35 35 Seven Star Sword Art Festival (4)

The next day...

The final day of the Seven Sword Art Festival.

"I have to say, I never expected you to come as my opponent in the finals." Otto praised.

"Hahaha— I just got lucky in my matches." Byakuya Jougasaki, was someone who was in the same school as him, humbly replied.

"Right..." Otto thought for a moment as his opponent was a tough opponent to deal. Not because he was strong, but because he was someone who used his brain to beat his opponents.

If he made one wrong move against Byakuya, it would immediately be made as his loss.

Byakuya's ability was placement manipulation, meaning he could manipulate the "placement" of anything via teleporting it, only restricted by needing to touch the target. That meant he could simply teleport someone out of bounds, immediately disqualifying them from the match.

[We're here at the finals of this year's Seven Sword Art Festival folks! The final match between Prince Inferno, Otto Apocalypse, and Eye of Heaven, Byakuya Jougasaki.]

[Both from the Bukyoku Academy. But only one would win the festival! Would it be my—I mean Prince Inferno with his outstanding tricks immerge victorious? Or would Byakuya predict all his moves and win?]

[Let's go ahead!]

"May the best Bukyoku Student win..." Byakuya declared as he summoned his device, which took the form of a pair of black gloves.

"Minecraft Wooden Sword."

Otto summoned his fucking Bokken, as he covered it with domain amplification to make sure it doesn't get yoinked from his hand, as he wasn't sure if Byakuya could teleport his wooden sword along with himself, once he touched it.

By coating his wooden sword in a barrier-like manner, he could semi-replicate a pirated version of Infinity that was enough to stop anything from 2 millimeters away with low force.

"With my enchanted wooden sword with knockback 1, you're no match against me." Otto hid his grin, as he could easily win against him using just ranged attacks like his moon blades.

But found that method boring and didn't want to win in that matter. So he choose the hard way, which was beating the crap out of Byakuya.

"Hmmpp!" Byakuya tried predicting what trajectory Otto was going to attack and tried to grab his Bokken. But was too slow to reach from Otto's abnormal speed as he was continuously getting hit by him nonstop.

"O-oo—uuuwwoogh... Kokusen!" With Otto's free left hand, he was about to give Byakuya the black flash right to the gutter.

A distortion in space slightly occurred in Otto's left fist, as it sparked and flashed in dark red cursed energy.

'Sorry Byakuya-san, but you're in for a blacked flash ride.'

Otto's black flash churned as it was about to hit Byakuya's stomach in 0.000001 of a second, which would deal 2.5 times than his ordinary Code: Unknown powered punch.

"KAAAHHH!!!"

Once it landed on Byakuya's stomach, his eyes rolled up as he immediately lost consciousness from the punch and was sent flying through the other side of the arena, crashing into the wall.

'My first black flash...' Otto thought he might have accidentally killed Byakuya since his ordinary punch was enough to crush a small building.

[Umm... That... And the champion of the 61st Seven Sword Art Festival is the Trailblazer, Otto Apocalypse!!!]

The announcer took a fair amount of time to process what had just happened in the duration of the match, which was just 4 seconds. As they gave him a new title for ending it way too fast making it a new record for the fastest win in the finals.

'At least they changed the cringy nickname, they gave me.' He was satisfied with his new nickname, but at the same time, he was concerned if Byakuya was still alive after he got blacked by him.

After the match, they held the awarding ceremony...

[Now is there something you would like to say something to the people who are watching?]

"Uhhhh—" Feeling nervous about giving speeches, he suddenly remembered something in the past.

"Yeah, I do." He nodded.

"Woooo yeeeeah baby! This is what I've been waiting for, that's what it's all about woooohoo yeah!!!" Otto screamed at the microphone without shame as he did it enthusiastically.

"I would like to thank, Brynhildr for being there. Uhhh... What else? Oh yeah, thank you me for being me and winning the festival."

"And and and, oh and, I also want to make a request someone live. Not sure if she is watching this, but I would appreciate it if you people were to spread my next words around the world."

"Edelweiss-san, I have a letter for you from your old friend Ryouma Kurogane, before he left the world. Just to point this out there. Why I'm saying this? I figured I'd just make you come. Because no way I'd go out, wandering around the world trying to find you."

Otto was too lazy to find her around the world as Edelweiss herself was constantly moving from place to place with her secret gang of villains.

"So yeah, that's all."

He closed his "speech" if you can call it that.

