Episode 257 Grave of Swords (3)
From Cradle to Grave.
The life of an iron-blooded swordsman and a hunting dog consists only of swords.
“True Baskervilles are born in ‘cradles of swords’.”
Bikir murmured something that everyone in the world knew.
……But there is a story behind the legend that has been handed down within the family.
“The true Baskerville dies in the ‘grave of the sword’.”
It is a smudged writing that remains only as a faded mark on a page of an old, old history book.
An old myth that everyone thinks is just fiction.
However, the moment Bikir discovered the ‘grave of the sword’, he had a hunch.
Of the proverbs handed down in the Baskervilles, there is not a single lie.
Literally ‘from the cradle to the grave’. Baskerville’s roads are entirely made up of swords.
I realized once again that the iron-blooded sword was the fate of the hunting dog.
Jeebeok-jeebuck-jeebuck-
Bikir walked up the steep steps inside the tower.
Steps, each sharp like an awl, towered high.
Ordinary people probably didn’t even know that these were stairs.
If the inside of the Mage Tower was mysterious, beautiful and dreamy, the inside of this tower was terribly lonely, suffocating and lonely.
Every time I took a step, I felt like my flesh was being cut off by unknown rusty swords embedded in strange rocks and stalactites around me.
Countless swords raised their sword points and glared at me. If it was a prosecutor with a sharp sense of humor, I could feel it more closely.
Tingling – Countless swords and sharp-forged gazes.
The higher you go up, the more you feel your entire body shrinking little by little.
Stairs that are worn, cut, and chipped, and you have to take one step at a time to climb it.
If Bikir had not been a sword master, he would have died as soon as he entered the tower, let alone climbed the stairs.
Eventually Bikir reached the top of the tower.
A scene reminiscent of a ‘cradle of swords’ with countless knives stuck in it, but even more bloody and sharp energy filled the empty cavity.
……It must be because of the man sitting on the throne in the middle of the common room.
An iron throne made up of sharp knives.
And there was a man in thick iron armor with a long gray beard.
The place where the whites should be under the gray eyebrows is filled with empty darkness, and in the center of it, red eyes like the sun burn coldly.
His sharp, sharp nose like a knife, his tightly closed lips, his dark blue dead skin seemed to barely cover the skull.
The black heavy armor and huge greatsword he was wearing made the stronghold he was building look even more solid.
“……!”
Bikir noticed the identity of this old man at once.
Cane Corso. Cane Corso Les Baskervilles.
Even Hugo, who killed all his brothers and rose to the position of head of the family, couldn’t do anything about it until the very end.
An existence that reigns supreme among the seven counts of the former seven counts, who have gone through the turbulent times of the reigning princes.
The common seven counts’ inaction lies somewhere between the top graders and the masters, but in the case of the Cane Corso, this is absolutely not the case.
Although Cain Corso was Hugo’s older cousin, they were separated in age by more than one generation.
Even before he retired from the world of the past, he was literally a legend of the sword, stronger than the sword master Hugo.
……Is that why?
Cain Corso did not show his face at all family events, such as a grand banquet or a family meeting, and he refused all the entourage and knights that seven counts would normally lead.
He did not intervene in anything in the world, and in his later years erased all traces of himself and went into seclusion.
So, his whereabouts remained only in the literature, and the records were so unrealistic that even the direct descendants of the Baskervilles did not believe it straight away.
but. Even now, no one denies that Cane Corso was the strongest swordsman in the Baskervilles.
‘If my brother had been greedy for the position of head of household, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.’
Even the world’s Hugo acknowledged this.
……Meanwhile.
‘As expected, he was here.’
Bikir thought quietly to himself.
Before Vikir returned, Cane Corso did not appear in the world even though the age of destruction had arrived.
But there was only one thing that happened that would suggest he wasn’t dead.
Once, there was a case where numerous demons marched over the enemy and the Black Mountain.
The goal, of course, was to conquer the human world.
However, after crossing the mountain range and assembling, aren’t some of the legions that should have been gathered invisible?
