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Chapter 111: Caliburn!
🕑 Added 2025-08-03 09:43:28 +0000 UTCThe moment stretched between heartbeats, that crystalline instant before violence when possibilities hung suspended like morning dew. Artoria's grip on Caliburn shifted minutely—not tightening in nervousness but adjusting for optimal leverage, the motion of someone who'd held a sword before she could properly walk. Across from her, Meng Po stood motionless as carved stone, but the blood-yellow water pooling at her feet spread with deliberate menace.
Russell felt the familiar pre-battle tension singing through his nerves. This was always the worst part—not the fighting itself but the moment before, when imagination could conjure a thousand ways to fail. He pushed the doubts aside, focusing on Artoria's steady presence. She showed no fear facing the Grandmother of Forgetting, only the keen attention of a warrior assessing threats.
Wade had recovered from his historical crisis, his expression settling into smug anticipation. "Ladies first," he offered with mock gallantry. "Or should I say, 'Your Majesty'? I'm still unclear on the proper address for fictional royalty."
Artoria didn't rise to the bait. Her response came in the form of action—blue light erupting around her form as Mana Burst activated. The magical energy wasn't just an aura but a living thing, crackling along her armor and weapon like tame lightning. The corrupted ground beneath her feet cracked from the pressure, fungal growth withering from proximity to her purifying power.
Then she moved.
The distance between combatants vanished in an eyeblink. One moment Artoria stood in ready position, the next she was airborne, Caliburn descending in a perfect arc toward Meng Po's head. The golden blade sang as it cut through corrupted air, leaving a trail of light that hurt to look at directly.
But Meng Po had lived through dynasties, judged souls beyond counting. Age had not made her slow. The blood-yellow water responded to some unspoken command, surging upward in a liquid wall. Artoria's blade met the barrier with a sound like thunder, sending droplets of tainted water sizzling in all directions.
The impact should have stopped her cold. Instead, Artoria twisted in midair, using the resistance to redirect her momentum. She landed in a crouch, immediately launching into a spinning slash that sent a crescent of sword wind howling toward her opponent.
BOOM!
The attack tore through the water barrier like paper, opening a massive gap. For an instant, Russell glimpsed Meng Po through the opening—still unmoved, still watching with ancient eyes that held depths of patience no mortal could match.
Artoria pressed the advantage, charging through the gap with Caliburn held in a two-handed grip. But the moment she entered the circle of Meng Po's influence, her intuition screamed warnings. She threw herself sideways, combat instincts saving her as the ground where she'd been about to step erupted in geysers of yellow water.
The River of Oblivion, Russell realized with a chill. In mythology, Meng Po's soup made souls forget their past lives, preparing them for reincarnation. But this wasn't soup—this was the source itself, the waters of forgetfulness given terrible form. Even a drop could potentially erase memories, skills, perhaps even the very concept of self.
"Careful, Lily," he murmured, knowing she couldn't hear but needing to voice the warning anyway.
Artoria landed in a roll, came up running. The water pursued like a living thing, tentacles of liquid reaching with disturbing intelligence. She wove between them with dancer's grace, Caliburn flashing out to sever any that came too close. Where the blade touched the water, steam exploded with a sound like screaming.
"Impressive reflexes," Wade commented, loud enough to carry. "But she can't dodge forever. And Meng Po has all the time in the world."
As if to emphasize his point, the blood-yellow water began spreading more aggressively. It didn't flow like normal liquid but crept across the corrupted ground with purpose, cutting off escape routes, herding Artoria toward predetermined positions. The elderly woman still hadn't moved from her original spot, content to let her element do the work.
Russell watched Artoria adapt in real-time. She stopped trying to close distance directly, instead beginning a series of probing attacks. Sword wind crescents flew from different angles, testing the water's defensive patterns. A few times she feinted charges only to abort at the last second, gauging reaction times.
She's learning, he realized with pride. This wasn't the King of Knights with decades of battle experience—this was a young woman still growing into her power. But that growth was happening before his eyes, accelerated by draconic instincts and royal training.
"Getting frustrated yet?" Wade called out. "I should mention—Meng Po's stamina is essentially infinite in environments like this. The corruption feeds her, you see. Whereas your little knight must be burning through magical energy at a tremendous rate."
He wasn't wrong. Maintaining Mana Burst at combat levels was exhausting, and every dodge, every attack, depleted Artoria's reserves. Already Russell could see the subtle signs—her movements still precise but lacking the explosive speed of her opening assault.
