Blood and Shadow on the Mountain Road
That night, at the far edge of the Haldun Mountains, the rhythmic clatter of horseshoes echoed down a narrow forest path. Five carriages traveled in a single line.
Some of the men rode atop the carriage roofs; others guided their own horses along the convoy, guarding its flanks. They had one thing in common — every last one of them had a weapon in hand.
And then there was the crimson flag fluttering from the lead carriage. The dagger emblazoned on a shield belonged to the 'Sentinel' gang — the men whose reputation alone could stop a crying child mid-wail.
Inside one of the carriages, a spacious, luxurious one that could have seated five with room to spare, a young girl stared blankly out the window.
She was Sasha — the girl both Efnel and Kizen were searching for.
"Hahaha! And then that woman finally—!"
"Ah, gross, I was eating!"
Crude jokes and vulgar language flew back and forth around her. Sasha couldn't make out a single word of it.
Who even are these men?
What's going to happen to me now?
Where are they taking me?
The men told her nothing at all.
"Hey, brat."
One of the gang members seated to her right spoke down at her, his voice thick with condescension.
"Eyes front. Don't even think about running."
"......"
Sasha lowered her head.
Two men at her sides, two more in the seat ahead of her, and beyond the windows, the men trailing behind on horseback. Just as he said, the security was so airtight that running didn't even occur to her.
"Say, boss."
One of the gang members tilted his head toward the front seat.
"Aren't we going a bit overboard? It's just one kid."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
The man at the front — a middle-aged man with slicked-back hair, his stubborn face carved with deep lines that spoke of hard years — answered him.
"We've got the monsters swarming these mountains to watch for, and more than that, the client said there might be an ambush."
The gang member scoffed.
"Who'd be crazy enough to attack us unless they wanted an arrow through the skull? Nobody within a hundred miles doesn't know the Sentinel name."
"With this many men, I still don't feel safe."
So saying, the man called boss turned toward the back seat.
"And clean that mess up, would you?"
"Ugh, what a pain."
At some point, the area around Sasha had become littered with leaves and twigs.
"Damn brat, would you quit making this stuff. I clean it up and it just never ends."
The gang member grumbled as he picked up the fallen leaves around her and tossed them out the window.
Sasha possessed a special power. An innate gift that only a tiny handful of the chosen on this continent ever obtained — an ability outside every category. Not dark magic, not holy magic, not pure magic.
"Creepy little thing."
Just then, a twig sprouted right out of her broad forehead.
The gang member irritably grabbed it and snapped it off with a sharp crack!, and Sasha let out a small "Ah!" as her tiny hands flew up to cover her brow.
"What kind of person even does that?"
"Heh heh, that's why her own village couldn't stand her either. They were practically overjoyed when we said we'd take her off their hands."
"Can't blame them."
At those words, tears welled up in Sasha's eyes.
"Uh, uhh...?"
"What now?!"
Twigs came shooting out of her body one after another, until finally they burst clean through the glass window and stretched out into the night.
Buds bloomed along the branches, and those buds turned to leaves that came pelting down like rain.
"Ah, dammit! What the hell is—!"
"Don't provoke the brat!"
The slicked-haired boss roared, then climbed over into the back seat himself.
"All of you, shut your mouths. You're not helping."
Click.
He pulled something like a syringe from the pouch at his belt and jabbed it into her body. It was the sedative the client had given them to subdue Sasha when they captured her.
Once the sedative took hold, the proliferating branches and the cascade of falling leaves finally, barely, stopped growing.
"Wow—ha! She really is a monster. A straight-up monster."
The slicked-haired boss smacked the head of the man who'd said it with a solid thwack!
"I told you twice to shut up. Go clean up the trash."
"Can't we rotate with the other guys?! This seat is killing me, seriously!"
The gang members seated on either side of the girl grumbled as they kept scooping up leaves and throwing them out the window.
The boss returned to the front seat and leaned back.
The road's starting to climb. We're almost there.
Pull off this one job and he'd be sitting on a mountain of money — enough to live idle for the rest of his life.
