The Last Legendary System

Benign’s eyes never left the sword.

It was as beautiful as obsidian, giving way to a lake of liquid silver. Its brilliance was neither arrogant nor cold, only purposeful.

Benign raised it above his head. It was surprisingly light, yet it carried a quiet dignity. It felt less like lifting a sword and more like greeting an old comrade.

He lowered the blade, his thoughts falling silent. The warmth swelling in his chest told him everything he needed to know. This was no ordinary sword.

It belonged to him.

[Mission Complete.]

[Blade of Ages acquired.]

[Do you want to see its description?]

That was a first. Benign realized he had never seen the descriptions of the skills or weapons he obtained. He nodded once.

Blue screens appeared one after another.

[Type: Legacy Weapon (Soul-bound)] [Durability: ∞ (Unbreakable)]

[Effect: Ignores 50% of target’s Defense] [Passive Skill: Time Slash]

[Description of Time Slash: A strike ages the target’s wound, preventing natural healing for 10 minutes.]

[Rank: Of The Chosen One]

[Note: Grows stronger as the wielder levels up.]

[Registering...]

[It belongs to Benign Cross.]

Benign’s hold on the hilt tightened. He stepped away from the loose ground. Just as he pulled it up, the ground beneath him trembled.

He looked around, even at the elves. Their ground was stable. "This is just my cross, isn’t it?"

He ran out of the platform where the throne had been. The elves hurried to him.

An enormous crack was opening from where the sword had been pulled. "We should leave. Did you find anything useful, Vergil?"

"Yes, quite a lot, too." The elf answered, huddling around Stun as the vibrations extended to the surrounding walls. "We can leave now."

"The cave is still closed, isn’t it?" Benign pulled the elves towards the door.

His mind raced for the next course of action. He got what he never knew he needed. Experiencing a casualty would sour the feeling.

The sword in his hand glowed in the light of the cave. The trio paused.

Gradually, the light in the cave died, but their hope didn’t waver as the grunts of rock rubbing against rock signalled the cave’s door opening.

Stun stared at the weapon in the soldier’s hand. "I believe everything boiled down to you receiving this weapon, Protector. Could it be one of them?"

"Hmm?" Benign raised a brow. "One of what?"

"One of the weapons blessed by the gods for their knight," Stun answered. "Like the Hero, Ashold’s sword. Yours is more like a blade, though. But it was hidden in ancient civilisations, and according to the stories, Ashold fought a dragon to retrieve it."

The cave door opened.

Firewings rushed into the cave in two, and took the elves’ attention as they panicked.

Benign looked from Stun, who spoke more words than ever before, to the weapon in his hold that earned another meaning.

"So that’s what it is."

Ashold had owned a weapon that protected him in the book. A weapon gifted to him by a dragon, because the dragon sensed it belonged to him.

Any other narrative was propaganda against dragons for Ashold’s sake. "Calm down, Kendrick."

Benign returned his attention to the Firewings that traumatized the elves with their cries and flapping of wings. Their huge bodies blocked the entrance.

"I felt our connection fade the further away I was." Benign softly rubbed the Firewing’s fur. "Did that scare you?"

The Firewing’s brown eyes dilated at his touch. The wings flapped twice before curling to its side.

A small chirp served as a response. The other Firewings calmed down with the assurance. Benign smiled.

Looking behind Kendrick, he pointed to about ten more Firewings. The ones he asked to scout had returned.

’Hopefully with what Vergil found out and whatever cave they saw, we can have useful information about the glitches.’

He exhaled, leading the way out of the cave that threatened to demolish itself any minute.

He looked back at the sword with pride, and thought of how much pure silver the blade was made from.

Then a screech drowned the peace he felt.

Kendrick sped out of the cave.

"Something is out there." Stun pulled his blade from his back.

Benign watched the blade— he questioned where it came from earlier since Stun only had a steel rod — transform to a steel rod.

The sides of the rod opened to reveal a steel arrow launcher. The soldier blinked. A weapon that changed form. The steel rod in his bag became useful.

"They are glitched creatures." Vergil raised his glowing rod. "Do you think they sensed the sword?"

"Sensed the sword?" Benign raised his eyes when a screen popped up.

[Legacy Weapons possess ancient signatures.]

[Glitched beings are instinctively drawn toward them.]

The soldier instinctively hid the blade behind him. "They want to contend for it?"

Despite Vergil’s panic, he chuckled at the reaction. "Every wizard, witch, warrior, warlord, and huntress must’ve sensed the sword."

The elf shrugged. "Only glitched creatures, senselessly drawn to ancient powers, would attack you."

Stepping out of the cave into the temperate sun, they found a couple dozen glitched creatures rattling their teeth at the entrance.

Mangled bodies of lizard-like men waiting in ambush while stricken with agony.

"They must be in great suffering," Benign muttered, noting that one of them still had a normal human right leg yet to be transfigured.

"I-I bet they are," Vergil spoke from behind him, while watching the first glitched and transfigured creatures his eyes ever laid on. "You two should kill them fast."

"That is certain." Stun drew three arrows from his stash. The creatures dragged themselves to him with one leg on the ground.

"This is for your own good," The elf said.

Before his strike launched, a war cry echoed above them. Benign snapped his head upwards.

"Cheeky fella?" A frown crossed his face when he understood the Firewing’s annoyance.

The firewing raised his wings in defiance, shouting like a spoilt child woken from sleep too early.

It dove on the creatures, reaching with its talons. A creature was snatched and sent to the air.

The firewing twisted its body mid-air and spun on one spot. The creature detached from its head.

"Good Goddess." Vergil hid his face in Benign’s shirt.

The soldier sighed. He turned to Stun. "Let’s make it easier for the unfortunate glitched ones."

He shifted the blade to his right hand. "Let’s kill them all." The warrior elf nodded firmly.

The massacre began.

Benign separated from Vergil, stepping into the first transfigured creatures. He instinctively cut upward. The blade hummed in his ears with every swing.

The black blade glided through brittle bone and twisted flesh with almost insulting ease. Before the creature realized it had been struck, it split apart. The wound didn’t bleed.

Instead, the flesh around the cut wrinkled, blackened, and aged in a heartbeat.

Benign stared. "What?"

The Blade of Ages answered with another low hum.