But Wade had made a critical error: he'd revealed information unnecessarily. Now Russell knew Meng Po drew power from the dimension itself, which meant...
Artoria suddenly changed tactics. Instead of attacking Meng Po directly, she turned her blade on the environment. Caliburn swept out in a massive arc, releasing a wave of golden light that scoured the corrupted ground clean. Where the light passed, fungal growth turned to ash, and the spongy earth hardened into honest stone.
Meng Po's expression flickered—just for an instant—from serene confidence to something like concern. The blood-yellow water faltered in its advance, rippling with uncertainty.
"Clever girl," Russell breathed. By purifying the immediate environment, Artoria was cutting off Meng Po's power source. It wouldn't last—the dimension's corruption was too vast to cleanse entirely—but it bought time and leveled the playing field.
Wade's smug expression soured. "Meng Po, stop playing with your food. End this."
The elderly woman sighed, a sound that carried the weight of eons. She lifted the porcelain bowl in her gnarled hands, and the air itself seemed to thicken with presence. The blood-yellow water responded to her direct command, rising from the ground in towering waves that defied physics and reason.
But more than that, something else emanated from the bowl—invisible but undeniable. Russell felt it brush against his mind despite the distance, a sensation like fingers trailing through memory, sorting and selecting what to take. If that was just the overflow affecting him as a bystander...
Artoria staggered. Her charge faltered mid-step, confusion flickering across her young features. The effect was subtle but devastating—not a direct attack but something worse. Meng Po wasn't trying to hurt her. She was trying to make her forget why she was fighting.
"The Five Flavors of Forgetfulness," Wade explained helpfully, his good humor restored. "Sour for sadness, sweet for joy, bitter for anger, spicy for passion, salty for fear. Every emotion that drives combat, every memory that gives strength. All of it can be... adjusted."
Russell watched helplessly as Artoria shook her head, trying to clear the invasive influence. Her grip on Caliburn remained steady—muscle memory deeper than conscious thought—but the certainty in her eyes wavered. Who was she fighting? Why? The questions were visible in her expression, each doubt weakening her stance.
The blood-yellow water seized its opportunity, surging forward from all directions. Artoria's intuition still functioned, warning of danger, but her responses came a heartbeat too slow. Water lashed at her armor, each contact sizzling against the magical protections but leaving marks—not physical damage but something worse. Patches where the armor's light dimmed, where the very concept of protection grew thin.
"And there we have it," Wade said with satisfaction. "Your knight fought well, but mythology trumps . Meng Po has judged souls since the world was young. One little girl with a sword, no matter how shiny, can't compete with that weight of ages."
Artoria stumbled, driven to one knee by the relentless assault. The purified ground around her was already being reclaimed by corruption, her temporary advantage evaporating. Caliburn's light flickered like a candle in a hurricane.
No. Russell's hands clenched into fists, nails digging into palms. He wanted to call out, to remind her who she was, why she fought. But that would be interference, grounds for disqualification. He had to trust in her—in the story he'd woven, in the strength of the narrative itself.
And then, something beautiful happened.
Artoria's eyes focused—not outward but inward, finding something in herself that transcended memory. Her lips moved, speaking words too quiet to hear over the roar of attacking water. But Russell could read them, knew what she was saying because it was written into her very existence:
"I am the bone of my sword."
Not the full aria—she didn't know those words yet, wouldn't know them until much later in her story. But the core truth remained. She was a sword given human form, a weapon forged for a single purpose. And weapons didn't need memories to cut.
[Journey of Flowers] flared to life around her, invisible to most but blazing in Russell's enhanced vision. The blessing she carried for others turned inward, protecting her own heart from emotional manipulation. The confusion cleared from her eyes like mist before dawn, replaced by diamond certainty.
Meng Po's ancient features showed genuine surprise. The bowl in her hands trembled, its influence suddenly meeting not just resistance but complete immunity.
Artoria rose to her feet with mechanical precision. The water crashed against her from all sides, but she no longer tried to dodge. Instead, she raised Caliburn overhead in a two-handed grip, the blade pointing skyward like a lightning rod calling down heaven's wrath.
"Wade," Russell said quietly, pitching his voice to carry just far enough. "You might want to tell your card to move."
"What?" Wade's confusion lasted only a moment before his eyes widened in understanding. "Get out of there! Meng Po, retreat!"
