Final Regression of The Legendary Swordmaster Chapter 41

The garden? Gone. Just scorched earth, shattered glass, and powdered stone. Captain Valerius stood smack-dab in the middle of it, gasping for air like a fish out of water. His breath rattled in his chest, a horrible sound against his wrecked armor. The Berserker State he’d tapped into? It was fading fast, the red glow sputtering like a candle in a hurricane, bleeding out into the dusk. He was spent. Completely, utterly, dead on his feet. Yet, even now, with exhaustion crushing him from the inside, Valerius’s pride flared one last time.

With a roar that probably tore his throat to shreds, Valerius went all in. He lit up every last bit of strength he had left. The red aura around him surged upward, forming a towering pillar of red energy that reached toward the dark sky. He didn’t just move. He exploded. He launched himself at Edward with every ounce of strength he possessed, leaving the ground beneath his feet into a deep crater. His giant claymore, held with both hands, was aimed for a final, crushing strike. It was a powerful attack, born from thirty years of training.

Edward watched the charging figure without changing expression. His eyes were calm, almost distant.

"You have shown me your full power, Captain," Edward said, his voice carried over the roar of the wind. "It is only fair that I treat you with the same respect."

Edward dropped into a low stance, rooting himself to the ground. He let loose his mana. A dark purple aura, heavier and more powerful than ever before, burst out of him. The blue lightning that had been streaming around him snapped together, growing into a massive shape that towered over the garden.

In an instant, a huge Wyrm Dragon made of pure lightning materialized in front of Edward. Its scales were living sparks, and its eyes were balls of white-hot energy. With a roar that shook the entire manor, the elemental spirit charged.

BOOM!!!

The Lightning Wyrm crashed into Valerius’s claymore in a blinding explosion of energy. The dragon’s jaws clamped down on Valerius’s arm and blade, lightning crackling through the knight’s armor, superheating the surrounding air. For three terrible seconds, Valerius held his ground, muscles screaming, armor melting. But he was outmatched. The gap between them too great. And his loyalty? It could only take him so far.

With one final surge of mana, the Wyrm push forward. Its jaws slammed shut like a mountain cracking in half. Valerius’s right arm, still gripping the claymore, was ripped clean off his shoulder, vaporized by the sheer power of the lighting. The impact threw him back, his Berserker State gone in an instant.

Valerius landed hard about fifty feet away. He lay there, smoking, steam rising off his skin as his body temperature crashed. He was done. Beaten. The Iron Shield of House Vistro was now just a one-armed man in the dirt.

Edward teleported, appearing instantly beside the fallen knight, looking down at him with an unreadable expression.

Valerius’s eyes twitched. Despite the blood loss and the unbearable pain burning through his bones, his spirit refused to fully break. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself up using his remaining arm. His legs shook beneath him, his face smeared with blood and ash. He had no sword. He had no strength left.

Still, he raised his left fist.

He then threw slow, heavy punches toward Edward, each one clumsy and weak. Edward didn’t even move his feet. He just casually swayed his head, dodging the pathetic punches that barely tickled his clothes. Each strike was a statement from a man who couldn’t quit, even when he was already at the end.

Edward reached out and stopped Valerius’s fist in mid-swing. The knight’s arm shook in Edward’s grip, but he couldn’t budge it.

"Your effort wasn’t wasted, Captain," Edward said calmly, his voice low but steady. "Few men would stand that long once they understood the gap between us. Your loyalty, especially in a house like this, is rare."

He lowered Valerius’ fist, his eyes sharp and thoughtful rather than cruel.

"But answer me this," he continued. "When a knight kneels, what does he truly swear himself to? The man who sits on the chair today... or the one meant to rule long after that man is gone?"

Valerius looked up, vision blurry, breath ragged.

"You serve the one who claims to be the head," Edward went on, closing the distance until his eyes were only inches away. "But tell me this, Captain. Is the head always the strongest... or sometimes just the weakest one still clinging to a title?"

His gaze didn’t waver.

"Look at the result of this fight. You never touched me. Not once. My clothes bear nothing but the filth from the Abyssal Cells. No tear from your blade. No drop of my blood." He let the words sink in. "Strength decides hierarchy. And by that rule alone, I am the strongest to ever carry the Vistro name."

Edward let go of the knight’s hand.

