* * *

He steps forward as though rolling a marble beneath his foot. Smoothly and gently, yet swiftly and precisely.

WHOOSH!

A massive hammer sweeps past his feet by a hair. A moment's delay would have shattered his bones, but the blow doesn't stop there. It pursues him, swinging at his knees, trying to break his shins, then crashing down on the tops of his feet. When he evades it, the long handle hooks toward his ankle. He steps onto the handle instead and runs lightly along it, like a sweetfish swimming upstream, thrusting his sword at an angle.

Twice through her arms. Twice through her knees. Three times through her heart. Yet Eugene doesn't stop. Seven holes pierce her body, her limb joints are run through, and her heart is split, but she pulls the hammer Limon is standing on toward her, closes the distance, and rams into him shoulder-first.

Just as he leaps lightly to step on her shoulder and vault over her, the hammer comes after him. Reading his movement by sheer animal instinct, she spins with the momentum of her pull and swings it with enough force to crush a mountain. The blow grazes his foot and shatters the bones in his leg. With nowhere to dodge in midair, he flips over and thrusts his sword downward. As the rising hammer meets the descending blade, the sword writhes as if alive, slips past the hammer, and slides down its handle like a snake to cut her hand.

THUD!

Her fingers severed, the hammer falls. She doesn't bother picking it up. Instead, she catches the end of its handle with her remaining hand and uses it as a pivot to kick. Limon deflects the kick with his sword just as he is about to land, but the residual force still sends him skidding backward.

'Incredible.' Limon drives his sword into the floor. As soon as he forces his sliding body to a halt, he charges Eugene again, murmuring inwardly, 'In talent alone, she's a genius who comes along once in a century.' He can tell just from watching her move how extraordinary her innate combat instincts are. By swinging her hammer on instinct alone, she has the natural talent to toy with even the Seven Dragons Society's masters.

'What a waste of talent.' But what Limon feels toward Eugene is regret, not wariness. It isn't only that talent which, if properly trained, might have had a one-in-a-thousand chance of reaching the pinnacle of swordsmanship, has been left untended. It is also the regret of a swordsman who must kill a genius like her.

'That doesn't mean I intend to spare her.' Limon does not waver. Eugene is his enemy now, and he is not someone who spares an enemy out of mere pity. If anything, her talent only hardens his resolve to kill her here and now. 'The question is how.'

SLASH!

As Eugene starts to swing her hammer, Limon slips inside her reach and severs her neck in a single stroke. Blood fountains upward. Her head falls to the floor. Yet her headless body steadfastly swings the hammer. Limon, having expected it, leaps back out of its path. Then he narrows his eyes as Eugene's fallen head returns to her neck on its own and seamlessly reattaches. 'I thought as much. Even that won't kill her?'

A dark mage who transferred souls. A sorcerer who revived from a single cell. A Demon God for whom the very concept of death did not exist. After a long life spent cutting down all manner of enemies, Limon finds nothing particularly novel about an immortal. Even so, he cannot easily end Eugene's life. It isn't just that cutting through her vital points fails to kill her. The sensation transmitted through the tip of his sword is profoundly strange.

'If I absolutely had to kill her, I could...' Limon has cut down even a Demon God. He knows several ways to forcibly overcome immortality. 'But something feels wrong.'

STAB!

In the end, rather than force a killing blow, Limon flicks his sword and opens another hole in Eugene's body. He senses that targeting the source of her immortality without knowing more would be dangerous. 'She doesn't feel like an ordinary immortal. There's something more unsettling about her.' That is why he draws on the power of the constellations. He thinks that if he looks at Eugene with the eyes that let him see constellations, he might discover the source of that feeling. But the moment he sees her through his blackened eyes, he falters.

"... What are you?" The sight is so unexpected that the question slips out before Limon can stop it. Eugene, about to swing her hammer, tilts her head. "Me? I'm your partner, partner." "That's not what I meant." "Then what did you mean?" She looks genuinely puzzled by the question. Limon's expression turns grave.

Since gaining the eyes to see constellations, he has seen many players. They include Ryu Gang-cheol, who had been all but consumed by his constellation, and Lee Cheon-gi, on whom traces of a constellation were hard to find anywhere but his eye. But even Limon has never seen a player like Eugene. "What did you do, sell off the constellation you contracted with?"

Clear eyes, a lovely face, and unblemished skin. Limon feels almost baffled by Eugene's appearance, utterly devoid of any trace of a constellation. Of course, its traces might be hidden somewhere out of sight. But considering how plainly visible they were on every other player, like seals stamped on possessions, he doubts it.

