The True Master of the Array

After walking like that for quite some time, Aen abruptly halted his steps. Soon, a clearing that looked familiar to my eyes revealed itself.

“The sword?”

“……This way.”

Aen led the way, still making it glaringly obvious how entirely reluctant he was.

As we rounded a corner following him, the half-broken sword I had seen before came into view, bound tightly by heavy chains.

Hummmmm—

However, unlike before, a faint, ominous crimson glow was now swirling around the blade. The vibe was distinctively unsettling at a single glance, and Aen stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the sword.

“It’s still not too late. Stop right here.”

Staring straight into Aen’s eyes, I questioned him.

“If the Magic Sword touches that blade, what exactly happens?”

Aen wore a conflicted expression, visibly wrestling with whether he should tell me or not, but he ultimately scowled and answered.

“Naturally, the sealing incantation placed upon the Magic Sword will shatter.”

“And what happens once the sealing incantation breaks? Describe the Magic Sword’s true state to me in full detail.”

Aen shot me a look that practically screamed ‘Why the hell are you even asking this?’ but he had no leverage left. Letting out a deep, heavy sigh, he replied.

“Why else do you think it is called a demonic sword? It will naturally slaughter every last one of us here and seek out its next victims. Until it is sealed once more.”

I quietly scrutinized Aen as he spoke, and he truly, genuinely believed that the Magic Sword would butcher everyone.

Seeing that unyielding, absolute conviction on his face, my resolve wavered slightly.

“Then, what did you intend to do with the Magic Sword?”

“I planned to destroy it, and then destroy the remaining half that is locked away here. Right now, because it is divided, my attacks can actually damage it. But once the two pieces merge, it will become impossible to destroy the Magic Sword with my strength alone.”

While Aen and I were trading words, the Magic Sword was standing quietly behind me, sucking on his finger and doing nothing but blinking innocently.

Despite that completely harmless display, Aen jabbed his chin toward the Magic Sword, as if explicitly prompting me to look closer.

“You’ve seen its true form before yourself, haven’t you?”

He was referring to the grotesque monster whose chest split wide open and burst with eyeballs. Back then, it truly possessed a repulsive, horrifying appearance perfectly fitting the moniker of ‘Demonic Magic Sword.’

But……

“You were the one who forced it into that form.”

“No, that is the Magic Sword’s true form. And when it was in that state, you were utterly incapable of controlling it.”

“…….”

“Please, just believe my words this one time. I have known that Magic Sword far longer than you have, and I know for a fact that it is abominably deceiving you.”

“Why on earth would he deceive me?”

“Because you are the very key to breaking the Magic Sword’s seal.”

Aen spat out the words, glaring daggers at the Magic Sword.

“Since we refuse to cooperate with it, it is playing a meticulous trick on you—an outsider who knows absolutely nothing—all to break its own seal.”

At that exact moment, as if validating Aen’s claims, the half-sword chained to the wall began to pulsate with an even more intense, blinding crimson light.

The Magic Sword himself didn’t make a single movement, but his face, bathed in the deep crimson glow, suddenly carried a distinctly sinister, unsettling aura.

“Ugh……”

But mid-sentence, while passionately throwing out his arguments to convince me, Aen suddenly doubled over, his face contorting in pure agony. I figured he had simply endured the throbbing pain in his broken wrist for too long and had finally hit his absolute limit.

“Hey……”

Reflexively, I took a step toward him, but I was abruptly barred from closing the distance.

“Huh?”

Because someone had violently yanked my body backward from behind.

Whipping around, I saw it was the Magic Sword holding me back.

“What’s wrong?”

I was thrown into utter confusion, but for some reason, the Magic Sword’s expression was dark and terrible. He bared his sharp fangs fully, letting out a low, menacing growl.

“Grrrrr……”

And then, the shadows dancing under the firelight began to warp violently.

Watching the black shadows balloon exponentially, I tried to tear myself away from the Magic Sword, but……

‘No. This…… this shadow doesn’t belong to the Magic Sword.’

I whipped my head back around to look at Aen.

“G-Groaaan……”

And I locked eyes with Aen, whose sclera had turned entirely blood-red.

“Gaaaah!”

The moment Aen suddenly flipped his eyes back and lunged forward, the Magic Sword violently yanked me back. I managed to evade Aen’s vicious swipe by a hair’s breadth.

“Are you—are you f*cking insane?! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

A cold shiver raced down my spine as I bellowed at Aen, but instead of replying, the bastard merely whipped around to glare at me.

Subsequently, I caught sight of his face—horrifically contorted like a rabid monster—and the brilliant, blinding light of the magic circle erupting through the gaps in his bandages. And along with it, Aen’s shadow, which had bloated to an unnaturally colossal size.

