The sound of stone grinding erupted behind them once more.
The sound of rock shattering.
The sound of dirt spraying.
And—
heavy, regular footsteps.
It was Kyle.
The “lock” Jincheong had made for him had not held for long.
If anything, that made it more terrifying.
Even without Idrin, that knight was simply running and closing the distance.
Bido ran, cutting his breaths short and shallow.
He held Jincheong’s arm as if dragging him along, while keeping his attention on what was behind them.
‘It can’t come undone.’
The lock.
The point where Kyle’s Idrin had been severed.
Bido tried not to lose sight of that place in his mind.
The sword’s resonance was still alive, and the skin beneath his eyes burned hot.
He could feel signs of those red, scale-like marks rising again.
Beside him, Jincheong’s breathing broke raggedly.
“Bido….”
Jincheong tried to say something, but his voice would not rise all the way.
His fingertips began to tremble again.
If Bido widened the stabilization, Jincheong would feel a little better—but then the lock would grow thin.
He had to choose one of the two.
Bido clenched his teeth and held on to the lock.
Every moment he maintained it,
the skin beneath his eyes burned, and the backs of his hands went numb.
Behind them, Kyle’s breathing drew closer.
It was not a superhuman speed.
But Bido and Jincheong were already exhausted.
‘At this rate… he’ll catch us.’
Just as Bido was about to turn his head—
the air flipped over once.
A familiar, textured wind.
It was not that the wind blew hard.
It felt as if an invisible wall had formed in the middle of the forest, and that wall was pushing forward.
From behind came a short metallic sound.
The moment Kyle tried to raise his sword, the entire motion was twisted aside.
His body lifted, his feet flailing in the air.
And then—
Kyle slammed into a tree.
A dull impact.
Leaves burst like fireworks.
“Don’t let them….”
Kyle’s voice did not carry to the end.
His body dropped with a thud.
Bido stopped mid-run.
His heart was pounding so fast that his breath caught in his throat.
Then,
something descended from a branch ahead.
Fallen leaves leapt up once, and the wind settled.
It was Miryeong.
White hair.
Movements like a white shadow.
As soon as she landed, she looked straight at Bido.
And at Jincheong as well.
“…What is this?”
Miryeong spoke without even catching her breath.
“Why are you two running together?”
Bido tried to answer, but his throat was hot, and the words would not come out properly.
Jincheong was the same.
Only their breaths broke.
Miryeong did not ask any further.
Her gaze brushed beneath Bido’s eyes.
Red scales.
The traces were still there.
Miryeong let out a short sigh.
“Fine.”
Miryeong looked back one step behind her.
Kyle, collapsed beneath the tree.
As if it did not matter whether he had completely lost consciousness or was only dazed for a moment, Miryeong immediately withdrew her gaze.
“Let’s go first.”
Miryeong ran ahead.
Bido forcibly pressed down the sword’s resonance and held on to it,
gripping Jincheong’s hand even tighter.
And he ran again.
The forest had not yet grown completely quiet—
Bido knew that.
Not far away, a thunderous sound rang out once more.
—
A thunderous roar tore through the forest.
Adel’s greatsword and Muryeong’s heated axe collided head-on.
The instant they struck, the air compressed and burst, and the fallen leaves heaved all at once.
Adel’s eyes were stained a deep crimson.
‘…Without question.’
Adel clenched his teeth.
‘I made that man’s gravity heavier.’
No, it was not only one man.
He had sunk this entire area, the whole battlefield, down.
His armor had grown heavier.
His breaths had grown shorter.
His feet would not leave the ground.
It was as if the earth had seized his ankles and refused to let go.
And yet.
The white wolf did not kneel.
He endured.
It was not even that he was gritting his teeth and enduring.
He was simply standing.
Adel put more force into it and pressed down again.
Just lifting the greatsword made his arms strain.
And yet Muryeong’s axe rose.
Adel met it head-on.
Boom!
Another roar.
Cold sweat formed on Adel’s forehead.
The opponent before him was not “rejecting” gravity.
He was enduring that weight as it was, and moving on top of it.
‘Is a body like that… possible?’
Muryeong’s eyes.
From the moment Adel had unleashed Mirkin, that green light had continued—
and for one instant, it blazed even brighter, like flame.
From then on—
his movements were different.
Muryeong took one step.
To Adel’s eyes, it did not look like the act of “walking.”
A speed that slipped out of place like an afterimage.
A timing where sound followed late.
The axe was swung once,
but Adel felt as if he had seen its trajectory twice.
‘Lightning…?’
Adel instinctively set his greatsword upright.
But his defense was late.
Even though it was not late, it felt late.
Under the gravity, Muryeong was twisting his body in directions where gravity did not press him down.
Adel’s mouth twisted.
‘I have to choose.’
Should he concentrate Mirkin further as it was,
make the gravity even heavier, and pin those movements to the ground?
Or—
abandon Mirkin,
pour everything into Idrin, and crush him in one stroke?
If he coveted both,
he would achieve neither.
Adel gripped the hilt of his greatsword more deeply.
His crimson eyes darkened further.
