We walked deeper into the lake, each step measured, deliberate.

  The surface beneath our feet was no longer stone or earth, but the lake itself, its shallow edge trembling like liquid glass beneath our weight.

  The mist clung closer now, curling around our legs, wrapping the air in a soft embrace. Every movement felt amplified. Every breath echoed inside me, drawn tight by the weight in my core.

  “This place…” I murmured, more to myself than to Daeryon. “It… it doesn’t respond. It doesn’t even push back.”

  Daeryon’s gaze swept across the lake, unhurried. “It doesn’t have to,” he said. “It only observes. Stillness does not resist.”

  I tried to absorb the sensation. It was as if the lake was part of me, though no boundary separated us.

  Then the mist shifted without wind, droplets forming and hanging in the air like fragile crystal beads.

  They glinted faintly in the pale light, reflecting nothing of the world and everything of themselves.

  The air grew smoother, each droplet curling inward as if drawn by an invisible current.

  I felt it brush against my chest, against the weight I carried, softening the edges that had clung to me since I absorbed the anchor.

  It was…

  majestic.

  A quiet kind of majesty I had never imagined.

  Then I noticed Daeryon.

  His attention had shifted. His head tilted slightly, fixed on something far ahead.

  I followed his gaze.

  And I saw her.

  She appeared like a vision drawn from some impossible memory. The air around her shimmered, the mist parting in gentle arcs as if it recognized her presence and deferred.

  She stood tall, yet there was no rigidity, only the quiet strength of something unshakable. Her hair was white, cascading like threads of moonlight across her shoulders, catching the faint light in a halo that almost seemed to breathe.

  Her eyes were not merely pale or bright. They were impossible, as if they looked beyond the world itself.

  Time slowed as I stared. The lake, the mist, even the droplets suspended in the air, all faded into soft focus.

  Everything else was gone.

  She didn’t move at first, but I felt her awareness sweep across the space, brushing against my consciousness like wind over water. It was neither threatening nor inviting. It simply… was.

  Daeryon stepped forward, moving across the pale surface of the lake like someone who knew exactly where the ground would answer. He didn’t break the stillness. He became part of it.

  “Where is the anchor?” he asked, his voice carrying over the faint ripple of mist, calm yet sharp, as though testing the lake itself.

  The woman’s gaze met his, and for a heartbeat, the air seemed to bend around her. Then she spoke, her tone almost a whisper, yet it carried weight.

  “It’s here,” she said. “Or… maybe not. You cannot see it.”

  Daeryon’s lips pressed together for a moment before he nodded once. “I see.”

  She tilted her head, watching him closely. Then, as if the question had been buried too long, she asked, her voice breaking slightly, threaded with memory. “You killed him, didn’t you… Renji?”

  Daeryon’s eyes softened, though the calm within them remained unshaken. “I merely released him from his chains.”

  Her shoulders eased, a ghost of relief passing over her features. “Thank you,” she murmured. “He was… talented. If he had reached the Sixth Stage sooner… he would not have been here at all.”

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  Daeryon’s gaze lingered on the lake’s pale surface, reflective, a mirror that showed the world yet concealed the bodies beneath it.

  He wasn’t just looking at the water. He was looking through it, toward the memory of a man who had once been more than rot and hunger.

  “I think.” His voice was gentle, seeming to vibrate against the mist itself. “For him to be nothing… is a kinder fate than what he was becoming.”

  “Better for him to be silence,” Daeryon added, “than to be a scream that bastard still plays like an instrument.”

  The words floated over the lake, heavy and deliberate, settling among the suspended droplets. For a moment, nothing moved, neither mist nor water nor time itself.

  Then she nodded, small and deliberate, as if acknowledging some unspoken truth.

  She lifted her gaze back to Daeryon.

  “I believe,” she said softly, “that I would like to be released as well.”

  The words did not tremble.

  They settled into the lake.

  My breath caught.

  Released.

  There was no anger in her. No bitterness. Only acceptance, as if she had already walked through this moment a thousand times in her mind.

  “If you win,” she continued, “I will leave you something. A gift. It may help you with what comes next.”

  Her eyes flickered downward for the briefest second, almost self-conscious. “One moment… I prepared it. You may look at it… if you win.”

  She stepped toward a pale shard of stone rising just above the lake’s surface. Kneeling, she pressed her fingers lightly against it.

  The mist curled inward.

