I was afraid.
The pain of cold metal digging all the way into my bones was a hell I had never faced in my life.
A rain of steel pierced my flesh and lodged itself into my marrow.
Sharp, unyielding metal tore through my skin and reached my bones.

The pain left behind by death clung to me viciously, as if my soul had been stitched with needles.
There were times when I didn’t ignore my soul’s scream of ‘I don’t want to die’ and ran with all my strength.
And I paid the price.
Not only did I die, but everyone who trusted me and followed me ended up dead as well.

Someone once said this.
That it is only when you are cornered that your true worth is revealed.
Despair etched into my soul.
Pain I could never get used to stood before me as cold reality.
Even so, I raised my sword.

I repeated only slow, halting effort.
Even if it was no more than half of half a step.
As long as I could move forward even a little, that alone was enough.
And now, standing before a wall I could no longer advance past, I realized my aptitude was persistence that could endure ordinariness.

Under the new moon, where even moonlight was faint, the swords of two men clashed with full force.
The impact of the greatsword, falling with enough force to shake heaven and earth, came to nothing.
In the brief instant where breath was cut off, the old knight’s weapon of experience seized the opening and thrust forward, piercing straight through my heart.

“…I remembered it clearly.”

The pain of death is etched into the soul and never forgotten.
That is why I remember.
The one who killed me, the weapon that pierced my vital point, and exactly how my breath was cut off.
Every single detail, without exception.
I leapt back into hell.
The greatsword fell once more with force enough to shake heaven and earth.

This time as well, the old knight calmly raised his sword to block my greatsword.
He diverted it diagonally downward, then countered by thrusting the tip straight in.
It was indeed a technique near the pinnacle, but…
Unfortunately for him, it was already in my memory.
A light punch slipped into the gap of perception.

Slash!!

Even though it was an unexpected ambush, he reacted immediately.
Then a chilling sound reached my eardrums.
Only then did I feel the pain below my right upper arm, like being scorched by a furnace.

“You anticipated a counterattack, which is admirable.
However, regrettably, it seems the outcome has already been decided.”
“…It would seem so.”
“Just in case, I’ll ask.
Will you discard your weapon and surrender, even now?”

Instead of answering, I moved.
With my only remaining arm, I lifted the greatsword.
Seeing the fighting spirit that refused to be extinguished until the very end, the old knight let out a deep sigh.
His expression was openly filled with regret.
But soon, the old knight raised his sword.
A merciless slash followed, and my head fell.

I dream.
I am still alone in the darkness.
Dense darkness where I can’t see even an inch ahead.
It kept questioning me instead.
Is this path really the right one?
Shouldn’t I look for another path, even now?

“No.”

Denying those endlessly repeating doubts, I continued walking forward.
Before an absolute wall that could never be overcome, I swung my fists endlessly.
Leather tore and blood flowed.
Even when I swung until my bones were exposed, the wall before me remained utterly solid.

The old knight lightly twisted his body and evaded my greatsword by a paper-thin margin, then counterattacked.
From that action, a firm conviction could be felt, a resolve to never allow an attack to land.
I died.
I died again.
He allowed not even a single strike.
A massive wall that could neither be crossed nor broken.

Yet I stood before it again.
Stubbornly, foolishly, I continued to swing my sword.
In the end, after countless collisions, what broke first was doubt, and weakness.
There may be other paths.
But that path is not the only correct one.
I believe the path I chose is also a correct one.

The cold that had seeped into my bones gradually melted into the heat that ignited belatedly.
What had once been nothing more than a speck slowly accumulated into something impossible to ignore.
It still wasn’t enough to be called a mountain.
But at least, it had become something that could be called a hill.

What kind of power is this, exactly?
Is this also something that piled up because of defeat regression?
It was an unknown power, but…
For some reason, I already knew how to use it.
More precisely, it felt like my body remembered on its own.

