A small dust cloud.
Slowly disappearing.
Ha Joon looked at everything beneath it.
The creature moving.
Twitching.
His eyes scanning.
Searching.
He couldn't find her.
His mouth wide open.
*Get up.*
*Get up and move.*
*Get up.*
Screaming at himself.
Screaming at his body.
*GET UP.*
Everything thrown into it.
Slowly he rose.
His body moving wrong.
Uneven.
Broken in places that hadn't been broken before.
But he pushed through.
Walked forward.
Toward the creature.
It screamed in pain.
Moving around.
Its scythe cutting everything within reach.
Ha Joon looked at it.
Through the noise.
Through the chaos.
And heard her.
Chi-Long's voice.
Somewhere inside his head.
*Are you going to come at me with no plan, boy?*
*You're going to charge without thinking?*
*Always look your opponent in their eyes.*
*Never look away.*
Her pale skin.
Her red lips.
Her black hair.
That ponytail dancing in the wind.
He talked to himself.
Slowly smiling.
*You see that right there?*
His voice grew louder.
*That's a real monster.*
Louder still.
"Do you hear me?"
Shouting now.
At the creature.
At the ridge.
At everything.
"I've faced a greater master than you."
He laughed.
Then charged forward.
Running.
---
His eyes scanned the creature.
The mana within its body visible to him now.
Breathing controlled.
He pulled a potion from his pocket without stopping.
Drank it.
Kept running.
He saw the fourth attack coming.
Moving fast to his left.
His ears caught the whistle in the wind.
His eyes tracked the movement.
His body felt the vibration the creature made with each step.
His core sensed the mana moving within it.
The attack came left.
He dropped.
Hit the earth with a powerful impact behind him.
Kept moving forward without breaking stride.
He jumped to the ridge wall.
Used it.
Ran along it upright for a few seconds.
The creature attacked again.
He dodged the first.
Then used the creature's own scythe-like pincers as a stepping stone.
Launched himself upward.
Reached the sword.
Still embedded.
Sliding through the neck.
Reaching down toward the wound in its chest.
He grabbed it with both hands.
Twisted.
Pushed it deeper.
He felt it.
Knew it deep down.
The mana racing within him.
The mana within the sword reaching back to him.
Her mana.
She had stored it within the blade.
Left it there for him.
He used everything he had.
The blade clothed itself in powerful blue veins moving through the steel.
Moving through his hands.
Through his arms.
Through his body.
The creature rushed him into the wall.
Powerful impact.
The sword reached the creature's core.
The blade broke on contact.
The impact flattening and shaking the whole ridge simultaneously.
Both of them fell.
Ha Joon's body sliding down.
The creature moving backward.
Then hitting the ground.
The noise moved upward.
Touching the whole forest.
Then—
Nothing.
Just silence.
Just bodies.
Just the ridge.
The system's voice broke the silence.
*"Warrior Ant successfully killed."*
Then it made its own exit.
Leaving the ridge.
Leaving the forest.
Leaving silence once again.
Complete.
Absolute.
Ha Joon lay still.
Breathing.
The blue veins fading from his skin slowly.
The sword broken beside him.
His eyes open.
Looking up at the sky above the ridge.
"Eun Byol."
Her name barely sound.
Just breath.
Just her name.
The forest held it.
Said nothing back.