["Well, I know at least one monster who gets stronger every time he cuts down a constellation."]

Someone else might have gotten away with saying that, but Limon? Yu Na-gyeong muttered uneasily, as if she thought it was disingenuous coming from him.

"Stronger, my ass. All I got were a few little tricks."

But Limon did not so much as twitch an eyebrow. Most of what he had gained by absorbing fragments of starlight amounted to little tricks: changing his appearance, crossing space, or finding it easier to indulge in idle thoughts. Almost none of them were actually useful in a fight.

Above all, he was a swordsman. From dragons and the Demon God to ancient spirits, he had defeated countless transcendent beings with nothing but a sword. He had no reason to start relying on such petty tricks now.

["Oh, yes. Of course."]

"Grrrrrr."

["...!"]

Yu Na-gyeong had been marveling at Limon's boundless arrogance when she suddenly stiffened. An eerie sound had come from farther down the passage, where silence had reigned apart from his footsteps.

The growl was too full of malice to belong to an ordinary animal. Just as her feathers instinctively stood on end, the thing darted forward.

Like a beast lunging at its prey—or an arrow loosed from a bow—it raced toward them, almost skimming the floor, and lashed out with lightning-fast claws to rake Limon's back.

Or rather, it tried to. Until Limon thrust his scabbard backward without even turning around, striking it in the solar plexus and sending it tumbling.

THWACK!

"Gurk!"

Perhaps because the blow had landed squarely on a vital spot, its eyes rolled back as it flew into the darkness again. Limon paid it no attention whatsoever. He simply continued walking as though nothing had happened.

Left utterly dumbfounded, Yu Na-gyeong took a long while to ask uncertainly, ["Uh, Team Leader? What was that just now?"]

"What do you think it was?"

["Well... a monster?"]

She answered without much confidence. Its crazed eyes, its beastlike behavior, and its long, blade-sharp claws... Everything had happened too quickly for her to get a good look, but it clearly hadn't been an ordinary animal.

"Why don't you sound sure?"

["Because you didn't kill it, Team Leader."]

If it were just a monster, wouldn't cutting it down rather than merely knocking it away have been more like him? Limon nodded at her astute observation, then continued quietly.

"Right. As you suspected, that wasn't a monster."

["Then what was it?"]

"I told you, didn't I? Tartarus is also used to imprison sinners."

["... That thing was human?!"]

"Originally, at least," Limon said matter-of-factly.

Tartarus was a labyrinth created through divine miracles and cursed by the deaths of gods. Anyone without divine protection would be consumed by that curse, gradually losing their humanity and degenerating into a monster.

That was why only those guilty of the most horrific crimes in the Holy Alliance were imprisoned here. The gods' punishment was to deny them even death, forcing them to become monsters and guard the labyrinth.

["But that's just...!"]

Yu Na-gyeong's beak fell open. She had heard all sorts of horror stories as a PAB agent in her previous life, but even she had never heard anything so outrageous.

"Surprised?"

["Surprised doesn't begin to cover it! How does it make any sense for gods to be doing something this horrific beneath what's supposed to be the last holy land?!"]

"Of course it makes sense."

["What?"]

Limon spoke calmly to the bewildered Yu Na-gyeong. "Isn't that what gods and religion have always been like?"

Those who sinned. Those who incurred a god's wrath. Or those who did not believe in the gods. Most religions shared the doctrine that such people would fall into hell after death and suffer the most horrific punishments.

In other words, gods were, by their very nature, the world's most merciless judges and cruelest executioners.

"The sinners in Tartarus have simply received the divine judgment awaiting them in hell a little early. There's nothing surprising about it."

Watching him speak so calmly, Yu Na-gyeong realized anew that he had meant it literally when he said that wherever there was heaven on earth, there was also hell. If Avalon, the Great Barrier of London, was a pseudo-afterlife created by magic, the underground labyrinth of Tartarus was a pseudo-hell created by divine curses.

["I'd rather not have learned this particular truth..."]

"That's what growing up is like, child."

["I'm not even a year old yet, you know? I'm nowhere near growing up."]

After briefly grumbling about this unwanted early education, Yu Na-gyeong suddenly murmured, ["Anyway, is the White Dragon Princess really somewhere in a place like this?"]

"She should be. There were traces of that idiot outside the entrance."

["Aha. So you've been following her trail this whole time?"]

Yu Na-gyeong nodded. True to its name as an underground labyrinth, Tartarus presented them with forks, stairs, and doors at every turn. Now she understood how Limon had been able to choose their path without hesitating even once.

"Well, that's half of it."

["... Why only half?"]

"You don't think signs of someone passing through would stay intact in this cursed labyrinth, do you? Especially after several days."

If they did, Tartarus could never have served as the final battleground of the Silver Age. Yu Na-gyeong looked uneasy as Limon explained that most of Ainsha's trail had long since vanished under Tartarus's power.

["Then what exactly are you basing your choices on?"]

"What do you think?"

Limon chuckled, then added with a mischievous smile, "I'm just guessing by instinct."

["... Team Leader, didn't you say this underground labyrinth has 666 floors? And that it's a living hell crawling with cursed sinners?"]

"I didn't call it a living hell. I said it was something similar."

["That's the same thing! What are you going to do if we get lost wandering around in here?"]

Yu Na-gyeong jumped in alarm. Having experienced the Great Barrier of London, she knew all too terrifyingly well what the strongest magic of the Silver Age was like. And now they were wandering through the middle of a battleground said to rival that very barrier. It was enough to make her panic.

