The Weight of a Single Drop of Blood
The strength of the flesh. The strength of the flesh.
The summit of the Demon King's Castle was the first place the wind reached. Black spires stretched toward the night sky, and at their highest peak, Hisa quietly caught her breath, her small hands clasped in front of her chest.
The first thing to rise above her small, slender fingertips was a single droplet of water, no larger than a fingernail. The tiny droplet, bathed in moonlight, trembled for a moment before another formed beside it. Then three more bloomed nearby, their numbers multiplying endlessly as if an invisible spring had burst forth in midair.
Some stretched long to become the beaks of birds; others spread thin into the wings of butterflies; still others layered over one another like petals, taking the shape of tiny, living dreams. Within their transparent surfaces, blue and silver light shimmered alternately.
Whenever the wind brushing the summit of the Demon King's Castle swept through the countless bubbles, tens of thousands of droplets collided, chiming with a clear sound that scattered into the night—lighter than bells, softer than raindrops.
The wave of bubbles starting from beneath Hisa's feet grew larger. It rose past her waist, draped over her shoulders, and finally swelled enough to fill the entire space between the spires, creating a spectacle on the summit that looked as if a massive lake touching the sky had been hung upside down.
Within it, birds were born. Butterflies were born. The bubbles, which had been circling like creatures that had just entered the world with fluttering little wings, suddenly found their direction and turned in unison to follow the night wind.
Transparent lives poured out over the black castle. Before long, the night sky was filled with bubbles. The tens of thousands of bubble birds and butterflies floating beneath the starlight were distantly, strangely beautiful, as if someone had finely sculpted dreams and released them upon the world.
Hisa looked up at the sight and smiled with immense satisfaction. Her smile was as pure as a child's, and the scene born from her fingertips was strangely, almost cruelly beautiful.
Soon, those birds and butterflies would alight on the windowsills of humans. They would seep into the pillows of those who slept. They would slip beneath closed eyelids, gently brushing the surface of anxious dreams, stirring up submerged fears, rumors, and memories once more.
Finally, Hisa lightly tapped the largest remaining bubble upward with her fingertip. With that, even it transformed into a silver butterfly and ascended into the sky. Hisa watched the countless receding wings and whispered softly,
“Sweet dreams, humans.”
“...”
The moment Ena thought she opened her eyes, she realized she had not awakened in her bedroom at the Sword Order Headquarters, nor in the Commander-in-Chief's private quarters where the dawn light thinly filtered in.
The wind brushing against her cheek was neither still nor warm like indoor air. It was a wind sweeping in from the middle of a battlefield, carrying the heavy stench of blood, ash, iron, and long-smoldering flesh all at once.
Beneath her feet lay a scorched, black earth. It was too parched to be called soil, yet strangely too solid to be called ash. Like ground that had soaked in blood for too long, burned, hardened, and then been trampled thousands of times, even the slightest movement of her feet caused a low, coarse powder to rustle and cling to the soles of her boots.
The sky was not a beautifully spreading crimson like a sunset, but a turbid, damp red, as if the raw flesh of a long-gaping wound had been lifted and stretched across the world.
There were no clouds, no stars, and no sun, yet that crimson light strangely illuminated the entire world... casting the outlines of everything standing upon the black earth in a low, ominous glow.
Ena lowered her hand. At her waist hung Ilryun. Then, she looked straight ahead. The Demon King's Army was there.
From the edge of the black earth to where the horizon vanished beneath the crimson sky, infantry clad in scales and carapaces stood in endless ranks. Aerial beasts with twisted, folded wings crouched among black banners.
Cavalry mounted on demonic beasts, siege engines stitched together from flesh, bone, and iron, and sorcerers wrapped in black chains waited motionlessly, stepping on one another's shadows.
Behind them was another army. And another behind that. Even after surpassing any number the eye could count, the black host continued, an endless army of the Demon King standing in absolute silence, facing Ena alone. It was a stillness that waited only for her to move.
Ena gripped the hilt of Ilryun and inhaled very slowly. The sheer number of opponents does not matter. Even if the entire Demon King's Army stood before her, if they were all enemies, she would simply burn them all. If there was no path, she would carve one with her sword. If their numbers were so vast they obscured her vision, she would sweep away the very horizon with Baekil. That was how Ena had lived.
As the Commander-in-Chief of the Sword Order, Ena had cleared seemingly impossible battlefields with overwhelming firepower, incinerating entire legions just to open an escape route for others. Before the word 'despair' could even be uttered, she erased the enemy who caused it. As long as she held her sword, the front line would not fall. It was at that exact moment.
“Commander-in-Chief!”
