“Five years ago, when I won the Under-12 World Cup tournament in my last year of elementary school, I felt nothing but annoyance.”
After winning the most prestigious junior tournament, Ouma had realized that he wouldn’t be able to progress by play-fighting with blunted swords. The tournament itself had been no different from basic training in his mind.
“I realized there was no way I’d be able to test my limits in that padded enclosure made for children to play in, much less overcome them. It was agonizing, knowing I was stuck in that small pond during the very period where I could grow the fastest—that I’d have to spend at least another three years fighting mock battles with my Device and my opponent’s in phantom form.”
Even as a child, Ouma had craved strength more than anything, and wasting his time stagnating when he could have been aiming for greater heights had been unbearable. He’d wanted to be able to use his strength to the fullest and test his limits as much as possible.
“That’s why I left Japan...and why I left the Federation.”
He’d realized that in the wider world, there were places where he could find the battles he sought. At times, he’d fought in the shady slums of large cities. At times, he’d fought in underground fighting rings. And at times, he’d even fought in war zones. Kurogane Ouma had finally found the arenas he’d been searching for, and he’d been able to devote himself wholly to the pursuit of strength.
Back then, he’d felt truly fulfilled. He’d felt himself getting stronger with each deadly battle he’d put himself in, to the point where he’d let himself get blinded by his own growth. He’d truly believed, without a shadow of doubt, that if he kept it up, he could become the strongest Mage-Knight in the world. But eventually, reality had caught up to him.
“My arrogance didn’t last long. At the end of my travels, when I’d reached the farthest-flung corner of the world, I found the den of a true demon.”
“Who?” Stella asked.
“Since you’re royalty, I’m sure you’ve heard their name... The Tyrant.”
“Ah!”
The audience was clearly unfamiliar with the nickname Ouma had mentioned, but Stella’s eyes widened in recognition. As a member of the royal family of one of the countries belonging to the Federation, she’d naturally been briefed on them. The Tyrant was none other than the leader of the international terrorist organization Rebellion.
“You fought him?!” she cried, and Ouma nodded slowly.
“But I was utterly crushed. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t even put up a real fight.”
The Tyrant was an avatar of violence who’d been ruling the criminal underworld for the past half century. It was hardly surprising that Ouma had been defeated. The gap in strength between them had been so huge that he hadn’t even been able to measure it. Having been reminded of his place in the world, all Ouma could do was pathetically beg for his life. But of course, the Tyrant wasn’t the kind of man to show mercy. Though Ouma hadn’t been a threat, he’d continued to rain violence down upon the poor boy, drowning out his screams.
“Just thinking about that day leaves me trembling in terror. I’d never felt such despair before. I’d never been so close to death either. If Twin Wings hadn’t stepped in to save me, I would have died there. But after stepping into the world of true demons and being reminded that I’d just been a big fish in a small pond, I realized something: No matter how much time I spent training, the path I was walking on was too slow. I’d never reach the top that way.” His lifespan was too short to reach the pinnacle he was aiming for at the pace he’d been going. “That being the case, there was no point in relying on regular means of training. I couldn’t just walk. I needed to evolve and grow wings that would let me fly up to the pinnacle!”
Ouma grabbed his outer coat and flung it off.
“Heavenly Armor—release.”
A second later, an invisible shock wave passed through Stella, then through the crowd behind her. She was blown back to the edge of the ring, while the fence protecting the spectator stands crumpled under the pressure. The windows facing the arena all shattered as well, and the crowd started screaming.
He said “release,” didn’t he? That means that up until now, all of that air...
“Don’t tell me you’ve been crushing your own body with that highly compressed air this whole time?!”
Ouma nodded silently. Indeed, the air he’d released had been shackles he’d been restricting himself with. Heavenly Armor was a Noble Art where Ouma surrounded himself in an armor of wind to deflect enemy attacks. But he’d inverted it to constrict himself instead, forcing his body to constantly withstand abnormal pressure.
“Why would you do that?”
“In order to evolve.”
