The Son-In-Law Of A Prestigious Family Wants A Divorce
Chapter 169: Attainment*

It is not enlightenment but Attainment.

Isaac had, for as long as he could remember, kept that conviction close to his heart.

He wanted to believe there existed a realm one could reach through effort alone—not by talent or bloodline.

In fact, Isaac had already proved it true.

Even he never claimed to be talentless; had that been the case, he could never have come this far.

Yet limits were real.

Whenever he looked at Helmut, he felt that, no matter the gift one possessed, whatever ended up in one’s own hands still appeared paltry by comparison.

“Have they… already reached it?”

The doubt crept in.

The deafening crashes echoing outside no longer sounded like mere rescue work.

A prickling malice seeped even into this buried chamber.

Isaac was not an especially sensitive man, yet if he could feel it this strongly, it meant something dire was unfolding beyond.

“ …It seems my comrades have arrived.”

The one who confirmed it was the Giant.

Though he spoke calmly, his voice rode on ever-shallower breaths.

“We may not have as much time as we thought. My comrades’ hatred for humans runs deep.”

“I am well aware.”

No one understood the Transcendents’ hatred for humankind better than Isaac.

It was absurd that a different kind of impatience should rise up in such circumstances—but so it was.

“Hoo…”

Both hands settled atop the sword.

Drawing a steady breath, Isaac lifted his gaze to the Giant.

A sinister aura gathered, swirling heat and desire through his body—an emotion that could only be called fury.

-Aaaaargh!

-Save meee!

-I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!

Voices poured from the blade’s edge.

Isaac no longer wondered where they came from.

They were the karmic weight he must bear—the resentment of people from a past age, slaughtered by Transcendents.

Karma was always of that nature.

His hands trembled.

Even before being drawn, the sword’s tip carried an almost unbearable burden.

For that very purpose, he had swung his sword at the Giant countless times, movements that must have seemed meaningless—training his arms until they could endure and wield that weight.

The rough feel of the hilt in his palm.

The instant Isaac gripped it, he stepped forward in a long stride and drew.

Neither Marlin nor the Giant could track the motion with mere sight.

In that slash, one could sense the plane Isaac had attained.

As the twin blades stretched out like the wings of a phoenix—

CLAANG!

“ …!”

Isaac’s eyes flew wide.

Pain stabbed through Isaac’s palms; his trembling hands could barely feel the hilt.

The shattered blade hissed past him and slammed into the floor.

From that jagged fragment, a storm of malevolent aura erupted, lashing the Giant in furious waves.

The power ran wild, but the Giant met every surge with the same placid resignation.

When the shrieking spirits finally ebbed, darkness and silence settled—until the Giant broke it.

“You failed.”

“Failure.”

The single word bowed Isaac’s head as though the weight of it pressed down on his neck.

The sword fashioned from Bricalla’s bone lay in his grasp, no longer fit to be called a sword.

“Ah . . .”

He lifted his gaze at a crawl, and the instant his eyes found the spot he had tried to cleave, Isaac swallowed hard.

Not a scratch.

Not even the smallest—

No, not even a hint of a scratch.

“ . . . ”

It had been a long time since he felt like this.

Challenge had always come with the taste of the impossible—but never had possibility itself seemed this absent, save perhaps in that former life when he had tried to swing a blade after losing his legs.

Faces of countless sword-bearers—those called stars among swordsmen—flickered through his mind.

He had believed this moment was the best chance to stand beside them, the place where the pursuit that stretched back to his previous life would finally bear fruit.

Yet here was the result: nothing.

His shoulders sagged low, crushed beneath a weight that could only be called abject misery.

Marlin and the Giant opened their mouths to speak, but no words emerged; neither knew what comfort to give.

He had worked. He had worked again.

For a moment, it had even looked possible.

And still—he had failed.

-Keh-hehe-hehe-hehe-heh!

-Fool! Imbecile!

-Die! Die! DIE!

The spirits lodged in his body kept vomiting curses.

The despair bound to that karma drove Isaac deeper into the dust.

‘Did I ask too much of him?’

The Giant feared his request had broken the young man’s spirit.

‘Ah . . .’

Marlin, powerless to help, felt her heart twist.

She even dreaded that her confession moments ago might have unsettled his blade.

Silence flowed on, darkness draping the scene as though to lower the curtain—

When a single star rose.

“So that’s how it is.”

A man who had stared at more stars than anyone now had one blazing inside his eyes.

“After clashing head-on, I understand perfectly.”