Ena's hand froze on her hilt.
Beneath the front ranks of the Demon King's Army, from under the feet of the black soldiers, dark iron chains wriggled and crawled out like living serpents. At the ends of those chains, people who had initially looked like shadows or fallen corpses were bound, forced onto their knees. They were the Sword Order.
It took Ena a moment to register the fact. Because the black earth, the crimson sky, and the shadows of the demonic army overlapped, they had initially looked like the debris of a battlefield, the remnants of a finished fight, or perhaps an illusion conjured to shake her resolve. But they were not. They were breathing.
Members of the Sword Order knelt with their arms bound behind their backs. Swordsmen with shredded armor and dried blood, disarmed recruits of the 10th Squad, wounded soldiers leaning against one another to keep from collapsing. Scribes clutching broken arms instead of their record boards, and young faces that had not yet learned how to properly hide their terror—all of them were there.
The blades of the Demon King's soldiers were pressed against the napes of their necks. There was no space between steel and flesh. The slightest pressure would slit their throats. If a single order fell, if Ena drew her sword, or if her aura wavered even slightly, those blades would fall in unison.
Thin crimson lines had already formed on the necks of several members. A single drop of blood trickled down the neck of one of the recruits. Ena saw that blood. More than the entire Demon King's Army, more than the crimson sky, the black earth, or the endless host, that tiny, thin droplet of blood loomed larger in her sight.
The blood crept slowly down the line of the neck. Its descent was so agonizingly slow that Ena had no choice but to watch every single second of its fall.
She only had to draw her sword. She knew this. If she drew Ilryun now and unleashed Baekil, the front ranks of the Demon King's Army would vanish without a trace.
The second and third ranks would soon follow, erased in the flames, and even the monsters, sorcerers, and siege engines standing endlessly in the rear would ultimately crumble into black ash. But before that, the Sword Order would be reduced to cinders. Not just one person. Not dozens. Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. That reality paralyzed Ena's body. No words would come.
“Whoa. She really stopped.”
A small voice drifted over. From a puddle on the black earth, a young girl with wet, golden hair slowly poked her face out. Tiny bubbles rose and popped inside her transparent eyes. The girl stared up at Ena with wide, round eyes, like a child looking at a fascinating toy.
“She can't draw her sword.”
The voice was innocent. So innocent it was sickening. Ena looked down at the girl. Rage surged within her. A searing fury rushed up to her throat, urging her to vaporize the puddle and everything in it this very instant. But Ena could not move. If her aura grew even slightly harsh, she felt the blades pressed against those necks would dig deeper. The mere thought froze her from the inside out.
The girl slowly pulled herself out of the puddle. With the blade still at his throat, the recruit's eyes went unfocused, and his pale lips trembled as he breathed a faint word.
“Mother...”
Ena heard that voice. Because the voice was so young, so alive, and sounded as if it could be snuffed out at any second, Ena tensed her fingertips, only to freeze again.
“What did you do?”
Her voice was cracked. The girl tilted her head.
“I showed them a dream.”
“Release them.”
“No.”
There was no hesitation, her tone so simple that even malice felt faint within it. She refused simply because she didn't want to. With that level of casualness, she was tampering with the minds of the Sword Order, holding their lives hostage, and binding Ena's hands.
“Hisa.”
Another voice spoke this time. It was smooth, low, and unpleasantly polite. The front ranks of the Demon King's Army parted to the left and right, and a faceless man walked out from between them. Though his stark white, smooth face lacked eyes, a nose, and a mouth, it was strangely obvious that he was smiling. The voice itself was laughing.
“It is no fun if you speak too quickly.”
Hisa pouted. “But I don't want to, and that's that.”
“Negotiations require a process.”
“That's too hard.”
“You will get used to it soon.”
Ena stared at the two of them. Who they were, which executives they were, what abilities they possessed, and how this scene had been constructed—all of those questions were pushed aside. They held the Sword Order hostage. That alone was enough.
“Release them.”
Ena spoke again. Her voice was even lower this time. The White-Faced Duke tilted his head slightly.
“Whom?”
That single word pierced Ena's mind like a blade. Whom. Starting with whom? Should she free Roen? Should she free Arthur? Should she free the 10th Squad recruits whose names she had not even fully memorized yet? Should she extract the wounded first? Should she save the archives' scribes? Should she incinerate the front ranks to open a path? Should she sever the chains from the back?
She had to save every single one of them without exception, but the moment she chose one, the other lives would be caught on the tips of those blades. Ena could not answer.