[Okay... Is there something left you want to point out?]

"No. Oh, wait... I forgot."

Otto suddenly shifted his tone 180, from a cheerful one to cold and bone-chilling with the use of Brynhildr's immense curse energy.

"You're next, Naseem Al-Salem." He pointed at the camera with a cold expression. Otto left like he just had to make a Jojo reference.

Naseem Al-Salem was a mercenary from the Middle-East and was known as the Haboob or Desert God of Death. His abilities were similar to Crocodile from One Piece, which was about absorbing moisture from the surface. Eventually turning it into dust. Earning him the name Haboob.

[Oh my. The Trailblazer, just name-dropped two famous blazers in the world's strongest swordswoman, Edelweiss and Naseem the strongest mercenary in history. Now is there a reason behind it?]

Otto's words were arrogant, just from the tone of it as the crowd was surprised at the thought of the person who didn't like to fight was acting this way.

It was like the quiet kid had enough and proceeded to do the unthinkable.

"Yes, I'm going to redefine the strongest in this world soon."

Otto had just realized that his abilities had already grown too fast in a short amount of period after collecting a "part" of Ddraig's soul, giving his soul a draconic trait. He wanted to test it on strong foes after he had his rematch against Inshun.

If Naseem would come after him, then that would give him a troublesome time. Since he hasn't perfected his Dharmachakra and Code: Unknown. His only best bet on dealing with Naseem would be opening his maximum curse technique or a domain expansion.

Just like Sukuna's domain expansion, he didn't have to worry about outside forces breaking into his domain, as he was a barrier-less one. That meant it couldn't be stopped by breaking it from the outside which was the weakness of all domain expansions.

...

After Otto's speech...

"Yo, Otto!" Yuudai who just walked towards Otto who was pondering on his first black flash.

"Hi, how may I help you?"

"Nothing much, I just want to say congratulations on winning!" Yuudai enthusiastically said.

"Mmmmm... Yes, I don't think it's a big deal, anyone could've won if I wasn't participating." Otto was starting to give his dialogues which didn't make sense they think about it.

"Huh? What do you mean? It is a big deal. You won on a tournament against 30 blazers, that are personally handpicked by their respective academy."

"But I was just forced to participate in the stupid tournament..." Otto admitted it in a low voice.

"Huh?"

"Never mind." He quickly dismissed it.

'I forgot to promote Yukime's shop. Which was my goal in the first place, and the reason I entered...'

"Anyways... What's the real reason, you called out two of the strongest and cruelest people in the world?" He asked.

"You want to hear it?" To which Yuudai nodded.

"For Edelweiss. It's just a personal thing, as I won't go out of my way to find her just to give the damn letter that Ryouma told me to hand out."

"And as for Naseem... I don't know. Just felt like saying that to the person who is the strongest human." Otto just shrugged.

"That's really unlike you, Otto."

"No... This is the real me, Yuudai. It's just that old habits die hard." Otto smirked as he left the room.

...

-Somewhere in the Middle East-

A man with a loss of black dry unkempt hair and dark brown eyes with an unshaven face was lying down with some woman while watching the Seven Sword Art Festival.

"Huuu— Hahahah." Naseem laughed as he heard Otto's declaration in from of the people.

"What an arrogant young man we have, saying whatever he likes after becoming a champion in a child's game. Hehe, kids these days know no fear..." Naseem didn't take Otto seriously as he didn't even see him as a threat and was just a kid trying to sound tough.

...

-Edelberg, Germany-

"Look, the champion of the festival mentioned you Brynhildr." Rinna Kazamatsuri who was one of the member of Rebellion, giggled. As Edelweiss showed a confused look.

"Why?"

"He said he want to give you something important from Ryouma. A letter, and want you to come to him personally instead, since he didn't want to waste his time looking for you."

"Oh and also... He thanked you for being there for some reason." Rinna mistook Otto's Brynhildr as Edelweiss since she also calls her that.

"I've never been in Japan this week..."

"I also wondered that... Ooor~ maybe he has you in his heart." Rinna playfully said, earning a smack to the head.

"Ouch, I was just kidding."

"It's not funny... And why would he have Ryouma's letter, for 5 years, and just spoke discuss about it now?"

"Maybe he just wanted a perfect chance to address it, seeing that he didn't want to aimlessly look for you... Not to mention, you're still a wanted criminal, even though the authorities don't try to capture you."

"I see... Is that the reason?"

...

-Chapter End-