‘I’ll finish this here, then return… to the sword.’
The white wolf moved once more.
This time, beyond Adel’s field of vision.
Adel made his decision.
Mirkin—
he would draw it up even further.
Even now, he had already pulled it to its limit.
That line he had never once crossed.
The boundary scraped up the nape of his neck,
and his temples pounded.
A headache surged in as if squeezing his brain,
but Adel clenched his teeth and pushed forward.
He could not stop at this level.
If he stopped now, he would never catch up again.
The air sank lower.
It was no longer merely that the battlefield had grown “heavy.”
Breath fell to the ground.
Fallen leaves did not fly.
As they lay there, they were pressed down and torn.
Trees creaked, struggling to support themselves.
That was when—
Muryeong’s foot
faltered for the first time.
The corner of Adel’s mouth rose faintly.
‘Good.’
Muryeong drove the haft of his axe into the ground.
Thud.
Dirt tried to spray upward from the point of impact, only to be pressed back down.
But that was support.
A single anchoring point, made so that he would not kneel.
Adel’s body was the same.
Gravity this excessive affected the user powerfully as well.
His armor seemed to cling to his skin, and even raising his arms felt heavy.
The greatsword felt as if its weight had tripled.
Even so, Adel hardened his stance.
He planted his feet deep, lowered his waist, and bound the sword’s center to his body as one.
“Try enduring this.”
The words were brief.
And immediately, the exchange erupted again.
Boom—!
Greatsword and axe collided.
The roar of impact exploded, but the sound seemed distant.
The air itself was heavy, pressing even sound down.
Muryeong had slowed.
More precisely—
it was not his speed, but his range that had shrunk.
The afterimages that had darted like lightning disappeared, and the green light in his eyes returned to normal.
As if to say, “I no longer need it.”
And yet his judgment was not slow.
Muryeong abandoned the frontal assault and endured with the bare minimum of movement.
Instead of swinging the axe, he only created the places where the axe needed to block.
Exactly enough to survive.
Adel was the same.
The two fought in place.
A dry exchange with neither flight nor pursuit.
But dry did not mean easy.
If one strike went awry, if one foot slipped—
it would be over.
Adel clenched his teeth.
‘There’s no time.’
While he maintained the gravity, the headache deepened, and the edges of his vision bled red.
But he could not stop.
If he stopped, the wolf would move like lightning again.
Adel reached his conclusion.
One blow.
He slowly—
but decisively raised the greatsword gripped in both hands.
The mere act of lifting it made his arms tremble.
It felt not as if he were lifting the greatsword, but the battlefield’s gravity itself.
Adel concentrated Mirkin into the tip of the greatsword and his arms.
The weight gathered into a single line.
Muryeong saw it too.
He raised his axe.
But under the gravity now, at this distance, he could not dodge.
Even if he blocked, he could not endure.
Even so, Muryeong set his axe upright in front of him.
That was the choice of one who endured.
Adel’s crimson eyes darkened further.
“I’ll end this.”
And then—
the greatsword came down.
It was in that instant.
Suddenly—
the sword grew light.
At Adel’s fingertips, the “weight” that had been crushing the battlefield came undone.
As the force gripping the earth vanished, his body seemed to float for a moment.
The one who reacted to the change first was Muryeong.
“…….”
Muryeong did not hesitate.
His axe cleaved in from the front—
Kwaang!
The heated axe blade struck the side of the greatsword.
Adel’s greatsword failed to come down, its path twisting as it was knocked aside.
In the gap where gravity had vanished,
Muryeong’s counterattack drove straight in.
Adel’s head spun.
‘Why…?’
Amid the boiling headache,
Adel remembered this sensation.
The feeling of weight aligning and then coming undone.
A moment when Mirkin seemed to have “no effect.”
And—
the cause.
Adel’s gaze instinctively snapped backward.
A black-haired girl stood there.
Red eyes.
Panting for breath, one hand raised.
With her fingertips as the center, the air was ordered to an uncanny degree.
“Krgh…!”
Before Adel could even exhale,
with the sound of metal tearing,
Muryeong’s axe dug into Adel’s side.
Crack.
The seams of his armor split open, and pain followed late.
Adel’s body staggered to the side.
‘This is…!’
At that moment, a sharp voice cut in from the side.
“Muryeong! That’s enough! Let’s go!”
It was Miryeong.
Her white hair scattered in the wind.
She wore the face of someone who had grasped the situation at a glance.
Not the face of someone who intended to keep fighting.
Muryeong pulled out his axe without hesitation.
Blood seemed to fall to the ground,
but whether it was Adel’s own blood or the crimson-stained surface of his armor—
Adel could not tell.
Their presences rapidly receded into the distance.
Adel fell to one knee.
An intense headache squeezed his temples,
and the pain in his side cut off his breath.
‘Again….’
His mind went blank white.
‘I lost again.’
‘And… I let them get away.’
His red-stained vision slowly spread and blurred.
Adel tried to clench his teeth, but no strength entered his jaw.
The last thing that rose in his mind
was the black-haired girl with red eyes.
And after that—
there was darkness.