Bido felt it.
This very moment.
The night of Muwol.
Perhaps because the moon's presence stood empty,
everything was clearer instead.
Mireukin's sword path,
the resonance the blade emitted.
Even the momentary heat and suffocation—
all of it was close enough to grasp.
A feeling as if a weight she had always worn had been released.
Her body was light.
The night of Muwol was not a night of emptying,
but a night when what held Bido disappeared.
So in exchange for that lightness,
her guard nearly slipped away with it.
The moment Bido realized that, she deliberately put strength into her toes.
Because lightness was not a blessing,
but an opening to slip.
With that lightness,
Bido advanced.
But she was not the only one advancing.
Roan moved too.
No—
Before moving, he found it.
Before a single breath could pass,
Roan's hollow eyes swept across the battlefield.
The only black-haired girl with red eyes.
And a sensation he was feeling for the first time.
The feeling of Mireukin disappearing.
That sensation was not entirely unfamiliar.
Not as if someone had cut a string,
but as if the string insisted it had never existed.
Not as if strength drained away,
but as if the path of power vanished entirely.
Bido realized in that instant.
What Roan saw was not the sword,
but her own domain, that empty space.
That was why his gaze struck her, cold and piercing.
The cause was there.
Bido felt that gaze.
Like a cold hand brushing across her skin.
And Roan's presence
seemed to close the distance in an instant.
'...This is bad—'
Before that thought could even form,
a fierce wind struck Roan's side.
A blow as if a mass of air slammed into his entire torso.
The source of the wind.
From there, Mireong was charging in.
Mireong stepped one foot forward.
"Come. Try taking this one too."
When she stretched out her hand, the air compressed once and burst.
A small-scale blast of air pressure shot out in a straight line, flattening grass blades and rolling pebbles.
Roan raised his long sword with minimal movement.
Swish—
As the blade cut the wind, the air pressure split and flowed to either side.
The divided wind passed by, roughly shaking Roan's hem and the cloth around his neck.
Roan did not 'block' the wind.
He cut it.
If you block, the impact remains,
but if you cut, the flow seeps out to either side.
Roan chose not the side of receiving, but the side of erasing.
Seeing that choice, Mireong raised the corners of her lips ever so slightly.
Roan's toes were pushed back slightly.
Not even half a step.
Mireong, seeing that, immediately went in.
It was a kick.
But it was not a simple kick.
Wind wrapped thinly around Mireong's toes,
and that wind compressed in an instant.
The moment Mireong thrust out her foot—
its speed and power transformed directly into a mass of air pressure that shot out.
Thud.
It was not the sound of a foot making contact.
A clump of air drove through the space between the long sword and Roan,
a dull, heavy impact.
Roan tried to raise his long sword to block,
but that was not receiving it.
The air itself in front of the long sword exploded and pushed, the sword
and Roan along with it, were forced backward.
This time, Roan's body was clearly pushed back.
It was incomparable to the first air pressure.
Pebbles rolled, and the shallow water at the stream's edge shook heavily once.
Roan endured while lowering his center,
but his toes slid back over the stones as if slipping.
Seeing that, Mireong immediately widened the distance.
The motion of retracting her foot and pulling back was fast and concise.
Mireong exhaled just once as she retreated.
The air pressure from just now was not a success, but a check.
Not 'how much he gets pushed,'
but seeing 'from where it begins to devour.'
Not Roan's arm,
but the air in front of him reacted first.
The shock is absorbed,
but the wind's structure scatters.
Mireong was certain of that difference.
Fixing her gaze on Roan's long sword,
she reached a brief conclusion.
'It devours shock... but it cannot devour wind.'
—
Bido took her stance and thought briefly.
She could not react.
Roan was too fast.
If it hadn't been for Mireong—
even that single moment just now,
she would not have withstood it.
And everyone saw.
The wind moving within Bido's domain in the form of a technique.
Gareun also immediately threw his gaze toward the flowing stream in the valley.
He lowered the hand holding his iron staff,
and twisted his wrist once toward the water's edge.
Water was drawn in.
Thin as a thread, yet clear.
The valley water gathered at the end of the iron staff and whirled,
and at its tip, a thin spear blade made of water took shape.
Not a water droplet, but a blade made of water.
Aseullo spoke low to Gareun.
"Gareun. I'll bind him."
Those words were not the start of a plan,
but a confirmation of sequence.