As if reading her silence, the blades of the Demon King's soldiers shifted slightly in unison. Fresh blood welled on the necks of the Sword Order members. Someone gritted their teeth, someone swallowed a groan, and someone hung their head, unable to look at their Commander-in-Chief.
Save one, and three would die. Incinerate the front ranks, and the throats in the back would be slit. If she saved Roen first, the recruits would die; if she saved the recruits first, Arthur would die; if she saved Arthur, the other members would die. She had to save them all. All of them. Without leaving a single person behind. Yet, she could see no way.
Her hand trembled. Just a fraction. But Ena felt it. The hand of the Commander-in-Chief of the Sword Order was trembling. Before the entire Demon King's Army, before the blades pressed against the throats of her hostages. The person who had burned down countless front lines with her own hands was now trembling before the fact that each individual blade held a human life. That realization shook Ena even further.
“Commander-in-Chief.”
It was Roen's voice. Ena turned her gaze almost reflexively.
Roen was at the very front. Three demonic soldiers surrounded him, three blades pressed against his throat. His right shoulder drooped as if shattered, and blood was smeared around his mouth. Yet, his eyes were as calm as ever. That calmness shattered Ena even more.
Why that face? Why was he still calculating even now? Why did he still wear the face of her adjutant even with blades at his throat?
“Roen.”
His name slipped out. Her voice shook. Roen looked at her.
“Abandon us.”
The words came out too easily. They came so easily that Ena could not comprehend them at first.
“What did you say?”
“Abandon us.”
Roen repeated. “The Sword Order lives only if the Commander-in-Chief lives.”
“Shut your mouth.”
Ena's voice dropped. But Roen did not stop.
“The entire Demon King's Army is before us.”
His voice was cracked, but his sentences remained precise. “If the Commander-in-Chief is bound trying to save us, the entire Sword Order will collapse.”
“I told you to shut your mouth.”
“Therefore,”
Roen said through bloody lips, yet with absolute clarity, “Abandon us.”
In that instant, something crumbled inside Ena. Fear came before anger. Roen would say those words. Roen was truly the kind of person who would say that. He was a man who made the most efficient decisions, reached the most necessary conclusions, and could include his own life within those calculations. For the sake of the war as a whole and the survival of the Sword Order, he was someone who would erase himself first. That was Roen.
Ena knew this. And that was why she was terrified. The fact that his words were not wrong, that they made sense in the logic of war. The cold correctness of the statement that the Sword Order lived only if the Commander-in-Chief lived choked the breath from her throat.
Ena shook her head.
“No.”
It was barely a whisper at first.
“No, it is not.”
It was slightly louder this time.
“No...”
On the third try, her breath hitched.
“Do not say such things.”
Roen's eyes wavered ever so slightly. The moment she saw that tiny tremor, Ena could bear it no longer.
“I told you not to say such things!”
Seluan laughed. This time, he laughed with Roen's voice. When Ena turned her head, Seluan wore Roen's face. The bloody mouth, the calm eyes, the familiar expression—it was the exact face of the adjutant who always stood a step behind Ena holding a report. He was smiling with that face.
“You are always late.”
Ena's breath caught. Seluan's face shifted. It became the face of a woman resembling Adeline Lucretia.
“To Adeline, too.”
It shifted again. The face of a 10th Squad recruit.
“To us, too.”
Arthur's face.
“To the Sword Order, too.”
And finally, Ena's own face. Silver-white hair. Cool blue eyes. A black scabbard.
That face spoke.
“You will die.”
The crimson sky split open. Beyond the rift, another scene unfolded. It was the Sword Order Headquarters. A collapsed cloister, a burning training ground, the 1st Squad's archive room with papers scattered everywhere, a torn deployment chart of the 10th Squad, and the Eastern Outskirts map stained with black blood—all of it laid out before her eyes at once.
And in the center lay Ena's corpse. Her silver-white hair was soaked in blood, and only an empty scabbard remained at her waist; her sword was gone. Roen knelt beside her. He held the scabbard in one hand, his other hand resting on the ground, while his shattered record board lay beside him, drenched in black blood. His face was completely broken. For the first time. Entirely.
Ena knew this scene. She had seen it somewhere before. In a way no native of this world could possibly know. The structure where Ena dies, only her scabbard returns, Roen crumbles, the Sword Order is shaken, and those left behind grow through the tragedy. Someone awakens, someone seeks revenge, someone rises above their grief, and only then does the world lose its safety net and plunge into true danger.
Just like the original work.
The phrase surfaced in her mind.
Just like the original.
Ena's insides turned ice-cold.
“No,” she muttered. Her voice was cracked.
But the scene did not vanish. Seluan spoke with Ena's face.
