Deflecting the projectile—an arrow imbued with a paralysis curse—wasn’t difficult.

But the involuntary groan that slipped from my lips due to the pain caused by gathering energy from my slightly damaged core drew an unexpectedly dramatic reaction from those around me.

Even though squeezing out energy from a damaged core wasn’t fatal, and aside from delaying the core’s recovery, there weren’t any serious side effects, the response was intense.

Of course, when I say “those around me,” it was really just one person. But that one person reacted more strongly than if dozens of others had been watching.

“Are… are you okay?!”

The commanding presence of the gallant leader who had just been rallying the entire heavy knight brigade vanished. In an instant, Aslin rushed to my side, concerned about my condition.

“He said he is fine, so surely, he must be...,”

Katarina sighed softly, trying to calm down her overly worried lord.

“Medic! Healer! Someone, bring one of them over here!”

Despite my dismissive gesture and Katarina’s attempts to reason with her, Aslin didn’t seem to hear us, calling for a medic or healer, someone whose job was to tend to the wounded on this chaotic battlefield.

Her expression was desperate, and though barely noticeable, a subtle emotion flickered in her restless green eyes.

I felt a ticklish sensation in my chest at the sight of Aslin, uncharacteristically flustered over my relatively minor injury.

But to take advantage of her concern and steal time and attention away from those who truly needed urgent care would have been absurd.

“I’m fine.”

Suppressing the dull ache in my core, I raised my voice more clearly to reassure Aslin.

I lightly pressed my left hand—my sword hand free—onto her left shoulder as I spoke. Sometimes, physical contact is the best way to bring someone out of their panic, no matter the intensity.

As expected, Aslin’s reaction didn’t stray far from what I’d anticipated.

“Are… are you really okay?”

Her once trembling gaze gradually steadied, and she asked about my condition again.

“I’ve suffered worse wounds and still walked away from battle unscathed. If I made a fuss here, I’d be ridiculed for it, don’t you think?”

I punctuated my words with a laugh, hoping to drive the point home.

Seeing the anxiety vanish from Aslin’s face, replaced by a semblance of calm, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. But it seemed my moment of peace wouldn’t last long.

Whoosh!

Once again, the sound of an arrow cutting through the air reached my ears.

This time, ten arrows flew towards us from an ambiguous direction, each marked with the same paralysis curse and moving with even greater speed than before. They posed a real threat.

Whoom!

But before I had a chance to act, Aslin stepped in front of me, swinging her greatsword with an air of annoyance. The wind pressure from her strike knocked the arrows to the ground, rendering them harmless before they could fulfill their purpose.

I briefly entertained the thought that I could learn to do something similar myself one day.

“Show yourself. This cowardly shooting from the shadows is disgraceful.”

Aslin’s voice rang out, colder than I’d ever heard, filled with a fury rarely seen even on the battlefield.

Even when I showed up wearing an iron mask to assassinate Aslin, I had never seen her this angry. It seemed the fact that this coward was shooting arrows from the shadows without revealing himself had really struck a nerve.

Whether the threat worked or not...

“Ha, trying something so out of character and getting caught immediately, huh.”

A gruff voice, completely unsuited for stealth or assassination, rang out from a short distance away.

Boom!

“Yeah, I’ll admit it. This is a pretty ridiculous move.”

A figure emerged, cloaked from head to toe, making it hard to discern any details about their appearance.

Clang!

Aslin gripped her greatsword tightly, ready to make her move now that she had confirmed the enemy’s presence.

But before she could act, someone else beat her to the punch.

“Who the hell are you?!”

Katarina, with a shout that no one would believe came from a woman, had already drawn her sword and charged at the hooded figure.

During the succession wars, whenever I donned my iron mask to duel Aslin, my plan had always been to bind or knock her down. Yet every time, this formidable woman, Katarina, would show up with a squad of knights to foil my attempts.