Every living being evolved to adapt to its environment. It was said that humans who swam constantly from a very young age sometimes developed something similar to webbing between their fingers and toes over the course of decades. Ouma had put himself in the harshest environment he could create in order to force his body to evolve to survive it. That was what had given him a body capable of withstanding any attack and dishing out devastating attacks of his own.
However, even if every living being was equipped with the capacity to evolve, that evolution took time. And it didn’t always work as intended. The human body couldn’t possibly withstand the pressure Ouma had subjected his to. He would have struggled to move even a finger, his muscles and bones being crushed under the weight of that much air. Even his organs wouldn’t be able to function properly with that much outside pressure acting on them. If he’d truly fought battles while in that state, he must have lost over and over. Opponents he normally would have defeated with ease would have been able to mercilessly beat him down.
Despite that, he’d continued that reckless training in order to strengthen himself. It was the only way he could reach the realm of demons that he’d seen a glimpse of. He’d kept at it, not caring what it did to him. If he got killed by his own power, it simply meant that was the extent of his potential.
“After countless scars had been carved into this body of mine, my training finally bore fruit.”
Ouma’s body had finally begun adapting to the environment it was in. His bones had hardened to deal with the pressure, his heart had learned how to beat harder to continue delivering blood to his organs through his constricted blood vessels, and all of his muscle fibers had become sturdier and more limber in order to move smoothly under the immense air pressure. Eventually, he had reached the point where he’d stopped feeling the pressure at all, and his body had been forged anew.
“You probably couldn’t tell from my outward appearance, but I’m sure you felt it in your swings. My body is dozens of times denser than a regular human’s, and it weighs even more than Panzer Grizzly’s. Regular slashes can’t even hurt me. And now that I’ve released those shackles, I imagine you know what comes next, don’t you?”
“Ngh!”
Stella immediately held her sword up to block.
“Too slow.”
“Agh!”
With a single bound, Ouma closed the distance between them and swung his wind-clad blade down at Stella. He fired off three slashes in a split second—faster even than Ikki when he was using Twin Wings’s techniques.
“Haaaaah!”
Stella was able to just barely block them with her superior reflexes and honed battle sense, but she could tell it was dangerous to stay in close range of Ouma. She leaped back after blocking the onslaught, using the force of his swings to bolster her retreat. Ikki had done the same thing to her in their mock battle many months ago.
“Hiyaaaaaaah!”
In response, Ouma immediately launched a flurry of vacuum slices at Stella. They traveled faster than bullets, making them impossible to track with the naked eye. But this was a battle between Blazers. Stella was able to sense the thin film of mana surrounding all of them, and she cut the vacuum shock waves down one after another.
“Gah!”
But right after she cut down the last one, a cut suddenly appeared on her stomach, spraying blood everywhere.
How?! I didn’t sense any mana!
That was because that final attack hadn’t been created with mana.
“I can’t believe he can do that through brute force alone!” Touka said in a trembling voice.
From the spectator stands, she’d been able to tell that the final wind blade that had hit Stella hadn’t been a Noble Art. Ouma had physically created it without the use of any magic. Compared to the vacuum slashes he’d used mana to create, that final attack was much weaker. Furthermore, since Stella had been protected by her ever-present mana barrier, the cut wasn’t actually very deep. But it had served its purpose in stopping Stella in her tracks for a split second.
“Hmph!”
Ouma immediately caught up to her and swung diagonally downward. Stella wouldn’t be able to dodge, as her stance was all messed up because she’d taken that earlier hit. Instead, she chose to guard despite her unstable footing.
“Oh no! If she blocks the slash like that—” Ikki shouted, his face going pale.
Ouma was holding Ryuuzume in just his right hand, which meant his left hand was free. Ikki had watched Ouma train countless times back when they’d both been living at the Kurogane estate, so he knew what technique was coming. It was one of the signature techniques of the Rising Sun Style, the sword style that had been passed down in the Kurogane family for generations.
“Blazing Thunder.”
Just as Stella blocked, Ouma slammed his hardened fist into the back of Ryuuzume. He hit the blunt side of his sword like a thunderclap, imparting a massive amount of force into it. With her stance as unsteady as it was, Stella couldn’t brace herself at all, and she was sent flying. She crashed into the wall below the stands, destroying it, and kept going until she was out of the arena.