“Mr. Hyeonwoo.......”

Gu Hyeonwoo, who’d been staring blankly down at the sword that had pierced his abdomen, flinched and looked up.

A face he missed so much it hurt was right there in front of him. The wife he’d lost years ago cupped his cheeks with both hands and whispered.

Did you miss me?

“......You. Is it you? Is it really you?”

His wife wrapped her arms around her husband, who could only repeat the same words like an idiot.

Gu Hyeonwoo felt her warmth and burst into tears.

It was his real wife. With touch this vivid, it couldn’t be fake.

I’m sorry. I came too late, didn’t I?

“No. Not late at all. Let’s go home together. Hahaha! You have no idea how happy Jiu will be when she sees you—”

Back when Jiu had just been born, when the three of them were overflowing with happiness at the future they’d build together.

Days when reality felt heavy sometimes, but he and his wife would laugh it off anyway, saying everything would work out.

Gu Hyeonwoo desperately wanted to go back to that time.

And then—

......You have to protect us.

His wife trembled with an anxious expression. Gu Hyeonwoo soothed her and promised without hesitation.

“Don’t worry. I’m here. Who’d dare lay a hand on our family?”

......You didn’t protect me. And you won’t protect us this time, either.

“Honey? What are you talking about? This time, too...?”

As Gu Hyeonwoo asked in a shaking voice, his eyes slowly began to dye red.

After losing his wife—and then hearing that even his one and only daughter had a severed meridian condition—an Inner Demon had come for him.

Even so, he’d kept himself together with a single thought: I have to treat my daughter.

But faced with Phantom Dream’s image of his wife, the Inner Demon that had been quiet for a while began writhing again inside him.

You didn’t protect me! When that man killed me, you weren’t by my side!

Gu Hyeonwoo’s expression twisted viciously the moment he followed the direction her finger pointed.

The man who’d hit his wife while driving drunk was standing there, looking straight at him.

—Gu Hyeonwoo! Snap out of it!

The killer he’d wanted to slaughter ten thousand times over, yet in the end had been forced to lower his sword and leave it to the law.

When Gu Hyeonwoo turned his head back to the side, his wife—now drenched in blood—was writhing in pain.

Kill that murderer! That man’s going to kill our Jiu too—!

The instant Gu Hyeonwoo saw the last image of his wife—the one that had become his trauma—his reason went numb.

“WRAAAAGH—!”

Gu Hyeonwoo threw his own sword to the ground.

Then, with both hands, he yanked Phantom Dream out of his abdomen.

SHHK......

As the blade came free, blood poured from the wound, but Phantom Dream’s presence wrapped around it and sealed the bleeding.

Swaying on his feet, Gu Hyeonwoo raised Phantom Dream—now red with his own blood—toward Kim Muhyuk.

“I’ll kill you....... You murderer who killed my wife—and now you’re trying to harm my daughter too!”

Phantom Dream’s presence coiled around Gu Hyeonwoo and flared like fire.

He lunged at Kim Muhyuk.

“I’ll tear you apart so there won’t be a trace of you left in this world!”

Gu Hyeonwoo charged, roaring.

Kim Muhyuk watched him—and spit the blood pooled in his mouth onto the ground.

“Ptui.”

Maybe because he’d imagined this situation countless times.

I didn’t panic. I wasn’t even surprised.

If anything, a part of me might’ve been hoping it would turn out like this.

“Honestly, I’ve wanted to properly cross blades with you at least once.”

Talbaek Sword Gu Hyeonwoo.

In my previous life, the enemy who’d murdered my parents—someone I could never forgive.

So watching him lose himself and come at me like this was more than enough to drag up a rage I’d carried for a long time.

If this had happened just a few days ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I would’ve cut him down.

“But...... now that I’m looking at you, ending it like this feels like garbage.”

The way he’d kept his conviction in the underground arena—even carving wounds into his own body to do it.

The look in his eyes when he was ready to throw away that conviction just to protect his daughter with a severed meridian condition.

Once I learned the things I hadn’t known about him before, I could feel the knot of hatred inside me loosening.

What was left wasn’t vengeance anymore.

It was simply the urge to measure swords.

I grinned.

“So wake up. And later, let’s do this properly.”

“DIIIIIE!”

Gu Hyeonwoo’s blade—no, Phantom Dream’s blade—collided head-on with mine.

KRRRRAAANG—!

Even after experiencing Phantom Dream’s power again and again, I didn’t dodge. I met it straight on.

“Keheheheheh!”

A wicked laugh spilled from Gu Hyeonwoo’s mouth, like something was mocking me—you’re nothing.

But the laughter vanished almost immediately, replaced by cheeks trembling violently.

“Something feels off, doesn’t it?”

I wasn’t staring at Gu Hyeonwoo anymore.

I was staring at Phantom Dream—being swung around in his hands.

A shameless cursed sword that dug into the deepest traumas hiding inside humans and puppeteered them however it wanted.

The truth was, my real enemy wasn’t Gu Hyeonwoo.

It was Phantom Dream itself.

“I’m going to tame you. I’m going to make sure you can never do this again.”

I hauled up the demon-subduing force I’d hidden deep inside my lower abdomen and wrapped it around my sword.

KRRRRAAANG—!

Gu Hyeonwoo was shoved back hard, his face contorting in pain.

The presence that had been burning so fiercely off Phantom Dream warped and buckled unevenly.

—Someday you’ll need it. Keep it, then pull it out when the time comes.

I knew it.

This is the time Namcheon Sword meant.

A faint white glow gathered along my blade.

“WRAAAAGH!”

