—Little Sword Saint.

His voice brushes past.

“COUGH.”

Blood spills out.

The blood that burst up out of my throat drops to the floor.

I didn’t hear the sound of anything wet hitting.

I couldn’t even properly hear Peng Dojun’s voice just now—so there’s no way I’d hear the sound of blood splattering.

—Fffuuuh......

That was my exhale.

I recognize that I sighed, but I don’t hear that sound either.

I clamp a hand over my chest.

‘Wow.’

This hurts like absolute shit. Enough to make me admire it.

‘...Am I dying?’

How badly am I hurt?

Just going by the pain, it feels like something big, but I can’t see it, so it’s just suffocating.

How much time has passed?

I can’t even feel that, which makes it even more suffocating.

And then.

KRAK—!

“Ghk!”

Pain snaps my chin up.

My body shoves backward.

And then—

GRIP—!

My neck is caught.

Still caught, my body lifts into the air.

“Ghh....”

“I asked what the hell you think you’re doing.”

His voice comes through clearly, and the darkness thins.

In the sight that showed nothing, a terrifying face appears.

Peng Dojun.

He’s staring at me with a face twisted to hell.

“Little Sword Saint...!”

It’s so loud my ears ring.

Maybe because he’s furious, he’s shouting—his expression is raging.

“What the hell are you doing? Are you messing with me?”

“......”

“Why aren’t you blocking it? What’s your intention!”

A voice packed full of suffocation and irritation.

Yeah, I’m the one who’s about to die of injustice here.

‘Not blocking what.’

I couldn’t block it.

I can’t see—how the hell am I supposed to block anything?

‘A person’s about to die, you bastard.’

The second Yoo Cheongil vanished, I couldn’t do anything.

My broken senses tied up everything I had, and I couldn’t block Peng Dojun’s attacks at all.

I didn’t see the saber flying in, and I couldn’t stop it.

That’s why I got flattened this miserably in a blink.

‘...Pathetically useless.’

So this is what happens if Yoo Cheongil doesn’t tell me.

My own patheticness is so ridiculous I can’t even react.

“You’re definitely messing with me. Right?”

Even now, Peng Dojun just keeps reacting like he can’t believe it as he looks at me.

“Where did the light go? Where did you hide it?”

Those blazing eyes.

Where did the light go?

‘...Ah.’

He means Yoo Cheongil.

The moment Yoo Cheongil hid himself for a bit inside me, that bastard noticed something changed right away.

‘What a hell of a bastard.’

That Heaven-Martial Body really is insane.

He notices that immediately?

“Aha....”

A laugh slipped out of me without me meaning to, and he knits his brows hard.

“...You’re laughing? What’s so funny?”

“...Nothing....”

My voice comes out.

“It’s not like you’re funny... It’s just... I’m funny....”

“What?”

My world snapped.

By the time I realized it, my body was already rolling across the floor.

He must’ve thrown me.

“...I see.”

He speaks.

“Are you looking down on me?”

“...What are you even saying?”

“Am I still not enough to see your light? Ha.”

“That’s not—”

RRRRRUMBLE.

A monstrous battle aura erupts out of his body.

Oh. For fuck’s sake.

‘Am I screwed?’

So he could put out a presence that intense.

It was disgusting.

“Fine.”

The sight is smothered again.

“If you won’t show it, I’ll beat you until you do.”

Darkness crashes in, and my sense of presence gets paralyzed again.

And then—

BOOM—!!

“COUGH!”

A fist sinks into my stomach.

My waist folds.

Agony rips through me.

Vomit surges up immediately, but I can’t spit it out.

BOOM—!! BAM—!

The impacts repeat in a row.

If there’s one difference—

‘He’s not using the blade.’

He stopped swinging his saber and started brawling.

I can’t see, and I can’t block.

I just have to take it, uselessly.

‘...Bastard.’

Every hit makes my bones ring.

And still, now that I’m at the pinnacle, I’m somehow enduring it—but how long can I endure this?

‘What am I supposed to do?’

Even while getting hit, I was looking for a way.

The problem is—

‘What the hell is the moon.’

The advice Yoo Cheongil left behind.

Figure out what the moon means.

I still couldn’t understand it.

What can the moon even do.

What am I supposed to do in here.

‘Whether it’s the Moon-Spirit Sword Path or Radiant Moon Annihilation-Overturn, it doesn’t help.’

