The sound of wind being torn apart cut through the forest.
Cedric’s sword stirred the fallen leaves with every swing,
and thin branches were half-severed in its wake.
The sound of the blade’s tip scraping the air was sharp, and anger was mixed into it.
And yet—
Miryeong did not receive that blade.
She stepped one pace to the side, then half a pace back.
She emptied her body from the place the sword would reach, leaving only the path the blade would pass through.
Instead of pressing into the earth, her feet seemed to brush over it,
so Miryeong’s movements looked like flight, yet were strangely unhurried.
Cedric’s shoulders heaved.
The sense of boiling Idrin spread along his sword.
A heavy blow came flying,
and Miryeong caught it with the back of her hand and let it flow aside.
A thin wind grazed her fingertips and altered the blade’s angle by the slightest margin.
There was no sound of collision.
Instead, only the long scrape of the sword’s tip against empty air remained.
“Are you just going to keep dodging?”
Cedric spoke through clenched teeth.
“If all you’re going to do is run away, why did you stop, you white weasel?”
Instead of answering, Miryeong drew one low breath.
Her white hair spilled out from beneath her cloak and caught the light.
Her expression seemed somehow weary, yet strangely composed.
Cedric found that composure all the more repulsive.
He raised his sword again.
This time, it was not a simple slash.
He thrust in a straight line once, then used that thrust as bait to draw her in and cut sideways.
Strength entered the foot planted against the ground, and the sound of his armor moving grew rough.
Miryeong was reading that sequence.
She twisted her body aside from the first thrust,
and lowered her shoulder to slip beneath the second slash.
Each time the blade passed, the wind bent slightly and pushed the hem of her cloak back.
As if someone were lightly supporting Miryeong from behind.
Cedric’s sword split the air once more.
“Fight properly!”
Cedric’s voice burst out.
“Is that all you can do, dodge? Or are you frightened?”
That day.
The eyes that had carried the priest’s power.
Amplified senses.
The humiliation of failing to catch Miryeong even then.
Cedric’s fingers tightened harder around the sword hilt.
This sword’s balance was heavier than the last.
So he gripped it deeper, more firmly.
The obsession that said, “This time, I won’t break it,” climbed all the way up to his wrist.
That obsession made the tip of his blade even sharper.
Cedric took a large step forward, bearing down with pressure.
It was not a simple series of attacks, but an assault that closed off escape.
The textbook method of narrowing space with left and right slashes, then choking off breath with a thrust.
Miryeong no longer stepped back.
The sound of her foot touching the ground was very small.
Her body lowered,
and her gaze fixed not on Cedric’s sword, but on Cedric’s feet.
No matter where he came in from, what remained in the end was his footwork.
All she had to do was break that.
Cedric’s sword tip grazed past Miryeong’s neck.
A few strands of hair were cut and scattered into the air.
In the instant when the wind seemed to stop,
Miryeong pushed the side of the blade away with her palm.
It felt as though she had pushed it not with wind, but with “pressure.”
A force very brief and solid.
Cedric’s eyes narrowed for an instant.
“Just now…”
Miryeong slowly opened her mouth.
“You have a lot of complaints.”
She paused for a beat, then continued without smiling.
“I’m doing this properly. You just can’t catch me.”
Cedric’s face hardened.
As if driving one final nail into that rigidity, Miryeong added,
“Still, if you want it that badly.”
Miryeong clenched her fist again.
Her stance changed by the faintest degree.
Until now, hers had been a body that evaded the blade, but this time, she looked prepared to meet it.
“I’ll show you a little more.”
At that moment, the wind in the forest changed direction once.
Once the wind changed direction, Miryeong’s movements changed as well.
It was no longer a body that evaded, but one that burrowed in.
One side of Cedric’s vision wavered as if torn.
The white hair that had certainly been in front of him until a moment ago scattered to the side,
and the sound of Miryeong’s feet changed from “stepping” on the ground to brushing over it.
The flexibility unique to Haraya strayed beyond human angles.
Her waist folded first, and her shoulders followed late.
Wind settled over that flexibility.
Cedric instinctively raised his sword.
Miryeong’s foot came in first.
Tung—!
It was the moment Cedric’s sword line cut off the trajectory of her foot.
But the sensation left in his arm was strange.
He should have received it head-on, yet the impact did not come head-on.
Each time the tips of Miryeong’s toes touched the blade, the force slipped away to the side.
The blade was not “clashing.”
It was as if an invisible hand were adjusting the angle of his sword little by little.
Rather than his sword blocking it—
it felt as if it had let it flow past.
Cold sweat formed on Cedric’s brow.
‘Was that… blocking?’
Miryeong gave him no time to answer that question.
Her hand came in again.
This time, it was not a swinging motion, but one that broke his sword line.
Her elbow brushed close to the wrist gripping Cedric’s sword,
her shoulder pushed his centerline aside,
and the tip of her foot stepped one inch to the side.
