Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 116 - 20: Undead Illusion Sword

Chapter 116: Chapter 20: Undead Illusion Sword

"I lost?"

"What happened?"

"Even if Alexander’s corpse was limited to Lv.5 by the Magic Tide Level, that would be a Lv.5 Meteor Fire Rain."

"With your spirituality, you should have been able to burn everything down without any scruples. How could a Night Watchman possibly withstand that?"

"Tsk, miscalculated."

"I came across a thorny opponent."

"A demigod?"

"No, not a demigod, it’s just that his swordsmanship was very strange."

"Extraordinary Swordsmanship like nothing I’ve ever seen before."

......

The car was driving on the E90 line.

This time, the new driver Peggy was behind the wheel, carefully controlling the steering wheel, while Eleanor sat in the passenger seat, keeping an eye out for the road conditions and traffic ahead.

The highways of this world are probably what all new drivers dream about for speeding. The roads, basically built during the Third and Fourth Epochs, are standard Solomon-style four or six lanes, and are very spacious.

After the great turmoil of the Fifth Epoch, technological civilization suffered a massive blow; nowadays, ordinary civilian families in various countries hardly have cars, and the slightly wealthy nobles prefer to fly, making the roads less traveled and empty. Peggy could completely let loose here, driving however she wanted.

"I feel like you’ve changed a bit," Eleanor suddenly said.

"Why?" asked Peggy.

"Do you remember the last time you drove?" Eleanor said with a smile, "Shoulders hunched, back straight, the whole person extremely tense."

"Now you have a bit of the vibe of an experienced driver."

"Oh," Peggy remarked nonchalantly, "Maybe it’s because I’ve driven more now."

She looked ahead, fell silent for a long while, then asked:

"Eleanor, do you know about Alexander the Great?"

"Of course!" Eleanor immediately sat up, "Hey, he’s one of my three most admired classical military strategists."

"Three military strategists?"

"The first is Hannibal, the commander of Ancient Carthage. He defeated the rising Solomon Republic twice in a row, but ultimately suffered a disheartening defeat on the third occasion." Eleanor recounted as if she were listing treasures, "And his death brought about the end of the Second Epoch."

"The second is Caesar, the great Emperor of Solomon, who subdued Gaul and Iberia, then later defeated Pompey in a civil war, eventually taking the entire Solomon Country into his hands, heralding the demise of the republic and the birth of autocracy, drawing the Third Epoch to a close."

"The subsequent Fourth Epoch was basically all Monarch Countries."

"You haven’t mentioned Alexander yet," Peggy reminded her.

"Of course, I was just getting to that," Eleanor cleared her throat and continued, "Both Caesar and Hannibal recognized the influence of Alexander on their military thought."

"Alexander the Great was a figure from the middle of the Second Epoch, the Macedonian King, an exceptional genius."

"He quelled the internal strife of Sirius and then conquered the East, fighting from Asia Minor, Syria, all the way to the Mesopotamian Plain."

"He also spread Sirius civilization far and wide, pioneering the precedent of first conquering militarily and then assimilating other countries culturally..."

"Who was Alexander’s father?" Peggy interrupted her incessant chatter.

"I remember, it seems his name was Philip II." Eleanor reflected aloud, "He was also a formidable figure, the first to defeat the Sirius allied forces and unify the entire Sirius Peninsula, laying the groundwork for Alexander’s conquest of the East."

"How did he die?" Peggy asked.

"Uh..." Eleanor said uncertainly, "I think he was assassinated at his daughter’s wedding, by a Macedonian noble."

"The reasons for the assassination are unclear, some say it was orchestrated by Alexander’s mother, Olympia, because immediately after King Philip’s death, she executed his young wife and all her children on the grounds of murder. Historians consider this a clear act of silencing."

"As for Emperor Alexander himself, he claimed it was a conspiracy by the Ilanians from the East, because they were afraid that Macedonia would come to conquer them, and King Philip was a firm believer in war."

