Shin Mira didn't give him time to breathe.
The moment the bracket lit up, she was already in the center ring, blade loose at her side, eyes flat and cold as poured steel.
Jaehyuk stepped in after her.
The arena noise thinned. Not silence. Worse. Anticipation.
Somin's voice carried from the edge of the ring. "Jaehyuk, if you die, I'm going to be so angry with you that it'll be medically useful."
"Noted."
Mira glanced at them once. "You brought a healer?"
"I'm not dying."
"That wasn't the question."
Fair.
The Tower's announcement boomed overhead.
[Round 2 Match Start]
[YUN JAEHYUK vs. SHIN MIRA]
[Combat ends at 10% HP]
Distant seats shifted. Vanguard white coats leaned forward. Jaehyuk could feel it, the attention, like a blade held near the skin.
Iteration 6 was still in the stands. Not moving. Watching.
Good. Let them watch this.
Mira raised her sword. No flourish. No warning. Just a line of intent.
Jaehyuk moved first.
Shadow Step.
He compressed the space between them, one sharp flicker to her left. It was the only reason he didn't get cut immediately. Her blade followed the place he'd been, not the place he was.
Not a missed strike. A corrected one.
She turned with him already inside her range.
Too fast.
Jaehyuk ducked. The sword passed over his hair with a sound like a whisper being cut in half. He drove a shoulder into her midsection, trying to break her balance before her next motion could form.
Mira slid back half a step. That was all.
Then her elbow cracked into his jaw.
White flash. Pain. He tasted blood.
"That all?" she said.
"No."
He stepped in again, low this time, aiming for the knee. She lifted her leg before the strike landed and his shin met empty air. Her sword came down immediately, not at his head, but at the path behind it, cutting off the dodge he'd already begun.
He barely escaped.
Barely was good enough.
Jaehyuk threw a short punch toward her wrist. She rotated the blade and the punch hit steel instead of skin. His knuckles screamed.
So did his common sense.
Mira's expression didn't change. That was the worst part. She looked like she'd stepped into an afternoon drill.
No panic. No strain.
She was reading him.
Not his stats. His rhythm.
He used Shadow Step again, shorter this time. A blink behind her shoulder. Mira pivoted with him, sword trailing a silver arc that grazed his ribs.
Heat opened under his shirt.
The crowd reacted. A sharp inhale. Then more noise. They liked this better. A fight that looked like it might become one.
Jaehyuk knew better.
He'd seen swordsmen like this before. Not many. The real ones. The kind who didn't need broad swings because every line was already the shortest path to your mistakes.
Mira's footwork was years ahead of his body.
He had knowledge. She had the blade.
She pressed forward. One strike. Two. Three. He blocked one with his forearm and regretted it instantly. The blade didn't cut deep, but it bit enough to remind him that every bad decision had a shape.
He hit back with a palm strike to her shoulder.
Mira didn't yield space.
She stepped through the impact and brought the hilt into his sternum.
Air left him. The ring tilted. He stumbled, caught himself, and took the next cut across his thigh instead of his throat.
That was the sort of bargain the Tower respected.
His HP dipped. Not enough to end it. Enough to make the floor's system light up red in the corner of his vision.
[HP below 80%]
Good.
He was alive.
For now.
He forced another Shadow Step, not to attack, but to survive the line she'd already drawn. Mira followed without hesitation. She was reading the skill now. Not the skill itself. The tendency behind it.
That was bad.
Very bad.
Jaehyuk tried to break her tempo with the ugliest thing he knew. He dropped low and swept for her ankle with all the grace of a man shoving a chair across a room.
Mira jumped it.
Then she landed and stabbed.
He twisted. The blade punched into his side, shallow but clean, and he could feel the point kissing bone through muscle.
The Tower's suppression held.
Suppression. A nice word. For letting you live long enough to regret the match.
Mira withdrew the sword and stepped back half a pace, finally giving him room.
She frowned.
Not at the wound.
At him.
"You're not fighting like a Floor 3 climber," she said.
"Neither are you."
"That's obvious."
She attacked again.
This time there was no mercy in the sequence. A straight thrust forced him to drop his center. The follow-up slash targeted his retreat. The third cut came from the blind side. Jaehyuk slipped the first, caught the second on his forearm again, and had to throw himself sideways to avoid the third taking his hand off at the wrist.
He rolled.
Sand filled his mouth.
He heard Vanguard murmuring in the stands. Heard one of them laugh under their breath, not cruelly, but like someone recognizing a useful specimen.
One of them, probably Dohyun's people, was already imagining what it would look like if Mira wore their colors.
Jaehyuk pushed up on one knee.
Mira stood over him.
"Get up," she said.
"What, you're bored already?"
Her eyes narrowed a fraction. That was the closest thing to offense he'd seen from her.