But what needed to be done did not change.
I raised my head and looked at the wall once more.
Against that still insurmountable absolute wall, I swung my sword with all my strength.
And then…
For the first time, I heard the sound of a crack forming.

At the sound of hooves tearing through the silence of the new moon, Grandel immediately took a perfect stance.
The moment the sword was finally drawn from its scabbard, blue trajectories burst forth toward the enemy.
That strike, capable of slaughtering a hundred with a single swing, was proof of having reached the extreme.

To block that blue slash would require at least someone of equal realm.
That was why Grandel was about to turn his head to check on Her Highness’s safety.
In that fleeting instant, the air trembled.
Sensing an ominous anomaly, Grandel turned his head back at that very moment.

“What…?!”

The blue slash he had swung to annihilate Her Highness’s enemy had somehow already reached right before his eyes.
There was no time even to feel doubt.
He immediately thrust the tip of his sword into the center.
Clang!
With a clear ringing sound, the blue slash shattered like glass.

“What in the world is this…?!”

But the shock didn’t end there.
Through the gaps of the fragments scattering into the air, he saw a man closing in instantly, swinging a massive greatsword.
Did that mean he had used the slash itself to create an opening and close the distance?

‘This level of technique would be impossible without mastery at the Master level…!!’

A chill ran down his spine, but Grandel soon shook his head.
Even in that life-or-death moment, the man’s greatsword had seemed unbearably slow to him.
If that man had truly reached the realm of Master, his own head would already have flown.
Grandel’s sword grew cold.

He didn’t know what technique was used to deflect the slash, but it didn’t matter now.
Master Grandel.
He had sworn on his name and honor to protect Her Highness.
To keep that oath, Grandel swung his sword without holding back.

Though his posture had collapsed from neutralizing the slash, a sword so crude could be easily deflected.
He would evade the blow and counter in the opening.
A habit engraved into his body through long training.
However, the action that followed was enough to throw Grandel into confusion once again.

‘…A fist?!
Was the first one a feint?!’

Yes.
He chose to swing his fist directly instead of the greatsword.
At a choice so unthinkable, Grandel’s thoughts froze for an instant.
But even as his thoughts stopped, his instincts moved his body first, to sever the arm before the fist could land.

That was the only correct answer Grandel had reached through all the experience he had accumulated so far.
It wasn’t an incorrect judgment.
In fact, he could have severed it dozens, even hundreds of times.
But precisely because of that, this time it was the wrong answer.
Bang!
Metal collided and sparks flew.

“…Huh.”

Grandel’s sword, moved purely by instinct without any technique, was blocked by the jet-black greatsword.
Which meant he no longer had any means left to defend against the man’s fist.
As a result, Grandel had no choice but to allow the strike.
A fist tinged with faint blackness slammed into Grandel’s face.

Thud!!!

With an unexpected dull impact, Grandel’s body was pushed back a fair distance.
Yet despite allowing the attack, his body did not suffer even the smallest wound.

‘How on earth… could he neutralize my attack so perfectly?’

The fist itself, one that hadn’t even reached the level of Expert, much less a sword user, was harmless.
The problem was that the man had responded as if he had perfectly predicted every one of his moves.
Could it be…
Had he read all of my moves in that short span of time?
Even a martial artist would inevitably have stray thoughts in such a situation.

“Damn…!!”

Realizing the situation belatedly, Grandel immediately tried to close the distance again.
Being seasoned, he shattered those stray thoughts and refocused on his objective as a warrior.
It took no more than five seconds to reach that point.
But even five seconds was more than enough.

Grandel’s body, which had tried to surge forward like a flash of light, almost stumbled.
Even in this urgent situation, he found himself unable to move, as if nailed in place.
Because the massive jet-black greatsword, brutal to the extreme…
Was just a step away from touching skin as pale and delicate as marble.

“Put your sword away.”

The deep darkness of the new moon gradually faded, and at last, dawn began to break in the distance.

The dawn he faced after so long was far more radiant… and beautiful than he had imagined.

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