The Demons and the Human Alliance hurriedly tracked their location.
And soon, a startling fact was revealed.
It was the fact that countless demons had all died while crossing the Uuni Salt Desert.
Of course, it was a place where salt storms and basilisks existed, but it doesn’t make sense that several legions were wiped out.
So, demon soldiers chasers were dispatched to investigate the scene.
……But none of the demons that entered the salt desert came out alive.
All who come here have gone missing or have only been found as shredded and dismembered corpses.
Even that was a difference that would only be discovered after being blown away by a storm.
So the Human Alliance concluded that something unknown, strong and dangerous existed in the salt desert.
As a result of the great heroes who raised raw meat putting their heads together for a long time, several absolute masters who retired from the world were cited as the cause of the incident, and one of them was Cane Corso.
‘…Seeing that one of the Baskerville hounds died while trying to deliver the letter, Hugo must have guessed that the Cane Corso was here.’
That’s why Bikir also visited this place today.
Hugo Les Baskerville, who is a sword master like himself and is learning the 7th Baskerville.
And the Cane Corso, who is said to have transcended Hugo a long time ago.
Vikir meets Cane Corso and tries to find a way to surpass the Sword Master for hints about the Baskerville Type 8.
‘And I also got the ghost tree with both sides.’
You can guess it by reading the book ‘The Return of the Hound of the Head of the Mado Head’. Wraith trees grow right here.
Bikir also knew that the Wraith Tree was in the Uuni Salt Desert due to his knowledge before returning.
It was because he personally saw the scene where Siere, the eighth city, was collecting the fruits of the Wraith Tree, which had grown to the extent that its branches were hanging outside the salt desert.
‘At that time, a huge number of people were sacrificed to prevent the Wraith Tree from being passed over to the demons.’
And taking the lives of those sacrificed as fertilizer, the tree of the dead grew bigger and bigger.
It wasn’t enough to cover the entire desert, and the trees grew taller and taller than the entire Red and Black Mountains.
Its appearance was like looking at the world tree that appears in mythology.
It threw innumerable fruits under the bare branches of trees that stretched out all over the mountain.
The lusciously hanging skull-shaped flesh was full of corpse flesh and ghost juice, and the sight of them hanging in clusters and swaying in the wind made it look like a line of hanging corpses.
The fruit of the wraith tree. Ghost Fruit (亡靈果肉).
When the devil picked the fruit and took a big bite, the rich sound-dimensional mana spurted out along with the blood-like juice, and at the same time, a high-pitched scream filled with pain rang out.
There is no way that the dead soldier (亡者兵), who was dying, would be completely crushed by biting into a bite of the ghost fruit.
The Wraith Tree gave tremendous power to the Demon Legion and at the same time became a disaster for the Human Alliance.
“…”
Vikir ended the flashback.
Sure enough, I could see something dark behind the iron throne in front of me.
A throne made up of countless swords. The evil malice that grew up behind it.
That’s it. That is the ghost tree.
Other than me, it seemed that there was no other tree in the world worthy of being called the Wraith Tree.
A tree of ghosts that feeds on the resentment, screams and grief of the living.
A skull-shaped flesh that contains the power of the dead and grows.
The sight of it stretching and climbing was grotesque enough to give goosebumps even to Bikir in the world.
It is still small, but over time it will cast a shadow that is thicker and bigger than any other shade cast in this world.
Meanwhile.
Cane Corso raised his head. Then he opened his mouth in a voice heavy as lead.
[This is the grave of the sword. The place where those who pursue the extreme intention of the sword come to last.] The
red pupils of the old man in the orbit where the white and black eyes are reversed are striking.
He seemed curious about Bikir’s youthful face.
[……Ah. What are you?]
Cane Corso is an older adult who is much older than Hugo, so strictly speaking, he becomes Vikir’s uncle.
However, Bikir had no intention of respecting the family’s laws and regulations.
Chang-
That’s why he can draw the sword without hesitation.
“Find out for yourself.”
The only thing he was interested in was the road to the Baskerville 8 and the two ghost trees behind the Iron Throne.
