One day earlier.
“We choose the forest.”
Langnan’s words were not long.
“The flowing river, and the standing trees.”
“That which moves, and that which stands still.”
“Both will be on our side.”
The firelight swayed low.
No one asked a question.
Each time the firelight flickered, the shadows on the wall stretched and shrank.
Those shadows moved like river water,
so Bido could not keep her gaze on them for long.
Choosing the forest did not mean hiding.
According to Langnan,
the forest was not “a place that conceals,” but “a place that lends its flow.”
Bido slowly opened the fingers resting on her knees.
The inside of her palm was wet with sweat.
When the full moon came,
she knew that even if she did not use her strength, power would reach her first from somewhere.
And that was why,
the silence in which no one asked anything felt all the more like a “decision.”
No one said anything like, “It’ll be all right.”
Because those words would not be comfort, but an excuse.
Bido neither nodded nor shook her head.
Instead, she pressed the edge of the sword’s blade once with her fingertip.
The cold sensation remained on her finger,
feeling not like a decision, but like a warning.
On the night of the full moon, decisions always come late.
The moment everyone believes they have chosen,
the moonlight sets the price first.
Langnan did not avoid that gaze.
While he spared his words,
only the air around them grew harder.
That hardness settled like a signal that said, “Now we move.”
Langnan’s gaze shifted.
To Bido.
“Bido.”
“On that day, do not draw your sword.”
His tone was no different from usual.
Only,
there was no room for anything else.
Bido did not raise her head.
The hand resting on her knee stiffened ever so slightly.
“That night is not your time.”
The wind brushed the crack beneath the door.
No one objected.
Bido slowly nodded.
“Yes…”
—
“Damn it, you cowardly bastards!”
The knight holding the spear ground his teeth.
Before his words had even ended, another explosion erupted in front of them.
The ground split open,
and broken trees scattered into pieces.
Fragments poured down on them like rain.
The fragments did not fall from above.
They shot in from the side.
The shock of the tree shattering rode the air and struck their flanks first.
The smell of earth mixed with the smell of burning.
If they closed their eyes, they could hardly tell where the sky was and where the ground was.
Dust devoured the moonlight.
The knights instinctively closed the distance between them.
Close enough for their shoulders to touch.
Their wet armor collided, ringing out in short, continuous metallic sounds.
It was as if they were confirming through that sound that they had not yet collapsed.
But the next impact would not come from a sword or an explosion.
The premonition that it would come from the river had already touched the nape of their necks first.
“Watch out!”
The knight holding the sword shouted from the side.
But it was too late.
The river twisted again.
A massive current swept in from the side,
and the backs of the two men were carried away at the same time.
Their feet lost the ground,
and their bodies were driven back.
Thud—!
The sound of the two men crashing into trees rang out.
“Ugh…!”
Their breastplates rang, and their breath caught.
Their bodies rolled over the wet earth.
And once again, the ground burst open in front of them.
It was Erdin.
The Explosive Fist he unleashed with both hands clasped tore through the air.
The impact shattered trees and drove toward the knights.
“We keep going like this!”
Erdin shouted, gasping for breath.
Mendel once again swung her arm from the riverside.
The water writhed again.
“We can’t give them time to rest. Keep pressing them.”
Her voice was calm, but her breathing was ragged.
The two of them did not stop moving.
But they were clearly growing slower and slower.
The knight with the spear staggered to his feet.
The knight with the sword also clenched his teeth and steadied his stance.
Their waterlogged armor was heavy.
Splinters of wood were lodged here and there.
Even so, they did not retreat.
And they clashed again.
—
A short distance away.
Bido stood alone.
The sword was still strapped to her back.
And strength entered the hand gripping the strap.
Her chest felt tight.
Each time she breathed in, it felt as though something was being pressed down and pulled somewhere inside her.
The full moon.
That moonlight filled the forest.
This night pushed Arkin upward.
And—
weakened Mirkin.
There was a faint pulse she could feel from her back.
Even though she tried not to touch it,
an energy that tried to seep in.
Bido’s breathing grew shallow.
Her Mirkin was working even at this very moment.
It was holding back the power trying to flow in from the sword,
pressing it down and pushing it away.
She was not using it consciously.
She was holding it back naturally.
Holding it back
was different from locking a door.
Once locked, it was over.
But holding something back required constant strength.
If she loosened her strength,
it would immediately surge in at that instant.
Bido felt cold sweat run down her spine.
The pulse coming from the sword was not steady.
Once, it was shallow.
Once, it swept all the way to the tips of her fingers.
Each time, her breath stopped,
and it felt as though she had to be “permitted” her next breath.
The hand gripping the strap trembled faintly.
It seemed as though it would become easier if she loosened her grip,
but the moment she did, it felt as though she herself, not the sword, would collapse first.
So Bido held her own body in place with her own voice.
