When Ayatsuji-senpai used her Device it was as natural as eating or drinking, pure instinct, without anything so formal as a magic circle behind it.
Since a "wound" had to be created first, cutting-type formulae came before anything else.
For that, the simplest "Vacuum Blade" would do the job.
Basic of the basic it might be, but there was no questioning how hard a Vacuum Blade could hit.
Once the wound was open, the real puzzle was how to tear it wider.
Thinking about tearing brought two causes to mind: force applied from outside, and movement from within.
When someone took a tearing wound, a doctor would always warn them against any large motion, or the wound ran the risk of splitting further.
A force from inside...
What would happen if he could leave a formula inside the wound at the same time he caused the injury?
For example, if he stuffed a Bombard formula into the wound, would the formula explode inside the enemy's injury?
That sounded pretty exciting!
"Cough."
'What the hell am I thinking? Calm down!'
Noah rubbed his nose.
First of all, a Bombard formula could not be engraved using flesh as its medium. He needed to stop letting his thoughts wander and return to the main topic.
Formulas could not be engraved just anywhere.
Especially not on flesh.
Even though he could weave formulas in midair using air as a medium, if he tried to carve a formula onto the human body, the formula would collapse on its own.
Truthseeker's Appraisal had not said it was impossible, so Noah could only assume his technique was not good enough yet.
At present, the only formulas that could directly affect the human body were healing formulas.
There was also another possibility.
Noah felt that this might already touch upon the field of "curses." Maybe once he had a certain level of understanding of curses, he would be able to do it.
After recalling the scene several times, Noah repeatedly watched the memory of Ayatsuji-senpai using her Noble Art inside his soul.
Gale Claw Marks.
Ayatsuji-senpai swung her blade through the air and left "blade marks" in space.
When she activated her ability, the wounds in space were torn open, forming invisible wind blades like a kamaitachi.
Being able to develop a Noble Art like that meant Ayatsuji Ayase was a Blazer with real potential.
Unfortunately, her mana was not particularly outstanding.
'Hm?'
'The kamaitachi effect?'
In other words, those invisible slashes were created because the blade marks in space expanded, causing the gap in space to rapidly suck in the surrounding air?
If that was the case...
The moment it struck him how feasible the whole thing was, Noah set to reworking the blade in front of him.
The work lasted nearly ten hours, continuing all the way until the sun was about to set.
Taeko guarded the doorway the entire time to prevent anyone from disturbing him.
At last, Noah lifted the blade, utterly transformed now, gripped it by the tang, and tested how it sat in his hand.
"Good. It hasn't changed."
This was Taeko's sword.
It did not need to suit Noah's hand. Keeping it the same as before was the best choice.
Still, the part that needed testing had to be tested.
Noah's gaze roamed the room and, in short order, locked onto a suitable target.
A soaked block of locust wood. The wood held up well against rot but poorly against a blade, it split easily.
Noah carried the sword over to the locust wood and, with a thoroughly casual flick, swung the blade.
Swish!
The edge slid across the good-sized block of locust wood and passed clean through it, as if it had slipped straight through the grain, leaving not the faintest mark behind.
Even Noah, the one swinging it, was caught off guard.
Then he came back to himself and shook his head before looking for a new target.
He had forgotten that this sword had already been amplified four times.
Against a piece of wood like that, it would be cut in half without even giving him any feedback through the hand.
The blade was so sharp that the locust wood had not even reacted yet.
From the outside, it still looked perfectly intact.
"Then I'll just give it a light touch."
Having learned from that mistake, Noah aimed at a wooden barrel this time.
It was a barrel reinforced with iron bands.
Its defensive ability was about equal to the small round shields used by soldiers on the battlefield, only without the stitched deer hide.
Noah lightly drew the blade across the barrel. The cut immediately gave off a faint white glow.
Then Noah moved his will.
In an instant, the white light vanished.
At the same time, the surrounding airflow was sucked into the cut at an astonishing speed.
A massive wind blade suddenly erupted and blasted the wooden barrel into pieces.
The loud crash startled Taeko outside.
She wanted to rush in and check on him, but because she had not heard Noah tell her to enter, she stayed where she was.
Still, her expression made it clear that she had grown much more anxious.
"Looks like it worked."
Noah raised the blade in his hand and used mana to carve the words "Wind Cutter" directly onto the tang.
"Appraisal."
[+4 Wind Cutter]
・Type: Magic weapon
・Category: Sword
・Creator: Noah
・Blade length: 79.9 cm
・Curvature: 3.32 cm
・Amplification level: 4. Basic performance increased by 40%.
・Cursed Blade: Wounds caused by this blade cannot heal.