"... Partner. Even you shouldn't ask me certain things." Her reaction only reinforces his doubts. She smiled even after losing her head, yet now her face turns serious as she avoids the question. It makes her strangeness all the more apparent. Limon narrows his eyes at her.

KABOOM!

A deafening explosion rings out. Debris rains down, and a figure drops between Limon and Eugene as they face each other. His armor is torn to shreds, his upper body half scorched, his lower body covered in frost, and claw marks score his back. Eugene blinks at the braided-haired man who has fallen before them looking like a rag—Bellows. "Comrade, what happened to you?"

The answer comes not from Bellows, sprawled on the floor, but from above their heads. "I thought he was going to have plenty to regret, so I helped him reduce those regrets a little." "You finished sooner than I expected," Limon says. "He's rather unpleasant to fight for long, so I pushed myself a bit." Watching Lee Cheon-gi descend slowly through the air, Limon gives a faint chuckle. He has a fair idea why Lee looks so uncomfortable about fighting Bellows.

"Ngh... 『Special Imprisonment Act, Enacted』."

RUMBLE!

Perhaps thanks to his enhanced stats, Bellows staggers to his feet despite being nearly beaten to a pulp. He uses his skill to raise walls, creating a maze that separates him and Eugene from the others. But that is all he can manage. Everyone knows he can barely stand, let alone keep fighting—and Bellows knows it best of all. He may pride himself on being an absolute being, but already wounded, he was no match for Lee Cheon-gi fighting in earnest. 'Damn it!' The inevitability of that outcome brings Bellows no comfort. After being toyed with by Li Qingyu and finally escaping, he cannot bear that he has been stopped before he can get away and reduced to this state. Unable to accept his failure, if only for the sake of his pride, he looks for someone else to blame.

"Mad Comrade, what are you doing?" "Me? Carrying out the mission, as you can see." "I'm asking why you aren't carrying it out properly." "I am, though?" "Don't talk nonsense." Eugene's eyes widen at the sudden rebuke after all her hard fighting. Bellows's gaze remains cold. If Eugene had dealt with Leviathan properly, he thinks, he would never have been held up like this. Nor is he merely finding fault to shift the blame. He has grounds to conclude she has been slacking off. "If you truly intended to do your job, why haven't you used your unique skill yet?"

"..." Eugene falls silent at once. Her immortality is only a derivative skill, after all. It is true that she has not used her unique skill against the Ink Dragon Unit, Lee Cheon-gi, or even Limon.

"I know you do as you please, but this is no time to play around. Use your unique skill and fight properly from now on." Bellows wastes no more time reprimanding her. He gives the order coldly. Cornered and with no knowledge of what has happened to Ryu Gang-cheol, his best option is to break out of this predicament with Eugene's unique skill. That is why her answer leaves him frozen. "Don't want to." "... What did you say?" "I said I don't want to use my unique skill."

As if doubting what he heard, Bellows's face hardens, and he glares at her with murder in his eyes. "Are you saying you intend to betray the organization?" "It's not betrayal. I just won't use my unique skill." "And you expect me to accept something so absurd?" "Yeah." Her answer is that simple. Bellows looks dumbfounded, but Eugene speaks calmly. "Comrade, you might be the commander for this mission, but whether I use a skill is up to me."

The Liberation Brigade's ghosts are independent by nature. Missions may take absolute priority, but they operate separately, so even a commander has limited authority over them. "Comrade, if you can't fight anymore, retreat first. I'll handle the rest." "..." In that respect, Eugene's words are outrageous but not wrong. They have already secured their objective, so Bellows withdrawing ahead of her would not be a bad choice. In fact, he had originally planned to use Eugene as a decoy and escape. But at this moment, he cannot bring himself to accept it.

The humiliation of successive defeats. The shame of having his order ignored. And the fury of a great being whose pride has been wounded by a mere human. Through the pain that feels as though his head is splitting apart, they bring Bellows to another best course of action—one different from what Eugene proposed.

"Yes, you're right. I can't force you to fight a certain way." That is why he moves close behind Eugene as she readies herself for battle and strides forward. "But Mad Comrade, have you forgotten why I was given command of this mission?"

At that moment, Eugene moves on reflex. It isn't only because something comes to mind. Before she can even form a judgment, her innate instincts drive her to swing her hammer behind her. But she is too late. By the time she tries to turn, Bellows's hand is already against her chest.

"If you insist on not using your skill, do as you please."

SHUNK!

His hand tears through flesh harder than iron, breaks bone, and closes around Eugene's heart. With a cold smile, Bellows finishes, "In exchange, I'll take your constellation."