The tip of his sword kept shifting only to places where it could not touch Miryeong’s body.
Cedric clenched his teeth and endured.
He knew that if he merely endured, he would be broken.
So he moved even more forcefully.
He shoved the sword away, let it flow, raised it again, and his movements grew longer.
His breathing grew ragged, and the sound of his armor following along grew heavier and heavier.
“Good…”
He muttered.
‘This time, I won’t let her get away.’
Cedric deliberately made one broad slash to widen the space.
It was not a slash that opened an escape route,
but the textbook move that determined the direction Miryeong would evade.
The moment Miryeong’s body tried to slip through that gap—
Cedric’s left hand shot out like lightning.
He caught her.
Miryeong’s sleeve.
The cloth inside her cloak caught on his fingers.
A grotesque certainty spread through Cedric’s eyes.
“Now…!”
He turned his body as he was and slammed Miryeong toward the ground.
Fallen leaves flew up in a great burst,
and the soil scraped with a sound.
His armor followed, ringing dully.
“It’s over!”
But
Miryeong’s body did not touch the ground.
Between the fallen leaves and the earth, there was something there.
An invisible “layer” that supported the space between the ground and Miryeong like a cushion.
Even though Cedric had slammed her down with force, the rebound was soft.
It felt not like hard ground, but like pressing down on something elastic.
As if the wind had laid a thin membrane over the ground.
At that moment, Miryeong raised her head.
Her eyes—
were blazing vermilion.
Cedric’s heart dropped hard once.
That light he had seen while amplified by the priest’s power.
The sensation from that day came alive at the back of his neck.
Miryeong did not smile.
Instead, she steadied her breath very briefly and said,
“Now.”
Even while she was being held, her voice did not waver.
“Let’s do this properly.”
And one more sentence was added.
“This is the real thing.”
Cedric swung his sword at Miryeong, refusing to give her an opening.
At that instant,
Miryeong’s fingers “swept” through the air.
Along the line they traced, the air folded thinly.
And—
Shhk.
The sound was small.
So small
that Cedric at first thought blood was flowing from his own ear.
But the blood was not falling from his ear—
It was falling from his sword.
On the side of Cedric’s blade,
an exceedingly thin line had appeared.
A cut mark.
The blade had not snapped, nor had it cracked badly.
It was simply… “one line” that had passed over it.
That one line meant only one thing.
If she wished, it could go deeper.
Cedric reflexively stepped back.
“What…?”
At that moment, Miryeong came in.
Not toward the arm holding the sword,
but toward Cedric’s chest.
Cedric thrust his sword out on instinct.
He had to block.
If he did not, he would die.
But Miryeong gave him no place to block.
The wind changed the path first.
Cedric’s arm was pushed aside as if it were not his own.
And Miryeong’s palm
tapped the center of Cedric’s breastplate.
It was not a punch.
Nor had she shoved him.
And yet—
Krrk.
There came the sound of metal tearing.
Cedric’s eyes widened.
A thin line had appeared on his breastplate.
A mark where the armor had been cut.
Blood did not pour out.
It had not gone deep enough to reach flesh.
That was—
a warning.
“……”
Cedric tried to draw in a breath,
but no air entered.
Not because of his chest,
but as if the air itself had been blocked.
Only then did he realize.
The white weasel’s power was not “a technique that used only wind.”
She was using wind “like a blade.”
Cedric had trusted the armor he wore.
He had trusted his sword.
He had trusted the orthodoxy of knighthood.
That faith was now splitting apart before his eyes.
Miryeong took one step back.
“See?”
She said.
“Do you still want to continue?”
Cedric’s hand trembled.
The sword hilt shook.
Miryeong did not come any closer.
She could end it, but she did not.
“Now.”
Miryeong turned her gaze to the side.
Not toward Cedric, but beyond the forest.
“I think I’ve bought enough time.”
Cedric’s eyes followed.
But he saw nothing.
Even so,
Miryeong was already preparing to leave.
The wind shook once, greatly.
What remained was
the line split into the sword.
The line split into the breastplate.
And
the fear that had settled inside Cedric’s chest.
Miryeong did not check any further.
She was done buying time.
As if shaking off the wind once, she turned and ran toward the depths of the forest.
She was not worried about Muryeong.
The problem was Jincheong.
Miryeong had clearly seen his hands trembling after he had forcibly held the earth and endured.
Miryeong drew in a breath.
The scents mixed into the wind continued like a thread, faint and thin.
Jincheong.
And… Bido.
They were close.
Too close.
Miryeong’s expression hardened.
‘Why are they still together?’
At that moment—
the forest rang once in the distance.
The sound of an axe and sword colliding,
the roar of air being crushed and then bursting.
It was from Muryeong’s direction.
She immediately turned—
and ran in the opposite direction from the roar.
Her toes split through the fallen leaves.
‘Bido first.’
The wind tore away behind her.