Chapter 7 · A Duel for Life

Clang!

The sound of steel tore through the air in rapid succession.

Isadel’s sword surged like a storm.

From above, from the side—whenever a gap appeared, she drove in without hesitation.

The relentless assault left no time to breathe, and even the air was sharply torn apart.

Clang!

Clatter!

Erhan retreated little by little, blocking the blade.

Once, twice, three times.

He was barely managing to receive the pouring strikes.

He could not even dream of counterattacking; he focused solely on defense.

Even while being pushed back, Erhan continued to provoke her.

“Is this all you’ve got? Is this really all?”

In a moment so critical that having his throat cut would not have been strange, the mockery that forced its way out made Isadel’s eyelids tremble.

“You crazy bastard.”

Isadel swung her sword fiercely.

This time, she intended to end it.

Yet Erhan endured desperately.

His swordsmanship was crude, never formally learned, but his blade repeatedly blocked the tip of Isadel’s sword.

But his opponent was Isadel, who had trained one-on-one with the imperial guard captain.

There was no way it could have been a contest from the start.

Clang!

Under Isadel’s assault, Erhan collapsed helplessly.

The successive blows carved bright red gashes across his body.

Looking down at him as if he were pathetic, Isadel sneered.

“Do you even know how to use a sword?”

“Who knows. I’ve never learned.”

Her eyebrow arched.

“Of course. The likes of you would never have learned swordsmanship.”

In the blink of an eye, Isadel’s sword grazed Erhan’s shoulder, and flesh burst open as blood ran down his right arm.

“Kgh!”

Erhan let out a painful groan, but Isadel’s expression did not change in the slightest.

“Making such a fuss over a mere cut.”

Isadel let out a short scoff, then immediately readjusted her grip on the sword with both hands.

Erhan grabbed the hilt with trembling hands and barely managed to catch Isadel’s blade by a hair’s breadth.

Clang!

Blade against blade, a harsh metallic sound burst forth.

The impact, as if his arm might break, traveled straight up his wrist.

His wrist was numb and his vision swam, but Erhan gritted his teeth and endured.

“Standing here like this reminds me of childhood.”

“Have you lost your mind because you’re about to die?”

“You used to come find me whenever you were bored and torment me like this. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I remember. Beating you half to death was the only pleasure in my life.”

It was the moment Isadel, with a sinister smile, was about to strike Erhan’s solar plexus with the flat of her blade.

Erhan, who had not missed the split-second opening, hooked her foot and tripped her.

“Ah…!”

Her center of gravity collapsed, and Isadel’s back slammed into the floor.

Before she could even counter, a heavy weight covered her.

Erhan climbed on top of Isadel and roughly pinned her down.

His firm thigh pressed down on her pelvis, binding her, and his large hand pinned her slender wrists above her head.

“So you’re going to fight with your body since the sword won’t work?”

Isadel twisted her body to throw him off.

But the more she twisted, the more she only ended up burrowing into his arms.

From his lips, close enough to almost touch, a ragged breath escaped.

“I’m a little disappointed, Isadel.”

“In what.”

Erhan looked down at Isadel beneath him and smiled bitterly.

“They said you trained with the guard captain, so I had some expectations. But you’re nothing special.”

Though she knew it was the last desperate struggle of a loser, that arrogant mockery ignited Isadel’s fury.

‘You really have a death wish, don’t you.’

In that instant, a killing intent flashed in Isadel’s eyes.

She put strength into her unbound leg and mercilessly kicked Erhan in the abdomen.

“Kgh!”

Struck in the solar plexus, Erhan was thrown backward.

The moment the weight crushing her chest disappeared, Isadel sprang to her feet in one motion.

Then she mercilessly kicked Erhan’s fallen sword, sending it over the cliff.

A moment later, the sound of metal striking from far below echoed up like an echo.

Clatter!

Isadel headed straight for where her own sword had fallen.

Pulling the sword stuck in the floor, she turned back toward Erhan.

