Kang Juwon exchanged a glance with Mu Yichen.

  Mu Yichen’s jaw was tight. His eyes flicked between the mark, the sword, and Lee Aseok, calculating. Observing.

  They didn’t understand what was being said.

  Not completely.

  But they felt it. Every word was laced with something deeper, something between trauma and betrayal, something older than the battlefield they stood on.

  Park Taegun finally stepped forward. “Who are you talking to?” he asked, not rudely, but not gently either.

  Lee Aseok didn’t turn.

  Didn’t answer.

  He kept his eyes on the floating sword, as if waiting for it to speak.

  It didn’t.

  But that silence only seemed to affirm everything.

  Lee Aseok exhaled once, slowly.

  Then he looked at the others.

  The golden mark still glowed faintly through his shirt, casting warped light against his skin. The fury in his gaze hadn’t lessened, but now, there was clarity too.

  Like he’d confirmed something he suspected all along.

  He gave no explanation.

  No reassurance.

  No apology.

  Only silence.

  And in that silence, the others stood still—not because they were afraid of Lee Aseok.

  But because they had no idea what he had become.

  They all watched Lee Aseok with guarded silence.

  His breath was steady. His posture is loose.

  But the pressure around him was unbearable.

  It was Mu Yichen who first moved again, stepping forward slowly, keeping his voice low and careful.

  “Aseok,” he said, trying to ground the man with his presence. “It’s over. You’re safe. Whatever it is, you can talk to me.”

  There was no response.

  Just the quiet tremble of light around the floating holy sword, and the soft hum in the air, like a warning before a storm.

  Mu Yichen frowned. Lee Aseok’s eyes weren’t cold anymore, they were burning. Still. Even after the battle was over.

  Even after the dragon was slain. That rage hadn’t faded. It had just… shifted.

  Why was he talking to the sword?

  And why did it feel like he was talking to an enemy?

  “Aseok,” Mu Yichen said again, firmer this time. “What’s going on with you?”

  Lee Aseok didn’t even look at him.

  Instead, he narrowed his eyes at the sword, his fingers tightening slightly around the iron rod in his hand.

  Then, without warning, he moved.

  A flash of raw power tore through the space.

  His iron rod screamed through the air with the same horrifying speed and violence he’d used to behead the dungeon dragon. It wasn't a warning blow. It was an execution.

  Aimed directly at the holy sword.

  The explosion of force hit the air like a thunderclap.

  Mu Yichen was thrown back, the shockwave catching him off guard. He hit the ground and rolled once, his ears ringing.

  Behind him, the others were pushed back as well.

  Seo MinHyun crashed into a broken lamp post with a grunt, He Ziqin stumbled and nearly fell face-first into the dirt, and Park Taegun had to anchor himself with mana to avoid being dragged off his feet.

  “What the hell was that?!” Seo MinHyun shouted, rubbing his back, eyes wide. “Is he serious?! Did he just attack the sword?!”

  His tone was flippant, as usual, but the joke didn’t carry weight.

  His face had gone pale.

  And his hands were clenched.

  Even he knew—this wasn’t normal anymore.

  Mu Yichen was already on his feet, helping the others up. His expression was tight with unease as he turned his eyes back to the figure standing in the wreckage.

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  Lee Aseok stood alone, unmoved by the force he’d just unleashed.

  In front of him, embedded slightly in the cracked ground, lay the holy sword.

  It glowed faintly, untouched.

  Not a single scratch marred its perfect surface.

  It looked untouched by war. Untouched by time.

  Untouched by him.

  Lee Aseok stared at it with a look that could only be described as betrayal.

  His lips curled.

  Then, in the quiet, he began to laugh.

  It was a low, humorless sound at first—dry and bitter—but it slowly gained weight, rising into something twisted and raw.

  The kind of laughter that didn’t come from amusement, but from the edge of something sharp and broken.

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?” he asked, still laughing.

  There was no reply.

  Only the distant crackle of broken streetlights, and the low creak of twisted metal in the ruins around them.

  Lee Aseok looked down at the sword with eyes shadowed by memory.

  “After everything you let happen, after everything you made me endure,” he said, his voice low and filled with venom, “you chose me again?”

  His hand twitched.

  The iron rod still buzzed faintly with leftover force.

  “You saw it all,” he said to the sword. “You saw who betrayed me. You saw what I gave up. What I lost.”

  The others watched in frozen silence. No one moved.

  They didn’t understand what was going on—but they could all feel the weight of it. Like they were witnessing something they were never meant to see.

  “A god’s weapon,” Lee Aseok whispered bitterly. “You were supposed to be the symbol of light. Of justice. Of salvation.”

  He crouched slowly, staring into the reflection on the blade’s golden surface.

  “And all you did… was watch.”

  The sword didn’t answer.

  Of course it didn’t.

  But Lee Aseok had never expected it to.

  Lee Aseok stared down at the holy sword as the laughter slipped from his lips.

  It was not loud. Not manic.

  It was the quiet kind of laugh one gave when the truth tasted like poison and the past refused to stay buried.

  “Do you think I’m a fool?” he asked the blade, his voice soft—hoarse from the battle, but steadier than it should’ve been. “Is that it?”

  No one answered.