If even one beat was off here, Roan would tear through the gap and escape.
Instead of answering, Gareun crooked a finger once.
The iron staff shook, and water coiled up even faster.
Aseullo confirmed that Gareun was ready by that sound.
A signal faster than words.
That was their way.
Aseullo immediately dug into Roan's blind spot.
And beneath Roan's feet,
toward the direction he would flee,
Aseullo's long sword struck a rock.
The instant the sword tip embedded, the ground resonated.
The ground pushed up stones.
As if the earth itself were raising boulders.
Before Roan, beside him,
a beat too late, it blocked the path.
Roan did not look back.
He simply
leaped exquisitely.
Stepping onto the rising rocks with his toes—
he moved his body to a higher position.
As if he had been waiting for that moment,
Gareun thrust.
The water spear blade formed at the end of the iron staff
extended straight toward Roan.
A thrust.
Roan blocked with his long sword.
Clang!
For the first time,
a clear metallic sound rang from the long sword.
Gareun's eyes widened slightly.
It was not the absorbing feeling from before.
It did not stop or extinguish.
It simply collided.
Gareun muttered very quietly.
"...So it is. It's Areukin."
Then a loud voice split the battlefield.
"Hey! Everyone get away from there!"
It was Maho's voice.
Aseullo and Gareun reflexively stepped away from Roan.
At the same time, from above—
a fireball fell.
It did not look big.
Rather, it was small.
But its density was strange.
The fire was not spreading, but falling clumped together as a single mass.
Before it fell, the fireball first emitted heat.
The air swelled once and ears rang,
and a burning smell whooshed and spread.
Maho's pupils gleamed,
and Gareun reflexively lowered his head.
Aseullo pulled one foot back to open a path.
Roan did not lower his body.
Instead, he pulled back his heel and aligned the angle to cut.
Bido held her breath.
Roan raised his long sword.
At first it was a stance as if to block,
but soon his body spun and stepped back.
Swish.
As the long sword's blade cut the falling fireball, the flames split and scattered to either side.
Sparks flew over rocks and grass,
and the air swelled hotly for an instant.
Maho did not miss that gap.
The instant the flames scattered,
Maho's body was already closing in on Roan.
"Roan!"
Then Rangnan shouted.
"Maho! Don't kill him!"
Maho gritted her teeth and replied shortly.
"I know."
Now it was not a strike.
Flame claws took shape again at Maho's fingertips.
Claws made of flame
did not scratch out in one go, but pressured Roan like continuous claw marks.
Sswarak—
Sswak.
Roan cut those flames with his long sword.
The cut flames split and scattered in the air,
and Roan continued retreating, passing through between them.
Then for the first time,
a breath came from Roan's mouth.
Short and rough—
a suppressed breath.
Right at that moment.
Whish.
The arrow shot by Yeonhwa flew toward Roan.
Roan did not even turn his head.
Instead, he lightly lifted his foot,
and easily avoided its trajectory.
But—
because of that lightness, a gap opened.
The moment Roan's center shifted very briefly to one side.
Maho's kick embedded in Roan's side.
This time it was not blocked.
Thwack.
Roan let out a short sound.
"...Ugh."
Pushed by the impact, Roan's body slid in that direction.
Surrounding pebbles rolled and fell toward the water.
His stance did not crumble.
However—
the fact that Roan had been pushed back for the first time was clear.
No one said 'now.'
Yet everyone moved at the same time.
Muryeong was already charging at Roan with an axe crackling with lightning.
Mireong jumped up too.
A foot wrapped in wind drew a trajectory as it tried to strike down.
Bido felt it too.
She closed her eyes briefly.
Only the sound of the stream remained,
and the metallic sounds and breathing grew distant.
Now was the only time.
Bido felt even why 'now' was now.
Roan's center, for a very brief moment,
unknowingly tilted toward the stream.
The foot of the one pushed back is empty while returning.
That one step was a path.
Only once.
That one empty step
was today's only door.
Bido organized her thoughts inwardly just once.
It is not killing.
Stopping.
Locking.
Into that gap—
I must enter.
Before her thought could finish, her body moved first.
The world followed a beat too late.
Her vision narrowed.
Her hands no longer trembled.
The sword in her grip hummed faintly once.
Bido's eyes and the red scales below grew even clearer.
Bido muttered briefly inwardly.
I can do it.
I just need to graze him.
I'll lock him with this sword.
First—
the flow of Ideurin.