[In truth, if it were only you, or even Morgan, you might be able to fight Vortigern, perhaps even repel him—but to guarantee slaying him outright, here and now, leaving him no chance to escape,and giving no time for the Counter Force to react—this would be impossible.]
[Only the radiance of the Holy Lance can bind Vortigern.][Only you can bring him down.][Never has Vortigern's strength been something to underestimate. He is the strongest foe you have faced in this lifetime.]
[Fortunately, this world does not know the word "if."][Fortunately—][The situation is still unfolding just as you wished.]
[Before arriving, your Armory's condensation had already reached a certain degree. It was near completion, yet you had never managed to take that final step. You had not rushed, but you understood the reason: not that you lacked something, but that this last step—the convergence into one—requires not only the internal "edict," but also external pressure.]
[You needed a battle fierce enough.][You needed a clash of strength at the absolute extreme.][In this age, after the disappearance of Attila, and before the birth of King Arthur and the Round Table knights—only "Vortigern" could fulfill this condition.]
Vortigern's body plummeted in a crushing dive, slamming into the earth, compressed draconic flesh bursting forth with even more condensed power. Mountains split, stone shattered, and clouds of dust erupted.
"—Subutai Equinus!" the White Dragon roared, claws sweeping in an arc.
Vortigern's voice rumbled like thunderous cannonfire:"This time, I will not be fooled into your traps again!"
In Lucan's hands appeared the tricolored Sword of the God of War, and his Circuit of Thought began to run.
From the Armory, stored "martial strategies" surged like tidal waves into his consciousness.
First—human swordsmanship.The distilled essence of millennia of combat: thrust, cut, slash, lift.Each strike carried humanity's ultimate mastery of strength.
The blade clashed against dragon's claw—and a thunderous roar tore across the battlefield.
"History of the Kings of Britain" records:"The king beheld the marks of swords carved deep into broken mountainsides,as if seeing before him the indomitable silhouette of the warrior who had swung them."
But purely human swordsmanship was far from enough to withstand a dragonkind.
Vortigern's onslaught surged like a storm tide, each blow heavy enough to crush mountains.
Lucan drew upon the giants' martial arts—a control of weight that rendered the colossal feather-light,a mastery of torque that made the body itself the axis of annihilation.
His movements grew vast and forceful,the God of War's blade now tracing arcs as heavy as mountains.
The sound of collision changed—no longer sharp steel against steel,but booming like crashing thunder.
"The Eternal King" writes:Merlin told the King, "The craft of the giants is not something mortals can wield.Only through perfect command of strength may one wound another without destroying oneself."
And the King gazed long upon those shattered traces,lost in contemplation.
"Interesting!" Vortigern grinned hideously. "But still far from enough!"
His tail lashed, shattering the ground once more.
Lucan was hurled away by the shockwave, slamming through ancient trees.
It proved a cruel truth:even with magic reinforcing him,even though Lucan's body now stood at the pinnacle of human limits—averaging A-rank across the board—it was still far from enough to match the sheer physical might of a supreme dragonkind.
Much less when Vortigern was not a dragon alone, but a tendril of the planet itself—a being bordering divinity.
But Lucan did not falter.
The Circuit of Thought turned again.This time—the fairies' movement arts.
The boy's form suddenly grew light, flowing like wind among the trees,darting like a phantom between dragon claws,stepping across broken earth as if upon level ground.
Yet, if there was a movement most perfect, it was the fairies' own—to appear and vanish unseen, leaving no trace at all.
So Merlin said.
"1988: Return to the Age of Arthur"
"Damn you!" Vortigern's strike missed, and he bellowed, exhaling dragon's breath.
Lucan drew upon the dragons' martial arts—the deepest techniques within the Armory,the rhythm of compressing, storing, and detonating overwhelming power in an instant.
Dragons fought as serpents did—savage, tyrannical.
The torrent of breath was cleaved apart by a single instant's slash.