・False Gale Claw Marks: Any wound made by this blade larger than 0.16 millimeters will be marked.
The wielder can activate the mark at will, rapidly absorbing the surrounding air to form a wind blade.
The wind blade will burst open inside the wound. After one activation, the mark disappears.
Because of the Amplification, the blade of Wind Cutter now shimmered with a dark purple sheen, making its blade pattern clearer and more layered.
Most formulas could not directly take effect on flesh.
So Noah used a more clever design.
A formula that simply absorbed air was not even real magic. It was just a switch.
The rapidly inhaled air would enter the wound and react with the pressure inside, compressing all the air within that tiny space into a current.
In the end, it would form an invisible wind blade that tore the wound open from within.
To create that kind of environment, there had to be a wedge-shaped gap of at least 0.16 millimeters.
If the wound was smaller than 0.16 millimeters, a mark could not form.
Because of the unhealing curse brought over from Kiriichimonji, once a mark was left behind, the wielder could choose any time to activate False Gale Claw Marks and launch a follow-up attack.
In this world, where supernatural power was rare, a sword like this would almost never meet its match.
Of course, the ability had weaknesses.
The simplest way to counter it was to manually close the wound.
Once the wound was closed, airflow could not enter, and the wind blade could not form.
Of course, as long as the wielder was not stupid enough to explain the ability themselves, this little trick would look absolutely terrifying to others, like a curse from the God of Death.
Before reassembling the fittings, Noah embedded a Soul gem inside the hilt.
Inside it was roughly one-thousandth of the Forest Dragon power, along with ten days' worth of Noah's mana.
It would serve as the activation switch for Gale Claw Marks.
Taeko had no mana of her own, so she naturally could not operate a magic weapon.
With this, before the power inside the Soul gem ran out, Wind Cutter could be activated at least around five hundred times.
There was no need to worry about it in the short term.
Other than that, whenever it killed a living being, the Soul Gem inside the sword would absorb that life force and convert it into mana.
From that perspective, Wind Cutter was absolutely a rather wicked Demon Sword!
Noah lifted the curtain and walked out of the shop.
The final glow of the setting sun entered his eyes, and only then did he realize it had already grown so late.
"Taeko, here's your sword."
The girl quickly accepted the newly remade long sword from Noah.
"I reworked it and gave it a name while I was at it. Is that all right?"
"A name?"
"Mm. I named this sword Wind Cutter."
Noah had Taeko hold the sheath properly, then gripped the hilt and drew the blade.
"This is the sword's ability. Watch carefully."
He demonstrated Wind Cutter's ability in front of Taeko, startling her.
As a professional assassin, she immediately understood what a sword like this meant.
It was strong. Far too strong!
With a blade like this, landing a single hit in a fight was as good as winning outright, and even setting everything else aside, an edge this sharp was already terrifying enough on its own.
And Senpai had made a sword like this for her, with his own two hands!
Her heart swelled until she was nearly moved to tears, and she hugged Windcutter, sheath and all, tight against her chest.
Wind Cutter was a pure magic weapon, forged entirely with Orario techniques and Noah's own methods.
It did not involve alchemy, nor was it connected to secret arts.
Even so, the weapon's performance had already surpassed some Teigu.
At the very least, it was far beyond Kiriichimonji among the Shingu.
If Taeko continued using Wind Cutter in the future and made a name for herself, later generations might even misunderstand it as an unrecorded Teigu.
"Not bad. With this sword, your strength has increased by quite a lot. Let's test it on that lunatic who has been killing people around the Imperial Capital lately. He happens to be a Teigu user too, so he should make a suitable opponent," Noah said calmly.
"Do you mean the killer who has murdered several people in a row and only takes their heads, leaving the bodies exposed in the wilderness?"
Because Taeko usually took care of Noah, and because of her beautiful appearance, she was quite popular among the ordinary people in the Imperial Capital.
These past two days, whenever she went out, people would kindly remind her to be careful of the murderer.
"That was the number from the day before yesterday. Now he has already killed more than twenty people. And his new victim is nearby."
Noah had seen the killer twice through Black Nightmare.
The murderer appeared and vanished like a ghost.
He seemed to enjoy crawling through the sewers, and even Noah, with his godlike view from above, had trouble locking onto him.
He killed without the slightest hesitation, quick and decisive.
Still, that quirk of his for collecting heads had handed Noah a few clues, enough to narrow the man's hunting grounds down to a certain area.
"If Senpai wants him dead, then I'll use this sword to put an end to his madness."
At that moment, Taeko revealed her true self.
That icy killing intent was the aura of an assassin worthy of the name Death God Oarburgh!
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