Black water.
A place she had fallen into once before,
where breath could not reach.
Light wavered above.
Then,
the sound of iron piercing flesh.
A breath, breaking heavily.
A hot sensation touched her face again.
Blood.
It had been the same then.
The moment warm blood touched her,
only one word grew louder in her mind.
Protect.
No.
I have to protect them.
And then, before her eyes, “reality” suddenly settled into place.
Kallen’s face was in front of Bido.
The knights’ swords
were buried in his body.
His chest.
His side.
Kallen’s eyes were stained red.
The crimson light flared for an instant like fire,
then faded as if the wind had gone out of it.
“…This is… the price Idrin told me about….”
Kallen’s voice broke at the edge of his throat.
On the night of the full moon.
The Mirkin he could not properly use—
he had forced it out,
just once.
To protect her.
Until moments ago,
the knights’ blades had been aimed at Bido’s sword and arms.
Kallen had bent those trajectories with his own body and stopped them.
The ones who had stopped were not the knights,
but Kallen.
Bido’s movement ceased.
Her sword was raised,
but her hand faltered.
Something that had been pushing from within
for a moment—
lost its direction.
Yeonhwa and Taejin shouted as they rushed in.
Cedric and Marcel’s swords pulled free from Kallen’s body,
and his blood sprayed.
The two knights immediately used those blades to first receive Yeonhwa and Taejin’s attacks.
In the meantime,
Kallen collapsed.
Thud.
Kallen’s body poured down onto Bido.
His weight settled over her.
Her heart dropped.
Bido caught Kallen in her arms.
Her palms were soon wet.
What had been hot
was rapidly growing cold.
And—
tears slowly flowed down from the corners of Bido’s eyes.
‘I… have to protect….’
But
she could not protect anyone like this.
If I disappear,
all that remains is the sensation of cutting.
And only blood will be left.
A breath surged up and scraped her throat.
At that moment,
a sound came from her forehead.
Bzzzt.
On her skin,
the sensation of something being “drawn.”
A burning heat.
A crescent moon.
On her forehead, a thin, hazy crescent moon appeared.
The light before Bido’s eyes turned over once.
Her vision, which had been stained yellow,
sank inward—
and a red light slowly spread through her pupils.
Her breath
returned.
The black water receded.
She was not underwater,
but in a forest filled with the smell of blood and earth.
Bido looked down at Kallen in her arms.
“Kallen…?”
There was no answer.
The red in his eyes had already clouded over.
His lips did not move.
His chest—
did not rise and fall.
In Kallen’s body,
only the places where strength had left remained.
The space within her arms was far too quiet.
Cedric’s eyes widened.
‘That is….’
The hazy crescent moon visible on the girl’s forehead.
He knew it.
The mark the Empire guarded against above all else.
The trace of a bloodline that “should have disappeared.”
The cursed bloodline.
His breath caught in his throat.
A sentence like an old doctrine burst into his mind.
A target to be eliminated upon discovery.
Cedric clenched his teeth.
“Sir Marcel!”
Marcel answered at once.
“I know.”
The hesitation vanished from both their eyes.
And killing intent rose in its place.
Now that girl—
had to die and disappear.
The two knights moved violently.
They struck away the points of Yeonhwa’s and Taejin’s blades, clearing space,
and in the next instant, they had already thrown themselves toward Bido.
Bido saw it too.
Beyond her tear-blurred vision,
two shapes shining in the moonlight grew larger at once.
And she felt it.
Those knights no longer hesitated.
Killing intent, with a direction, was coming toward her.
At this rate—
Kallen’s sacrifice would not have “bought time,” only delayed death.
Bido let go of Kallen.
The moment she released him, her fingertips trembled.
The sensation of his hot blood rapidly cooling remained in her palms.
She drew in a breath.
The full moon’s air was strangely solid.
As if law itself were “gripping” the air.
And she felt it.
The ferocious power flowing from the sword.
The thing that pushed her forward, made her cut, made her disappear.
But beside it—
there was a clear and mighty power she had never felt before.
It was not moonlight.
Not light, but law.
Bido adjusted her grip.
It did not feel like “holding” the sword,
but like placing something atop what the sword was letting flow.
Imbue it with power.
Lay law upon it.
Somehow, she felt she could do it.
No—
right now, she had to.
She had to protect herself.
And the people who had tried to protect her.
Bido closed her eyes, then opened them.
At the edge of her vision, the two knights overlapped.
They came in at the same time.
Their sword points first.
Behind them followed the weight of their armor.
Bido raised her sword.
It was a defensive posture.
But she had no intention of blocking.
‘What I must cut is.’
Bido’s sword drew a trajectory in an instant.
Cedric and Marcel read that trajectory by instinct and matched their swords against it.
A joint attack in which both blades would gather at a single point to “block” it, then sever what came next.
But—
nothing touched.
There was no sound of metal, no scraping.
Not even the sound of air being cut.
Bido’s sword
simply—
passed through their swords and arms.
Marcel’s eyes widened.
‘I clearly… blocked it?’
Cedric wore the same expression.
The resistance he had been certain of should have remained in his fingertips.
The next moment,
something arrived late.
The strength left their hands.
First, Marcel’s right hand—
the fingers gripping his sword hilt loosened without meaning.