Now, even though her voice was filled with fury, her sword arm remained steady. The arc of her strike was flawless, a testament to her great skill, something even I had to acknowledge.

“Hmph.”

Despite watching Katarina’s flawless movements, the hooded figure snorted, seemingly unimpressed.

They casually raised their right hand, which held nothing, and spoke:

“Girl, I have no business with you. Go to sleep.”

In an instant, they closed the distance between themselves and Katarina, who had been charging at them.

“…!!”

“I said, sleep!”

Before the stunned Katarina could react, the figure’s fist shot out, connecting with her jaw.

It wasn’t a particularly strong hit, but it came at the perfect moment when Katarina’s body and momentum were fully committed forward, turning it into a flawless counter.

Thud!

Katarina, who had been rushing forward, crumpled to her knees, and soon after, her body fell completely to the ground. Her consciousness had been knocked far away.

“Karin!!”

Aslin’s voice rang out, filled with worry as she called out Katarina’s nickname. The concern in her voice was clear for all to hear.

“I don’t kill people unless I have business with them.”

The hooded figure’s rough voice confirmed that, though unconscious, Katarina was still breathing steadily.

After a quick check on her condition, a faint sense of relief washed over Aslin’s face.

“But you, sword-crazed woman… you’re different.”

The figure, who had just declared they had no business with Katarina, now removed their hood, revealing their face to us.

“Shit.”

The moment I saw their face, I had to fight hard to keep my expression from contorting in disgust.

Even for someone like me, who had witnessed more than enough horrors on the battlefield to consider myself hardened, the sight of the man’s scarred face, combined with the bald head marked with faint symbols like a cursed brand, sent a chill down my spine.

This guy’s a problem.

“An assassin from the League, showing his face so freely, huh?”

I threw out a taunt, knowing full well who he was.

“The face, the voice—it’s all fake. I only took off the hood because it was getting in the way,” he replied, his voice still gruff but surprisingly calm, showing that my jab hadn’t fazed him at all.

“You’re one of those no-name assassins from the League, hired with a hefty down payment to take out the ‘sword demon,’ right?”

“Oh, what, did your parents not even bother to give you a name before dumping you in some orphanage? No wonder you ended up nameless.”

Pfft!

This time, I was the one who laughed. Aslin’s sharp tongue had completely dismantled the assassin, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at how she’d so casually insulted him.

Back when I wandered through the alleys, people would often pick fights with me, knowing I was an orphan with no name. But I never reacted the way this guy was reacting.

“....”

The bald-headed assassin standing before us, however, clearly took Aslin’s provocation to heart.

Rumble…!!

His killing intent surged, so palpable that I almost doubted if he really was an assassin.

The assassin’s killing intent, though nowhere near the primal savagery exuded by monsters, was still unsettling. For a human, it was intense enough to be called downright ominous.

“Hahahaha!!!”

His laughter boomed, filled with an unsettling mix of brashness and malice. Despite his earlier claims of being nameless, his thick killing intent and brazen appearance suggested otherwise. It seemed he was using deceit to conceal his true identity, and I was beginning to piece together who he really was.

I kept my distance, watching him carefully, trying to figure out more. But Aslin had no interest in entertaining his sickly grin. She charged at him without hesitation.

“…There’s always someone who tries that pathetic level of taunting right before they die.”

The man, grinning no longer, growled low as his overflowing killing intent sharpened.

Boom!

With a powerful stomp, he launched himself towards Aslin.

It was a moment that reminded me just how vast the world is. Even though controlling time at will was difficult for me, in urgent situations, I had always been able to use that fractured sense of time to gain an upper hand.

I never once doubted that Aslin was the only other person capable of moving freely in that split-second reality.

“Hahahahaha!!!”

But now, there was another—this man—who could move within that same fractured time, threatening Aslin’s life.

The only relief was that despite his earlier claim that he’d kill her, Aslin was deftly avoiding his savage blows.