But Limon spoke nonchalantly. "We haven't been wandering aimlessly. Look, there's even a signpost here."

["A signpost? What are you talking about now...?"]

Yu Na-gyeong blinked. Then her beak fell open at the heap of monster corpses in the immense cavern that opened up at the end of the passage—or, more precisely, at the mountain-sized, goat-headed monster that stopped devouring those corpses to glare at her. The evil, spine-chilling magic it radiated overwhelmed her.

But Limon did not so much as twitch an eyebrow. He merely gave a wry chuckle at the few slender, snapped threads that had sliced halfway through the goat-headed monster's neck.

"A god fallen into demonhood... That idiot princess really has stirred up something troublesome."

* * *

"That's right. If my conjecture is correct, the Sword Lord acquired the essence of psionics from our founders' blood."

"Impossible."

Rose flatly rejected Li Qingyu's calm answer. Acquiring Dragon Psionics merely by being drenched in dragon blood couldn't possibly be that simple. And she had grounds for declaring it impossible.

"A human who directly absorbed our founders' psionics could never have survived it."

Psionics was a mighty power, but also a double-edged sword that placed an immense burden on the body. Even among Seven Dragons Society masters who had trained in the Seventy-Two Martial Schools all their lives, some failed to withstand their own psionics and died or were crippled by fatal backlash.

Then what if a pure human, not even a descendant of dragons, absorbed Dragon Psionics? Their body would burst apart on the spot.

"Ordinarily, yes."

Li Qingyu acknowledged that much. Indeed, the reason various myths and legends described dragon blood as poison was that ordinary humans could not withstand its psionics.

Yes. Ordinary humans.

"But Rose, the Sword Lord is a Sword Master."

"...!"

"Could he truly be unable to withstand a power that even we can bear?"

Sword Masters were superhumans who had attained ageless immortality simply by wielding a sword. Did Rose really think such a being, who had transcended humanity and possessed the most perfect body in the world, could not withstand even the blood of a dragon he had slain? And alongside the myths that called dragon blood poison, there were legends of dragon slayers who survived that poison and gained wondrous powers. Li Qingyu explained this calmly to Rose, who had frozen at the utterly unexpected observation.

"In fact, the three Sword Masters who fought the seven founders were overwhelmingly powerful even among the thirteen Sword Masters."

"Are you saying the secret to their strength was absorbing the essence of psionics?"

"I don't have any particular proof. It could simply have been a difference in swordsmanship or skill."

Li Qingyu shrugged. Of the thirteen Sword Masters who had existed throughout history, the Sword Emperor who ended the Bronze Age and his two disciples were special in many ways compared with the ten born during the Age of Heroes.

But there was no guarantee that dragon blood had played no part in making them special. Watching her say so without a care, Rose bit her lip.

"If they had possessed Dragon Psionics ever since then, surely we couldn't have failed to notice for nearly a thousand years?"

"What if they absorbed Dragon Psionics, but it never manifested?"

"What do you mean?"

"Have you forgotten, Rose? What kind of swordsmanship the Sword Lord practices?"

Rose caught her breath. Only then did she realize what she had inadvertently overlooked while focusing on Dragon Psionics.

"... The Demon-Cleaving Dragon-Slaying Sword."

"That's right. And it originated from the Dragon-Slaying Sword—a sword art created by the Sword Emperor, the first Sword Master, specifically to counter our founders and their psionics in every respect."

Countless thoughts flashed through Rose's mind at Li Qingyu's words. A Sword Master's intent was a power more wondrous than any mystery in the world, and the reason they could cut through the order of the world with a sword alone. The Sword Emperor and his two disciples had become Sword Masters by building their intent upon that Dragon-Slaying Sword.

If they had absorbed the essence of psionics, would it really have manifested? Might it instead have been suppressed by the opposing intent of the Dragon-Slaying Sword, frozen like a seed buried in a snowy mountain?

"That's probably why we failed to notice the Dragon Psionics latent within the Sword Lord for all those centuries."

"..."

"Actually, I suspect that even then, his Dragon Psionics may have been manifesting in subtle ways."

"Don't be absurd. I've never heard so much as a horror story about the Sword Lord using anything resembling psionics."

Li Qingyu smiled at Rose's objection. Then she mentioned a fact that had been accepted as common knowledge for so long, yet could not help feeling strange upon closer consideration.

"Have you never thought it odd? The Sword Lord's 'instinct,' I mean."

Rose's eyes widened again at the wholly unexpected observation. Yet Li Qingyu, whose words had sent her heart pounding uncontrollably, continued with perfect composure.

"A Sword Master's senses are certainly superhuman, and intuition built on long experience can sometimes transcend logic."

"Still, instinct is ultimately just instinct. Rely on it ten times, twenty times, and sooner or later it's bound to be wrong or miss the mark."

"History is full of stories about Sword Masters making bizarre mistakes, like the Sword Wave."

"But the Sword Lord alone has saved the world time and again through that instinct. Without a single failure, no less."

"What might that mean?"

Rose's lips trembled as she watched Li Qingyu smile meaningfully. Instinct that was right one hundred percent of the time could not exist.

And if it could? Then it was no longer instinct.

Rose knew what such a transcendent sixth sense, one surpassing the limits of the five senses, was called.

"Precognition...!"