I forced strength into my Moon Eyes, and I tried blooming sword force, too, but—

This thing called Black Cloud was darkness that swallowed all of it.

I can’t see anything, so I’m just helpless.

I think I finally understand how important the five senses are.

If it’s like this—

‘Do I have to use Moon Heaven?’

If Black Cloud is the secret art the Blade God created, then Moon Heaven is the Blue Moon Sect’s secret art Yoo Cheongil created.

If I use that, maybe it really could be a solution, but....

‘...He told me not to.’

Right before he hid himself, Yoo Cheongil forbade me from using Moon Heaven.

Because the backlash is severe—and because he meant for me to endure and overcome it if I could.

BOOOOM—!!

“Ghk!”

How am I supposed to overcome this without using it?

Rolling across the floor, all I can do is repeat the same thoughts.

‘Moon... the thing the moon can do.’

What the moon seeks, and what the moon can do.

‘What is it.’

In this darkness, what can the moon do?

Moon Eyes and Annihilation-Overturn don’t work.

So what can the moon do?

‘Seriously, that fucking old man.’

Instead of talking in riddles, he could’ve just told me the answer.

He had to make me think like this.

That sly old bastard, seriously.

‘Fffuu.’

I drag myself up, staggering.

Honestly, I just want to forfeit.

‘Isn’t this enough.’

Everything I prepared to deal with the Black-Grand Saber got wrecked the instant Black Cloud came out.

No information means no response.

Even now, I’m only enduring because that bastard is basically letting me.

So—

‘Should I stop.’

Should I just go this far?

Honestly, making it to the semifinals is enough. At this point, even the Moon-Thread Sword would accept it.

Yeah. So let’s stop here.

Pathetic reason keeps tempting me.

Haven’t I done enough?

If I already know I can’t do it, what’s the point of forcing myself forward?

It doesn’t suit me at all.

Even while I keep repeating that to myself—

GRIP—!

‘For fuck’s sake.’

Why is my sword hand tightening even more?

Like I absolutely can’t let go.

‘Ah, I’m screwed.’

I’m done. I was definitely brainwashed.

That old man Yoo Cheongil must’ve gotten into my head.

If it wasn’t that, there’s no reason I’d be doing this.

“Puhuh....”

I breathe out rough and wipe my mouth.

Whether I actually wiped it, whether I actually breathed, who knows.

‘What do I do.’

I don’t think I’m going to quit.

So I have to survive this stupid fight.

‘So how.’

What’s the method?

What is this “moon” Yoo Cheongil talked about?

I moved my eyes.

Darkness where nothing can be seen.

Staring into it, I angled my sword.

CLANG—!!

My sword shudders.

Pain shoots up my arm as my body gets shoved back.

I blocked it.

The reason I could block something I couldn’t see was simple.

‘I memorized it.’

The number of hits and the positions.

In the Black-Grand Saber’s repeated behavior, I found the linked portions and locked onto them.

So I calculated the speed and blocked a single strike.

I dip my waist, then twist my upper body a little.

I felt nothing.

Success.

I didn’t even hear the wind move, but I know I dodged the attack.

I didn’t feel the stabbing pain.

‘Half-step. Forward. Drop the chin.’

I executed the motion.

I was avoiding his attacks.

And still my expression wasn’t good.

I’m dodging by memorizing it, but—

‘This is only for a moment.’

There are countless feints.

Even if I move by predicting every path, it’s still a probability fight, and it won’t be long before it stops working.

So—

‘In this short moment.’

I have to find a way to break through.

Somehow.

*****

SWISH—!!

In a world scorched black, Peng Dojun throws a punch.

A heavy, crushing fist cuts through the air.

A thick fist packed with power moves like it’ll smash everything in front of it to pieces, but—

WHOOSH!

This time again, it doesn’t hit its target.

‘He dodged.’

He dodged again.

Peng Dojun frowns hard and moves.

He extends a leg and hammers out a fist.

Even through the continuous motions, his opponent—Bang Sungyeon—slips past them as if it’s nothing.

When his fist scraped past the bastard’s cheek again, Peng Dojun let out a hollow laugh.

Was it because he was shocked?

No.

‘He could do this—so why...’

Why did he take all those saber strikes earlier?

Peng Dojun stared at Bang Sungyeon’s body beyond Black Cloud’s sight.

