It’s a dream.

It has to be.

Because otherwise this doesn’t make any sense.

Thinking that, I lay back down on the bed.

‘It’s because I’m tired. I’m tired.’

This was all because I’d gotten hit with a storm in the middle of the night.

Because my sister—who I hadn’t seen in years—showed up out of nowhere.

So my mind got shaken up and I was having this kind of dream.

That’s what I believed.

I lay there with my eyes closed, trying to keep them shut, but—

“......”

Not long after, I slowly lifted my upper body.

“...Haa....”

I let out a sigh. Then I adjusted my posture. I knelt politely and set both hands on my thighs.

Then I raised my head and looked at the old man.

“...I greet the Alliance Leader....”

I gave up fast. Running away was nice and all, but in a situation like this, it was better to get my head on straight as quickly as possible.

And fortunately, I wasn’t that stupid.

I knew this wasn’t a dream.

I just wanted to pretend I didn’t.

“......”

At my greeting, Divine Spear’s eyebrow—standing in front of me—twitched. Very, very slightly.

“...I apologize for being late in showing proper respect. It was so sudden that my mind was in confusion.”

The words were respectful, but the meaning was simple.

Why the hell are you coming into my room at the ass-crack of morning without the owner’s permission?

Even if I didn’t show respect, you’d know it’s your fault.

That was the kind of meaning packed into my words.

“......”

Hearing it, Divine Spear just kept looking down at me without any change in expression.

‘...What the fuck is this?’

My back was getting damp. What the hell is going on?

‘Why is this guy in my room?’

The first face I see when I wake up is usually Yoo Cheongil’s, so I thought I’d gotten used to it.

But seeing Divine Spear’s face the moment I woke up wasn’t any easier.

‘...He looks scary as hell, you know?’

If I’m being precise, it’s not scary—it’s heavy.

A face stuffed with overwhelming pressure. At least Yoo Cheongil has some playfulness in his expression, but this man didn’t even have that.

A living legend.

A powerhouse who’d land among the handful of strongest out of countless martial artists.

No, maybe even if you counted the top three, he’d still be in it—Divine Spear was standing right in front of me.

To other martial artists, this would be something to envy to death.

But—

‘...Am I dying? Am I dying now?’

I couldn’t exactly be happy.

I felt like I was going to die like this.

And that made sense.

‘That damn old man.’

If I thought about the mess Yoo Cheongil made with Divine Spear, it wouldn’t be strange if the damage landed on me.

I looked at Divine Spear’s left eye. Seeing the eyepatch, that had to be it.

‘...The eye he pulled out.’

The eye Yoo Cheongil had pulled out of Divine Spear.

That was probably the one.

And his remaining right eye was looking down at me—just meeting his gaze made my throat swallow itself.

‘Tch....’

The pressure from his massive body. The moment that arm moved, it felt like my skull would crack.

‘...Is he really going to kill me?’

I just... believed.

He was the Alliance Leader, at least. He wouldn’t show up and kill me on the spot. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

I swallowed my anxiety, trusting there had to be a reason—

And then.

Slowly.

Divine Spear moved.

The hand I’d been watching since earlier moved toward my face.

‘Huh?’

Uh—?

Is he really killing me? I flinched and tried to move, but it was too late.

GRAB—!

Divine Spear’s hand seized my face and forced my left eyelid open.

“Are you insane...?”

A curse spilled out before I could stop it.

Don’t tell me he was going to do to me exactly what Yoo Cheongil did to him.

“W-wait, Alliance Leader. I mean, even if it’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, come on. It’s not like I did anything wrong—”

I rushed to spit the words out, but Divine Spear stared at my left eye and said,

“Blue. Like his eyes.”

A low voice I’d never heard in my life.

I’d felt it at the banquet too, but Divine Spear’s voice was absurdly deep.

“The lines are weak, but what’s inside is dense. You raised the vessel properly. Talent?”

“...Huh?”

I didn’t understand a single word.