But it was too late. Artoria's voice rang out clear and true, carrying the weight of destiny itself:
"CALIBURN!"
The world went gold.
It wasn't an attack in any conventional sense. Attacks had limits—range, power, duration. What erupted from Caliburn transcended such mundane restrictions. This was the light of promised victory given form, the hope of a kingdom made manifest. It was every prayer for a savior answered at once, concentrated into a single, overwhelming moment.
Russell threw up an arm to shield his eyes, but the light bypassed physical sight entirely. It burned itself into memory, into soul, into the very concept of perception. Through squinted eyes and tears, he glimpsed the impossible—a pillar of golden radiance that pierced not just the dimension's eternal clouds but reality itself, showing glimpses of blue sky beyond.
The blood-yellow water didn't stand a chance. It evaporated instantly, not boiled away but simply ceasing to exist in the face of something so fundamentally opposed to its nature. The River of Oblivion met the Light of Victory, and victory won.
Meng Po herself lasted a heartbeat longer, her ancient nature providing some resistance. But only a heartbeat. The porcelain bowl in her hands cracked, split, shattered into dust finer than memory. The elderly woman's form began to fade, but Russell caught something in her expression as she dissolved—not fear or anger but something almost like... approval? As if she'd been reminded of younger days, when heroes still walked the earth with pure hearts and untarnished ideals.
The light continued past where Meng Po had stood, carving its inexorable path through the corrupted landscape. The ground didn't explode or crater—it was simply gone, replaced by a perfectly straight canyon that extended beyond the range of vision. Seven, eight kilometers at minimum, the edges so clean they looked machine-cut, gleaming with residual energy that would probably linger for years.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the light faded.
Artoria stood in the same position, Caliburn still raised overhead. For a moment, the golden sword held its form, proud and beautiful. Then cracks appeared—hairline fractures that spread like spiderwebs across the blade. The sound it made as it shattered was musical, almost mournful, like bells tolling for something precious lost.
The fragments dissolved into motes of light before they could hit the ground, leaving Artoria holding nothing but empty air. She lowered her arms slowly, exhaustion visible in every line of her body but victory shining in her eyes.
Silence reigned over the battlefield, broken only by the distant sound of dimensional fabric trying to repair itself. Even the corruption seemed stunned, its constant whispers temporarily muted by the aftershock of pure conceptual power.
Wade stared at the canyon that now bisected a significant portion of the dimension. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. No words emerged. For possibly the first time in his life, he had absolutely nothing to say.
"I believe," Russell said into the silence, "that's my victory."
Wade's head snapped around, focusing on Russell with an intensity that promised nothing good. But before he could speak, a new voice interrupted from above:
"What in the seven hells is going on here?!"
The garrison captain descended on his mount, a massive eagle whose wings beat frantically to navigate the disrupted air currents. The man's face was a study in professional horror as he took in the devastation—not just the canyon but the ripple effects spreading outward, the way reality itself seemed unsure how to process what had just happened.
"Such a massive commotion..." The captain's voice trailed off as his magical senses finally processed what he was seeing. "Silver-level? This was done by silver-level cards?!"
He looked between Russell and Wade like they were bombs about to explode, clearly reassessing everything he thought he knew about power scaling. The canyon alone represented gold-level destruction at minimum, but the residual energy signatures were unmistakably silver. It didn't compute.
"We had a disagreement," Wade said, his voice carefully controlled. "It's been resolved."
The captain's eagle landed at a safe distance—safe being relative when dealing with people who could apparently carve new geographical features at will. "Resolved. Right. And the dimension?"
"Will recover," Russell offered. "Eventually. The corruption's already beginning to reclaim the purified areas."
Indeed, at the edges of Artoria's cleansing light, fungal growth was cautiously extending tendrils into the cleared spaces. The dimension was nothing if not persistent in its foulness.
"Mr. Wade, Mr. Russell," the captain said after visibly collecting himself. "Are either of you injured? Do you require medical assistance?"
"We're fine," Wade answered curtly. His composure was returning by degrees, the mask of casual superiority sliding back into place. But Russell had seen beneath it now—seen the genuine shock, the forced recalculation of everything Wade thought he knew.
"Then I'll... leave you to your harvesting," the captain said weakly. "Please try to avoid any further... landscaping."
He fled on his eagle, clearly wanting to be anywhere else. Russell didn't blame him. In the captain's position, he'd be reviewing career options that involved less exposure to temperamental cardmakers with terraforming capabilities.