In Vortigern's draconic eyes, shock flickered."You dare wield dragon-arts against a dragonkind?"
But shock turned swiftly to rage.
The White Dragon's attacks grew fiercer still,compressed flesh bursting with terrifying speed.
Lucan was forced backward, barely holding ground.
Within his Circuit of Thought, the martial arts of each race cycled in relentless succession.
Human precision.Giant strength.Fairy agility.Dragon ferocity.
And slowly—they began to weave together.
Each retreat bound them tighter.Each counterattack blurred their borders further.
The Armory's "data" interwove.
"Die!" Vortigern roared, unleashing a final overwhelming strike, claws blotting out Lucan's body.
And in that instant—
Lucan's eyes shone with the light of realization.
Within the Circuit of Thought,all martial arts fused into one.All information—all data—spun into calculation,and resolved into a single constant law.
Human swordsmanship carried giant strength.Fairy steps flowed with draconic explosions.
Not separate arts, but one martial formula.
In Vortigern's dragon eyes, arrogance gave way to awe.
He saw Lucan's transformation.This was no longer mere switching of arts,but a transcendent mastery beyond all racial divides.
A sword that danced with fairy grace,yet fell with giant weight.
A stance as precise as a human duelist,yet crowned with the majesty of a dragon.
This was the sword that bound all martial knowledge.This was the preordained trajectory Lucan had long prepared.
The Sword of the God of War fell—and upon Vortigern's chest bloomed a mortal wound.
His compressed scales, meant to be unbreakable,crumbled like rotted wood.
The White Dragon roared in agony,reeling back in disbelief—
Lucan calmly lowered his blade,the Circuit of Thought fading into silence.
The Armory had completed its condensation.All martial arts, at last,were unified into one.
—Into a singular equation.
This was what he had sought.This was the result of his endless calculations.
"It's time to end this."
Lucan stepped forward.The tricolored light of the God of War's sword shone unrestrained,seen only by Vortigern—as if the shadow of the Hunnic Emperor himself stood behind Lucan.
The compressed white wings spread wide,and the dragon roared in defiance.
He surged forward, unwilling, claws lashing—
But what he faced now was different.
No more endless exchanges,no more back-and-forth duels.
Only a single sword remained.
No flourishes, no complexity.
A blade that cut directly,and with that one cut bore within it the essence of all races' arts.
The most distilled slash,the most efficient exertion of power and division of matter.
And beneath that sword, scales shattered like petals.
Falling like blossoms,like snow scattered by the northern wind.
"There is no perfection in isolation.But if one can hold all things together—then one shall become perfection."
Merlin's whisper echoed in the King's ear.
Recalling his teacher's words, the King remained long in silence.
"The "Death" of King Arthur"
[You sever Vortigern's dragon head.][The Armory within your Circuit of Thought gleams brilliantly, condensed into a singular whole.][Divine mastery attained, the Martial Path fulfilled.]
[So-called martial arts—at their root, they are nothing more than striking with one part of strength and drawing forth ten, a hundred, a thousand times its effect.][So-called Martial Arts at the Divine Domain—is simply the one who has taken this to its end.][And now, you have achieved the force of a thousandfold.]
[And more—compared to ordinary peak-level Infinite Martial Arts, you, who embody the traits of all races, have reached the very apex in versatility.][Big Data martial training—it truly is a viable path.][It is "scientific thought" that can change life itself.]
[You gazed at Vortigern's severed dragon head, its eyes wide with unwillingness, and thought so.]
[Next—][You will attempt to draw out this unified Armory, condensed into one.][You will anchor it to your soul, forging it into a crown unique to you—like the Metatron Crown you already bear, soul-bound, yet distinct.]
[That was your design from the beginning.]
[But unlike the Metatron Crown—][This one is forged from dragon-slaying, from the destruction of evil.][Its name—]
[Michael.]
The name of the battle-archangel of myth,who slew the Seven-Headed Dragon!
[With this "Martial Crown," if you were to face Attila once more—][You would not lose.]