Eleanor said with confidence, "I’m more inclined to believe this theory. Given Emperor Alexander’s prideful nature, if the assassination really was the work of his mother, he might hold his nose and deny it, but he would definitely not stoop to framing the Ilanians."

"I understand now, Eleanor," Peggy murmured, "Thank you."

"What’s the matter with you?" Eleanor looked at her curiously, a hint of amusement on her face, "It seems like you’re preoccupied, little Peggy?"

"It’s nothing." Peggy shook her head and after a moment of quiet thought, she continued to ask:

"Eleanor, is the Illusion Sword a very powerful swordsmanship?"

"The Illusion Sword is one of the three great Extraordinary Swordsmanships," Eleanor thought for a moment, then added, "and if you count Aske’s Star Nine Forms, then there are four such swordsmanships in this world."

"The so-called Extraordinary Swordsmanship is a sword art that integrates certain laws, the swordsmanship itself carries extraordinary power, capable of effects that normal sword skills cannot achieve."

"Emperor Alexander’s Illusion Sword, and the subsequent modifications by Hannibal to the Undead Illusion Sword, by creating illusions, can produce multiple strikes in a short time and are famous for being able to fight multiple opponents at once."

"As you saw during the fight with the Black Knight, the Illusion Sword can easily turn the tide of a one-against-many battle. Although the illusions have low defensive power, their offensive power and methods are identical to the original."

"The other two Extraordinary Swordsmanships include Charlemagne and the Twelve Holy Knights’ ’Holy Sword,’ also a very powerful battle array swordsmanship said to be invincible."

"The other is the ’Lake Swordsmanship’ of Lancelot, the Chief of King Arthur’s Round Table Knights, a mysterious assassination-oriented sword art."

"In legend, the Lady of the Lake gave King Arthur the Excalibur, but taught Lancelot the Lake Swordsmanship, predicting the inevitable rift that would occur between the two men."

"Stop, stop, stop!" Peggy cut in, stopping Eleanor’s storytelling, "Why haven’t I heard of these sword techniques?"

"Because they have long been lost," Eleanor said regretfully, "If you take a look at military history, you would understand the revered status Extraordinary Swordsmanship once held in history."

"Every practitioner of an Extraordinary Swordsmanship has at some point, by their own power, turned the tides of countless wars, and they have impacted history more frequently even than the interventions of demigods, because the latter are constrained by the Magic Tide Level."

"There is a theory that these sword techniques were designed for lower ranks to challenge upper ranks, to give non-demi-gods the power to face demi-gods."

"If that’s the case, why were they lost?" Peggy asked.

"Because it’s difficult to record Extraordinary Swordsmanship in writing," Eleanor explained, "The essence of Extraordinary Swordsmanship is in the laws it contains, and any attempt to describe these laws in language will inevitably lead to distortion. Therefore, it’s extremely challenging to pass on any of these swordsmanships purely through oral tradition or in writing."

"Take for example, the essence of Extraordinary Swordsmanship is A, but when you try to describe it, it becomes B, and the listener understands it as C."

"As there’s a huge gap between A and C, learners find it difficult to grasp the essence of Extraordinary Swordsmanship through language or writing. For instance with Aske’s Star Nine Forms, even if he wanted to teach you without reservations, you wouldn’t understand it after he explained it, and even if you did understand, you wouldn’t grasp it."

"There’s a saying that as you try to understand Extraordinary Swordsmanship, it’s also trying to understand you. If there’s no mutual connection and recognition, then naturally it can’t be learned."

Peggy fell silent upon hearing this.

When she tried to learn the Star Nine Forms, she indeed encountered the situation where no matter how she studied, she couldn’t master it.

Thus, following Eleanor’s explanation, it could be said there was an "incompatibility."

However, when it came to the Undead Illusion Sword in her mind, she encountered no difficulty in understanding it at all.

It was as though she had recited it thousands of times before.