Once they were alone again, Wade turned to Russell with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "My skills were inferior. I admit defeat."
The words came out steady, but Russell could taste the bitterness beneath them. This wasn't just about losing a duel—Wade had been outmaneuvered at every level. His prepared strategy, countered. His material selection, subverted. His assumptions about power, shattered as thoroughly as Caliburn itself.
"The [Silent End] is yours," Wade continued, each word precise as a knife cut. "As agreed. I trust you'll make good use of it."
"I intend to," Russell replied, keeping his own tone neutral. No point in rubbing salt in wounds, especially when dealing with someone who clearly had both resources and connections to make life difficult.
Wade gestured to the canyon with false casualness. "Quite the trump card. Though I notice it's single-use. Your knight is essentially defenseless now."
It was both observation and threat—pointing out that Artoria without Caliburn was vastly diminished, that Russell's victory came at the cost of his card's primary weapon. But Russell had expected this.
"Every sword can be reforged," he said simply. "And she's far from defenseless. A knight's strength comes from more than their weapon."
Artoria demonstrated this by picking up a sturdy branch from the scarce vegetation, channeling Mana Burst through it until it glowed with inner light. Not Caliburn's overwhelming radiance but respectable enough to serve as a functional weapon. The gesture was casual but the message clear—she remained dangerous even diminished.
"Indeed." Wade's smile gained a trace of genuine amusement. "You're more interesting than I expected, Russell. This won't be our last encounter."
"Looking forward to it," Russell lied smoothly.
Wade laughed—actually laughed, the sound carrying notes of self-mockery. "No, you're not. But you will be. The national competition is in four months. I'll be participating, naturally. And by then..." His eyes glittered with promise. "By then I'll be ready for whatever impossible card you produce."
He summoned his crystal swan, mounting with enviable grace despite the day's humiliation. Before departing, he looked back one final time.
"A word of advice, Russell. You've made quite the impression today. That's not always a good thing in our world. Watch your back."
Then he was gone, his mount disappearing into the dimensional gloom with barely a whisper of displaced air. Russell waited until he was certain Wade had truly left before allowing himself to relax.
"Well done," he told Artoria, who performed a perfect knight's salute before dissolving back into card form. He could feel her exhaustion through their bond—maintaining combat readiness after Caliburn's destruction had pushed her to her limits.
Alone now except for the dimension's watching eyes, Russell finally turned toward the cave. The [Silent End] waited within, the prize that had started this entire confrontation. But as he walked toward his objective, his mind was already racing ahead.
Wade would be a problem. Not immediately—his pride would demand he improve before seeking a rematch. But eventually, inevitably, they would clash again. And next time, Wade would come prepared for female King Arthur and her nuclear option sword.
Good thing I'm not planning to stand still either.
The cave mouth yawned before him like a wound in reality, edges worn smooth by centuries of corruption seeping outward. Russell stepped into the darkness without hesitation, Arrogance stirring beneath his skin in case of ambush. But the darkness held no threats—only secrets.
He'd expected winding tunnels, perhaps a labyrinthine path designed to confuse treasure seekers. Instead, the cave opened immediately into a vast chamber that defied the modest entrance. The space stretched upward into shadows his enhanced vision couldn't penetrate, while the width could have accommodated a small stadium. Clearly, this was no natural formation.
At the chamber's exact center, impossible to miss, his prize waited.
[The Silent End] floated above a vortex of absolute darkness—not mere absence of light but a hungry void that seemed to pull at the very concept of existence. The material itself provided the only illumination, pulsing with a deep red radiance that painted the chamber walls in shades of blood and shadow. It took the form of a crystallized scream—literally frozen sound waves made solid, twisted into a spiral that hurt to perceive directly.
Russell approached carefully, noting how the corruption grew thicker near the vortex. His footsteps echoed strangely, each sound stretching and distorting as if the chamber couldn't decide how large it actually was. When he reached the edge of the vortex's influence, he paused, extending his magical senses cautiously.
The void pulled at his power, not aggressively but with patient invitation. Come, it seemed to whisper. Fall. End. Be silent.
Russell shook off the hypnotic effect and reached out with focused will. His magical energy wrapped around [The Silent End], careful not to disturb the vortex itself. The material resisted for a moment—testing his worthiness, perhaps—before allowing itself to be drawn away from its resting place.
