'Wh-what...?!'

Bodies with shattered heads, punctured throats, crushed lower halves, slashed chests, torn limbs, gouged eyes, severed tongues. Countless corpses killed in every imaginable way, and a department store drenched in blood. It was a scene straight out of hell.

But neither that horrific sight nor the pain of his knife-stabbed eye was what made Xue Rong writhe. 'My... my guards were wiped out in less than ten minutes?' He couldn't believe it.

Every guard was a warrior of the Black Dragon Clan. None had inherited one of the Seventy-Two Martial Schools, but each was as skilled as a player above level 50. Yet fewer than half were still alive. Ten minutes at most. In that short time, a single person had turned most of them into part of the heap of bodies.

"Now, the guards here put up a decent fight. Lately, everywhere I go, those bastards from the so-called combat units show up and spoil my fun."

The young man responsible for the carnage, his face hidden behind a clown mask, idly spun a knife between his fingers as he spoke.

"You've got no backbone, comrade leader. One of your comrades back in the day lost an arm and fought to the end without a single scream. And here you are, surrendering already."

"Who... says I've surrendered?!" Xue Rong gritted his teeth and shouted through the pain of losing an eye. The young man grinned at him.

"Don't be stubborn for nothing, comrade. Say whatever you like, but your eyes tell me you've already given up on winning."

"Bullshit!"

Xue Rong snapped back, but he couldn't bring himself to charge.

He knew it himself. He couldn't beat the young man. He was only putting on a brave front. And neither he nor any of his men would make it out alive. The gap in strength between them and this swaggering young man was that vast.

'Damn it. I underestimated him!' Xue Rong clenched his teeth.

He had heard only that most attacks had been repelled without casualties and that the culprits had fled quickly each time. Without realizing it, he had assumed the Black Dragon Construction clan members and Wang Gi-seong had fallen only because they had let their guard down. The attackers couldn't be all that strong; with proper preparations, they would be easy enough to catch.

He wasn't alone in thinking that. Quite a few members of the Black Dragon Clan felt the same way. Such was the pride of the Seven Dragons Society, which had once ruled the world and still held immense sway over both business and the criminal underworld.

But they had misjudged the situation. No, it was arrogance. They had ignored the fact that the Seven Dragons Society's strength did not make every one of them strong. The result was before him: his eye lost to a knife, and his men dead for nothing.

'I should have been more careful...!' If he hadn't underestimated his opponent. If he had focused on defense alongside his men. If he had set aside his desire for glory. They might not have won, but they wouldn't have lost so easily. Instead, Xue Rong had rushed in recklessly, lost an eye, and fallen. His remaining men had been slaughtered without mounting any real resistance. It was a mistake he would regret bitterly.

"I've enjoyed playing with you comrades, but this is work, after all. Time to wrap it up."

Perhaps pleased by the grief, despair, regret, and humiliation mingling on Xue Rong's face, the clown-masked young man grinned, shifted his spinning knife into a reverse grip, and strode forward.

Xue Rong instinctively took a step back. Ashamed of himself, he clenched his teeth and stepped two paces forward instead. He tore a strip from his clothes, bound his injured eye tightly, raised his spear, and roared.

"Form the Lesser Black Reverse-River Formation!"

"..."

"What are you doing? Form the—"

He had given the order prepared to fight to the end. But when he turned toward his motionless men, Xue Rong found the space behind him empty. While he had stepped forward again, they had fled, abandoning him to make his last stand alone.

"Y-you...!" Xue Rong could understand. The bravest warriors had already died fighting. Those still alive lacked the courage and spirit of their fallen comrades. And after seeing their captain defeated in an instant and their comrades slaughtered, it was no wonder they were afraid.

"You goddamn cowards! Get back here! If we have to die, then we'll die showing the spirit of the Black Dragon Clan!"

But understanding was not the same as accepting. As the head of security here and a warrior of the Black Dragon Clan, Xue Rong couldn't let his men run from a mere killer. He slammed his spear against the floor and shouted. It was a mistake.

"Look here, comrade. I understand you're angry, but aren't you paying a little too much attention to everything else when I'm right in front of you?"

"...!"

Had his attention slipped? Startled by the voice suddenly at his nose, Xue Rong swung his spear to drive the young man away.

The spear moved in a dazzling flourish, following a form of the Flood-Serpent River-Cleaving Style. Like a snake that pursued its prey whichever way it dodged and tore out its throat, the strike would have left even most high-level players grievously wounded.

"Whoa, comrade. Isn't it a bit much to go for my throat just because I put out one of your eyes?"

SHNK!

There was just one problem: the clown-masked young man was no ordinary high-level player. He leaned back to evade the spear, then slashed Xue Rong's wrist open with a lightning-fast sweep of his knife. Xue Rong grimaced in pain but kept attacking desperately with his spear. Every thrust missed. Meanwhile, each casual swing of the young man's knife left another wound on Xue Rong's body.

