At a time when most, save for the night watch, had fallen asleep,
the third change of sentries was about to take place.
The torch swayed once, violently,
and the soldier who had finished his shift swept his gaze across the front of the camp.
At that moment,
a shadow caught on the edge of the firelight.
“Uh….”
His eyes, still heavy with sleep, half closed.
The soldier narrowed them,
just as he was about to take another step forward to see.
The shadow rose.
As the torchlight brushed past,
for one brief instant, the outline of golden hair and a longsword was revealed.
The soldier’s throat burst as if it were being torn apart.
“En, enemy—!”
Before that cry could even end,
Aslo dropped into the very center of the soldier’s vision.
At the same time, his longsword pierced the ground.
Boom.
As Aslo twisted the hilt and pressed down,
the grain of the earth warped, and stone and soil burst upward.
Several rocks surged up,
blocking the front of the camp like a hastily made barricade.
The camp was turned upside down in an instant.
And “turned upside down” was no exaggeration.
What woke them was not sound, but smell.
Oil, sweat, damp tents, and the sudden mingling of dust and earth.
Before people even opened their eyes, their hands were already groping.
They searched for scabbards, searched for boots, bumped into the elbow of the person beside them and swallowed their curses.
Someone shouted, “Where is it!”
and someone else answered, “The torches—!”
The more the firelight shook, the larger the shadows grew.
Within those shadows, only the outlines of the rocks were strangely clear.
As though they were not blocking the path,
but cutting off their line of sight like a wall.
The guards raised their weapons.
Crossbows sounded.
Aslo hid himself behind the rocks.
Bolts struck the stone with sharp reports.
It was then.
Behind the wagons,
in a patch of shadow the firelight did not reach, the twins moved.
Rion raised a small ember onto his palm.
Instead of growing larger, the fire quietly deepened.
Ria placed her hand over his.
And her eyes blazed gold.
Soon, the flame was pulled taut as though its edges had been bitten,
and its shape was forcibly carved into a stake.
Ria’s brow furrowed.
She said in a low voice,
“Now.”
Rion nodded and seized the stake of fire—
then drove it toward one of the wagons.
The stake lodged in the gaps between the wood.
The twins immediately lowered themselves and ran into the forest.
And a moment later,
instead of losing its form, the stake of fire spread like fuel, and the wagon began to burn.
“Fi… fire!”
As the shout spread through the camp, even the soldiers who had still been asleep sprang to their feet.
Some ran clutching buckets of water,
some gripped shovels,
and some even grabbed tent ropes with their bare hands and pulled.
The firelight gathered to one side.
One wagon was already burning.
The flames spread through the gaps in the dry wood,
and from beneath the cargo bed, red tongues stretched long.
Then the door of the abandoned house was flung open violently.
Cedric rushed out.
As soon as he swallowed a single breath, he swept his gaze around.
Fire.
The soldiers’ movements.
The direction in which the torches had gathered.
And the rocks that had risen at the front of the camp.
Cedric’s voice struck immediately.
“Detach the wagons on both sides so it doesn’t spread! If you can’t, break them apart!”
The soldiers swarmed in.
They pushed the wheels, cut the ropes, hurled down the cargo, and tried to separate the burning wagon from its surroundings.
Cedric turned his eyes toward the rocks.
The rocks were no “coincidence.”
The place where the earth had burst open was far too obvious.
At that moment, from the darkness on the other side of the rocks—
Aslo shot out.
Crossbows sounded.
A bolt narrowly missed and buried itself in a tree.
Cedric clenched his teeth.
Gripping his sword, he took a step toward the darkness where Aslo had vanished.
“Pursue him!”
And then he immediately added,
“Only two of you! The rest put out the fire and maintain the outer perimeter! Don’t scatter!”
At the order, several soldiers hesitated, then returned to their places.
Hands to extinguish the flames, eyes to watch the outside, spearpoints to guard the inside—
even amid the chaos, Cedric divided their roles.
But it was already too late.
While the firelight had gathered to one side,
at the rear of the camp—
the shadows of the abandoned house had grown far deeper than before.
—
The priest, half awake from sleep, swallowed his breath in the darkness of the abandoned house.
Outside was in an uproar.
The smell of burning.
The smell of wet earth spraying up.
The sound of metal colliding.
The priest immediately noticed the direction Cedric had run.
A raid.
It was something that could happen easily enough.
He was not a priest who stayed only within a cathedral.
A military priest who followed where the army moved.
He was accustomed to it, and so it came to his mind all the sooner.
An ill omen.
And that ill omen
immediately became reality.
The wooden floorboards of the abandoned house split apart with a crack,
and soil surged up from beneath.
As if the earth had drawn in a breath, then spat it out.
From the gap rose a black-haired Haraya.
