Sword Arts

He was finally realizing the true might of the table. Before learning how to carve circles, he had no idea just how amazing the table was but now that he was somewhat of a novice, he was beginning to realize just how difficult it was to make and those of a higher level would likely be even more shocked. His goal was to be able to make something like the table or somehow learn its mechanics.

"These swords are so weak." Zeeth yawned as he tossed another broken sword to the table, which grabbed it and smelted it into itself. He had no clue where all the melted material went but it seemed to make the table better. It was slowly changing color and growing new strings. It was even changing around the basic table shape.

"We are still in area D. They spent years lying here, I don't mind."

"I'm going to carve something." The circle he wanted to carve was a type that attracted the same type of material the sword was made out of, held it where it was broken, and mended itself. The first prototype simply repelled all metals. A few changes and they were finally attracting metals, but they were pulling all metals and were too weak to really pull anything. A third prototype pulled together metals as long as they were close enough but didn't mend itself. It took him two days of editing and messing around, caring over fifty circles and breaking more than twenty swords but he finally got it. A sword that pulled together metals of the same type and melted them into any broken areas. It still wasn't perfect, it took a while to complete but it was a satisfying achievement.

He took the time between the two days to also make a few vials to hold the impurities. A circle on the back allowed the vial to squeeze out and shoot a jet of liquid forward. As a last resort, he created a self-destruct function. It would collect mana in the center once too much was put in at once and explode with nasty impurities and glass three seconds after overfilling it.

Elton recalled his journeys with them, he had spent nearly his entire life living in seclusion because, at the start of his life, people would always hunt him down and call him a monster or the creation of an enemy. It wasn't until the Tri Oculi Cult, one of their many names took him and kept him. They kept training with swords, both Elton and Zeeth improving by leaps and bounds.

Two days ago, C.M. watched as his archenemy and his most interesting subject yet, a part robot, part man, fly through the sky with a skeleton, large bird, and another person, tugged away with a large black string.

'What the…'

Due to the

To their surprise, they heard someone else behind them moving. In the two days they were here, they hadn't seen anyone else. While people did come to steal, it was destroyed over thirty years ago and the stealing fever was gone. Anything valuable was taken and no one stayed here anymore, at least not anyone with a rank D would stay here.

But the person trying to hide from them wasn't hard to spot, he towed along with him a large wagon. The familiar face belonged to C.M., he was towing a large robot toward them again.

"C.M., we can see you."

"..." He sat behind a pile of rubble, sweating nervously and hoping beyond hope they had simply been lying. He wanted to surprise them and win for once.

"What does C.M. stand for anyway? Crazy Man?"

"No, it doesn't! It's a professional name!" he yelled, accidentally revealing himself out of anger. "Oh, crap."

"Crappy Mood?"

"Cool Mom?"

"Cruel Mop?"

"No! I'm a doctor, call me doctor! And it's a secret you shall never learn because you will die here!" he pulled the tarp off his wagon revealing a shiny robot. The proportions were much better now, the upper half of the body part looked more human and it looked overall sleeker. Its fist was replaced by a silver dagger and a metal mace. Instead of legs, however, two large wheels were placed on the hips.

"I realized last time, I should focus on a few places first. Instead of the entire body. I'll start with enhancing the head and arms and work on the other parts later, but I need a new set of data first. So please fight with all your might but also lose, thank you."

"I'm not sure how to reply, man. You're trying to kill me here."

"Eventually, yes. I will make a weapon that overpowers you in your best areas, being a robot. But for now, I think we can be in a mutually beneficial relationship where you provide me with data and I test your strength while allowing you to grow."

"Nah, man," Zeeth taunted. He charged ahead, a sword coated in water, "that's not the only benefit to me."

He lodged the blade in a crevice between the wheel and the hips. It tried to hit him with its mace but Zeeth jumped up, applying even more force into the blade. The water allowed it to slide right in and dislodged something, removing the wheel. It was now lying on its side with its mace crushed under one side, a spinning wheel grinding furiously and a sword-swinging round.