The moment it touched his palm, Russell understood why Wade had wanted it so badly.
Silver-level Field Material [The Silent End] (Red)
"Red quality," he breathed, cradling the crystallized scream with appropriate reverence. This was only the second red-quality material he'd encountered, the first being Unohana herself. The power contained within thrummed against his senses—death given form, endings made manifest, the final silence that awaited all things.
Thinking of Wade's Meng Po, Russell chuckled darkly. "No wonder he wanted this too." A field card created from this would synergize perfectly with underworld-themed cards, creating a domain where death held absolute authority.
He carefully stored the material in his spatial inventory, feeling its weight settle alongside his other treasures. But something nagged at him as he turned to leave. This chamber was too large, too deliberately constructed, to exist solely as a glorified display case.
Russell began a systematic exploration, Arrogance enhancing his vision to pierce the deepest shadows. The walls were smooth—too smooth, as if they'd been melted and reformed rather than carved. He ran his fingers along the surface, feeling for hidden seams or mechanisms.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing—
"This is..."
In the farthest corner, where shadows gathered thick enough to have substance, his fingers found grooves. Not random scratches but deliberate carvings, symbols etched deep enough to survive whatever process had smoothed the rest of the walls.
Russell's breath caught. He recognized this symbol—had seen it before in another place that should have held no connection to this dimension. The diary from [Sword Lake], that water-damaged book written in an unknown script, had borne this exact mark on its cover.
He traced the symbol carefully, memorizing every line and curve. It resembled no alphabet or magical system he knew—not Chinese characters, not Western letters, not even the mystical scripts used in high-level card creation. It was something Other, something that predated current magical understanding.
But it was alone. As Russell expanded his search, checking every inch of the corner and spreading outward, he found no other symbols. The walls bore signs of deliberate erasure—places where the melting effect had been applied more thoroughly, destroying what had once been carved there.
"Someone cleaned house," he muttered, frustration coloring his voice. The Association had controlled [Night's End Banquet] for decades, plenty of time to sanitize any inconvenient historical records. The diary in [Sword Lake] had been a fluke—that dimension discovered recently enough that not all secrets had been found and destroyed.
"But speaking of it," Russell mused aloud, the chamber's acoustics making his voice echo strangely, "I still don't know what's written in that diary."
The symbol stared back at him, keeping its secrets. Without a point of comparison, without similar texts to build a translation key, the diary remained an indecipherable mystery. He'd hoped each dimension might hold pieces of the puzzle, but if they'd all been sanitized like this one...
Still, the presence of the symbol confirmed his suspicions. There was a connection between dimensions, some underlying truth that predated their modern understanding. The sea chart from [Black Flag] had shown dimensions changing size over time. His own transportation to this world. The increasing frequency of new dimensional appearances. The Spirit Begging Society's desperate acceleration of their plans.
And most disturbing of all—the mysterious space's bizarre favoritism toward him.
"A storm is coming," Russell said to the empty chamber, the words carrying certainty that bordered on prophecy. The pieces were aligning for something momentous, even if he couldn't see the full picture yet. "Even if you die," he promised himself, "you must die with understanding."
He took one last look at the symbol, burning it into memory alongside its twin from [Sword Lake]. Two data points weren't enough to form a pattern, but they were better than nothing. Perhaps the next dimension would hold another piece, another symbol, another step toward truth.
Time pressed against him with physical weight. He'd spent too long in contemplation when there were monsters to harvest and materials to gather. The [Night's End Banquet] wouldn't remain docile forever, especially after the light show Artoria had provided. Every predator in the dimension would be curious about what had disturbed their hunting grounds.
Russell turned and strode from the chamber, leaving its mysteries for future investigation. The corruption seemed thicker as he emerged, as if the dimension itself had taken offense at his theft. Let it sulk. He had what he came for—and more questions than ever about the true nature of the world he now inhabited.
Behind him, the empty vortex continued its patient spin, waiting for next year's manifestation. The symbol in the corner remained as well, sole survivor of whatever knowledge had once been recorded here. A single word in a language no one could read, speaking truths no one was meant to know.
But Russell would learn. Even if it killed him, he would understand.
The cave's darkness receded as he emerged into the dimension's eternal twilight. Time to hunt, to harvest.
(End of Chapter 111)
Comments
Raphael Espinoza Angulo
I love that characters are given the weight they deserve in their story, at least in some elements.
