Kyle had always split the ground with his sword strikes.
So the ground splitting in Sector 5—
That must mean Kyle is in B-5 Sector right now?
“Hilde, sit.”
Ami tugged firmly at my arm. The strength in her grip made me reluctantly lower my head, but I didn’t sit down. I just met her eyes.
“Senior, did you see that attack too?”
“Yeah. I’ll show you, so sit.”
“What?”
How would she even show me that?
As I sat down in confusion, she pulled a phone out of the pocket on her pants. Then she tapped the small earring fitted tight against her ear.
“This earring’s a body cam.”
Seeing my eyes widen, Ami explained cheerfully,
“It’s a bit dizzy to watch, but it recorded fine.”
She was right. Like replaying dashcam footage, I watched a recorded battle. The image from her earring played on the phone screen.
The camera spun dizzyingly as she moved, but I could still make sense of the situation.
The fight at B-5 Sector began to play.
It was on a completely different scale from here. More Creatures, more Badgers. Unlike the chaotic melee of Sector 7, this one had an organized formation. It looked like the units had split up, because from the opposite side of the screen, two other Badger squads charged the Creatures head-on.
The Badgers were seizing the advantage. The camera caught Chen aiming at a Creature—a huge, grotesque limb filling half the frame.
I didn’t know what it was, some green, twitching mass. Just as Chen aimed her bazooka at it, a sword strike slashed across.
[What the hell?!]
A white wave split the earth.
[Get out of the way!]
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAANG!
What was that?
“We never figured out who launched that attack,”
Ami muttered beside me.
I drew my head back in, lifted my chin, and glanced around. At some point, the seniors had gathered behind me and Ami, watching the footage over our shoulders.
A shadow deepened above us. I turned my gaze back to the video.
The Badgers on screen were in disarray, shouting and trying to identify the attacker. I studied the chaotic scene carefully.
Then I pointed at the screen.
I rewound the footage to the moment the attack began.
“You said you couldn’t find the one who made this strike?”
“The Portal opened right then,”
Richard replied in his heavy tone before Yun could.
“So we focused on retreating. That was the plan. The attack never repeated, either.”
“Yeah.”
Ami nodded as she watched me replay the footage again.
“I even went up in the air to look, but we couldn’t locate whoever did it.”
It was definitely Kyle’s doing. He must have hidden himself somewhere nearby. He would have known there was no point showing himself now—the Portal had opened, the Badgers were retreating, and revealing his face would have served no purpose.
But something didn’t add up.
It was Kyle’s sword strike, without question—and that’s precisely why it was so strange.
What the hell...
I ignored the murmured talk behind me and kept my focus on the footage. I didn’t even notice time passing or people speaking. I replayed the same part again and again—from when the sword strike appeared until it vanished offscreen—trying to confirm that what I’d seen was real.
No matter how many times I replayed it, I was right. It wasn’t fatigue playing tricks on my eyes.
No matter how I looked—
...hah.
What the hell.
What was that?
“What are you staring at like that?”
Reality snapped back in.
The voice belonged to Walker, who had been silently standing beside me. He must have been watching me zone out over the video.
Even Ricardo, half-turned away, was clearly listening to my answer.
Yeah, I probably looked weird. But I didn’t have the mental space to explain.
My whole attention was locked on Kyle’s sword strike; I barely even felt the pain in my body. The exhaustion that had wrapped around me, the cold that made my shoulders hunch—I didn’t feel any of it anymore.
I briefly met the senior’s gaze, then looked back at the screen.
“I was watching the attack.”
“What’s there to see?” Walker asked lowly.
I rewound to the start of the attack.
“Well, if you look—”
It was strange. Really strange.
“The trajectory isn’t straight.”
Ami turned to me.
Yun, Richard, and Trevain all stopped talking and looked down. Jonathan Kudo, polishing his blade beside Ricardo, and Aki, who’d been whistling next to Ami, both froze.
I ignored everyone’s reactions.
Then I played the video back at half speed.
“See how it wobbles?”
“No,” Walker said flatly.
“If you look closely, you’ll see it.”
He didn’t look like he intended to. Didn’t matter. I could see it perfectly well. An attack that should have traveled in a straight line instead wavered, jagged like a saw-tooth path.
The cut line it left behind was rough—like the edge of paper sliced with a dull pair of scissors.
“When it’s like this, the energy scatters unnecessarily, and the impact weakens. The farther it goes, the weaker it gets.”