He used Shadow Step from the kneel. A sharp snap upward, into her space before she'd finished adjusting to the angle. For one heartbeat, he had her. His fist drove into her ribs.
It landed.
Mira's torso shifted a hair.
That was all.
Then her sword hilt slammed into the side of his neck.
He went down hard enough to make the sand spit.
The world rang.
The Tower had not ended the match.
He wasn't at 10% yet.
Mira crouched just enough to meet his eyes. "You can keep moving," she said. "But you can't win."
Dry. Blunt. Not bragging. Stating weather.
Jaehyuk coughed once. "I know."
"Then why are you still standing?"
He tasted blood and amusement at the same time. "Because lying down feels worse."
Something flickered in her gaze. Interest. Real interest.
Not enough.
She stood and backed off, giving him the distance to breathe. That was worse than if she'd kept pressing. It meant she'd decided to see what he had left.
Okay.
He had a little.
Jaehyuk rose, one hand on his side. His stats were still trash. His body was still a poor investment. But Shadow Step didn't care about pride. It cared about timing.
He went left when she expected right. Right when she expected left. He made her chase him across the ring, not because he could escape her, but because each step she took was one more decision she had to make under pressure.
Mira's blade kept missing by inches.
Inches were a gift.
He used them.
A feint. A duck. A shoulder check into her guard. Another shallow cut opened along his arm. The ring turned red in his vision for a second.
[HP below 50%]
The crowd was on its feet now.
Not because they expected him to win. Because he hadn't collapsed.
Vanguard members were no longer pretending to be bored. One had set down a cup. Another was leaning forward with both hands clasped. Jaehyuk could almost hear Dohyun's voice in his head. Assessment. Calculation. Recruitment if useful. Erasure if not.
Iteration 6 still hadn't moved.
Of course not.
Mira drove him back with a brutal four-step sequence. Thrust, cut, cut, feint. He blocked the first with his forearm, took the second on the shoulder, dodged the third by half a finger's width, and almost got his leg taken off by the fourth.
He escaped with a limp.
She saw it.
Of course she did.
"Your movement skill," she said, "it's not a burst. It's a habit."
Jaehyuk didn't answer.
"That means you're not just using it," she said. "You built your body around it."
He smiled despite the blood in his mouth. "You noticed."
"I'm trying not to insult you by saying I was late."
That almost made him laugh. Almost.
Then she closed the distance again, and the amusement vanished.
This time, she went high.
His duck saved his head. Her blade skated across his shoulder and left a line of fire behind it. He countered with Shadow Step and a hard shove into her hip, forcing a half-turn. It was enough to make her foot slip in the sand.
Enough.
He hit her with everything he had left in his right arm.
The punch landed square on her jaw.
Mira's head turned a fraction. Not enough to stagger her. Enough to make the crowd gasp.
For the first time, she looked annoyed.
There it was.
The smallest victory in the Tower.
It cost him immediately.
Her blade hooked his elbow on the return swing. Not a full cut. A cruel one. The joint went numb and his arm dropped uselessly.
Jaehyuk stumbled back.
The Tower flashed again.
[HP below 20%]
One more solid hit and he was done.
Mira lowered her blade.
For a second, it looked like she might end it right there. Clean. Efficient. The way she did everything else.
Instead, she studied him.
"You know sword work," she said.
"No."
"You do."
"I know how to survive it."
That earned him the faintest tilt of her mouth. Not a smile. A crack in the wall.
Then she came at him.
Jaehyuk used Shadow Step one last time, not to escape but to create a blind angle. He slipped past her lead shoulder. His good hand cut toward the wrist holding the sword.
She read it before it happened.
Her sword reversed. The flat of the blade crashed into his ribs with enough force to empty his lungs.
He dropped to one knee.
The Tower's warning tone sharpened.
[HP below 10%]
Mira stood over him, blade point angled toward the sand beside his face. Not touching. Waiting.
The arena was dead quiet.
Even the Vanguard had stopped moving.
Jaehyuk looked up at her.
If she wanted, she could finish the suppression trigger now. One more clean strike. The Tower would pull him. Match over.
But she didn't move.
Her eyes were colder than before. Not because she was angry.
Because she'd decided something.
"Answer me after this," she said.
He swallowed blood. "After what."
Her voice went flatter. "After I ask the question."
The sword lowered a fraction.
"Where did you learn to move like that?" she said.
Before he could answer, she added, almost casually, "And why have I been dreaming about floors I've never been to?"
Jaehyuk's blood went cold.
The sand under his knee felt like it had turned to ice.
Mira's gaze didn't waver.
"It's been happening for weeks," she said. "Floors I don't know. Monsters I've never seen. A tower section above anything I've climbed."
She leaned closer.
"Tell me why I know them."