Chapter 48: Sword of Miracles (Third Watch, Ten Thousand)

"Shattered Sword, World-Breaker!"

Accompanied by a hoarse roar, light flooded the entire world.

The profound meaning of a high-difficulty sword technique that had always been unmasterable succeeded, miraculously, on this thousand-and-first attempt.

The scorching Sword of the Hero simultaneously radiated the blazing light of the sun and the pure light of holy power.

"It... actually succeeded?" The one who found it most unbelievable was Li En himself.

How exactly did I succeed? I don't know.

When did I master the sword technique's profound meaning? I don't know.

What are its usage conditions, and why had it never succeeded before? I don't know.

At the moment the sword of light was finally infused, Li En felt both lucky and somewhat dazed.

"A miracle?"

Courage grants the despairing hope to resist. At this moment, Li En's potential was drained to the limit, his subconscious and luck reaching their maximum values.

"I succeeded?!"

In that instant, the long sword, infused with massive holy power, was in Li En's hands.

Then, it reached its critical point.

It exploded.

"Boom!"

Silver light spread out; the entire world was instantly eroded by a holy power storm, everything dyed in the color of holy light.

Like an ocean tide, boundless holy light, with the sharp sword in Li En's hand as its core, began to expand directly.

This strike poured out nearly all of Li En's "Soul" holy power.

A sword technique not truly mastered, even if successfully executed miraculously, naturally could not adjust its output stably.

At this moment, all power within Li En was drawn out, transforming into a blooming flower of holy power.

"Boom!"

The explosion of holy power had already become a continuous state.

The holy sword had become a radiation source of high-heat, high-purity holy power.

The entire cave shook; rubble fell everywhere, and everyone in the cave instinctively looked in this direction.

The explosion's power was simply too strong; if this were outside, a mushroom cloud would undoubtedly form.

And all living beings around Li En were to experience "purification."

Dem and Larry, who were farther away, were blown directly outward, while the small beasts that had gone berserk due to Li En using Long Zhao were vaporized in an instant.

Hek and Li En at the center of the explosion?

When Bai Guang began to dissipate, only a tall, black ghost-like stain remained on the ground.

A powerful demon, without even time to leave a final word, was completely and utterly vaporized.

In that instant, the massive holy power of the Heroic Soul Oath was poured out entirely, transforming it into a "micro-nuclear bomb" limited to a three-meter radius.

No matter how strong Hek's regeneration ability was, he could not withstand this utterly unreasonable sea of holy power.

And Li En himself lay on the ground unconscious, his body emitting a faint scent of roasted meat.

The benefit was that the wounds were cauterized and stopped bleeding; the drawback was that the burns might be quite severe.

The real world has no "friendly fire immunity/reduction"; throwing a fireball at yourself will truly blow you up, and holy power is the same.

However, holy power targets only evil; paladins' holy resistance is often absurdly high, so Li En suffered little holy power damage, but the light and heat from the overly high-purity holy power explosion still caused collateral damage.

"Senior Brother Li En."

"Senior."

Before falling into complete unconsciousness, seeing the two who had rushed over, Li En closed his eyes in relief.

Shattered Sword, World-Breaker, was an advanced holy sword profound meaning of Soul that Li En had only grasped the barest surface of.

As an evolution of Evil-Cleaving Slash, its principle remained simply "infuse holy power then swing the sword," except it had been adjusted for large-area attacks.

It was a large-area attack disregarding consumption, loading excessive holy power and then detonating it as a range AOE.

The core lay in how to maintain the stable infusion of massive holy power while simultaneously compressing it, finally triggering a pinpoint explosion to suppress the power within a controllable range.

All these actions had to be completed in an instant; otherwise, it would naturally fail.

This was not the legendary light cannon (priests and high-ranking knights have dedicated long-range holy light skills), but a close-range, sword-core controllable holy power storm; if played poorly, the first thing to shatter would be a fine sword.

One could say every step required extremely high control skills, normally needing long-term tempering and cultivation.

Previously, Li En had been stuck at the first step of "holy power infusion"; let alone entering the door, he hadn't even seen the window.

But this time, it seemed a one-in-a-million lucky probability had triggered; not only did it succeed in one go, but it also over-infused with Heroic Soul-level holy power beyond the limit without exploding prematurely.

"... How long have I slept?"