At my added explanation, the others leaned closer to watch.
Their backs pressed down heavy around me. Even the weary veterans from Sector 7 stretched their necks to see.
I couldn’t just wait for everyone to notice on their own. Ignoring Trevain’s muttered “What the hell’s he babbling about?”, I skipped forward.
There was more to point out.
“And if you look at the end of the clip—”
This part was the kicker.
“The attack splits in two.”
“Oh, you’re right!”
This time the reaction came immediately.
Ami’s eyes went round.
“It splits like a whale’s tail!”
“When that happens, it barely lands a solid hit.”
It was different from Hekate’s six-fold strike. Hers divided from the start—meant to make evasion impossible.
But this technique was supposed to begin as one and end as one.
And yet—
“It means he couldn’t execute it perfectly.”
“Oooh. Weird. But does that matter?”
“Wouldn’t yours look the same?” Aki asked, tilting his head, legs swinging beside Ami. His gaze was sharp.
“The one you fired last time looked kinda similar, didn’t it? Or am I wrong? If so, sorry.”
“Uh...”
You mean, is that what you’re calling a sword strike?
I stupidly stared at the sharpshooter’s face. Then, realizing the pointed looks stabbing at me, I hurried to compose myself.
“I’m still not at full skill right now, so if you filmed mine, it’d probably split even worse.”
Back then, my cuts were perfectly smooth. Honestly, I couldn’t pull off a clean strike like that anymore. Just like Yun said—the cost of neglecting training for too long was heavy.
That’s why lately I’d been putting effort into regaining that level of swordsmanship—to deliver refined, seamless attacks again, remembering the times when Kyle and I traded blows.
When you achieve a flawless, unbroken sword strike, you reach the realm of the Swordmaster.
Simply launching a sword strike didn’t make you one. A Swordmaster completed it a strike that stayed true to its path, never lost power, and faded beautifully after cutting its target cleanly in two.
That was when one’s swordsmanship ascended.
I still remembered the elation of that moment. Now, recalling it only reminded me how far I’d fallen.
But if that was my case—
why had his skill declined?
He’d probably recover soon; even now, he didn’t seem as diminished as I was. But I could sense his regression clearly.
No way I wouldn’t. We’d been rivals since the day we first crossed swords on the ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) training grounds. Kyle and I had always pushed each other forward.
Even back on Earth. In that vast white space where we’d once pointed blades at each other’s throats.
“You use a sword?”
Kudo’s voice pulled me out of my reverie.
A Badger’s face appeared, pale in the dawn light.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t know~?”
“Hilde’s amazing with a sword!” Ami chirped.
Ricardo gave a faint laugh, and Ami stretched her neck toward me.
“You two should spar later!”
Strictly speaking, I was just an idiot who only knew how to use a sword.
Trevain voiced that thought for me before I could say it myself, and Richard added his usual complaint about my marksmanship still not improving.
With so many people, the chatter quickly spread. I exhaled a resigned laugh, listening to my former teammates talk about my skill.
Half teasing, half scolding, half praise—
their words blended into a distant hum, until the topic shifted.
“What happened to the ninth-class Creature?”
My breath caught.
The stern man asked Yun,
“It should’ve come this way.”
The marksman didn’t glance at me. Instead, he rolled his eyes toward Richard. He stood with a lit cigarette between his lips, slouching crookedly over the cracked asphalt.
“We lost it.”
The words came after a brief silence.
“Foolishly.”
“You understand this isn’t a trivial matter,”
Richard murmured darkly, arms folded.
Heads turned toward him.
Richard Green had that aura—
when he spoke, everyone instinctively fell quiet to listen.
“A humanoid Creature that perfect hasn’t been sighted since the First War.”
“Well, not officially,” Yun replied.
“Lately, several Creatures resembling humans have appeared,” Richard continued.
Then he picked up a white bundle from the ground—
something I hadn’t even realized was there.
It was the size of a basketball.
He reached inside and pulled something out.
“This is one of those Creatures.”
The contents lay exposed under the pale light of dawn.
My yellow eyes caught it instantly.
“The main body was too large to bring back. We’ll send this to the lab for analysis.”
A head half its face covered in bark. Ash-gray, shriveled skin. The neck severed cleanly.
I recognized the uncovered half of the face.
“Did you execute him?”
Yun snorted a laugh, then suddenly stood up and staggered away, bent over the ruins, and vomited.