The near-whisper was not meant for anyone else; it was a thread to keep his thoughts unbroken.

[To cut it, I have to shatter the very concept of a sword.]

[Among Sword Saints, they say there are those who sever what cannot be severed—]

Words spoken when Nameless and the Grandmaster had swung at the Giant resurfaced again and again.

What did it mean to dismantle a concept?

“May I ask one thing?”

“ …Anything.”

Even the Giant was briefly taken aback; the star blazing in Isaac’s eyes was too brilliant, and he forgot to answer at once.

“How did you tear through a dimension and emerge like that?”

“ … ”

“Surely it can’t be explained away by mere physical strength.”

The Giant let out a low laugh.

One could hardly believe this was the same man who had slammed into an immovable wall only moments ago.

No—that isn’t it, he realized at last.

Now he understood what Isaac had meant by Attainment, not enlightenment.

“Indeed. Mere strength alone does not make it possible.”

That single reply was enough.

The sword in Isaac’s grip—Snow White—released a chill aura.

Forged of Frostsilver Ore, it granted him one final chance.

The trembling along the blade’s edge subsided.

Drawing a steady breath, Isaac lifted his eyes to the Giant’s looming shape once more.

The wall that had looked so impossibly heavy now felt strangely close.

It had been a long journey—from the very beginning until this moment.

There were always times when everything he had built seemed pointless.

Whenever he wavered between effort and talent, the instant he thought he’d broken past a limit, a new wall appeared.

Yet each time he rose again.

“Have you realized it?”

The Giant’s tone was almost teasing, as though he wanted to hear spoken aloud what he already sensed.

Slowly, Isaac took the sword in both hands.

He stood solemn as an executioner before a guillotine, yet sacred as a master craftsman completing a relic of ages past.

“I have attained.”

Attainment.

The path he walked had never been the road of enlightenment but the road of Attainment.

Enlightenment is a flash; attainment endures.

Thousands upon thousands of swings had piled up.

Only traces of endless struggle in despair could finally form a single, narrow peak.

Now, Isaac felt that peak with his entire being.

Even the failure moments ago had merely been another step toward attainment.

“Thank you.”

A pebble underfoot crumbled and rolled away; the small sound echoed through the hush as he stepped forward.

“Thank you for bringing me this far.”

Snow White began to glimmer.

Everything stood in perfect contrast to moments earlier:

The malignant auras sat silent upon the blade, his advance was unhurried, and there was no noise that could be called clamor.

‘What was the sword to me?’

Just before he struck, the thought surfaced.

What he held was both pain and hope.

Even at the ruined edge of life where he had lost his legs, he had refused to let it go.

If his sword had always been the challenge to the impossible—

Then, now he had attained the realm of cutting what could not be cut.

Whatever lay before him no longer mattered.

He needs only grip the blade and focus on the act of severing.

He moved in utter silence, like a man walking through fog.

The sword cleaved empty air, tracing a beautiful arc like the path of a star.

The blade drifted forward without resistance.

Even the Giant’s massive presence felt like an insubstantial mirage before it.

Marlin held her breath.

Goosebumps rose on her skin as awe widened her eyes.

She was certain: the one before her had reached the very pinnacle of the concept of “cutting.”

Not even Arandel Helmut could imitate the sword Isaac now displayed.

Down it came—slowly, softly.

At last, the Giant’s form began, ever so gently, to divide.

There was no pain, no scream.

Peace, rather, suffused the moment.

It was the liberation and nirvana he had so long desired.

Through the space the blade had drawn, light seeped in.

The curtain of darkness split, and golden sunlight crept deep into the cavern.

Tok.

The point of Isaac’s raised sword touched the floor.

Beyond the sundered Giant, the dawn burst bright and clear.

“Do you see it?” Isaac asked.

“The sunrise you yearned for so desperately.”

The sun was rising—the very sight the Giant had wished to behold.

He had hoped this might serve as payment for the Giant’s teachings and insights.

Yet the Giant’s gaze did not rest on the long-awaited sun, but on Isaac himself.

“I see it,” he murmured.

Far more than the sun, he had missed for so long—

“Truly, it is beautiful.”

—for a light far more radiant stood right before him.

[TL: I’m crying man😭😭😭😭. So beautiful. Truly beautiful.

Attainment: The original word is actually 도달함, which means “to reach” or “to arrive.” However, in this context, it is used abstractly, and the most suitable English equivalent I can come up with is “attainment,” which fits the meaning more appropriately. ]

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