When he regained consciousness, the scorching armor that had fused to his skin had been stripped away; Li En, bare-chested, had already been bandaged.

The young man propped himself up into a sitting position; every moment now was precious.

He said no nonsense about not worrying about him; losing his combat power meant this battle could probably be considered already lost.

"Less than a quarter-hour."

This, roughly, counted as good news.

Moving slightly, Li En still felt pain in his shoulder, but compared to the bone-piercing level before, it was on a completely different tier.

This was clearly the result of receiving holy power treatment.

"Do you still have holy power?"

"... Basically none." Larry sighed, but spoke the truth.

"For fighting, it's still enough." Dem himself had little holy power to begin with, so naturally he was unaffected.

Li En tried to move his left hand; it still worked, though it hurt a bit. From now on, he would probably have to wield the sword mainly with one hand.

The wound on his neck felt much better. With his injuries recovered to this extent, the two junior brothers and junior sisters must have used all their Holy Power to heal him.

Li En glanced over; Damon still had some combat capability.

Meanwhile, Larry, clutching his chest and gasping for air, had truly reached his limit.

In this battle, she, unarmored, had been badly injured, then used all her Holy Power to heal Li En; she was probably truly unable to fight anymore.

"Where are those children?"

"They are still in the secret chamber. We are guarding the door right now; it should be safe."

This was probably the best news for the moment.

Li En nodded, pondered for a moment, and spoke directly.

"Larry, take those children and go up first."

"No, I..."

"Leave your armor to me; that is the optimal configuration."

Li En looked at his own armor, the expensive "Sudar Family Artwork," which was now completely ruined.

Several large gashes on the upper half had completely shattered the defense of his upper body; flesh and blood inside the armor were stuck together, and there was even a faint scent of roasted meat. This armor could probably only be used as an oven.

"Listen. Think of your Oath of Guardianship. As long as the children are safe, we are already in an unbeatable position."

Larry gritted his teeth and finally nodded.

His bare upper body felt a bit cool; Li En instinctively reached for his chest. There, there should have been a copper necklace hanging a "ruby."

The necklace was still there, but the gemstone was reduced to nothing but a few crumbs.

Li En certainly did not suspect the two knights had taken it; it seemed something had happened at that moment.

【Creature Grade: Inferior Stone, Status: Strength 6 (13), Constitution 7 (11), Agility 5 (6), Spirit 6 (16)】

At that moment, Li En was stunned.

This time, the growth was not only enormous (generally increased by more than two points), but the attributes even vaguely exceeded the Inferior Stone grade of most ordinary orcs.

He was probably just one step away from entering the true Inferior Stone grade himself.

【Dragonization: 5.7%, Awakened Racial Talents: Dragon Eye (Gaze into Truth), Long Zhao (Tear Reality)】

【Orcization: 2.5%, Awakened Bloodline Ability: Comprehend Languages (Understand Human Speech).】

Dragonization had been stimulated to grow again, while Orcization remained stable as ever.

Li En more or less knew what had happened at that moment.

The surging Holy Power stimulated his body to absorb the Hero's Blood; the completed bloodline foundation gave him the basic ability to shatter swords.

Then, supported by his body in a phase of rapid evolution, and through a series of coincidences, he successfully swung that sword strike.

"Is this a miracle? No, did you do it?"

Li En looked at the Hero's Sword placed aside; at that moment, he had indeed felt its help.

【The Hero Who Brings Miracles, said to be a super gambler who wins every battle.】

"Uh, your usage condition isn't that the user is about to die, is it?"

Li En could only guess that perhaps the miracle it triggered was some unknown fate or luck-type ability.

"Hah." He swung the sword with one hand again; Holy Power could be poured out at any moment.

Even if it was luck and chance before, once truly used once, using it again only required following the instinct of life.

Its power certainly couldn't compare to the fatal strike that poured out all the Heroic Soul's Holy Power, but for his current self, it was the new power he needed most.

【Mastered Sword Shattering: Realm Breaking (Entry Level)】

And the record in the Heroic Soul Codex also proved this possibility.

"The Hero's Sword that brings miracles? Legend says the Hero is indeed a special class where the stronger the opponent, the more desperate the situation, the stronger the side... but if you walk by the river often, won't you really end up playing yourself?"

(End of Chapter)