Phantom Dream’s presence thickened even more with a tortured shriek. The red haze spread around us like fog.

I didn’t care.

I shoved through the red fog and advanced.

And I swung—not at Gu Hyeonwoo, but at Phantom Dream alone.

KRRRRAAANG! KRRRRAAANG! KRRRANG—!

Every time our swords collided, Phantom Dream shuddered—like it could feel pain.

Grudges and demonic influence built up over a long time, fed by human blood.

Against Phantom Dream—made of that—demon-subduing force was practically its natural predator.

Of course, my body was taking more and more cuts.

But I didn’t stop.

“Stop! Stop it! STOOOOP—!”

Like I was sentencing a criminal, I hammered Phantom Dream again and again.

But Phantom Dream was still a sacred weapon.

Even while suffering, it kept spewing wicked presence, and countless thin bloodlines were carved across my body.

And that price bought exactly what I wanted.

“Ughh....”

The demon-subduing force Namcheon Sword had left behind didn’t only strike Phantom Dream.

Gu Hyeonwoo’s eyes—trapped in a horrific illusion—began, little by little, to return to reality.

“Wh-where is this...?”

I didn’t miss that split-second opening.

I slipped behind Gu Hyeonwoo.

“Snap out of it, Gu Hyeonwoo!”

I pressed my palm to his back and poured every last scrap of demon-subduing force into him.

“Are you never going to see Jiu’s face again? She’s at home right now, waiting for her dad to come back!”

“......!”

At the sound of his daughter’s name, Gu Hyeonwoo’s gaze steadily cleared.

Phantom Dream had shown him countless visions and fake lives, but with my help—and the demon-subduing force—he managed to crawl out of the Inner Demon by the skin of his teeth.

“......I owe you my life.”

Gu Hyeonwoo let his sword hang down and muttered in an exhausted voice.

Even then, he glared at Phantom Dream, which was still vibrating inside his hand.

That thing clung like it had been glued on, refusing to come off—lying in wait for the next chance to steal his body again.

“Tsk. It’s throwing a tantrum to the very end. I can’t just rip it off by force, either....”

As I muttered with a troubled expression, Gu Hyeonwoo lifted his head and looked at me.

He was still on a razor’s edge.

He’d barely gotten his mind back, but if he let his guard down even a little, Phantom Dream would swallow him again.

“......It’s not difficult. There’s a simple way.”

And before I could stop him, Gu Hyeonwoo picked up the sword he’d thrown to the ground—and cut off his own right arm.

SHK!

Gu Hyeonwoo’s right arm fell to the floor with Phantom Dream.

I stared, eyes wide.

For a swordsman to lose the arm that held a sword was the same as losing martial arts itself.

“Are you insane?”

I snapped for real, but Gu Hyeonwoo only gave a calm, faint smile.

“......Didn’t I tell you? I’d rather cut my arm off than be controlled by some monster. A swordsman has pride.”

The relief on his face didn’t last.

His complexion turned deathly pale in an instant.

He’d lost too much blood.

After forcing himself to stop the bleeding, he sank heavily to the ground and spoke.

“Sorry...... I think I need to rest for a bit.”

Leaning back against the cave wall, Gu Hyeonwoo lost consciousness.

I checked his faint breathing and looked down at him, letting out a long sigh.

“What kind of person is this....”

Shaking my head, I picked up Gu Hyeonwoo’s right arm from the ground.

KRRRRAAACK—!

I released Water energy, chilling it to delay necrosis as much as possible.

If I got him to a hospital fast enough, he could get reattachment surgery.

If the surgery went well, it would take time—but recovery was still possible.

As soon as I finished the emergency treatment, I reached into my clothes to retrieve Phantom Dream—

“Kid. That’s far enough.”

“.......”

I turned slowly.

Two old men were walking toward me with their hands clasped behind their backs.

“That was a moving fight. Neither of you is ordinary.”

“And to think you even brought down the Black Bandit Society’s society leader. It’s almost a shame—skill like that, and neither of you is a proper martial artist.”

One tall, one short.

Their voices—packed with deep internal energy—reverberated through the entire cave.

“......Nice timing. You waited until everything was over, then came to pick up the scraps?”

My jab didn’t even register to them.

They talked to each other like I wasn’t there.

“That child was using a wondrous energy. We should take him and examine him closely. If we have to, we can even tear out his lower abdomen....”

“And that one-armed man seems highly resistant to hallucinations. Let’s take him too and run a few experiments.”

They were the Tamra Alliance’s left and right guardians.

They were treating me like a fish already caught.

And they weren’t wrong.

I was exhausted—after fighting the Black Bandit Society’s society leader, and then Gu Hyeonwoo right after.

My stamina was near its limit, and I had almost no internal energy left.

In this state, facing two old men who looked equal to—or even stronger than—the Black Bandit Society’s society leader was impossible.

“You two.”

In any normal situation, anyway.

“You had fun, didn’t you? Tossing bait to a cursed sword and watching from the back.”

I wiped the blood at the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand and stared at them.

Then I grinned.

“From now on, you too—try getting a taste of it.”

WHUMP!

I stomped hard.

As if it had been waiting for that exact moment, Phantom Dream slipped free from Gu Hyeonwoo’s severed arm on its own and shot up into the air.

“What are you trying to do—!”

“Don’t tell me that lunatic—!”

The left and right guardians realized too late and lunged to stop me.

But I was a step faster.

GRIP!

I didn’t hesitate.

The instant I clamped my hand around Phantom Dream’s sword hilt—

The world bled red, and nightmare memories came flooding in like a tidal wave.