His eyes met the priest’s once.
But that gaze was closer to “confirmation” than “wariness.”
As if ignoring the priest, the Haraya quickly swept his eyes over the surroundings.
Just then,
footsteps rushed in from the direction of the door.
“Father!”
The soldiers burst in, flustered.
The Haraya’s body moved first.
He sprang upward as if leaping, and kicked the chin of the soldier who was coming in.
Thud.
Before the soldier could even swallow a scream, he was sent flying out the door.
Then the Haraya seized the ground in front of the door with his hand.
The instant his grip pulled,
a mass of soil was dragged up, blocking the doorway.
In the blink of an eye, a mound of earth had formed.
The door was no longer a door.
While the soldiers retreated in shock, the Haraya turned back toward the interior.
Something—
his movement was that of someone searching.
The priest shouted,
“Stop!”
The Haraya did not stop.
The priest’s breathing hitched once.
He could not hesitate.
His pupils began to turn red.
Veins writhed and rose, and his temples throbbed.
Mirkin.
His Mirkin was a power that drew out the vitality and bodily potential of living beings.
Originally, it was a power usually cast upon others.
But now—
he had to force it, however roughly, onto his own body.
The priest threw himself forward.
Red eyes, bulging veins.
And strength that had suddenly swelled.
Jincheong turned his head.
Fast.
But that “speed” was not technique.
There was no footwork, and the trajectory could be read.
Jincheong caught the priest’s wrist.
The moment he caught it, he did not “oppose” the strength and endure.
He simply broke its flow.
Just as the priest’s body pitched forward, Jincheong twisted and pushed.
The priest’s shoulder was forced downward, and he was driven straight into the floor.
Thud!
The wooden boards failed to withstand it and collapsed.
As though he had struck precisely at a place that had already been weakened.
The floor split, revealing earth beneath.
The priest gritted his teeth and tried to rise.
His muscles were swollen taut,
and his movements were still rough.
Jincheong tapped the exposed earthen floor with the tip of his foot.
Tap.
At that single pressure, the earth where the priest stood suddenly sank.
His ankles were swallowed, and his knees buckled.
The priest tried to regain his balance, but it was already too late.
No matter how much his strength increased, if the “ground” beneath his feet vanished, it meant nothing.
Jincheong did not miss that opening.
He lowered himself again and moved toward the darkness deeper inside.
In the priest’s field of vision, he disappeared as though seeping into the ground.
The priest exhaled raggedly from within the sinking earth.
He was strong.
The power of Mirkin was undoubtedly strong.
But there were things that could not be stopped by that power alone.
From outside, another shout burst out.
“The fire—!”
The priest clenched his teeth.
What Jincheong was “searching for” had now become even clearer.
—
Cedric ran.
The soldiers alone could not pursue them.
He had to stop them first.
And hold them there until those following behind joined him.
I am a knight.
A knight is an existence standing where ordinary humans cannot reach.
No matter how elite the resistance may be, they cannot stand against me.
That conviction—
wavered for a beat.
As if his route had been read,
a thick crossbow bolt flew out of the darkness in the deep shade of the forest.
Cedric could not react as perfectly as he could in daylight.
Even so.
Clang—
He knocked it away with his sword.
A short breath leaked out.
That instant of stillness—
someone tore into it.
White hair whipped through the air, and a massive axe dug in from the front.
Lightning was crackling along the heated axe blade.
It was Muryeong.
Cedric did not receive it head-on.
He let the axe blade slide off his sword.
Twisting the tips of his feet, he evaded to the side and took one step back.
He saw.
A white-haired Haraya.
Similar to, yet different from, the white hair he had seen in the day.
Cedric muttered under his breath,
“I see… the White Wolf, is it.”
Instead of an answer, the axe charged in again.
Like a wolf’s teeth, its trajectory bit once and refused to let go.
Cedric continued to deflect it.
But even when he let the attacks slide away, his arm went numb.
The sound of his sword’s ringing grew duller and duller.
If only I had the priest’s Mirkin—
If I did.
The moment that thought arose,
a clear metallic ring sounded once more.
Muryeong’s axe suddenly—
struck Cedric’s sword.
Using the angle of his deflection against him, it hit the point where the blade was weakest.
Cedric’s fingertips twisted.
“Ugh…!”
He instinctively tried to raise his sword, but it was too late.
With a splitting sound, the sword broke apart.
Cedric’s expression distorted.
“You bastard…!”
He knew all too well
what the moment of losing one’s weapon meant to a knight.
But Muryeong did not press closer.
He withdrew his axe once, then turned away.
His white hair seeped into the darkness.
As though he had never been there from the start.
Cedric gritted his teeth, still holding the broken hilt.
The firelight was still burning behind him.
Humiliation
lasted longer than the night.