Whoosh!

She easily found openings in his wild attacks, launching precise counterstrikes.

Shhhrk!

The sharp sound of metal slicing through flesh echoed across the cold ground.

“Gah!!”

Not only had the man’s flurry of punches been blocked by Aslin, but in the brief moment he had left himself open, she had struck him back. He quickly leapt back, spitting a vile mixture of saliva and blood. Clearly, her counter had inflicted some internal damage.

“Damn it. This is why I hate taking jobs that don’t pay well,” he snarled, loud enough for us all to hear. Yet, despite his curses, his energy suggested he wasn’t seriously hurt.

...What should I do? He was just an ambusher, after all. I doubt Aslin would be upset if I joined in. She probably can’t take him down alone, anyway.

As I mulled over whether to step in or not, I noticed Aslin subtly shake her head. No words were needed; the gesture clearly meant ‘stay out of this’.

It wasn’t arrogance or the desire to finish a duel without interference. No, her intention was clear: she didn’t want me, with my injured core, to get involved and risk further harm.

The once vibrant green of her eyes, so alive when she was fighting, now trembled slightly as they met mine. Even without asking why, I understood. Just a moment ago, when I let out a groan from the pain in my core, she had looked ready to cry.

‘You really hate the idea of me getting hurt, don’t you?’ I wanted to ask, but there wasn’t time.

“Even if the job sucks, I can’t afford to fail if it means starving to death! Guess I’ll have to play dirty!” the man shouted, wiping the blood from his mouth.

He stood with an air of arrogance, beckoning Aslin with his right hand, taunting her to come at him.

As she sent me a desperate look, pleading for me not to interfere, her eyes toward the man were filled with something far more chilling.

The look that cemented her title, despite the many who doubted it—’The Sword Demon.’

Rumble...!!

With a loud whooshing sound, Aslin’s aura surged, engulfing her entire body.

“You’re the one who told me to come!” she yelled, her voice sharp and resolute.

“…!!”

Before the man could react, Aslin had already closed the distance, her greatsword gleaming with a blue aura that matched the color of her hair.

She’s going for it.

Just from her stance, with her sword raised high and the intense concentration of her aura, I knew exactly what she was about to do.

The Behemoth, a monstrous king of the land, had crossed the Zakarrat Mountains near the end of the Succession War, wreaking havoc on the battlefield. It was Aslin who had cleaved that beast in two with a single, devastating strike.

That sword technique, witnessed by many and immortalized in the songs of bards, had come to be known as the ‘Heaven-Splitting Slash’.

Though its name, meaning “a slash that could bring down the heavens,” seemed almost arrogant, no one—friend or foe—had dared to question her prowess after seeing it firsthand.

I, who had watched from closer than anyone else, could certainly attest to its deadly power.

Now, in this hyper-accelerated state of awareness, I could perceive Aslin’s movements in perfect clarity. Her Heaven-Splitting Slash was about to unfold again.

The assassin, still wearing his cocky grin, was completely oblivious to what was coming. His eyes hadn’t even fully registered Aslin’s presence, let alone the devastating strike she was preparing.

Her greatsword, with the force to bring down the heavens, descended upon him. There was no chance for him to dodge or counter. This was an inescapable death.

‘It’s over.’

Without a doubt, Aslin’s sword would cut through the arrogant assassin, splitting him cleanly in two—

Boom!!

“Ugh—!!”

…or at least, that’s what should have happened.

Instead, the assassin’s condensed killing intent surged into a powerful blow that struck Aslin squarely in the chest, faster and more precise than her sword could fall. The impact sent her flying backward, a pained cry escaping her lips as she was knocked off balance.

That was the last thing I perceived in that hyper-accelerated moment.

“Aslin!!”

Before my mind could even process it, I found myself calling out to her, sprinting toward where she had fallen.

Everything had happened so fast, but my body moved on instinct, desperate to reach her before anything worse could happen.