“Then you’re lucky. Is it you who’s lucky, or him who’s lucky? I wonder.”

“...Alliance Leader?”

After speaking, Divine Spear released my eye and stepped back.

“Immerse yourself. So you can reach the heavens.”

He said that—and then, out of nowhere, he went to the window and lifted a foot onto it.

Wait, hold on, that’s—

FWOOSH—!!

“...Huh?”

Divine Spear threw his huge body out the window.

“No....”

I stared, dumbfounded at the suddenness.

Why did he come here just to do that? That was the question, sure.

But more importantly—

“Why the fuck do you both leave through the window when there’s a perfectly good door?”

Divine Spear and Bang Seojin.

Neither of them seemed to have any intention of using doors.

*****

[That scared you, didn’t it.]

After Divine Spear left, I stepped out into the hall, and Yoo Cheongil spoke while rubbing his chest.

“...I was more surprised.”

As I said that, wiping the cold sweat running down, Yoo Cheongil suddenly widened his eyes.

[Then you should wake up earlier when I tell you to. You know you’re already awake—why are you sprawled out pretending to sleep?]

“...That’s because what you do to me every day is the problem. And who the hell would expect Divine Spear to be standing right in front of me?”

Nobody in the world would.

You open your eyes and the Martial Alliance Leader is looking down at you while you sleep?

What kind of dogshit situation is that.

‘It’s a nightmare. A nightmare.’

Something that couldn’t be real unless it was a dream happened in reality.

If you grabbed a thousand people and asked, they’d all call it a lie.

And—

“Judging by how you reacted, it must’ve been pretty urgent, huh?”

It was rare for Yoo Cheongil to yell at me. Which meant even to him, it really was urgent.

‘Scared the shit out of me.’

My heart still wouldn’t calm down.

Then—

[Yeah. Why didn’t he pull it out?]

“...What?”

Yoo Cheongil casually said something insane.

“What do you mean, why didn’t he pull it out? What kind of insane bullshit is that?”

[...Well, I mean, given the situation, it looked like he was definitely going to pull it out.... So I was thinking about how I’d make use of you after you became one-eyed.]

“......”

His acceptance was disgustingly fast. The moment Divine Spear grabbed me, he’d already decided I was going to lose an eye.

‘This bastard is cruel as hell, isn’t he?’

He’s about to lose an eye because of the mess he made—

and he’s thinking about how to use me as a one-eyed man?

‘He’s a malicious ghost. That old man really is a malicious ghost.’

If that’s not a malicious ghost, what is? At least by the standards I knew, Yoo Cheongil was definitely a malicious ghost.

“Do you know why Divine Spear came...?”

[Who knows? I don’t know either, so I’m thinking about it.]

Divine Spear came, checked my eye, and vanished. I never expected the Martial Alliance Leader to show up that suddenly.

[And he stared at you for over a shichen. That brat—doesn’t he have work? There’s no way he doesn’t.]

“Yeah. There’s no way the Alliance Leader doesn’t have work—wait. A shichen?”

My eyes widened. Did I hear that wrong?

A shichen?

Over a shichen?

“Divine Spear watched me for over a shichen?”

[Yeah.]

“......”

It was a creepy fact. He’d just stood there, silently, watching me for that long.

What could possibly be more terrifying than that?

‘If Divine Spear had decided to kill me, I’d have just died.’

Of course I know I’d die instantly in a real fight.

But hearing it like this made it feel even more real.

Divine Spear didn’t seem to have any intention of killing me.

Then what was his intent?

Did he really just come to check my eye and leave?

‘Why my eye?’

Why did he look at my eye?

I recalled Divine Spear’s words.

‘Blue. Like his eyes.’

‘Immerse yourself. So you can reach the heavens.’

‘What the hell was he talking about?’

The “eyes” obviously meant Yoo Cheongil.

But telling me that and then telling me to immerse myself?

‘...What is this?’

If he held a grudge, it wasn’t something he’d say to me.

Cheering on the disciple of the man who ruined him.