‘What the hell…… Why did he suddenly turn into that?’

It was right when my brain completely locked up, utterly overwhelmed by a situation that defied all logic.

“Haa, haa……”

Breathing heavily with manic excitement, the Magic Sword lunged fiercely at Aen.

Whoosh—!

However, the moment Aen thrust his hand out, a torrent of crimson fire erupted over his palm. A sudden realization slammed into me: Aen had been secretly priming his magic all along, hoarding his strength specifically for this exact window.

‘Of course! There was a reason he ordered his men to fall back……!’

He had simply been biding his time, waiting for us to lower our guard.

But something about the timing felt completely wrong.

‘First of all, Aen’s physical state itself is……’

To call this a calculated ambush was absurd; far from carrying any sense of composure or sharp tactical precision, the bastard was jawing his mouth open and dripping thick trails of saliva exactly like a feral monster.

Furthermore, those stark-white, upturned eyes were impossible to consider normal by any stretch of the imagination. It was as if he were completely possessed by something……

‘……No way.’

Reflexively, my eyes snapped toward the half-sword hanging on the wall, and sure enough, I discovered a crimson magic circle had materialized directly above it.

“He’s…… being controlled by the sword?”

The moment my lone exclamation left my lips, Aen charged madly toward the Magic Sword.

Whoosh—!

Furthermore, a line of blazing fire drew itself right beneath my feet, entirely cutting off my access to the sword on the wall. The flames instantly roared as high as my own height, to the point where the chained blade beyond the wall of fire was half-hidden from view.

“Damn it! This was a trap!”

Gritting my teeth, I retreated backward and rapidly spun a circle.

The main wall of fire didn’t pursue me, but the small embers that had caught on my sleeve extinguished the absolute moment I traced the barrier. It was painfully clear that without the circle, I would have been burned alive.

However, this chaotic commotion was merely the opening act.

“G-Grrr-k……”

“Groaaan……”

Suddenly, bizarre, unnatural sounds began echoing from the corridor outside the chamber, and a mass of pitch-black shadows loomed violently all the way up to the ceiling.

It belonged to the very men who had been secretly tailing Aen.

‘Those bastards lost their sanity too?!’

Horrifyingly, one’s worst premonitions always hit the bullseye. The faces of the horde plowing into the room were even more catastrophic than Aen’s.

“Uuugh……”

Unlike Aen, who had merely flipped his eyes white, these men were crawling forward, their limbs snapping and twisting bizarrely like zombies. They looked exactly like marionettes whose strings had become hopelessly tangled up with one another, rendering them incapable of moving properly.

“……!”

Swish—!

Boom!

Nevertheless, their destructive output was terrifyingly potent. I bit my lower lip hard as I deflected a volley of arrows that slammed into my hands with a heavy, crushing force.

‘It’s…… completely different.’

The raw power behind their strikes was on an entirely different dimension compared to when they had surrounded me before. If their previous attacks felt like being poked with toothpicks, now it felt like having heavy spears hurled straight down at me.

I desperately tracked the Magic Sword with my eyes.

“Kii-aaaaah!”

Tragically, the Magic Sword’s situation was equally dire.

Aen was now completely enveloped in raging flames, looking exactly as though he were being burned alive, and even when the Magic Sword lunged to bring him down, the intense heat made it impossible to get close.

“G-Graaaah!”

Spewing thick plumes of black smoke from his mouth, Aen pursued the Magic Sword doggedly. His physical size was steadily expanding.

‘At this rate, I’m going to suffocate to death from the smoke alone.’

Clamping my sleeve tightly over my nose and mouth, I rapidly surveyed my surroundings. The half-sword secured to the wall continued to pulse with a mocking, crimson light, as if laughing at the entire disaster.

‘Without a doubt, that thing is the root cause.’

The anomaly of the crimson light, Aen’s sudden violent turn right mid-explanation, and the massive magic circle etched into Aen’s flesh……

Cramming the scattered clues forcefully into my mind, I flung my other hand wide open.

Hummmmm—!

Two brilliantly glowing blue circles began to spin rapidly. Simultaneously, the men who had been raining arrows from the rear began leaping straight toward me.

“Get the f*ck back!”

Turning my back on the encroaching horde, I squeezed out every single ounce of my remaining strength and lunged straight into the line of fire.

The flames flared up violently as if they had been waiting for me, but they ultimately failed to overcome the circle I had manifested. I successfully rolled right through the wall of fire. The absolute second I breached the barrier, I snapped my hand out straight toward the sword embedded in the wall.