He lodged the sword in its neck and twisted it off, breaking the sword in half at the same time.

"These swords are way too weak for me." the head fell off and C.M. began sweating profusely, holding an ovoid. The robot quickly stopped moving and C.M. edged forward to get it back but Zeeth put a foot on the hunk of metal.

"Can-can I get that back?" he piped.

"No."

C.M. threw the ovoid at the ground and a large cloud of sparkling white fog arose. Something happened inside and he was seen shortly after flying out of the smoke, fog trailing his feet. He flew back and up, a pair of metal wings allowing him to glide away.

"That's actually rather impressive."

"His escapes were always a show."

It was instantly noticeable when they went from area D to area C. The mana got a lot denser and wilder. It was the same from C to B. he was surprised to find out he was walking completely fine even in area A. areas in A had a lot more items intact, simple shields and swords. fascinating weapons were all over the place and Zeeth took in a bunch to inspect the circle others have created.

"Where are we going?"

"We're here."

In front of them was a tall white statue of a bearded wizard gazing into the sky, surprisingly unbroken. He wore a long pointed hat with a gnarled wooden staff with three diamonds edged into it all along the top. Behind the statue was a massive tower of trash and rubble that blocked their view.

"What are we doing here?"

Page placed a hand on the wizard, three rocky hands reached out and grabbed his arm, one on the shoulder, one on his forearm, and another on his hand. The statue opened his eyes to reveal bright blue glowing and said in a sage-like voice, "It is a little known fact that only a few know about, but it was here, in the City of Swords, that a dragon fell during the Dragon Apocalypse. At the blades of a product of our ruler, the Dome of Sword Supremacy."

The three gems glowed in red, blue, and yellow and created a hologram. Ten dragons swarmed a city filled with people wearing glowing armor and swords, intending to decimate it and kill all the humans. They were slowly working their way through the city, breaking it all down with their various magic, creating massive tornadoes or swirls of flames with a single move. That is until they got to the very center because at the very center stood a near-perfect mirror dome. It reflected the sun's glare so harshly it would burn the eyes of any human looking directly at it. However, upon closer inspection, it was clearly divided into pieces.

This was a dome made out of hundreds of thousands of perfect swords made of pure metals, even the hilt, and gave off the vibe of a reflective dome. It was massive, twice as large as a dragon, and all of those swords weren't there just for artistic reasons.

The swords around the dome flew off once the dragons got too close and headed off to attack them. Swords flew through the sky, gliding effortlessly. Swords melted and broke upon hitting the dragon scales but they kept coming. The swords peeled off one after another just to reveal even more layers of swords under each layer. Eventually, the swords were finally able to hit the dragons enough at one spot, a spot under its jaw to chip away at the scales and somehow penetrate them.

One sword hit its flesh, causing blood to pour out. That blood was diverted away by the broken swords and used to fix them. Another sword flew into the back of the first sword and drove it even deeper. Five more swords flew into it and peeled away at flesh and scales. The swords wiggled around enough so the first few finally dug into the dragon's body and caused it to fall. Surprisingly, it was still thrashing around and destroying buildings and humans for quite a while after the sword entered its body.

Finally, after fast-forwarding a long time, all the silver swords had run out from the massive dome. On the inside were ten floating swords, encircling a single black katana in the middle.

A thick grey nine-ring broadsword flew out to slice the neck off the dragon where the first swords damaged it. In one clean slice, its entire head was severed from its body, blood poured out like a sea of nasty mess while the first swords escaped from the body. The other nine dragons, seeing their dead companion, flew away at once. From then on, all dragons avoided the city that the swords protected and destroyed all those just outside the boundaries of the swords.

The wall behind the statue crashed with a tremor. A tiny old man wielding a claymore walked out from the newly sliced rubble. He eyed them with a mean glare but he looked even shorter than a dwarf, the claymore looked a lot bigger in his hands. He plunged his hand not holding the claymore into the mess, grabbed something, and pulled it up. His arm had completely changed, it was now even longer than a normal arm, far buffer and carrying a yellow toolbox filled with swords. He took a small dagger and threw it to the feet of the three.