  For a heartbeat, faint lines shimmered across the rock. Symbols. Script. Then they sank into the stone as if swallowed whole.

  She rose again. “It will remain.”

  Daeryon regarded her in silence.

  Then he inclined his head. “So be it.”

  Something shifted.

  Not violently.

  But decisively.

  The lake beneath us hummed.

  I felt it before I saw it.

  The air tightened around Daeryon, not exploding outward, not surging, but aligning into place.

  The mist bent toward him in thin strands, weaving together like threads pulled into a single line.

  His hand lowered to his side. Chi gathered as it always did when I had watched him before, folding, coiling, shaping itself into form.

  But this time…

  There was no tension. No strain. No sharp edge of force pressing outward.

  The energy curved around his palm, bending the mist, shaping itself, quiet yet complete.

  The blade emerged. Silent. Lean. Precise.

  It was calm. Flowing. A fight not waged to dominate, but simply to exist.

  And I realized, watching him, that the calm did not lessen its danger. If anything, it made its weight heavier.

  I couldn’t wait to create weapons of my own.

  Then the surface beneath his feet grew clearer, reflective like polished crystal.

  Across from him, she extended her arm.

  The mist along her sleeve thickened, whitening, hardening into a slender sword of pale translucence. Its edge hummed softly, almost inaudible, like something poised to be unleashed.

  They stood there for a single breath.

  Then they moved.

  I did not see the first step.

  Only the collision.

  Steel met steel with a sound like splintering crystal.

  Ripples burst outward beneath them, their reflections clashing a fraction too late, distorted by speed.

  They separated and reappeared several paces apart.

  Another strike.

  Her foot skimmed the surface of the lake, barely disturbing it, yet the ripple traveled impossibly far.

  Daeryon’s blade curved in a precise arc, redirecting hers with minimal force.

  “Watch her shoulders, Daniel,” he said calmly.

  “She commits before she cuts.”

  I tried to focus. To see what he saw. Her left shoulder shifted.

  A fraction.

  Then her blade followed.

  “She is one step away from the Eighth Stage,” he added.

  “They really keep getting stronger, aren’t they?” I said.

  “But wait… does that mean she has a monstrous body too? Like that bastard?”

  “No. He was like that because of his absorption technique. When you reach the Seventh Stage, your body does become stronger, yes, but his technique amplified it further. I do not think she would do something like that,” he answered.

  They moved again.

  This time, slower. Testing.

  The lake mirrored them perfectly, two pairs of figures moving in flawless symmetry. But sometimes… the reflections lagged, as if struggling to keep up.

  “Do not follow the blade,” Daeryon said as their swords locked. “Follow intent.”

  “Intent? Really only you can follow that. But I will try anyway,” I said, smiling.

  I tried to feel it.

  To sense the current beneath her movement.

  For a while, it felt controlled. Measured. Like two tides meeting without violence.

  Then something changed.

  Her presence sharpened.

  The mist around her condensed, tightening toward the edge of her blade.

  She stepped in.

  Not elegant.

  Direct.

  Her sword thrust forward, chi narrowing into a focused point that distorted the air around it.

  Daeryon pivoted.

  But not completely.

  The edge grazed his arm.

  I saw it.

  A thin line opened across Daeryon’s sleeve.

  Red.

  For a heartbeat, I could not comprehend it.

  Blood.

  The world narrowed. The lake tilted beneath me.

  Daeryon should not bleed. Not from anyone.

  The only being who had ever made him bleed was a legend.

  Fear seized me, sharp and immediate. My chest became a coil of panic I could not unravel.

  He pivoted, calm. Too calm. I could feel it, every motion calculated, every fiber braced, preparing for what was coming. Just as he had when he fought the wolf.

  Then the mist thickened around her. I could not see her face, but I felt it, the pressure of her skill, the pulse of her intent, bending the air, pressing against the lake itself.

  They separated. She was not weak. And suddenly, I hated that.

  The fear in my chest coiled tighter, alive, demanding release.

  I tried to hold it back. Tried to remain unseen. Tried to stay steady. But it erupted.

  My chi burst from me like a living thing.

  The lake screamed. Ripples tore outward, shredding the mist into frayed threads.

  The air pressed in, thick and heavy.

  I could not breathe. I could not move.

  Shards of reflection flared across the water, fracturing everything I knew.

  And then… silence, waiting, as if the lake itself held its breath.