Nearly all the candidates had settled within the forest.
Naturally, the evaluators’ attention converged there.
Using the Gate Eye devices deployed for this phase of the test, the evaluators manipulated their controls and observed the shadow-drenched forest.
It did not take long for them to recognise that something was going terribly wrong.
[Grrr!]
[Aaaah! S-Someone help me…!]
[Don’t panic! Stay calm and you can—zzkkk!]
The monitors displayed scenes of monsters, frenzied by their instincts, ambushing the candidates. Some students screamed and fled in panic; others stood their ground, attempting to fight.
Each of the dozens of screens showed nearly identical footage.
A significant number flickered or cut out entirely—an indication that either the chokers worn around the candidates’ necks or the airborne Gate Eyes had been destroyed.
In the former case, it could even mean the student had died.
“…”
And this chaos was unfolding across the entire forest.
The evaluators could not hide their growing concern.
“This… this is far too dangerous, isn’t it?”
They had anticipated a fierce battle on the final night of the exam, expecting previously cautious candidates to fight desperately for dominance.
They had also predicted that monsters, drawn to the swelling mana, would join the fray, further destabilising the battlefield.
After all, the Gate had been intentionally set up in the heart of the forest to incite this very confusion.
But this…
What was now occurring had completely surpassed their calculations. It was spiralling out of control.
They could no longer sit idly by.
The chief examiner, overseeing the Fifth Practical Exam, spoke with firm authority.
“The monsters are showing abnormal behaviour. Deploy the evaluators and assistants immediately. Priority one is the rescue of the candidates. Second, identify the cause of this anomaly.”
“But sir, with our numbers, we can’t possibly reach all of them in time…”
“If we’re short on hands, we’ll make do with the candidates we manage to rescue. They may lack real combat experience and leadership, which explains their confusion, but if they can compose themselves and work together, they’ll be more than capable of defeating these creatures. That’s why you must become their rallying point. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
With the evaluators dispatched to the outer zones, stabilisation would come swiftly.
The problem lay deeper, at the heart of the forest.
Reaching the central area would take more time.
Wearing a deep frown, the chief remained with a few evaluators and watched the screen.
“If the candidates would just retreat outward, they’d be easier to rescue… Is the student from the Divine Sword School still engaged in combat?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll bring it up on the main screen.”
The largest monitor shifted.
There, Do-gyeon-woo of the Divine Sword School was locked in a fierce struggle with a female candidate.
The chief examiner frowned.
“In this situation, he’s still trying to steal someone’s exam tag…”
Do-gyeon-woo held the top rank among all test-takers.
Naturally, he was under close watch by both the chief and the evaluators.
But what he was showing now was… disappointing.
He seemed unable to prioritise between his safety and his exam ticket.
A foolish hunter was doomed to die young. And Do-gyeon-woo was proving to be immensely foolish.
Just as the chief thought so—
“But that other candidate… she’s holding her own against him.”
“…”
An evaluator broke the silence.
The chief’s gaze shifted to the female candidate facing off with Do-gyeon-woo.
She wore a yellow exam ticket.
“Unexpected,” the chief murmured.
That candidate—Park Ji-hee—had not stood out until now.
Her performance had been unremarkable, like the others who bore yellow tags.
Yet, for some reason, she was demonstrating a stark contrast in skill during this fifth exam.
At times, she even seemed to assess other candidates as if acting in the role of an evaluator herself.
“Hm…”
It was rare for a yellow-tagged candidate to perform so exceptionally.
She had earned the chief’s attention.
And so, watching two of his key interests clash wasn’t entirely uninteresting.
But what he truly hoped for was that they would regain their composure and properly assess the situation.
Then, Do-gyeon-woo’s voice echoed from the screen.
[A Demon kind of the Demon kind Council is always a target for elimination.]
[…]
[And if it’s one of the Six Demons, even more so. Isn’t that right… Puppet Witch, Lee Ga-hyeon?]
Do-gyeon-woo’s words rang with absolute certainty.
The evaluators blinked.
Surely they had misheard?
“What… what did he just say?”
“A Demon kind? That’s absurd.”
“We must’ve heard wrong.”
“He must’ve been cursing to provoke her. Even then… that was a bit much.”
They tried to laugh it off.
Lee Ga-hyeon? Here?
Ridiculous.
They dismissed it as nothing more than nonsense.
Until—
[…How did you know?]
“…”
Park Ji-hee’s voice brought the monitoring room into a stunned silence.
“That was a joke… right?”
“Of course it was. Just playing along with his prank…”
“…”
No one wanted to accept it.
That a Demon kind had infiltrated the exam.
And not just any Demon kind—but the Puppet Witch, Lee Ga-hyeon herself.
But they had no choice.
Her eyes turned crimson.
“A Demon kind…”
“…”
Unless one was an Albino or an Artificial Human, no amount of mana mutation caused a human’s eyes to glow red.
The fact that they had meant only one thing.
She was one of them.
“How can this be…?”
“So it really is the Puppet Witch!?”
The room exploded in chaos.
Evaluators reeled in disbelief. A Demon kind here? During the exam?
But they were more than just instructors—they were Hunters.
And in this world, confronting the Demon kind wasn’t uncommon.
In fact, it was part of their duty. Their fate.
