Black Badger

I accelerated the motorcycle.

Its tires crushed the corpses scattered across the ground. The stifling wind lashed against my ears.

I felt Kyle turn his body toward me.

It seemed impossible to ram him directly with the motorcycle—he would block its path with his sword.

I tensed, ready to jump off at the right moment.

Racing over the ruins and broken buildings, I sped through the narrow gap between two collapsed structures.

Then, I saw them—my own kind.

「Hilde.」

Kyle smirked darkly, bracing his legs.

「I thought you’d tucked your tail and run away.」

CHAAANG!

Our swords collided.

I focused only on the fight. Hekate, Sequoia, Sion—none of them mattered right now. Yun was right behind me; he would handle the support.

Even if he didn’t, there was no helping it.

Whenever I faced Kyle, I had to stake everything.

I could feel his blade.

「What are you trying to do?」

I muttered through the strain of the clash.

「What do you want now?」

「You think you’ve won this war, don’t you.」

His voice dripped with ridicule and contempt.

I saw the golden irises gleaming before me.

「You cowards, groveling before these creatures.」

KWA-AANG!

The blades veered apart.

A circular shockwave rippled outward. The spot where we stood caved in from the force. The blast shattered nearby buildings, glass, and cars across the road.

But I couldn’t look back.

Second strike.

His sword was one I couldn’t simply deflect.

CHING!

「Kyle. I’m asking you just once.」

Our blades clashed again.

Feeling the weight and direction of power transmitted through our swords, I spoke softly.

Even saying this would be an unbearable insult to him.

And yet, I said it anyway.

I begged.

「Surrender and come inside the Core.」

KUUUUNG!

The impact slammed into me.

The violent force threw me backward; I couldn’t breathe. Pain struck my back as I crashed into something. I must’ve been hurled into debris. Reflexively, I turned the blade aside just in time to avoid being impaled.

The internal damage was bad.

Groaning, I forced my eyes open.

Kyle’s black hair rippled in the air.

I understood now why I’d been thrown back—he was absorbing. When absorption began, faint ripples formed around the body.

It had been a long time since I’d seen Kyle use that technique.

He’d converted what he absorbed into strength to push me away.

A furious rejection.

I pushed myself up, bracing on my sword.

When I raised my head, Kyle was already before me.

THUD!

I stumbled back, colliding with something again.

I blocked his sword, but my strength was insufficient.

If I didn’t start absorbing too, his blade would pierce me.

「You took a third, and still you want more?」

Ignoring the heavy pain, I focused all my attention on the sword. Kyle growled through his teeth.

At first, I didn’t understand.

A third of what...?

「You forced a third of our kind to kneel, and you’re still not satisfied?!」

TATATATATATATANG!

Gunfire.

Kyle twisted his body, deflecting the bullets with his sword—moving before the gunshots even sounded.

KWA-AANG! The explosion boomed close enough to split the air.

A smart move. Even he wouldn’t have escaped unscathed from a submachine gun burst.

And the timing was perfect.

His words had distracted me for an instant—without that support, his sword would’ve pierced my heart.

“Focus.”

Through the gray smoke came the cold voice of my marksman.

“Planning to let him get away again?”

Kyle’s attention snapped toward Yun.

He intended to eliminate the human who’d fired on him. I could see it—the plan to cut him down while I was still stunned.

But in that same moment, he made the same mistake I had—he looked away.

I raised my sword in that brief opening.

KWA-KWANG!

A vertical slash crashed into the ground.

The strike rippled across the earth. The attack spread in multiple directions, detonating the piles of corpses on the field. The remains that would have fed Kyle were shattered and scattered into the air.

Kyle leapt back, avoiding the blade sweeping toward him.

From behind the smoke, Yun cursed.

“Can’t you tell friend from foe?”

“Sorry, sir.”

I replied shamelessly.

“I didn’t know you were in the trajectory.”

“Sure you didn’t.”

...Busted?

“See you in three hours.”

CHING!

A gust burst outward as his blade sliced through the air.

CHAEENG, CHING, CHING! Our swords met over and over.

There was no room to speak or even look around. Fending off Kyle’s strikes and maintaining the flow of attack took everything I had.

KWA-AANG!

The surrounding terrain crumbled to dust.

My vision wavered.

Damn these internal injuries.

Even at full strength, Kyle was hard enough to fight—

—and stupidly, through every exchange, his earlier words kept looping through my head.

‘A third of them.’

‘You forced that many to kneel.’

But where were they?

Inside the Core, I hadn’t sensed any of our kind. Every presence I’d felt was outside. Right here in front of me—behind Kyle, standing against me.

Hekate, Sequoia, and Sion were being handled by the seniors.

Ah.

KWA-AANG!

A lapse in focus—his sword nearly impaled me.

I twisted away, redirecting his blade and retreating. The diverted shockwave smashed what was left of a nearby ruin.