“How can he do that? If it were me, I’d just kill him.”

[Yeah. If it were me, I would’ve.]

“......”

[...]

“...You’re not allowed to say that.”

[Huh?]

That “huh” can go to hell.

My head started throbbing from the pointless back-and-forth. Holding back a sigh, I went down the stairs.

It wasn’t something I could talk about easily, anyway.

Sure, it felt like it wouldn’t matter even if I did.

But—

‘It’s just asking for trouble.’

If I opened my mouth and something happened because of it, that was what I was worried about, so it was better to keep it shut.

‘I’m exhausted already, and it’s morning.’

My head was a mess.

Part of me wanted to flop back down and scrape off some more of this fatigue.

But—

“...How much time do I have left again?”

Damn it. I had a schedule today too.

It was after the preliminaries.

This was near the point where almost seventy percent had already been cut after the Half-Ink Stone preliminaries.

Today was when the first preliminaries ended, and it was time to prepare for the second preliminaries.

‘...At least the good thing is.’

Today wasn’t the real second preliminaries yet. They said they were doing the draw for the order.

A light explanation and then the draw, or something like that.

‘At least I won’t be using my body, so that’s good, but....’

It didn’t feel great.

Now that I thought about it, Bang Seojin said she’d come see me again today too, didn’t she?

‘...Ha....’

Even after all this time, Bang Seojin was still Bang Seojin.

Just looking at her felt like she sucked my energy straight out of me.

‘How the hell....’

How did Bang Seojin suddenly show up as Main Alliance Headquarters personnel?

What happened ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) in the past few years for things to turn out like this?

I was curious what she’d been through in that span of time.

*****

CREEEAK.

I went down the stairs. When I came down on time, I could see several people gathered in the center of the inn.

It was far fewer people than yesterday, but plenty was still plenty.

STEP.

The moment I took a step, everyone down there turned to look at me.

Intense.

‘Wow.’

Feels like they’re shooting something out of their eyes.

If their gazes were arrows, my body would already be a hedgehog.

This was the aftermath of what I showed in the preliminaries yesterday.

After I split the Half-Ink Stone, the junior generation’s stare at me got twice as intense.

There was tension and wariness in it.

It felt like my existence had been burned into their brains more clearly.

If it’s good, it’s good, but with my personality, there’s nothing I can do about my stomach churning.

“Oh—!”

Someone waved at me.

“Little Sword Saint—!!”

Black-Grand Saber Peng Dojin.

“Here!”

“......”

That bastard was grinning like something was that great, calling for me, and when I confirmed it, I headed toward Black-Grand Saber.

I didn’t really want to go, but our group was over there.

“Good morning.”

I greeted them in the same exhausted voice. Do Hyeong nodded, and Cheon Eujin gave me a shallow smile.

“Looks like you didn’t sleep well?”

Cheon Hyein tossed the words at me in passing.

“Yeah. I had a nightmare.”

“A nightmare?”

“Yeah.”

A nightmare I never wanted to have again.

I clicked my tongue, and Cheon Hyein turned her gaze away again and said,

“Then, well, it can’t be helped. But if you can, it’d be better to manage your expression.”

“Huh?”

Manage my expression? I looked at Cheon Hyein with a puzzled face, and she added immediately,

“Today, they said a pretty big deal is the one who’s going to explain the second preliminaries.”

“A big deal?”

Don’t tell me Divine Spear? Is the Alliance Leader coming out again to explain? I almost frowned—

“The Thousand-Mile True Sight. They said the Martial Alliance strategist is going to explain it in person.”

“Ah.”

So it’s not Divine Spear. Thank God.

I nodded.

The Thousand-Mile True Sight was the current Jegal Clan Head.

He was definitely a big deal, since he was basically the Martial Alliance’s number two, but unlike Divine Spear, he wasn’t someone I was tangled up with in a way that made me uneasy, so it didn’t matter—

“Huh?”

Wait.

...Who did she say was coming?