I drew my sword.
The blade I’d once given to Nol wasn’t long enough, nor thick enough, to properly counter Hekate’s. My strength might slightly surpass hers, but the sword itself wouldn’t hold.
Focus only on winning.
But I couldn’t swing right away.
[You cut your hair.]
Hekate spoke, her stance already poised to strike.
[It suited you better long.]
[Did it?]
I murmured, brushing the short hair at the nape of my neck with my left hand.
[It really was long before.]
I didn’t even remember cutting it.
When I woke up, it was already short. I only learned later that it used to be long.
But what did it matter now?
Hekate’s legs tensed.
[You still remember the Imperial tongue?]
[Yeah. For now.]
[I warned Kyle enough times.]
The Creatures didn’t approach us.
Some, however, kept attacking Sylvia. She was cutting them down with a face that was half irritated, half satisfied.
It meant she wasn’t going to let anyone interfere.
I drew a breath, ready to dodge when the attack came.
[I told him Hildebert might choose differently.]
Boom!
A building collapsed.
Hekate’s slash sliced clean through it. I bent low to avoid the impact and bit my lip as I widened the distance.
[But Kyle didn’t listen.]
Rumble, crash!
[Either he trusted you too much, or—]
Boom!
[He thought there was no reason for you to ever choose otherwise.]
...I’m going to lose.
Now I truly realized how weak I’d become.
Hekate had been famous not just for her unbending loyalty and exceptional ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) command, but also for her swordsmanship.
Neither Kyle nor I had ever disputed that.
I thought I’d recovered a fair amount of my old ability.
But this—this was nowhere near enough.
[You’ve become pathetic.]
Crash!
My forearm was slashed diagonally.
Blood splattered. The remaining force of the blow tore apart what lay behind me—splitting a utility pole and a motorcycle clean in two.
I cut down a Creature that charged at my side and steadied my stance again.
[Captain.]
Her quiet call broke my focus.
I’d thought I was past that kind of mistake—that I was prepared.
But the sound of that all-too-familiar voice made the strength leave my hands for an instant.
In the dim city, Hekate looked straight at me.
Those orange eyes.
[Still,]
Imperial pride still lingered in her tone.
[I never thought I’d see my sword handed to a mere human.]
Crash! Boom!
...I deflected it.
Still a good blade.
I looked down at the sword, chipped but intact.
Hekate’s enormous slash had been too wide to dodge; I barely redirected it upward.
My arm was cut open, but if it had been a standard issue blade, I wouldn’t have deflected it at all.
I looked down at the sword soaked in my blood and readied my stance again.
Time was running out.
[Support unit arriving in ten minutes.]
[You said you lost your memories?]
Yun’s voice came through the communicator just as Hekate spoke.
I blinked, preparing to close the distance.
[What?]
[I heard it all—your conversation with that human living in the subway.]
Ah.
Jin.
Jin Silver.
His name surfaced in my mind, heavy with guilt and pain.
His arm turned ashen gray—
That strange color, like concrete pulled from the mold.
Now that my memory had partially returned, I knew what it meant.
Those who survived the Sacred Tree’s curse and absorbed too much energy—
Their skin turned to stone, slowly petrifying until they crumbled into dust.
Jin probably never understood why his arm had changed that way.
[I couldn’t believe it for a while, but now I see it’s true. You sold out your comrades and conveniently lost your memories. You really are a coward.]
[Did you kill him?]
[That’s what you’re worried about?]
Hekate’s lips curved into a venomous smile.
[That’s your first question to me? You still worry about these things, don’t you?]
Boom!
My left arm’s flesh was cut open.
At the same time, I lunged forward, closing the gap.
With this sword, I couldn’t land a proper blow. But I couldn’t take her strike head-on either.
Still, there was a way.
Even the hopeless members of my unit could prove useful.
Thud!
As I dodged Hekate’s swing, I slashed lightly in return—
Cutting the pin off a grenade rolling on the ground.
Boom!
“Mother of—!”
Kwon Lucia screamed somewhere nearby, having wandered into this zone.
Sorry, Senior Kwon.
But dropping that grenade turned out to be helpful.
Though honestly, how do you even lose a live grenade on the floor like that?
Without saying thanks she’d never hear, I rose from behind the rubble.
Grenades are powerful weapons—
Far more dangerous to those of us with slower regeneration than to the Badgers.
I saw Hekate bleeding from her leg, unable to block all the shrapnel.
Her eyes rolled once, as if mocking herself.
[I wanted a more dignified fight.]
She brushed away the debris with her sword.
[To think I’d become this pathetic.]
Truth be told, she never stood a chance in the end—
And she must have known it.
In a one-on-one fight, she’d have crushed me. But that wasn’t the situation here.
For one, Choi Yun was here.
If he’d joined me, we could’ve taken her head immediately.
