DRIP. DRIP.

Fragments scattered in every direction. It was the mark left behind by the floor being crushed and bursting apart.

“Ghk!”

A groan slipped out. A voice he couldn’t hold back spilled into the open.

‘What—!’

Baek Cheonin squinted through the pain and stared up at empty air.

What the hell just happened?

He hadn’t registered it. When he finally noticed, he was lying on the ground.

He understood the situation. Along with the sensation on his foot, his view had flipped.

His posture had been broken and he’d been tossed into the air.

‘In that instant?’

Fast enough that the one getting hit didn’t even recognize it? Was that even possible?

It felt insane, and yet reality said otherwise.

GRRRK.

Pain aside, Baek Cheonin ground his teeth.

A figure passed through his vision.

A beauty in brilliant white martial robes, long black hair falling loose.

She stared down at him with a blank expression, and Baek Cheonin’s face twisted.

‘Staring down?’

At me?

She’s staring down at the one who will become the Heaven of our cult?

KRRK—!

He heard something being crushed inside him.

This is bad. His emotions wavered. The senses he’d barely kept suppressed felt like they were about to heat up on their own.

‘Endure.’

Not yet. He hadn’t prepared his great work just to blow up in a place like this.

‘Everything...’

He was trying to become the Heaven himself. He couldn’t be shaken by something like this.

Then—

SWISH—!!

“......!”

A foot filled his sight. Seeing it, Baek Cheonin snapped his head aside.

CRUNCH—!!

The ground gouged open again as her foot drilled straight through the floor.

If he hadn’t moved, there was no telling what would’ve happened.

‘Ha.’

Baek Cheonin swallowed a useless breath and rolled away.

—AHAHAHAHA—!!

The spectators laughed. Maybe it was because she’d used that move—like they’d expected it, like of course it would be that.

‘Damn it.’

Even at that reaction, Baek Cheonin didn’t care. He only watched his opponent.

‘What is this?’

He forced himself up. He widened the distance and stared at the woman.

She was pulling her foot out of the ground with a faint rustle of motion, wearing that peculiar expression of hers.

Leisurely.

“.......”

Watching her, Baek Cheonin felt something off.

Why—

‘...can’t I feel anything?’

There wasn’t a single disturbance. No mood. No pressure.

She was right there, yet it made him wonder if she even existed at all.

‘This is uncanny.’

Something was different—too different.

Baek Cheonin despised those ignorant fools called the Seven Prodigies.

They’d cling to some petty talent and lift their chins like they could touch the sky. It was nauseating.

Moon Dancer? Thunder Dragon? Wudang Cloud Dragon? Or Black-Grand Saber?

He’d watched those so-called great ones with his own eyes and reached one conclusion.

‘Pathetic.’

Worms drunk on themselves, unable to see even one step ahead.

That was his verdict on the Seven Prodigies.

The only one he’d thought was even slightly better—

‘...was Black-Grand Saber.’

He looked stupid, but he kept an awl hidden inside.

Among the Seven Prodigies, that was the only one Baek Cheonin had kept even a little caution for.

Maybe not the strongest of the junior generation right now, but someone who would climb there someday.

That was his assessment of Black-Grand Saber.

The only one among them he considered worth acknowledging.

And there was the Little Sword Saint too, sure, but—

‘That one’s an exception.’

He still couldn’t fully grasp what that existence even was, so he set him aside.

If you did that, then among the Seven Prodigies, aside from Black-Grand Saber, there was nothing worth seeing.

That’s how he’d looked at it.

And yet—

‘What the hell is that?’

Staring at Sword Phoenix, Baek Cheonin couldn’t control his expression.

This was the first time he’d felt nothing like this.

When he’d seen Black-Grand Saber, he’d felt a sense of wrongness.

When he’d seen the Little Sword Saint, he’d felt a sense of dissonance.

Even with other people, you always felt something if they existed.