"Hmm. You've got some persistence, I'll give you that..."

After a few exchanges, Xue Rong was so drenched in blood that he could barely stand without leaning on his spear. The young man clicked his tongue at the sight.

"It's a shame your skills can't keep up. If you'd pressed me harder and fought back with everything you had, I might've felt some satisfaction."

"..."

"Well, I had my fun. Goodbye, then."

As if he'd played enough, the young man drove his knife forward at an unhurried pace. Xue Rong could not dodge the chilling blade.

SHRAAK!

"Huh?"

A sickening sound rang out as a blade cut through flesh. A great hole opened in a shoulder, and blood sprayed like a fountain. But it wasn't Xue Rong's shoulder. It belonged to the young man who had been about to drive his knife into Xue Rong's remaining eye.

"... Well, you surprised me."

A heartbeat before the ambush struck him in the back, the young man had twisted aside just enough to deflect the blade and swung his knife to prevent a follow-up. Despite the wound in his shoulder, he did not so much as frown. Instead, he turned with a grin, as though genuinely impressed.

"I was disappointed there was nothing here but weaklings. Who'd have thought there was another expert around?"

Xue Rong was the one truly shocked. The person who had just ambushed the clown-masked young man was someone who had no business being here.

"Chao Wei Ling?!"

"... Have you forgotten my warning not to use my alias so freely, or do you want a duel with me that badly?"

More offended by Xue Rong using her surname than by her failed ambush, Wei Ling, the woman dressed as a man, wore open displeasure on her normally impassive face. Xue Rong stared at her in disbelief.

"Why are you here?!"

"I heard the commotion as I was leaving and came back."

"This is my guards' job! The Sword Lord's dog has no business interfering!"

"This is an emergency, so I am exercising Guardian's authority to intervene in the defense. If you have a complaint, call headquarters afterward."

"You... you...!"

Xue Rong's face turned bright red. He would sooner die than endure the humiliation of being saved by Wei Ling and then leaving the killer for her to handle. But neither she nor the young man paid his opinion any mind.

The young man merely looked at Wei Ling, who held her sword and glared at him, and asked with amusement, "So you're my opponent now, comrade?"

"That is my intention."

"I like your spirit, but can you take me on alone?"

The young man smiled coldly. Wei Ling answered calmly.

"No."

"... Come now, comrade. Even if it's true, aren't you giving up a bit easily?"

"I'm only making an objective assessment."

Wei Ling spoke without emotion. She was stronger than Xue Rong, of course. She had become Li Qingyu's bodyguard at a young age and was one of the few experts in the Seven Dragons Society on the level of a unit commander. But strength was relative. This clown-masked young man was one of the killers who had murdered Wang Gi-seong, an expert above even her level. She could hardly expect him to be weaker than she was.

He had evaded her ambush using the Voidless Advancing Sword Style, a secret art specializing in stealth. More than that, in that brief instant he had counterattacked and managed to cut her skin, however shallowly. The moment her ambush failed, her chance of winning had vanished.

"And I haven't given up."

"Hmm?"

Her eyes were still sharp. Unlike Xue Rong, whose eyes had gone dark after a single stab wound, she had not given up on the fight. The young man looked puzzled.

"What do you mean? You can't beat me alone, but the two of you can?"

"Unfortunately, that isn't possible. In his current state, Xue Rong would only get in the way."

"Wei Ling!" Xue Rong bristled.

The young man ignored him. "Then you're going to run?"

"Perhaps if I were alone. But with baggage to carry, that would be difficult too."

"Did you just call me baggage?!"

"Well, at least you know what you are."

"I once made a mistake because I failed to recognize my own limitations," Wei Ling said. "Now I try to assess myself as objectively as possible."

Xue Rong's shout went ignored yet again. They did it so thoroughly that he almost wondered if he had died and become an invisible ghost.

"So how do you plan to beat me?"

"I thought I'd try using this."

The young man was curious what allowed her to burn with fighting spirit when she knew she was outmatched. But when he saw what Wei Ling took out, he blinked. It was neither a weapon nor an item, just an ordinary smartphone.

"... What are you doing, comrade? Don't tell me you're calling the police now."

As both the young man and Xue Rong stared at her in disbelief, Wei Ling frowned, selected a number, and pressed call.

RING... CLICK.

["What is it? I've already heard your report for today."]

"I have a work-related request."

["Huh? What request?"]

"When you said I could face the killers if I learned swordsmanship from you, were you serious?"

["Of course I was."]

"Excellent timing."

When the familiar voice came through after the brief ringing, Wei Ling said something she would rather die than say personally, but had to say as the secretary to Guardian's head.

"Then teach me a sword technique that will let me beat one of the killers in a one-on-one fight. Within three minutes."

["... Have you been drinking in the middle of the day???"]