Blood runs down his slashed upper body.

They aren’t deep saber wounds, but even so, the pain would be brutal.

And it wasn’t just once.

Three times.

Bang Sungyeon took all three attacks.

He was flustered.

‘Why?’

Why the hell did he get hit?

‘He could have dodged.’

If it were this bastard, he definitely could have dodged.

Didn’t he do it at the start?

He dodged every attack like it was nothing, then aimed for an opening and landed a hit.

If, at that moment, Bang Sungyeon had used his sword instead of his fist, the one dropped would have been Peng Dojun.

‘What the hell is he doing?’

So what is this now?

Why is he taking hits, but dodging all my punches again?

I can’t understand it.

And right when that thought rose—

‘...Wait.’

One idea surfaced in Peng Dojun’s head.

“You.”

Peng Dojun spoke as he looked at Bang Sungyeon.

“Don’t tell me—were you trying to make the same wounds on yourself as me?”

“.......”

Bang Sungyeon didn’t answer.

He was still too busy dodging Peng Dojun’s movements.

‘So that’s what it was?’

Looking at him, Peng Dojun became certain.

That was it.

The wounds he took from Tang Cheonil.

The aftereffects from then were still binding his legs.

So the bastard found it irritating—and took the same level of wounds?

“...Grit.”

Peng Dojun ground his teeth.

If that’s true, then—

“Pointless consideration.”

Meaningless.

I didn’t want something like this.

What I wanted was to feel the Little Sword Saint at full strength.

“You saw me as weak... you bastard.”

It feels like he’s been mocked.

No—mockery is what this bastard is doing to him.

The arrogance of thinking he can win even like this.

The power that lets him hold that arrogance in his arms.

‘So that’s why you reduced the light, too?’

That brilliant light he’d felt from him—he couldn’t feel it anymore.

Where did all that light go?

Peng Dojun searched for that light.

TAP—!

Peng Dojun stopped moving.

He stopped with his saber raised, but Bang Sungyeon kept moving strangely.

Like he was still dodging attacks, as if Peng Dojun were still striking.

“......”

Watching that, Peng Dojun narrowed his eyes.

‘Is it ridicule?’

It looks like he’s trying to ridicule him.

KRAK—!

Peng Dojun yanked his saber up from where it had been sunk into the ground.

Anger surged.

Ridicule was fine, and he didn’t care what he did—but—

‘I can’t tolerate you looking down on me.’

Not facing him properly.

That alone was something Peng Dojun couldn’t accept.

That’s why.

BZZZZZ—!!!!

The saber Peng Dojun gripped trembled.

And right after, the blade scorched black.

‘If you’re going to keep playing games.’

I’ll make it so you can’t anymore.

With that thought, he poured in all his strength.

Even watching it, Bang Sungyeon kept moving.

One.

He stopped.

Upright.

Had he realized Peng Dojun was getting serious?

BZZZZZ.

Gripping his blackened saber—

Peng Dojun planted strength into his foot with everything he had.

‘I’ll break you.’

Somehow, I’ll break you.

So you stop looking down on me and put me on the same level.

So we can properly trade blades.

He put strength into it with that meaning.

‘Black Cloud doesn’t have much time left, either.’

The duration isn’t long.

It wasn’t power he could keep using.

He had to end it quickly.

Peng Dojun steeled himself and was about /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ to drive strength into his legs—

“Ah.”

Bang Sungyeon let out a single sound.

GRIT—!

Hearing it, Peng Dojun shot forward like an arrow.

The saber scatters dark light and draws a diagonal line.

It flies at Bang Sungyeon.

And then—

“...So this is it.”

Bang Sungyeon reacted like he’d realized something.

WHOOOOSH—!!

‘What?’

A distant light suddenly burst out from Bang Sungyeon’s body.

Startled, Peng Dojun stopped his charge and opened distance.

In that instant—

SLICE—!

Something was cut by Bang Sungyeon’s sword.

Peng Dojun hurriedly checked his own body.

Did something cut me?

No.

Peng Dojun’s body was fine.

Then what got cut?

As he stood there, baffled—

FSSSS.

“...!”

Peng Dojun noticed.

He snapped his gaze to the side.

“No fucking way...!”

A gap opened in the curtain spread beside them.

It was Black Cloud.

Bang Sungyeon—

cut Black Cloud.