At the cliff’s edge with nowhere left to retreat, Erhan leaned his back against the railing in a wretched state, gasping for breath.

His golden hair, soaked in sweat and blood, hung down over his forehead.

Yet the twisted smile on his lips did not disappear.

Looking down at that utterly arrogant face, Isadel furrowed her brow.

“You’re smiling?”

“Should I cry instead?”

Erhan answered perfunctorily, then wiped his bloodied lips with the back of his hand.

Isadel glared down at him as if she would bore a hole through him.

Her shadow, with the sunset at her back, stretched long over Erhan’s body.

The more she thought, the more her anger would not subside.

He had nothing to boast of except his Hwa-in power, yet he dared to challenge her with a sword.

That recklessness went beyond unpleasantness to the point of absurdity.

“You said it yourself earlier. If you lose, you’ll gladly die.”

Isadel’s eyes sank chillingly.

“Then die.”

* * *

Isadel took one step, then another toward Erhan.

One swing, and this tiresome connection would end.

Strength slowly gathered in the fingers gripping the sword.

It was the very moment she was about to bring the blade down toward the neck of Erhan, who sat leaning against the railing.

‘…Look.’

An unexpected whisper burrowed into Isadel’s mind.

It was too vivid a resonance to dismiss as a hallucination born of extreme tension.

‘Just for a moment. Aren’t you curious?’

An ominous premonition seeped down her spine.

She tried to put strength into the wrist holding the sword, but for some reason, the sensation at her fingertips scattered like grains of sand.

Frustration surged at the absurd interference that had cut in at the most decisive moment.

Before Isadel could even discern the source of the voice.

‘Come on, look.’

The sweet whisper burrowed into her head once more.

‘Just turn around once.’

Isadel gritted her teeth.

Now was not the time to yield to such temptation.

She had to finish that bastard’s breath and end this wretched connection.

But her gaze slid away, betraying her will.

Toward the place she had desperately avoided throughout the fight.

At last, she met Erhan’s eyes.

“…Ah.”

Those eyes—limitlessly transparent yet violently churning—swallowed Isadel’s vision.

Wherever the blue abyss touched, her nervous system froze as if paralyzed.

Time stretched infinitely, space twisted, and consciousness helplessly sank into the blue.

“Hah…!”

She gasped for air belatedly, but her reason had already been paralyzed.

The sensation in her fingertips vanished, and the sword she held rolled helplessly across the floor.

Erhan’s golden hair blazed as a dazzling halo of light.

In the blue hallucination that constricted her brain like a spider’s web, Isadel’s knees buckled.

“…Damn it.”

After a desperate resistance, her body collapsed.

* * *

Consciousness sank into a mire with no end.

She reached out but touched nothing; she stepped but there was no floor.

There was only the sensation of endless falling.

How much time had passed?

With a suppressed groan, consciousness slowly floated up to the surface.

The metallic smell of blood and a bitter chill pierced her whole body first.

“Hah…!”

Her eyes snapped open with a short convulsion.

Her entire body trembled as if with fever.

The sensation of thousands of insects crawling beneath her skin would not easily fade.

The daze lasted only a moment; her head quickly cleared, and Isadel felt relief.

‘Thankfully, I wasn’t addicted.’

Letting out a sigh of relief, she raised her head and an unfamiliar ceiling came into view.

The walls pressed close enough to suffocate, and a single beam of light leaked through a gap too narrow to even call a window.

It was the moment she tried to lift her heavy upper body, as if weighed down by lead.

Clank!

The sound of metal engaging tore through the silence.

A heavy foreign sensation pressed down on her right wrist.

Looking down, a cold iron shackle was clamped tight as if digging into her flesh.

Beside it, a thick, crude chain connected to a ring embedded deep in the wall coiled like a snake.

“What is this…”

Isadel irritably swung her arm.

The iron clanked harshly.

Just then, a composed voice came from the darkness.

“You’re awake?”