usually fled when confronted by someone too strong, or when its host began to break down. But the sword that had taken Echinacea's body was different.
'Why is it that no one can stop me?'
Her absurd, almost insane affinity with mana kept her body from collapsing under the sword's destructive energy. Though untrained, her natural physique was instantly saturated with mana, becoming perfectly adapted to the swordsmanship the blade unleashed.
The result was horrifying. Echi was forced to experience firsthand the true extent of her potential strength.
Renowned mercenaries, Commanders of the Imperial Guard, court magicians-even her own family-all were cut down, corpses falling one after another before her.
Too easily. Ridiculously easily.
'There was no need for me to be this much of a genius.'
Echi thought this sincerely, not out of arrogance. To discover such a talent only through killing countless people, including those dearest to her…
Had she not been a genius, things would never have come to this. She never needed such talent. Even if it existed, she would have preferred to live her whole life never knowing.
Her face was smiling, though inside she only wanted to cry. At least it was a small mercy that the smile would be hard for anyone to notice, buried beneath tangles of blood, filth, and dust clinging to her hair and cheeks.
Once the sort of young lady who bathed twice a day, Echi had now grown numb to dirt.
All around her lay corpses. She nudged one-she could no longer tell whose neck it had been-with the tip of her foot as she walked on. She had no destination. The Demon Blade sought only for lives to slaughter.
And then, a group of knights blocked her path.
Their attire was too conspicuous to be practical for war: uniforms of immaculate white, blue cloaks, and on their chests an emblem-a golden hawk spreading its four wings within the shape of a white shield.
Echi, though ignorant of the knightly world as a nobleman's daughter, had at least heard of these knights who wore white and bore such a crest.
The strongest, most renowned order of the continent. The knights who belonged to no country-the Celestial Order.
There was no mistaking it. These were the Hawks of the Celestial.
Three men, one woman.
One of them stepped forward.
"O bearer of the Cursed Sword."
It was a man with long silver hair, loosely tied and draped over his shoulder. His eyes, a clear sky-blue like the very name of his order, fixed upon her.
Echinacea knew who he was.
Yurien de Harden Kyrie.
Third prince of the Kyrie Empire, who had renounced his claim to succession early on and joined the Celestial Knights, rising to become their youngest commander.
The order was beholden to no nation. Strictly speaking, Yurien was no longer of the royal family, nor even of the Empire-but matters of the world are never so neatly severed.
The Empire took pride in the fact that the Knight Commander of the Celestial was of their royal blood.
Echi herself had been proud of him.
His name had often come up at the tea parties she attended.
She had even seen him once in person. At the emperor's birthday banquet-where she too had been present-Yurien had come to congratulate his father.
She remembered blushing in secret as she saw him then, a man even more beautiful than rumor had claimed. Though she had never once danced with him, she had been satisfied simply to have glimpsed the famous Knight Commander. He belonged to a world so utterly apart from her own.
Like in some romantic tale, she had idly imagined a fateful encounter that would lead her into love with him. It was not an unusual fancy; most noble ladies of the Empire had entertained such a daydream.
Dreams were free, after all, and he was a handsome unmarried man.
But never-not in her wildest fancies-had she imagined meeting him like this. Possessed by a cursed sword, facing him as he came to hunt down the very evil she had become.
From the man striding toward her radiated an oppressive force-the sensation of a sword's cold edge pressing against her throat. He was the strongest of the four.
It was natural, of course, for the Knight Commander of the Celestial-an order that recognized nothing but strength. But to witness it firsthand was overwhelming. It was only thanks to the cursed sword's heightened senses that she could perceive it so clearly.
"As one who serves to safeguard Giorsa, the Celestial Knights shall strike you down."
Yurien spoke the words of judgment, raising his gleaming white sword-the holy blade RanGiosa, his very symbol.
Echinacea gave no reply. Her body, under the blade's control, simply leveled ValderGiosa in return. Kill. Kill. Kill. The hateful echo rang through her mind, consumed by malice.
She attacked first. Black cursed sword clashed against shining holy sword.
Echinacea did not want to win. She prayed that the knight commander she had once admired would defeat her, the villain she had become.
'It's impossible… I really am too strong, aren't I?'
It had been three years since she had been consumed by the cursed sword. In that time she had fought countless battles.
The Empire, unwilling to beg aid from the Celestial, had sent many knights to subdue her. She had killed them all. With every battle, she grew stronger-not only in body but in spirit.
Her experience told her the truth: Yurien would endure longer than anyone else had-but in the end, she would win. She was far too gifted.
And Yurien realized it too. Deflecting her sword aside, he leapt back.
"Remarkable. Truly, a pity."
His blue eyes clouded.
"Had you been a knight… I would have gladly crossed swords with you in earnest."
"Commander Yurien."
One of the three waiting behind him clicked their tongue. Yurien answered with a bitter smile.
"I know. This is no sparring match. It is an extermination."
"Shall we join in?"
"Yes."
The other three drew their swords. All of them were wielders of Giosa-sword-owners of the highest rank.
The strongest knights of the Celestial.
The battle grew fiercer. Four against one. To withstand them, the cursed sword drove Echinacea's body past its limits, clawing every last drop of latent strength from her.
But even a peerless genius wielding the cursed sword could not hope to defeat four Giosa owners, including the Knight Commander himself. She might have fared better against an entire army.
At last, Echinacea fell.
Yurien pinned her down, pressing the holy sword against her throat.
Wounded all over, she thrashed like a cornered beast. Instinctively, mana flared around her neck, keeping the sword from severing it.
For a long moment they remained locked in stalemate. The exhausted knights around them grumbled.
"She's terrifyingly strong. To withstand the four of us this long… it's unbelievable."
"She's right in front of you, and you don't believe it? Are your eyes failing, Teresa?"
"Shut your mouth, Dietrich."
"And here I thought knights were meant to speak properly… Teresa does as she pleases. Though that's part of her charm."
"Dietrich Saruah. I said silence."
"What a waste. The commander's right, had she been a knight, she would have been exceptional. To throw away such talent on a cursed sword…"
Ignoring their bickering, the largest of the knights muttered under his breath. His words made Echinacea want to scream in denial. She wanted to roar, to cough blood and howl:
'Do you think I wanted this? If I'd known it was cursed, would I have touched it? I...I only...!'
"She… would not have chosen this."
Yurien's voice cut through. His breath was ragged from forcing her down, but his words were clear.
It was what she had longed to cry out. The words no one had spoken before her, no one could speak, as she drowned in slaughter.
Echinacea gazed up at him in shock.
Her body raged, thrashing against him, but her eyes locked onto his. And he, too, looked straight at her.
In his gaze she saw none of the fear, loathing, fury, resentment, or agony she had always met before. There was only the faintest trace of compassion. Not for the mad demon who bore the sword, but for the person trapped inside it.
"You never wanted this, did you?"
So close that only she could hear, Yurien whispered.