But Sword Phoenix—

He felt nothing.

She shook her body out with a few casual taps, and tension climbed up his spine.

The strongest of the junior generation.

Baek Cheonin had never believed that label. No matter how strong someone seemed, he only trusted what he’d seen for himself.

And when he’d watched her then, he’d thought she felt like even less than Black-Grand Saber.

‘But now...’

The fact that he felt nothing made her look even stranger.

Her gaze slid onto Baek Cheonin.

And in that instant—

SWISH—!

“......!”

A sword flew in. Baek Cheonin twisted his stance.

He barely dodged and tried to move again—

SWISH—!

‘Damn.’

The sword casually bent its trajectory and charged him again.

This time he couldn’t dodge.

CREEEAK... CLATTER—!

He couldn’t avoid it, so he blocked. He forced the trajectory aside with impact.

Sword Phoenix’s blade bounced away, but she used the recoil to rotate half her body.

Her movement was smooth, and what followed was too beautiful for words.

Unlike her blank face, her body was delicate like that.

A wildflower.

Her actions were like a flower swaying in the wind.

You could almost imagine petals falling from somewhere.

Before he realized it, Baek Cheonin’s eyes were caught by her motion.

But—

SWISH—!

‘Tch.’

Getting his attention stolen or not, the offensive didn’t stop.

Sword Phoenix pierced in from any angle. Her flexible movement, her speed—both were absurd.

CLATTER—!

Steel met steel again ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) and again. Sparks burst from the harsh friction, and as the martial artists’ energy collided, the air itself popped.

And the more it happened, the worse Baek Cheonin’s expression became.

Even though he was blocking everything—why was his face darkening?

—What the hell?

—...Miracle Sword...

That was exactly the problem.

—He’s blocking all of Sword Phoenix’s attacks.

—What is this...?

The fact that he was blocking everything.

Sword Phoenix, called the strongest of the junior generation, was someone other youths called a monster.

And yet Baek Cheonin—mocked as Miracle Sword—was stopping her.

So—

—Was Miracle Sword that strong?

—He doesn’t even look like he’s being pushed back.

The crowd murmured in confusion.

Baek Cheonin bit his lip at their reaction.

‘It’s twisted.’

This is bad.

It wasn’t a place he was supposed to reach yet.

‘Sword Phoenix was this much?’

Looking at her, Baek Cheonin became certain he’d been wrong.

And more than that—

‘She isn’t even letting her guard down.’

That was the difference from Moon Dancer. Sword Phoenix wasn’t careless.

The proof—

‘Every strike is lethal.’

Attacks aimed at places that would cause a fatal wound.

Sword Phoenix wasn’t showing killing intent, yet she was scattering lethal strikes like petals.

What kind of nonsense was that?

That was also why he wasn’t dodging—only blocking.

CREEEAK...!

His arm trembled. The shock was huge.

Considering she’d stomped the ground and shattered it earlier, it meant her external training was formidable too.

If not—

‘Then it’s inner power controlled to the extreme.’

There was a high chance she was drawing out strength by tightening the hardened qi wrapped around her body to a limit.

Because pouring out that kind of force from that slender body had to be the result of how efficiently she used energy.

SWISH—!!!

Baek Cheonin dodged the incoming blade and tucked his upper body slightly.

‘This...’

No matter how you looked at it—

‘This won’t do.’

His decision was fast. If it stayed like this, it would be a problem.

Right after he tightened his grip—

WHOOOSH—!! He pulled energy up. In an instant, it wrapped around his sword.

And hardened qi formed—somehow looking... dull.

He swung.

SSSSSSS.

“......!”

Sword Phoenix’s eyes widened a fraction.

She twisted her charging body. The intent in her blade flipped from attack to defense.

BANG!

The impact burst, and Sword Phoenix was shoved back—but not far.

Her soles scraped against the floor as she bled off speed.

She stopped on the tournament stage, tilted her head, and looked at Baek Cheonin.