"Grandpa!" Page yelled. The old man's face instantly mellowed into a smile and they ran to each other for a hug.

"Who? This menacing old guy is your grandpa?" Zeeth asked.

"Yeah, guys, this is my grandpa."

"Page, my child, why have you come here?"

"I wanted to check out the City of Swords. What about you?"

"Did your father tell you of this place? I can't believe that little chicken would tell you about this dangerous place. I'm just here for personal reasons. Who is the boy?"

"These two are my friends, Zeeth and Elton."

"Why have you named an animated skeleton."

"Because he is alive."

"Hi." Elton waved.

"He talks! Fascinating! How do you work?"

"I don't really know."

His grandpa picked up a long sword with seven different eyes embedded along the blade. He swung the sword all around the skeleton in one swift movement, causing a small tornado, and looked into the eyes. "Not even my appraisal sword can tell… well, what do you guys want to do."

"We're here for the Evanescent Sword."

His grandpa drew a large sword, easily bigger than any of them, his face hardened like stone and demanded, "absolutely not. You will not risk your life for such an abomination."

"Not me, I wouldn't be able to hold it in a hundred years. I mean this man here." Page pointed at Zeeth. "He is the only man capable of handling it."

"He wields the power of a hundred men? He holds all the required affinities to hold the sword? He has the power to crush its the case and the mentality to wield it after?"

"He holds three of those four requirements. The last thing is the mentality, he needs to be a master with the sword, and that is where I want to ask you for help."

"You want me to assist you in awakening the abomination? Grandson, I would do a lot for you, but not this. Are you sure he has the first three? Are you even aware of what they mean?"

"Grandpa, I know you are dying."

"What?!"

"It's the same disease that's affecting mom, right?"

"How do you know all this?"

"Don't you want to pass on your sword style before you go? You know neither dad nor mom can take it on, you never wanted to pass it onto me or any of your grandchildren 'cause you always said it was too dangerous, right? Well, I've found a perfect person. A person that doesn't mind the danger."

"What?" Zeeth asked

"A person that will throw himself into a tentacon or fly to the mouth of a dragon."

"What idiot would intentionally head for the mouth of a dragon?" his grandpa asked, baffled.

"This idiot." Page pointed at Zeeth.

"Hey!"

"It has to be us kids and I know he is skilled enough to do it. And I know we can learn it, we can keep the lineage going."

"I do want to pass it on… but only to someone worthy!"

A memory flashed in his head, he was in a large white room this time as a teenager. In front of him, three human-shaped dummies with red targets painted on them were placed in battle stances. A cool robotic voice said, "commence training sequence A-46-TH."

He ran forward wielding a shortsword. In three slashes, he managed to cut off their hands, stab the red spots, and sliced off their heads. He walked back to his original spot and put his dagger back into a box beside him. The floor shifted and he was sent upwards. Another sword, this one as long as his arm, was in another box. He took it out and the walls behind him opened up. Four other people stood there, holding the same swords and a single black suit was placed in the middle.

The same cool voice told them, "whoever can put on the suit first gets to go outside for a mission. Those who ruin the suit will die, kill the others if you need to. Commence B-1-TH."

They all stood there for a moment but the walls began glowing red and closing in. the person directly ahead of him was the first to move, she went to attack the person on her left. Zeeth contemplated going for the same person, but he might be backstabbed by the other one first so he went to kill the lone fighter. He tried stabbing her heart but she moved his sword away and he could tell she was as good as he was with the sword.

Instead of fighting her head-on, he kept pushing her back until she was in between his sword and the other two fighters. She was eventually overwhelmed and he sliced her thigh enough to cripple her. Blood gushed out, he hit her in the head and knocked her out. The person who had moved first won her battle, the other one was also knocked out, blood leaking from his arm. She had a black eye but otherwise alright.