A moment ago.
Roan was resting.
Muwol was near.
Until then, he had to gather the fragment’s power with the moon’s spiritual energy.
That time was always agonizing.
The more the moon waned, the less his body felt like his own.
To gather the fragment meant,
in other words, forcing memories down and sealing them away.
Something kept swelling inside his chest,
and the more he breathed in, the more stifled he became.
Even when he closed his eyes, sleep would not come.
Instead, things that should not surface flickered first.
Memories seethed,
his body grew heavy,
and his breath caught.
Still, he endured.
And he grew exhausted.
For a moment—
he tried to lie down.
But then someone attacked him.
It was not unfamiliar.
At some point, there had been people pursuing him.
Each time, he had avoided them.
He intended to do the same this time.
Fold space,
and slip away.
But Mirkin did not come forth.
To be precise,
it began to—
and was cut off.
The sensation of the flow at his fingertips going out with a snap.
What had been severed was not power, but the “path.”
The space he had to fold was still there,
but its end vanished into thin air.
His fingertips groped through the air for an instant.
The familiar grain was gone.
So Roan let out a shallow breath.
Irritation rose, then quickly cooled.
There was no reason to dwell on a failure like this.
It was simply bothersome.
He wanted to rest.
A familiar voice and face brushed past him.
Rangnan, Maho.
Meaningless.
I am already on the side of the dead.
There is no need to become entangled with the living.
And then he saw them.
The only red eyes.
A girl with black hair.
It felt as if he had seen her somewhere before.
It did not matter.
The cause was there.
He had to suppress that girl.
Then he would be able to escape.
But something was strange.
It was Muwol—
yet the wind moved.
People were using Arkin.
He stopped trying to understand.
For now, only what was before his eyes.
Do not get hurt.
Do not stay engaged for long.
Get out.
The girl’s sword was aimed at him.
Desperate.
He could avoid it.
But for something like this, it was faster to let it slide past.
Like that.
The sword grazed his side.
Small drops of blood burst out.
It was the next instant.
Bido clearly felt it.
She had locked it.
The flow of Idrin.
In that moment,
Roan felt as if a nail had been driven into the center of his body.
It was not that his movement had been blocked,
but that he could no longer “move ahead first.”
The reactions that had always been one layer ahead were dragged back down to where they belonged.
Roan tilted his head very slightly.
Those red eyes—
the girl’s eyes, for some reason, did not feel unfamiliar.
Roan’s eyes were still empty.
But that “emptiness”
was different from just moments before.
The ease with which he had slipped out of movement was gone.
That transcendent reaction—
that one layer seemed to have gone out.
Muryeong struck Roan with the side of his axe blade.
Roan tried to react.
But that reaction
was not the same as it had been until now.
It had not become slow.
It simply could no longer move ahead.
The moment Roan set his stance and tried to raise his long blade,
Maho dug in.
Maho’s hand seized Roan’s head.
And just like that—
slammed it into the ground.
Thud.
Maho’s grip tightened once more, then immediately loosened.
A force that could have broken bone—
he stopped it.
Rangnan shouted.
“…Bido!”
Bido had already moved before the shout reached her.
Toward the place where the heart was.
And she focused again.
The flow of spiritual energy.
This time, she would lock Mirkin.
Bido’s sword stabbed into Roan’s back.
It was not deep.
But the instant it “touched,”
Bido knew.
She had definitely locked Roan’s Mirkin.
Roan no longer resisted.
Rather, like a corpse,
all movement vanished.
Rangnan said,
“Kallen.”
Kallen was already running over with a cord in hand.
None of the others relaxed their stances,
remaining on guard as they surrounded Roan.
Kallen twisted Roan’s arms behind his back and gathered them together.
Then the cord wrapped around Roan’s wrists.
Once.
And then once more, binding over it.
Next, he gathered Roan’s feet and tied them.
Yeonhwa said quietly,
“Bido. Could you withdraw your power for a moment?”
At those words, Bido flinched briefly.
She looked at Roan once,
checked her own grip, then nodded faintly.
“Ah…? Yes.”
The red light in Bido’s eyes sank.
Once the red light faded, Bido swayed a beat late.
It was not that her power had gone out,
but that the tension holding that power had released, leaving it in her legs.
Feeling as if her palm had gone empty, Bido unconsciously touched the sword cord, then stopped.
Yeonhwa gauged Bido’s condition with her eyes,
and Kallen pressed the knot once more to confirm its “safety.”
Muryeong and Gareun still did not relax their stances.
Because they had seen too many cases
where saying it was over meant it was not over at all.
It felt as if the thin pressure covering the battlefield was slowly being withdrawn.