“That is how the story begins.”
The moment she heard that sentence, Ena felt her stomach churn. A death becomes a mere plot device. For the sake of someone's growth, someone's grief, someone's revenge, her name is erased, her empty scabbard is left behind, and her adjutant's broken face is consumed like a doorway to the next development.
It was no different from the Holy Church calling Adeline Lucretia's severed arm a sacred relic. Packaging a person's death as meaning, converting agony into a function, and using a name as raw material for someone else's faith, growth, or justification. Now, it felt as though the world was trying to do the exact same thing to Ena.
You, too, will be used. You, too, will be left behind. You, too, will become a death that moves others.
Ena tried to draw a breath. No air entered. Her chest tightened. The hand gripping her sword trembled. She had to draw her sword. If she drew it, they would die. If she didn't draw it, they would die. If she drew it, the Sword Order would burn. If she didn't draw it, the Sword Order would be decapitated. Too late. Too late. Too late. The words echoed endlessly in her head.
Ena could not take a single step. Though the entire Demon King's Army stood before her, it was not the host that held her back. It was the blades pressed against the necks of the Sword Order.
Before those blades, Ena cursed the fact that her own power was too immense for the first time. Flames are vast. Baekil is powerful. If Ena truly blazed, the battlefield would cease to be a battlefield. So she could not use it now. She could not use it because she was too strong. That reality crushed her even deeper.
Seluan spoke slowly.
“It is not as if there is no way.”
Ena's eyes snapped to him. He had returned to his faceless, white state. Behind that smooth, white surface stood the Demon King's Army, before him knelt the Sword Order, and at the center of it all stood Ena.
“Let us make a deal,” Seluan said.
Hisa hugged her knees above the puddle, staring at Ena, her eyes holding a strange mixture of curiosity and fear.
“A deal?” Ena's voice leaked out low.
“Yes.” Seluan bowed politely. “If you die, we will release the Sword Order.”
The entire battlefield fell silent. It felt as if even the breathing of the Sword Order members had stopped. Roen's eyes shook violently, Arthur gritted his teeth, and one of the 10th Squad recruits started to lift his head, only to freeze instantly under the pressure of the blade against his neck.
Ena looked at Seluan. Seluan waited. Even the crimson sky seemed to wait. The calculations began to run again in Ena's head. If I die, the entire Sword Order lives. That truth shattered Ena even further.
“Commander-in-Chief!” Roen shouted. This time, his composure was completely shattered. “Do not listen to him!”
Ena looked at him. The blade pressed deeper into Roen's neck. Blood flowed. Ena's body stiffened.
Seluan asked softly, “Your answer?”
Ena slowly drew in a breath. She was afraid. She was afraid of dying. It took time to admit that fact. Living a long life did not make death any less terrifying. Having held countless funerals did not mean she could calmly accept her own.
Ena wanted to live. She wanted to see more dawns at the Sword Order Headquarters, wanted to grumble at the endless paperwork Roen brought her. She wanted to hear the clashing of wooden swords in the training grounds, and see Arcel pushing up his glasses with a strangely delighted face as he laid out analytical data.
She wanted to watch the 10th Squad recruits clumsily grow, to see if the Owner of the Holy Sword would truly appear, and to witness Adeline Lucretia's name finally restored to its proper place. She wanted to see it all to the very end. She wanted to live. That desire was so vivid that, for a moment, she could say nothing.
But before her eyes was the Sword Order. Living people. People she could still save. Ena slowly opened her mouth.
“Is my death all you require?”
Roen's face turned deathly pale. Arthur tried to force himself up, only to be pinned down by the blade. Hisa's eyes widened. Seluan smiled.
“Yes.”
“Everyone,” Ena said. Her voice was quiet, but clear. “Without leaving a single soul behind.”
In that instant, the black chains began to unravel one by one. At first, it was unbelievable. She could not tell if it was a mere show, a trick to bind them tighter later, or a cruel joke to slit their throats the moment she let her guard down. But the chains did fall away. The iron binding the members' arms clattered to the ground, the demonic soldiers slowly withdrew their blades, and as the cold steel left their necks, several members finally gasped for air.
Someone choked back tears, someone collapsed to the ground, and someone stared blankly at Ena with a face of utter disbelief.
Meeting the eyes of one of them, Ena let out a dry chuckle and spoke.
“...Though it is a dream, it is quite realistic, indeed.”
“Indeed, a dream... Wait. What?”
“I am saying I have only just noticed this crude, childish trick.”
“How...”
Shring—
“Adjutant Raymund is already dead.”
The furious sword of Ena hummed, vibrating as if on the verge of full release.