“Fuuuh....”

Baek Cheonin let out a low breath.

The crowd had gone quiet, so even that small sound came through clearly.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

He smiled as he spoke, and the wind turned strangely cold.

“I didn’t expect this. Seriously—this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

He lowered his sword.

In that moment, the smile vanished from Baek Cheonin’s face.

“I wasn’t supposed to show this yet...”

He muttered a few incomprehensible lines—

And before he could even finish, his body blurred.

Sword Phoenix shifted a half-step back.

Baek Cheonin’s sword grazed the tip of her nose.

She evaded by less than a sheet of paper—

And just like before, Sword Phoenix’s flow spread into the air around her.

A delicate sword path rode the air.

Baek Cheonin tilted his blade at an angle as he watched.

He was trying to exploit an opening like before, but—

CLANG—!

“......Huh.”

His sword couldn’t move. It was knocked off its line.

Sword Phoenix had disrupted his sword path.

And it wasn’t just once.

CLANG—! CLANG CLANG—!

CLANG—!

No matter how many times he swung—

No. Even before he swung—

Sword Phoenix’s sword blocked his path.

Even if she started late, her blade always arrived first.

‘...So this is...’

Helplessness surged up.

Only then did Baek Cheonin truly feel Sword Phoenix’s epithet.

The strongest of the junior generation.

Monster.

Genius Slayer.

He felt, with his own body, why so many names clung to her.

‘So it wasn’t arrogance.’

All those things he’d called geniuses—how they’d collapsed the moment they faced Sword Phoenix.

Baek Cheonin understood.

“You.”

He spoke to the woman.

“You can see it, can’t you?”

“.......”

Of course Sword Phoenix didn’t answer, but Baek Cheonin felt it.

This bitch—

‘She sees all of her opponent’s sword paths.’

Not just sword paths.

Movement. The flow of energy. Shifts in the air.

She controlled all of it. That was what Sword Phoenix was doing.

‘Ha.’

Baek Cheonin swallowed another useless breath. A true monster.

“I admit it.”

His tone changed. Without realizing, he’d slipped into his original way of speaking.

“You deserve that name.”

“.......”

“The strongest under heaven of the next generation? It’s not a phrase you can toss around—but you can carry it.”

The peak of the Central Plains.

Among countless martial artists, the highest existence.

The strongest under heaven.

Sword Phoenix had more than enough talent to reach that place.

It was certain. In just these exchanges, Baek Cheonin became sure.

But—

‘That’s only...’

Only if he wasn’t there.

KRRK—!

Sword Phoenix stabbed into the opening she’d created.

Again, fast and clean—

CLATTER—!

This time, her sword bounced away.

And Baek Cheonin’s blade cut across her upper body.

WHACK—!

Blood sprayed. Droplets spattered and soaked the floor.

Sword Phoenix retreated. Her white martial robes were stained red, but—

“Shallow.”

Baek Cheonin flicked his sword and spoke shortly.

“You dodged even then?”

“.......”

Sword Phoenix frowned slightly and brushed her chest.

He was right. The wound was shallow—no real damage.

“.......”

She only tilted her head like she couldn’t understand something.

“Confused?”

Baek Cheonin laughed when he saw it.

He liked that look—her not understanding.

“Don’t worry. It’s natural to be confused. That’s exactly what I felt when I looked at you.”

“.......”

Words she couldn’t make sense of. And yet, Sword Phoenix felt like she vaguely understood.

“It’s a good thing we both realized early.”

Baek Cheonin lifted his sword.

“That something like this can be seen.”

As he spoke, he moved.

“That it isn’t only me.”

Dull sword qi coiled around his blade.

“.......”

Sword Phoenix touched her injured spot again.

Between the sharp sting, a little strength entered her indifferent gaze.

She carefully shook the tip of her sword.

In that moment—

Rustle.

It felt like the scent of flowers spread from somewhere.