Briefly, inwardly,
one, two, three.
Counting the rhythm of her breathing, she pressed the boundary down so it would not waver.
That was not the only tightness constricting her chest.
I cannot help them.
Erdin took one step back.
Mendel’s fingertips trembled.
Bido stepped forward once, then stopped.
“……”
The words from the meeting brushed past her.
Do not draw your sword.
Now those words felt like shackles.
Bido’s hand gripped the sword strap even more tightly.
—
Erdin’s shoulders sank heavily.
Every time he set off an Explosive Fist, the inside of his arms went numb.
Perhaps the ones bearing the impact were not the knights,
but his own body.
Mendel’s breathing was no longer steady either.
The fingertips that pulled the river upward had grown slower than before.
The water still rose,
but the height of the waves had fallen slightly.
Today, the water was on her side,
but there was a price to pay for raising it again and again.
Both of them knew.
Today, they could clearly use power beyond their own capacity.
But they did not have experience or skill on the level of Miryeong.
The longer this fight went on, the more disadvantageous it would become.
Another explosion rose.
The ground burst open, and trees split apart.
At that moment—
a spear thrust through the fragments and dust.
Erdin’s eyes flashed.
He reflexively raised his arm.
Clang—!
The spear tip struck the studs of his gauntlet.
The sound of metal scraping rang out sharply.
He barely deflected it upward,
but the impact traveled straight up through his wrist.
His hand went numb.
The spear tip lowered again.
Before his eyes stood the knight holding the spear.
Water dripped from his soaked armor.
His breathing was rough,
but his stance had not broken.
“Face us in fair combat.”
It was a low, firm voice.
At the same time,
a silver arc cut across in front of Mendel.
She twisted her body and barely avoided that trajectory.
No, she thought she had avoided it.
A moment later,
a burning sensation spread from her left shoulder.
Blood flowed.
The knight holding the sword came to a stop.
The wet blade caught the moonlight.
“Your little water game ends here.”
The river briefly grew still.
Erdin clenched his teeth.
Mendel’s breathing grew ragged.
They both knew.
Until just a moment ago, they had thought they were the ones pushing forward.
But—
in truth, they had merely been holding on.
In the gap where the river briefly stilled,
Bido saw that scene from a short distance away.
Blood spread from Mendel’s shoulder,
the red slowly seeping into the wet cloth.
“Lady Mendel!”
Her voice leaped out first and rang across the battlefield.
The knight holding the spear turned his head in that direction.
The knight holding the sword also shifted his gaze for a moment.
Beneath the moonlight.
A small girl stood there, not even having drawn her sword.
With a sword on her back, unable to move.
The knight’s eyes paused for an instant.
Then he looked forward again.
Their opponents were Erdin and Mendel.
That girl was merely someone outside the battlefield.
Bido’s chest tightened as though her breath had been cut off.
Her hand clutched the sword strap.
She clenched her teeth.
So hard that her jaw trembled.
That night is not your time.
Those words remained by her ear.
But—
before her eyes, Mendel took one step back.
The knight with the sword moved again.
He burrowed in low toward Mendel.
She clenched her teeth and brought both hands together.
The river rose again.
The current surged up, and a massive wave drove straight ahead.
But—
a silver arc flashed, and the wave split apart.
The water was torn into two streams and scattered behind.
The knight with the sword charged straight through.
“Mendel!”
Erdin threw himself forward.
He clasped both hands together and unleashed an Explosive Fist.
Boom—!
The air exploded.
The impact shoved the knight and his blade aside.
At that instant, the spear tip pierced through.
Kicking off the wet earth,
low and fast.
Thud.
The spear tip lodged in Erdin’s thigh.
His body stiffened for an instant.
“Kuh—!”
The knight with the spear drove his wrist forward without a twist.
“That’s enough. This is the end.”
It was a low, tidy declaration.
The knight’s eyes did not waver.
He could have aimed for a vital point if he wished.
But he had chosen the thigh.
That much was enough to break their battle line.
—
“No!”
Bido’s feet moved first.
The movement was faster than thought.
Kicking off the ground, she leaped into the battlefield.
The sword on her back swayed,
and Bido’s hand naturally grasped the hilt.
In that instant—
her heart beat once, hard.
The energy she had been suppressing from her back surged in.
The thing she had been pressing down.
The thing she had been holding back.
The boundary that Mirkin was sustaining wavered ever so slightly.
A sensation seeped into her fingertips.
It was neither cold nor hot.
It was simply—
ferocious.
Bido clenched her teeth.
Veins stood out on the back of Bido’s hand.
It felt as if the sword on her back was trembling.
Beneath the moonlight,
the sword pulsed faintly.
The power colliding inside scraped against the boundary.
Suddenly, Bido’s vision narrowed for the briefest instant.
The moonlight blurred, and sound receded into the distance.
And—
her hand tightened more deeply around the hilt.