But his experience told him that jobs with this much money riding on something so trivial always had a reason behind it. He couldn't afford to relax for a single second until he met the client and had the purse in hand.
—Heeeeeeigh!
Suddenly, the neighing of horses rang out from outside. The carriages jolted and began to slow.
"What's going on out there?"
Sensing something wrong, the boss scrambled out of the carriage. The horses pulling the lead carriage were panicking, rearing and thrashing in terror.
The fear spread to the other horses as if it were contagious — hooves stamping, shrill whinnying, chaos on every side.
"B-Boss! Over there...!"
One of the gang members thrust out a finger and pointed ahead.
Deep in the pitch-black forest, something white as bone was walking slowly toward them. The gang members' faces drained of color as they screamed.
"Un-undead!! Undead!!"
"Everyone, battle stations!"
Clatter-clack!
Clack-clack!
Skeletons emerged from the darkened woods one weapon apiece, advancing in lockstep — a sight so terrifying it stopped the breath.
"Wh-why are there undead here?"
The slicked-haired boss's face hardened. There was no doubt about it — these were no naturally spawned undead.
"Careful! There are necromancers out there!"
"What?"
In that instant, a small figure leapt into the night sky above them.
The girl's pale-violet hair streamed behind her, her eyes glowing crimson — and even the enormous full moon beyond her seemed stained red.
Her hands swept down in a savage arc.
Full Bloom
FWOOOOOOOSH!
The girl came down like a beast of prey, and as she landed on the carriage and swept both arms across, a crimson wave of blood over six meters high blasted the carriage to splinters and spread outward in every direction.
"Uwaaaagh!"
"Gahk!"
The gang members riding in the carriage were swept away by the tide of blood. Sasha, caught in the middle of it all, only went wide-eyed in shock.
Of course, she wasn't hurt so much as a hair. The wave of blood had been raised with her at its very center.
Thud.
The girl touched down on the ground and walked over, wrapping Sasha in a tight embrace.
"You were scared all alone, weren't you?"
"......"
"It's okay now."
This person was a stranger too. And yet to Sasha, her voice felt impossibly, achingly warm.
"Get the carriage!"
Seeing this, the gang members drew their swords and charged.
"They're after the brat!"
"Stop them!"
KUUUUNG—!
The charging men skidded to a halt. Out of nowhere, a massive wall of ice had erupted from the ground, sealing their path.
"What now, what is THIS?!"
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!
Kurururung!
The ice walls kept rising from the earth, slicing through the gang members' ranks again and again like a blade cutting through slices of pizza.
"W-we can't get through!"
"There! Are you alright?"
At the same moment, the waiting skeletons began surging toward the gang members trapped behind the walls of ice.
"Ah, hell! Undead incoming!"
"Hold this line first!"
Clang! Ka-aaang!
The weapons of the dead and the living met in showers of sparks.
No tactics, no strategy — just a brutal, desperate melee, every man fighting only to clear the enemy in front of him.
Damn it all!
The slicked-haired boss had made his way to the very front of the convoy and spat.
Counting the skeletons, these necromancers aren't just one or two.
"Boss!"
One of the gang members pointed ahead.
"Th-there...!"
At the head of the caravan, a hooded boy was striding down the shadowed path, robe hem swirling with every step.
He was alone.
"There's a necromancer here too!"
As the gang members raised their swords in wariness, the slicked-haired boss's eyes flashed. Why would the one commanding the undead from behind step out onto the front line of all places?
"Kill him and we can stop that whole skeleton mob! Get him first!"
Before his order had even finished leaving his mouth, the gang members came charging in a pack, kicking up dust.
Inside the black hood, the boy's eyes glinted coldly.
"Hup!"
The first gang member to reach him raised his sword high overhead.
"Die—!"
CRACK!
No one could quite see it. In a blink, the man's nose crumpled inward and blood burst free.
The boy had closed the distance in a single stride, seized the man by the hair, and hurled him away with a heave.
WHAM!
