The early morning fog didn't just sit over the fields beyond the city walls; it curdled. It hung heavy and gray, smelling of wet iron and damp earth. Inside the capital, the world was waking up to the rhythmic clatter of merchant stalls and the extinguishing of lanterns. But out here, in the liminal space between the stone walls and the forest, the silence was heavy enough to crush a man’s ribs.

Muryeong crouched behind a low, moss-covered stone wall. His usual smirk was gone, replaced by a mask of cold, vibrating focus. His eyes were fixed on the tree line, where the mist swirled in patterns that defied the wind.

“Something’s coming,” he muttered. His hand didn't just rest on his sword hilt; it gripped it with a white-knuckled desperation that made his forearm tremor. “It’s not a wolf. It’s not a man. It’s a void.” 

Arin, standing beside him, felt the temperature drop. “Is it more of their mercenaries?”

Muryeong shook his head slowly. “No. This is someone I’ve been waiting for since the day my name was stolen.

Someone I’ve killed a thousand times in my sleep.” 

Hwajin stepped closer, his footsteps making no sound on the frost. “You speak of revenge, Muryeong. Be cautious. A man who lives for a single moment of slaughter often finds he has nothing left to breathe for once the blood dries. Obsession is a blade without a hilt—it cuts the one who wields it.”

Muryeong looked at Hwajin, his eyes wild with a decade of suppressed rage.

“You can’t understand. You still have your soul. He took my village. He took the people who didn't even have names to give the state. He made us nothing.”

Beyond the ridge, the fog parted. There was no sound of armor, no heavy footfall. Jang Saheon, the Thousand-Soul Bearer, advanced with the terrifying fluidity of a shadow. Across his back rested the Black Ancestral Blade. It didn't just hum; it throbbed with the collective, muffled screams of every soul it had ever consumed.

Jang Saheon did not feel hatred. He did not feel anticipation. As the state’s immortal executioner, he was merely a tool being guided toward a discrepancy in the records. Muryeong was a "dead" asset that was still breathing. Saheon was here to correct the ledger.

 “He’s here,” Muryeong whispered, his voice cracking. “Observe,” Hwajin commanded, his Jeong-gwan flaring. “Do not let your heart dictate your hands. If you strike now, you strike as a victim. Strike when you are ready to be a judge.”

 Suddenly, the stillness was broken—not by Saheon, but by a vanguard of three mercenaries, desperate men sent by Min Gyeongmok to clear the perimeter before the legend arrived. They emerged from the brush, swords drawn, scanning the shadows.

Muryeong didn't wait. He moved like a spring being released. He was a study in raw, physical violence, his single blade whistling through the air. He didn't use the second sword—not yet. He dismantled the first mercenary with a brutal efficiency, a single slash that severed the man’s momentum and his life in a heartbeat.

Hwajin was right behind him, though his method was the polar opposite. He moved through the remaining two attackers like a ghost through a wall. He didn't draw blood; he struck pressure points and redirected force. A palm strike to a solar plexus, a thumb pressed into a nerve in the neck—the mercenaries fell silently into the snow, their bodies switching off before they could even scream.

“Keep the silence,” Hwajin warned, his voice a low vibration. “The real threat hasn't reached the gate yet.”

Arin pulled Doyun back into the deep shadows of the wall. She looked at Hwajin and Muryeong—the saint and the demon.

“We can’t win a direct fight against a legend, can we?”

Hwajin looked at the distant silhouette of Jang Saheon, who had stopped at the edge of the clearing, sensing the deaths of the mercenaries.

“Victory is a matter of perspective,” Hwajin said. “Survival is the only victory that matters today.”

Muryeong flexed his hands, his eyes locked on the immortal swordsman. “Together?” he asked, the word sounding foreign in his mouth.

Hwajin nodded, a rare, sharp light entering his eyes. “Together. For the boy, for the Prince, and for the names they tried to erase.”

 The mist swirled as Jang Saheon reached for the hilt of the Black Ancestral Blade. The forest went deathly silent. The first true test of their lives—the collision of trauma, spiritual sight, and immortal steel—was seconds away.

At the last second, right before Jang would pull out the sword of the damned, the Palace bells rang loudly, summoning the royal hound elsewhere. Unaware of their presence, the swordsman disappeared into the forest, giving them time to escape.