"I will spare your life and your honor," Edward declared, his voice carrying the weight of a royal decree. "I will not kill a warrior of your caliber. But I require your submission. Give me your Soul Blood. Serve me as my shadow, and I will teach you the way of power that my father could never imagine. I will take you beyond the 5-star mastery and show you the true meaning of a martial master."

Valerius staggered back a step, then another. His legs nearly gave out, but he forced them to hold. Pride. Habit. Thirty years of standing tall refusing to let him collapse outright.

He stood there, swaying, blood dripping from his severed shoulder onto the ruined ground. Each drop felt louder than the last.

For the first time since he had taken up a sword, Valerius didn’t know what to do next.

He had always known how battles ended. You either won, or you died. Even defeat had meaning if it came with death. But this... this was something else entirely. He was alive. Beaten beyond dispute. And standing before a man who had taken everything from him without even being touched.

His gaze drifted, unfocused at first, then slowly sharpening.

He saw the garden. Or what remained of it. Stone turned to dust. Glass melted into warped sheets. The marks of his final charge burned into the earth like a scar that would never fade.

Then his eyes shifted to the manor wall in the distance. The broken section where the Marquis had been flung through stone like a discarded doll.

His lord.

The man he had served without question.

A flicker of doubt surfaced. Small. Unwelcome. Dangerous.

Valerius clenched his remaining hand, his nails biting into his palm. Loyalty surged in response, instinctive and fierce. He had sworn an oath. An oath given in blood and steel. To House Vistro. To the Marquis.

But Edward’s words echoed again, uninvited.

To whom does a knight truly swear his oath?

Valerius swallowed. His throat burned.

He looked back at Edward.

Not at his lightning. Not at his aura. At the man himself.

Young. Too young. A boy, by any reasonable measure. And yet... Valerius had faced saints, generals, and monsters wearing human skin. None of them had stood the way Edward stood now. Calm. Absolute. Untouched.

Not arrogant.

Certain.

The realization hit him harder than any blow.

Throughout the entire battle, Edward had never fought to survive.

He had fought to measure.

Valerius felt something inside him crack. Not his will. Something deeper.

His belief.

His knees bent slightly before he could stop them. He caught himself, breathing hard, chest heaving. Shame flooded him immediately. A knight did not kneel unless ordered. A shield did not lower itself.

And yet, his body already knew the truth his mind was struggling to accept.

Edward hadn’t asked him to submit out of cruelty.

He had asked because this was the natural order.

Valerius let out a rough, broken laugh that turned into a cough halfway through. Blood spattered onto the ground.

"So this is it..." he muttered, more to himself than to Edward. "Thirty years of steel... weighed and found lacking."

He lifted his head again, eyes burning. Not with hatred.

With grief.

"I served him," Valerius said hoarsely. "Not because he was the strongest. But because he was the one who stood when others fled." His jaw tightened. "I told myself that was enough."

His gaze flicked once more to the ruined manor. To the chaos. To the unmistakable truth written across the battlefield.

"...But strength that cannot protect its house," he continued quietly, "is nothing more than decoration."

The words tasted bitter.

Slowly, deliberately, Valerius lowered himself to one knee.

The impact was dull, heavy. Final.

Not surrender yet. Not fully.

A pause followed. Long. Heavy. The kind that decided the course of a life.

Valerius closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the hesitation was gone.

"As a warrior," he said, voice low and steady despite the pain, "my life has always belonged to the strongest banner I could stand beneath."

He raised his remaining hand to his forehead, fingers trembling for the first time that night.

"If that banner is now yours..." he exhaled sharply, "...then I will not lie to myself any longer."

From the center of his brow, a single drop of glowing, crimson liquid emerged—the Soul Blood. It was the literal essence of his life and his will. To give it was to hand over the keys to his soul. If Edward were to crush this drop, Valerius would die instantly.

Valerius hesitated for a fraction of a second longer.

Then he let it fall.

"I offer this not as a slave," he said quietly, "but as a shield that recognizes its master."

The glowing drop hovered between them.

Edward reached out and took it.

The moment the Soul Blood vanished into Edward’s grasp, Valerius felt it. The bond. Cold, absolute, undeniable.

His shoulders sagged as the last of the resistance left him. Not despair.

Relief.

For the first time in years, the weight of choosing was gone.

Valerius bowed his head.

The strongest shield of House Vistro had found a new throne to guard.