At that moment, Yeonhwa’s eyes turned red.
A subtle metallic sound flowed from the cord tightly binding Roan.
“I made the cord as hard as steel.”
Yeonhwa said, pressing Kallen’s knot once more to check it.
“If he were an ordinary person… he wouldn’t be able to untie it.”
Rangnan gave a short nod.
“Good. We’ll wrap him once more in chains later.”
Maho slowly
removed the hand that had been holding Roan’s head.
Then he forced Roan upright.
“Hey, Roan.”
Roan did not answer.
He merely looked at Maho.
His eyes were still empty.
No, they were darker than empty.
So still that it was unsettling instead.
Maho turned his gaze toward Rangnan.
“…Rangnan. Then we’re leaving Roan with your side for now, right?”
Rangnan nodded.
“Yes. Let’s hurry. We move before morning comes.”
Muryeong quietly looked at the long blade Roan had been holding, then picked it up.
“……”
Gareun lifted Roan’s body.
Slung over his shoulder, it looked exactly as if he were carrying a corpse.
Bido’s heart ached as she watched the sight.
She did not know why.
But at the same time, there was relief.
Perhaps because she wanted to believe it was over.
The group slowly began preparing to move.
As if everything truly had ended.
—
The group set out.
Gravel rolled beneath their feet, and the smell of the waterside grew more and more distant.
Raen looked at Roan.
Had Maho not saved Raen,
he was the being who would have killed them.
Raen should have been afraid—
but strangely, their heart felt empty.
The pulse that had always sounded somewhere in their chest.
The resonance felt whenever the moon fragment touched Roan’s lunar spiritual energy
could not be felt at all now.
That emptiness was a little lonely.
Maho said,
“So, what are we going to do with Roan now?”
Rangnan answered shortly.
“For now, we keep him stopped. That is all for the moment.”
Then Rangnan’s gaze shifted to Bido.
For a moment, very briefly.
“As for what happens from here… I’m not certain.”
Maho also followed that gaze and looked at Bido.
He muttered with barely any movement of his lips.
“Well, is that how it is. Right… who knows what’ll happen.”
It was a baseless remark.
And yet, strangely,
even after saying it, Maho did not take it back.
Even as she received their gazes,
Bido could not take her eyes off Roan.
She could feel it.
The lock she had placed was intact.
But the fact that it was intact instead made her uneasy.
Like locking an iron door,
only to feel someone touching the handle from the other side.
Very faintly—
almost like an illusion.
Even while matching their pace, Bido did not take a long breath.
If her breath grew long, her focus would loosen.
If her focus loosened,
it felt as though the “end” of the lock would slacken.
The lock she had driven in
was still clearly there.
And yet, in one corner of her heart,
an inexplicable unease began to settle.
Bido told herself,
It is needless worry.
It is over now.
She wanted to believe that.
—
Over Gareun’s shoulder,
Roan thought.
Yes, better like this.
No more taking someone’s life,
nor bearing the weight of that life.
Perhaps he had wanted someone to stop him.
His body was uncomfortable.
His arms were fixed as though twisted back,
and his feet could not move freely.
And yet his heart was strangely at ease.
If he died like this—
he felt it might be all right.
The ease was strange.
Rather than the sensation of accepting death,
it was closer to the feeling of setting down something he had held for a long time.
So for a moment,
Roan almost recalled the name “Seonhwa,” then stopped.
Because the instant he recalled it,
he feared he might find a reason to live again.
It was when he had resigned himself like that.
From somewhere
inside Roan,
a familiar voice came.
‘You’re not really going to end it like this, are you?’
‘Are you going to give up on Seonhwa?’
Roan swallowed his breath.
I…
I…
Words would not form.
Thoughts would not continue.
The voice pierced that gap precisely.
It was not echoing from within,
but close enough to feel as if it were scraping the inside of his flesh.
The air grew cold.
At that moment,
Bido saw it.
Roan’s body—
something dark spreading along its surface.
It was not light.
It was closer to shadow.
A shadow clinging to flesh.
Darkness seeping along the texture of his skin like a breath.
And again,
from inside Roan, the voice whispered.
‘Leave it to me for now.’
‘Because I’ll help you.’
Darkness completely wrapped around Roan.
His form blurred, leaving only an outline.
The shape of a black human.
A person, yet not like a person—
a form like a shadow imitating a human being.
Gareun stopped walking.
At the chill running down his spine,
he instinctively looked at Roan slung over his shoulder.
Everyone’s gazes converged at once.
Maho said lowly,
“…What is that?”
For the first time, Rangnan’s voice shook.
“This is…”