But because of my request, he was currently tearing the giant apart with Leonard.
The moment those two finished, Hekate would have no chance at all.
And the reinforcements that had saved the trapped Badgers were on their way.
Even if my skills had decayed, I could hold out ten minutes.
Hekate, the master she was, surely understood that.
So she’d come either to die with me—or just to see my current state.
Probably the latter, at least at first.
At first.
[Hekate.]
At some point, I called out to her—
The opponent who’d lost reason and was slashing wildly.
My kin, unable to walk away while I still stood.
She pretended to stay composed, but I could read her condition instantly—
I had once been her subordinate, after all.
[If this continues, you’ll die by human hands.]
[I don’t want to hear that from you.]
[I don’t deserve to wish for anything, but—]
[Shut up.]
[I don’t want to see you die a pointless death.]
[Shut your mouth!]
I sighed as my fellow kind lost herself in rage.
Don’t lose control here.
I still hadn’t regained the strength to take your head myself.
I didn’t want to see you die at human hands.
[You cowardly traitor!]
Crashhhh!
Fivefold strikes—
An impeccable assault I could never fully evade.
Her sword split the asphalt, tore through the ruins in its path, and came straight for me.
I charged right into it.
An unavoidable onslaught. One of those sharp strikes pierced through my abdomen as I swung my sword.
My blade slashed a grenade lying in front of Hekate.
Boom!
“Ugh—!”
[Ha! Serves you right!]
“Ghk—”
Kwon Lucia was blown away with the shrapnel.
Jerry Jones, beside her, rolled across the asphalt. They’d both been caught right in the blast.
Friendly fire. That one was on me.
Meanwhile, Hekate, who had perfectly deflected the explosion with her blade, laughed sharply.
[To think my captain would make such a pathetic attack!]
At least the grenade went off where I wanted.
[Watching you fall is satisfying enough!]
It hurt like hell.
Holding in my guts with one hand, I gasped in pain, tasting blood.
The battlefield was total chaos now.
Allies hit by grenades.
Flipped asphalt, pale smoke, and Hekate’s laughter thick with hatred.
And Sylvia—steadily closing the distance between them.
So she hadn’t noticed.
Hekate was blind to everything now but me.
If this continued, she really would die by human hands—
By Yun’s, or Sylvia’s.
That was the last thing I wanted.
I had to act fast.
Dragging my heavy body forward a few steps, I looked down into a hole blown open by the grenade.
A shattered stretch of asphalt, the sewer beneath exposed.
[Hekate.]
I tore off a strip of skin from the gash she’d made with her perfect strike.
Then I walked a few steps and dropped it into the sewer, murmuring,
[Sorry for showing you such a pitiful sight.]
[Forget it. I’m enjoying this. I’ve stopped expecting anything from trash like you anyway.]
[It’s my mess. I’ll clean it up as far as I can reach.]
I watched the torn flesh sink into the water.
A thought I’d carried ever since my memories started returning—
A resolve I’d never bothered to voice to anyone but my own kind.
[I’ll kill my own kin with my own hands.]
The sewer water began to surge.
[And then I’ll die by yours.]
As a Black Badger, that was always a possibility.
I had no intention of turning away from what I’d done.
Even if I remembered why I’d sided with humans, it wouldn’t change anything.
I’d raised my blade against Kyle, killed my own kind, and helped humans win their war.
So I would see it through—help them to the end,
And die by the hands of my kin.
On the battlefield...
At the claws of a Creature they controlled—or by a strike from one of my kind.
And if I somehow defeated even the last of them, then I’d gladly borrow their hand to end myself.
It was the resolve of a traitor.
I couldn’t kill myself.
But I also couldn’t bear to watch my kin die at the hands of those bloodthirsty humans.
[So you’re saying you want to die now?]
Hekate scoffed, lifting her sword high.
So overcome with fury at my wounded, defenseless state that she hadn’t even noticed Sylvia rushing in behind her.
[You’re asking me to kill you? Fine. I’ll grant your cowardly wish, Captain. That’s what I’ve always—]
KIEEEEK!
A Creature erupted from below, water spraying everywhere.
It burst through the cracked sewer line, its massive body filling my vision.
Scales like steel shimmered faintly in the moonlight.
The water dragon—Leviathan.
A denizen of Zone B-6, rarely surfacing to bask in sunlight.
A being both deadly and fragile—impossible to handle, difficult to kill.
That’s why it wasn’t obeying Hekate’s commands.
Which meant I could issue one of my own—barely.
Kyle’s proudest trick, the one I’d failed to recall in the Colosseum,
A technique we’d seldom used,
But it always came back in desperate moments like this.
“Swallow.”
I pointed at Hekate and ordered the water dragon.
I could control this massive lifeform for only one minute.
One minute to accomplish what I intended.
“Swallow her—and then leave.”
So that she would not die by human hands.