Focus.

I steadied my breathing.

Winning seemed impossible, but at least I could deal him a blow.

As I readied my stance, a voice called through the smoke—Sequoia.

「Kyle!」

She was holding off Sophia and Ami within the Creature encirclement.

「It’s time to retreat!」

What?

「We succeeded! You have to go!」

Succeeded at what?

I was still alive.

The Core hadn’t fallen.

My eyes widened as I spread my senses outward. The perception I had focused on Kyle extended in all directions.

Dulled by pain, but still functional.

I detected Creatures clustered near the collapsed wall—a full-scale melee. I couldn’t sense human presences, but by the Creatures’ movements, they were clearly clashing with the Badgers.

Yet most of the Creatures hadn’t breached the Core.

Flying types kept diving in, only to be shot down one after another. The farthest any reached ended up blasted from the sky by military fire.

Then what did they succeed at?

Puzzled, I tried to extend my senses further—but something surged inside me.

I coughed up blood.

“Shit.”

“It feels like we could’ve pushed them through.”

Kyle’s voice grumbled in Common tongue, wiping blood from his lips.

He was speaking the same language—well, almost. English.

“There were too many in the way...”

PAPAPAPAPANG!

KWAANG! A deafening blast shook my skull.

Yun had joined in again.

I thought he was fighting Sion.

But the marksman had already moved close, detonating something.

I remembered what the lab scientists had said—Yun had no favored weapon. He was the type who mastered the terrain, always choosing the perfect tool for the situation.

In balanced combat stats he ranked below Yehyeon. In raw strength he couldn’t beat Walker, in speed he lost to Ami, in endurance to Richard Green, in recklessness to Jason Trevain—

—but in sheer lethality, Choi Yun stood first.

Sion was—

“No.”

The moment my sharpened sense caught the dying aura of a comrade on the ground, Kyle whispered.

Every nerve in me flared.

KWA-AANG!

We both kicked off the ground at once.

Kyle would’ve reached first—if not for the mine Yun had planted in his path.

Click.

The ominous sound was followed by an explosion. The blast was so immense it sent me tumbling as I sprinted toward Sion.

Kyle rose, blood pouring from his pierced leg.

He would heal soon—absorption would restore it.

But that delay was enough.

I was already beside Sion.

Looking down at my wounded comrade, sword in hand.

Sion wasn’t one of the World Tree’s children. Not an official knight either. If I remembered right, he’d been a mercenary.

I’d had so little connection to him that even that memory felt uncertain.

But my hand trembled uncontrollably as I raised my sword.

It hadn’t trembled even the first time I killed someone.

I met the eyes of my dying kin.

「Tell me you surrender.」

My voice quivered.

「Please... I beg you.」

Sion gazed up at me quietly.

Then he smirked.

「Fuck off.」

Ah.

Ah...

“Hildebert!”

「Kyle! We have to retreat! There’s no more energy left here to draw from!」

「Coward! Coward!」

「There’s no point anyway. Just end it quickly.」

Kyle shouting my name in Common tongue, Sequoia grabbing him to hold him back, Hekate raging against Ricardo and Carl—

—and Sion’s faint whisper.

I looked down at him and murmured somberly.

「May eternal blessing be upon you.」

Only Sion would have heard it.

「And eternal rest.」

Then I pointed the tip of my sword at his heart.

「All blood returns to its place of repose.」

Raising the blade—

「Sleep peacefully.」

I brought it down.

Puuuk.

I felt life leave him.

One of my own was gone. The presence I’d felt vanished completely. I stood still, feeling death travel up through the sword’s hilt.

Someone screamed in pain and resentment, but I barely heard it.

Someone cried out, but that too was faint.

An attack approached, yet I had neither time nor will to dodge.

Kysis.

I’m sorry.

I—

KWA-AANG!

My body was flung aside.

Agony tore through me. My vision swayed violently.

When it steadied, the world was tinted red. I thought I heard Ami scream. Someone called my name, but I couldn’t tell who.

Ringing and dizziness clouded everything.

So I just lay there stupidly, staring up at the sky.

Until someone approached and bent down to grab me.

A cold voice fell.

“I let you be the one to kill him.”

The marksman lifted me up.

“Left him [N O V E L I G H T] alive on purpose. Judging by your state, I won’t be doing that again.”

“No.”

Panting, I lowered my eyes.

Through my blurred vision, I saw Yun’s uniform soaked in blood.

“Thank you.”

A gratitude without a trace of deceit.

“For letting me be the one to finish it.”

I don’t want to see my own kind die at human hands.

When I lifted my head, those cold black eyes were staring down at me.

Unfathomable.

I traced the cruelty hidden in them, and faintly smiled.

“Please keep doing so.”

The sharp scent of blood filled my nose.

Yun did not reply.