  The sword, pristine and glowing faintly in the ruins, remained as silent as ever. A divine weapon. Holy. Sacred.

  But to Lee Aseok, it looked more like a curse now than a gift.

  “You chose me again?” he said, half-choking on the words. “After all that happened? After everything you watched… you came back?”

  His laugh turned dry.

  He turned away, but his body was trembling now—not from exhaustion, not from pain.

  But from something deeper.

  Betrayal.

  In his past life, the holy sword had been the only constant in a world that kept turning its back on him.

  When his comrades mocked him, when the nation used him, when the world hailed others as heroes while he bled in silence—he had held on to that sword like it was life itself.

  Because he’d truly loved swords.

  He was never a man of words. Never knew how to ask for help. But a sword didn’t need to speak.

  A sword simply stayed in your hand when you swung it. And the holy sword, glorious, unwavering, divine, had been the only thing that stayed.

  He treated it like a friend.

  Like a partner.

  He never resented being chosen. Even when the weight of it dragged him to the ground, even when that same sword brought endless battles into his life.

  He still bore it with pride.

  Because it was the only thing that never betrayed him.

  Until it did.

  In that final moment, when he was crying out in silence for just one more swing, the sword never came.

  It never answered.

  It just… watched.

  Lee Aseok closed his eyes to stop the memories from dragging him under.

  But it was too late. The air smelled of ash, just like it did then.

  He opened his eyes.

  The city was barely standing. Craters carved into the roads. Glass melted into the sidewalks. Black smoke rising from collapsed buildings.

  They’d stopped the dungeon break. But the scars left behind would never fade.

  Civilians had already been evacuated. Hunters stationed far behind were watching from a distance now—too far to interfere, but close enough to witness.

  They were watching him.

  All of them.

  Even now, they kept their distance like he was the true monster.

  His chest heaved. Slowly at first. Then heavier.

  His breath became uneven.

  The anger he tried so hard to lock away was rising. Swelling. Crawling back up from the grave he’d buried it in.

  Despair twisted beneath it.

  His reddish brown eyes flickered.

  Then it turned red.

  Pure red—tainted by Gate energy that should’ve burned any other human alive. But it didn't burn him.

  It welcomed him.

  The mana inside his body churned violently.

  And with a single wave of his hand, a brilliant surge of raw power cracked through the ground around him. The air vibrated. The ruined streets trembled beneath his feet.

  Aseok didn’t flinch.

  He barely noticed how the others backed away in reflex, eyes wide.

  Even Mu Yichen didn’t speak this time.

  They could all feel it.

  This wasn’t just mana.

  This was something else entirely. Something wild. Something unholy. Not just strength born from talent.

  Lee Aseok raised his hand slowly.

  It pulsed with uncontrollable force. The energy wrapped around his arm like a living thing, alive with rage and darkness and power.

  He didn’t even know what he could do with it.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

  The holy sword still lay in the dirt. Untouched. Glowing like a beacon. Beautiful, as always.

  Just like back then.

  Beautiful. Distant. Silent.

  Lee Aseok looked down at it with eyes that no longer held reverence,

  only scorn.

  The sky hung low, as if cowering under the weight of what was about to unfold.

  Dust still danced in the shattered streets, stirred by winds that carried the lingering scent of dragon blood and scorched stone.

  The holy sword lay motionless on the cracked concrete, glinting faintly beneath the twilight.

  Once a revered artifact said to have been crafted by divine hands, it now looked strangely out of place, like a forgotten relic in a world that had changed too much.

  Lee Aseok stood over it, his back straight, his posture eerily calm. But inside, his body was a furnace—rage and sorrow fusing into something too volatile to name.

  He looked down, eyes filled with a glowing crimson haze, and said, almost gently:

  “So this world treats me unfairly…”

  A pause.

  “Then I should treat it the same.”

  His voice was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that rippled like thunder in the minds of everyone who heard it.

  That was what Mu Yichen and the others caught as they finally closed the distance.

  Seo MinHyun’s footsteps faltered mid-stride. Park Taegun instinctively raised a defensive stance.

  Kang Juwon narrowed his eyes, the pupils reflecting a shimmer of dread.

  They hadn’t heard the full conversation Lee Aseok had been having with the holy sword. But that sentence alone—it was enough.

  He Ziqin didn’t wait.

  The moment his eyes met Lee Aseok’s blood-red gaze, the pressure hit him like a crashing wave. His throat constricted. His knees buckled.

  He vanished in a flicker of light, teleporting far from the epicenter of the madness.

  “Ziqin…!” Seo MinHyun shouted, but the sound was shallow, strangled. He tried to take a step forward, only to feel the suffocating weight pressing against his chest.

  Mana.

  No, this wasn’t just mana.

  This was something else. Something deeper. Older. Wilder.

  The air around Lee Aseok warped slightly, as though reality itself was bending away from him.

  His body radiated a chaotic aura, dark and golden and red, strands of it slithering through the air like tendrils of flame and lightning.

  And in his hands, energy coiled, dense, trembling, too concentrated to be stable.

  Author Note:

  Every “OH MY GOD ASEOK STOP” gives me the strength to write the next disaster.

  Mon ? Wed ? Fri

  (Yes, I too question my life choices.)

  https://www.patreon.com/c/LithutheBloom

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