Outside was already a battlefield.
The thunderous blasts from the palisade, the clash of steel,
the horns and shouts tangled together, setting the tent’s thin canvas trembling.
Amid that noise, Adel was steadying his breath.
His seated posture had not faltered,
but his fingertips pressed against the edge of the table until they turned white.
The tent flap was pulled aside, and two people entered.
Muryeong, and behind him, Aslo.
“…I see. We meet again.”
Without rising, Adel looked up at them.
Aslo said,
“Holy knight. You will not move from this place.”
Adel’s finger tapped the table with a sharp knock.
“To think you would dare… come out this boldly.”
For a moment, a very brief moment, he sank into thought, then twisted the corner of his mouth.
“Yes. This is better.”
“Everything… has gone wrong ever since it became entangled with you people.”
Adel slowly stood.
Then he took hold of the greatsword leaning beside the tent pole.
The instant he gripped the hilt, Idrin boiled up as if exploding.
Every blood vessel in his body tightened at once.
His breath grew hot, and his field of vision narrowed.
“Today, we truly see this through.”
Adel spoke in a low voice.
“You bastards, and that black-haired girl too.”
What remained in Adel’s eyes was no longer the discipline of a duel.
Nor was it the heat of a “match,” as before.
It was killing intent.
The Adel before them now did not look like a man who would be satisfied with defeating his opponent.
He wore the face of someone who could not endure the sight of them still breathing afterward.
Muryeong asked quietly,
“…Hureuta?”
Aslo answered through gritted teeth.
“He’s supporting the twins. Here… it’s just us.”
Before those words had even finished,
Adel’s greatsword drew an arc.
Kaaang!
The air inside the tent was torn apart.
Aslo barely managed to receive it,
but the impact surged up through the bones of his arm, shoving his body back.
By reflex, Aslo twisted and was hurled out of the tent.
Muryeong entered through that opening.
The heated axe blade surged up from below.
Kwaaang!
Adel blocked it with his greatsword.
Sparks flew as the two weapons collided.
Muryeong’s axe was heavy,
but Adel’s greatsword struck down not with “weight,” but with “pressure.”
Each time he blocked, it was not his arms but his chest that felt crushed.
Adel said,
“Yes… I will make you regret that I did not finish you last time.”
He did not retreat a single inch.
It was not the motion of drawing the lines of a duel.
He cut, and cut again—attacks that erased even the moment his opponent might have to catch his breath.
Killing intent left the tip of his blade before anything else.
Muryeong twisted his axe and let the impact flow off to the side.
Then he immediately lifted it again.
Not lightning, but pure brute strength and the density of Idrin.
Muryeong did not take a single step back.
At that moment, the sound of tent canvas tearing rang out.
Aslo came back in.
He snatched up one of the tent ropes.
Then, as if deliberately sweeping the tent cloth up, he swung it.
The torn canvas flapped wide in the air, obscuring vision.
That cloth became the “bait.”
The instant Adel’s gaze was drawn that way,
Aslo burrowed in low and aimed for Adel’s side.
Adel’s greatsword came straight down.
Boom!
The table split in half and flew backward.
Cups and bowls shattered, and bits of metal rolled across the floor.
The inside of the tent was no longer a “space.”
Amid the broken debris, the three of them stole one another’s footing.
Aslo kicked off a tent pole and changed direction.
He struck it deliberately, as if to topple it.
The tent shook, and the canvas sagged.
Adel did not “avoid” it.
He cleaved the cloth apart with his greatsword.
The torn fabric brushed his face, and a rope caught on the shoulder of his armor, but he did not stop.
Instead, through the torn canvas, he drove straight toward Muryeong.
“Let’s end this.”
Adel’s voice cracked low.
“Now… it has to end.”
This time, Muryeong raised his axe upright and received him head-on.
Aslo once again pulled at the tent canvas from the side, blocking the line of sight,
and at the same time slipped toward Muryeong, opening space.
Even as the three tangled together in battle, their movements were clear.
Adel swung to “kill.”
Muryeong received to “endure.”
And Aslo shook the tent itself to create a single “opening.”
The tent was no longer a tent.
Torn cloth, fallen poles, a shattered table, and scattered baggage all became weapons,
became obstacles, became lures.
And at the center of it all,
the light in Adel’s eyes did not cool even once.
They were not the eyes of a holy knight fighting a duel.
Muryeong spoke briefly.
“Aslo.”
That one word was not a call, but an intention.
“Buy time.”
Aslo did not hesitate.
He immediately drove his longsword into the ground.
Before this monster of a man, it was an action close to suicide.
But it was not meaningless.
Kakak.
With the embedded sword at the center, the ground split.
Sharp stone pillars surged up toward Adel.
Like spears, like stakes.
A sudden deformation of the terrain.
Adel did not “avoid” them.
His greatsword drew an arc.
Kwaaang!
The stone pillars were sliced apart and shattered.
Dust burst upward like an explosion.
Fragments of stone punched through the tent cloth and flew outside, while debris rolled across the ground.
In that instant, when vision was veiled in white—
Exactly one beat.
The moment the dust settled slightly—
Muryeong’s silhouette came into view.
Something was leaping from Muryeong’s body.
From his axe.
And from his shoulders, arms, waist, legs—his entire body.
White lightning.
The lightning did not “strike.”
Instead, it sparked.
It crackled like sparks as it wrapped around his body, brushed over iron and leather, and split the air.
It was as if he had clad himself in lightning itself.