A sensation as though his tendons had been severed.
His armor was intact, but the inside was empty.
Marcel’s sword dropped with a thud.
Cedric was one beat slower.
Something hot spread through the inside of his arm,
and a red line bloomed from the gap in his armor’s joint.
“…What.”
The moment Cedric inhaled,
pain snapped that breath in half.
“Kh—!”
Only then did a sound come.
Not metal, but the sound of a person.
Marcel looked at his own hand.
Neither his glove nor his elbow armor bore any sign of being cut.
And yet beneath the back of his hand, his flesh would not obey him.
“What is this…!”
He clenched his teeth and tried to grip his sword again,
but he could not.
The act of “gripping” itself was impossible.
Cedric forced his arm up.
It did rise.
But the tip of his sword shook.
The line of their joint attack had already collapsed.
Bido looked straight at the two of them.
And at the same time,
inside Bido’s mind—
she began to be pulled back toward the black water.
Her forehead was hot.
As if it were burning.
The skin beneath her eyes throbbed as though it would tear apart.
She could not breathe.
The sensation of laying law upon it tightened around both bone and soul.
Bido clenched her teeth.
It felt as though “that” would rise again.
As though the ferocity would seize control once more.
Bido tried to take a step forward, then staggered.
Yeonhwa and Taejin did not miss that opening and rushed in.
“Bido!”
Yeonhwa’s voice cracked.
Taejin silently shoved himself in front of Cedric.
Cedric ground his teeth.
Blood spread once more from the inside of his arm.
He looked again at Bido’s sword.
That trajectory from just now, passing through in a way that “could not be blocked.”
Marcel gasped for breath.
Where he had dropped his sword, fear welled up before blood.
Bido turned her head.
She saw Kallen lying on the ground.
And
that feeling of “I have to protect them” stabbed once more into the inside of her chest.
Just before the black water could engulf her completely,
Bido barely managed to draw in a breath.
“…Not yet.”
It could not end yet.
Yeonhwa stood in front of Bido.
The point of her sword trembled, but her eyes did not waver.
Cedric spoke in a shaking voice.
“Sir Marcel….”
Marcel clenched his teeth and panted.
His right hand groped through the air, unable even to make a fist.
His armor was intact, but his hand was dead.
“Yes…”
His voice cracked.
“At this rate…”
Cedric also clenched his teeth.
The pain spreading through the inside of his arm felt as though it were tearing at his tendons every time he raised his sword.
He could not block it.
And what was even stranger—
was the sensation of having been cut despite blocking.
He looked once more at Bido’s forehead.
At the mark of the crescent moon, now clear.
He swallowed his breath.
‘…I can no longer swing my sword.’
Cedric spoke shortly.
“We retreat.”
Marcel gave a brief nod.
“My legs… still move.”
The two knights said nothing more.
They did not even try to force away the tips of Yeonhwa’s and Taejin’s blades.
They simply poured all their attention into widening the distance.
Their feet kicked off the ground, and dirt flew.
The weight of their armor tore through the forest as they fled.
For a moment, Marcel looked back.
Bido’s red eyes were fixed on him.
Marcel’s throat moved once.
He clenched his teeth and tore his gaze away.
And the two of them quickly vanished toward the camp.
Only the sound of breathing remained.
Yeonhwa lowered her sword one beat late.
Taejin moved to Bido’s side and supported her arm so she would not fall.
Bido was standing.
She was standing,
but she had no sensation in the soles of her feet.
The fingertips gripping her sword were still hot, and her forehead throbbed as though it were burning.
At the edge of her vision, she saw Kallen again.
Unable to move even a single step, Bido’s lips trembled.
“…Kallen.”
There was no answer.
Yeonhwa bit down hard.
Then she spoke in a low voice.
“If we stay here too long… they’ll come back.”
Taejin nodded as well.
Beyond the forest, the noise from the camp was growing louder.
Shouts rang out in the distance.
Bido drew in a breath.
She barely pressed down the black water as it tried to rise again.
‘I have to protect them.’
The things she had to protect
were still here.
—
“Haa… haa…”
“Damn it…”
Adel lay sprawled on the dirt, breathing out raggedly.
His armor and cloak were torn,
and dark red blood slowly spread from his waist.
His fingers scratched at the ground, but his body would not follow.
Above him stood three people.
Muryeong was barely “standing.”
He held himself up by leaning on the handle of his axe, and each time he took a breath, his shoulders heaved heavily.
Aslo’s one arm hung limp.
If he did not plant his sword in the ground and use it like a cane, he looked as though he would collapse at once.
Fresh blood leaked from the corner of his lips once more.
Hurta was in the worst condition.
Below the wrist of his left hand, where it had been cut away—
the blackened flesh had hardened.
A trace of cauterization by fire.
Even with his teeth clenched, he could not hide the pain.
Then,
Paang—!
A thick sound of air being torn apart at length spread through the forest.
It was Ed’s signal to withdraw.
Muryeong narrowed his eyes.
“…We have to end it.”
Aslo exhaled.
“…Is this an ill-fated bond?”
Muryeong raised his axe.
Moonlight caught thinly on the axe blade.
The paladin, Adel Hartmann.
His end was not to come by battle—
but by execution.