The next gang member charging in from behind crashed into him, and the boy leapt up and drove a kick into the stomachs of both men tangled together.
"Guhak!"
"Kgh!"
Both men went sprawling at once, and the boy landed on the ground.
"You little bastard!"
A new gang member, swinging around from the side, let out a battle cry and brought his axe down.
WHOOOSH!
The heavy blow cleaved through empty air. The boy had slipped aside, and as he did he gave the man's ankle a light, almost dismissive kick.
"!"
As the man wobbled and lost his balance, the boy sprang up like a bird of prey and drove his knee into his face, sending him crashing backward.
"Kyaaaaagh!"
WHUMP!
Yet another gang member came leaping in from the flank, aiming for the boy's back — but the boy bent at the waist and dodged it with ease, as though he had eyes in the back of his head.
"Why you—!!"
The gang member slashed at him like a madman.
WHUMP! A vertical cut.
WHUMP! A horizontal cut.
WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!
The blue-black blade arcs came at the boy again and again, but he evaded every one with nothing but small shifts of position — a quick step here, a turn of the body there, the absolute minimum of movement.
From the gang member's point of view, it felt like being cursed. His sword kept missing, and missing, and missing.
"No—how is this not landing—!"
Squelch.
The boy's heel slammed into the man's face. He collapsed with a strangled retch, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.
"He actually knows how to fight!"
"Surround him and take him down!"
The gang members spread out and formed a perimeter at a set distance.
Seeing it, the boy dropped into a deep crouch, both knees bent hard — then kicked off the ground with everything he had.
BOOOOOOM!
When the boy reappeared, it was by the ice wall, where an archer from the rear lay crushed against the half-shattered ice.
He flowed smoothly toward his next target, his fist driving forward wreathed in dark teal jet-black.
WHAM! WHACK! CRUNCH!
It was overwhelming.
Like a wolf loose in a flock of sheep, wherever the boy went came sounds of bodies bursting and shattering, and gang members went flying through the air.
"!"
Then, for the first time, the boy faltered and fell back.
A vicious jet-black blade swept past his throat by a hair's breadth.
The boy touched the thin line of blood on his neck, then lifted his head and stared straight ahead with a look of genuine surprise.
"If you think necromancers are the only ones who can use jet-black, you're in for a rude awakening."
The slicked-haired boss was holding a sword drenched in jet-black.
At the same moment, his left hand — clutching something in a fist — moved, and a flurry of black shapes came whistling through the air.
Twang!
Tung!
The boy spread a jet-black shield before him and blocked them. What clattered into the dirt at his feet were black throwing stars.
"Men who live by the blade aren't idiots."
The slicked-haired boss lowered his stance.
"These days, when we save up enough coin, we head straight for a core opening. That's the era we live in now. That power isn't your private toy anymore, necromancer!"
At that, the necromancer threw back his hood.
Bluish-silver hair fluttered free, revealing the face of a boy who carried himself with the unmistakable air of a young noble.
"Hoh."
The slicked-haired man's eyes widened in astonishment — the boy looked even younger than he'd expected.
"And you were saying something about jet-black just now, were you?"
The instant the words left his mouth, the boy's figure vanished with a crack! of displaced air.
The boss whirled around in alarm to find the boy already charging in from behind. He yanked his shield up in a desperate guard, and the boy's fist slammed into it.
Hong Peng Original — Sky Piercer
WHUDDACK!
The shockwave from the boy's fist traveled straight through the shield and struck the boss square in the gut.
"Khegh!"
Blood-flecked spittle burst from between his teeth.
I blocked it — so why?!
Hurling away the now-useless shield, the boss gripped his sword in both hands and swung it in a wild, brutal arc.
The boy retreated to evade, then raised his clenched right fist overhead.
"What matters with jet-black isn't who wields it."
Hong Peng Original — Fixed Blade
SHAAAAAACK!
Blood erupted from the boss's shoulder without warning.
His eyes rolled in disbelief, and the boy let his jet-black-wreathed arm hang loose as he smiled.
"Isn't it who taught you how?"