Muryeong spoke low.
“Now.”
He drew one breath.
“Let’s do this properly.”
This time, Muryeong was the first to pour forward.
He looked like white lightning rushing in.
Every time his feet struck the ground, lightning burst, and every time his body snapped forward, the distance vanished.
The trajectory of his wolf-like axe drove in ferociously to tear Adel apart.
Kaaang—!
With the sound of metal colliding, Adel’s arm and shoulder trembled at once.
The instant the axe blade touched, his senses shook.
His fingertips went numb for a moment, and the inside of his arm tingled sharply.
“Urgh….”
Adel let out a small groan.
For an instant, he recalled eyes he had once glimpsed, burning with green light.
But this was different.
If that had been “sharpness,” then this was “pure violence.”
The force of a beast slamming into him while clad in lightning.
Adel clenched his teeth.
Then he drew his Idrin up even further.
The limit.
No—
Beyond it.
Even drawing breath was hot.
His blood vessels stood out as if they would burst, and his heart beat far too quickly.
For a moment, it felt as though his mind had gone blank.
But he could not stop.
Clear killing intent and rage were pushing Adel beyond his limits.
He gripped the greatsword more deeply, as if clawing into it, and met Muryeong’s next axe.
—
The sound of Muryeong and Adel colliding rang out across the entire battlefield.
Even from where Miryeong was, the impact could be felt.
The ground seemed to tremble faintly, and the sound of metal breaking drifted on the wind.
It was the signal that they had engaged Adel.
Miryeong clenched her teeth and raised her hand.
“Load!”
The members armed with bows and crossbows, replacing the original personnel,
climbed the earthen slope and took positions atop the palisade.
Beneath the moonlight, arrowheads gleamed.
Miryeong said lowly,
“Aim.”
The formation of the soldiers moving inside the palisade began to reform.
“Fire!”
Arrows and crossbow bolts flew at once.
Whoosh—thud!
The soldiers in the front ranks collapsed one after another.
Screams mingled with the sound of metal, and the formation wavered once.
Telling them not to shed blood meaninglessly—
did not mean showing mercy to the enemy.
If they left things as they were, the members would die.
Miryeong had already made that decision.
The knight in command shouted,
“Ugh… take cover!”
The soldiers reacted immediately.
Shields rose overhead, and bodies pressed behind piles of logs.
So that the formation would not collapse, they folded back “inward.”
Miryeong immediately lowered her hand.
“Load again!”
Without even catching their breath, the members drew their crossbows and nocked arrows.
Their fingers trembled, but their movements did not stop.
On this battlefield, speed was life itself.
Miryeong looked below the palisade—
searching for the knight giving the orders.
Then she deliberately raised her voice.
Not a shout, but in a tone that would reach him precisely.
“Hey, knight.”
Miryeong spoke with laughter in her voice.
“Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?”
The knight glared at Miryeong.
Beneath his helmet, his eyes wavered.
Not with anger, but with the reaction of someone whose line had been crossed.
Miryeong pushed one step further.
“You must be awfully shy.”
Those words were a deliberate taunt.
Tension passed among the members atop the palisade.
Their eyes asked, “Why would she say that?”
She was provoking the commander.
If the formation’s command wavered, the soldiers would waver.
And if she forced the knight into a “duel,” the weight of the battlefield would tilt that way for a moment.
That opening—
would reduce unnecessary sacrifices among the members and buy time for the operation.
Between the sounds of bowstrings being drawn, Miryeong added quietly,
“Come out.”
“If your honor is that precious, defend it here.”
Then someone shouted and rushed in.
“You must not!”
It was a voice panting harshly.
“Do not respond to the provocation!”
The knight turned his head.
“Commander…?”
The commander was wrapped in bandages.
As though his wounds were still tugging at his body, his steps were unsteady.
But his eyes alone did not waver.
He swept his gaze once over the soldiers inside the camp, then spoke lowly to the knight.
“Do not fall into their game.”
His voice hardened.
“Soldiers, maintain formation!”
“Raise the shield wall and prepare return fire!”
At the order, the soldiers immediately moved.
Shields rose overhead, and spears lowered.
The crossbowmen in the rear swallowed their breath and began to load.
The formation “came alive” again.
The knight’s eyes wavered for a moment.
He looked at Miryeong again.
The Haraya smiling atop the palisade.
That smile grated on him like a blade.
Just as the commander was about to speak once more—
the knight opened his mouth first.
“Commander.”
He spoke briefly.
“I leave command to you.”
The commander’s eyes widened.
“Sir Knight—!”
But the knight already wore the face of a man who had made his decision.
“That Haraya is the commander.”
He drew up his Idrin.
Power surged explosively within his body.
Heat leaked through the gaps in his armor, and the earth beneath his feet flinched for an instant.
Without hesitation, the knight leapt.
Toward the palisade.
Toward Miryeong atop the palisade.
The instant he kicked off the ground, the distance vanished.
The shield wall, the crossbows—before him, they were nothing more than “passing scenery.”
Miryeong’s eyes narrowed.
And—
the corners of her mouth rose, very slowly.
“That’s right.”
Miryeong murmured lowly.
“This is how you’re supposed to come at me.”
The instant the knight set foot on the palisade, Miryeong had already pulled herself back.
He paid no attention at all to the members atop the palisade.
He saw only Miryeong, smiling.
The next moment,
the knight began to run after Miryeong as she fled.
And behind him,
the battlefield was preparing to overturn once more.