The panic passed quickly.
Now with grim faces, the chief and evaluators shifted into action.
“Pinpoint the Puppet Witch’s exact location! Relay this to all evaluators in the field immediately. Those closest to her must confront her at once!”
Why was Lee Ga-hyeon here?
What was her objective?
And more importantly, how had Do-gyeon-woo recognised her?
So many unanswered questions.
But questions could wait.
What mattered now was subduing the cause of this chaos—and restoring order.
The chief banished his doubts from his mind.
Even if it was merely a clone of Lee Ga-hyeon, her strength was no illusion.
Once her identity was revealed, she no longer bothered to hide her demonic aura.
She came at me, her blades flashing.
Ping!
The arc of her blade glinted silver-blue in the moonlight, disappearing just as quickly, distorting my field of vision.
I was certain I had deflected it—but there it was again, pressing forward.
It felt like I was trapped in a pit of sand. No escape.
What trickery is this?
Even her frenzied strikes weren’t random. There was a pattern, a form hidden in the chaos.
If I kept going like this, I would lose.
Then—
Whoosh!
Lee Ga-hyeon’s right hand drew back and slashed.
Accustomed as I was to our exchange, my body moved instinctively.
And in that moment—I saw it.
The corner of her lips curled upward.
“…!”
Something was wrong.
An unshakable dread crept in.
But it was too late. My blade was already descending.
I couldn’t stop now. Hesitation would get me killed.
I pushed forward with my blade.
Chzzz!
My sword slammed into a barrier forming in front of her right hand.
She wasn’t even holding a weapon.
Then—where…?
The question barely surfaced before I felt it:
Snap!
A jolt of electricity lanced across the back of my neck.
Instinct screamed at me to turn.
I obeyed.
Pivoting with my right foot, I narrowly avoided the blade slashing in from the left.
A quick glance behind—and I saw it.
A sword flying through the dark.
Lee Ga-hyeon’s blade.
Ping!
I parried it hard with my own, sending it spinning.
But as if drawn by a tether, it returned to her hand.
A silver thread.
The threads, as fine as they were nearly invisible, were strung like strands of silk—but possessed the tensile strength of steel.
It was the Puppet Witch’s signature weapon.
“I thought you hadn’t caught on to this,” Lee Ga-hyeon said with a smirk, “but you’ve been dodging quite well. Sharp instincts.”
Perhaps because I’d already seen it once, she no longer bothered hiding her silver threads.
Letting go of the sword in her hand, it dangled in the air, suspended by the silken line extending from her fingertips.
“Shall we see if you can dodge this as well?”
As Lee Ga-hyeon crossed her hands and waved them with elegance, the swords that once hung limply in midair came alive, cutting through the night with a sharp whistle.
Whooosh!
And it wasn’t just the blades.
From her other fingers, fresh strands of thread shimmered to life, each laced with mana and aimed squarely at me.
Under the moonlight, I caught faint glimpses of the glowing strands.
Strengthening my vision with mana, I could now clearly see their azure-tinged trails.
I can avoid them.
Trusting my instincts and guided by the illuminated threads, I dodged.
I cut the threads, deflected blades, twisted my body, and closed the distance between us.
“You’d better watch your back.”
Even as I approached rapidly, Lee Ga-hyeon remained composed.
She brought both hands up and crossed them before her chest—like a conductor at the climax of a symphony.
Crack!
A sound erupted behind me.
I turned to see trees, ensnared by her threads, crashing down toward me from overhead.
I timed my leap with the trees’ descent, bounding off a falling trunk to avoid being crushed.
Fighting here puts me at a disadvantage.
The terrain was far too convenient for her.
She had already strung her threads among trees across the area, lacing blue lines like a spider’s web.
Had I unknowingly wandered through them, I would’ve been torn to pieces.
I need to change the battlefield.
I rifled through the mental map of the forest I’d compiled through the day’s skirmishes.
Finding a more favourable location wasn’t hard.
A fusion of raw force and dominating momentum.
Leaping from the trunk I stood on, I struck the ground with all my might.
The mana infused in my sword split the earth, shattering the terrain beneath us.
KRRRRACK!!
It was a mana-hungry move, but its destructive power was unmatched.
Lee Ga-hyeon recoiled swiftly to avoid the debris and shockwave.
Just as I planned.
I bolted toward her.
The Lion’s Charge grew stronger with each straight step forward.
My motion carved a lightning path, quickly catching up to her.
I didn’t give her a moment to think.
Relentlessly, I unleashed a barrage of strikes.
In terms of weapon quality, my Blue blade had the edge.
When I committed to an attack, her dual blades struggled to hold their own.
“Kh!”
Gone was the smirk from her face. A furrowed brow revealed her tension.
She began retreating, trying to put distance between us.
Exactly as I had hoped.
“This place…”
“You won’t be toppling trees here, will you?”
We stood in a clearing.
The same battlefield where, just the day before, I had fought tooth and nail as other candidates tried to claim my tag.
“So this is where you were leading me?” she scoffed. “You figured I wouldn’t be able to manipulate my threads properly in open terrain?”
From her fingertips, the silver threads drooped uselessly to the ground.
“Well, how unfortunate for you. My threads can do more than that.”
“…!”
She raised her hand high.
In an instant, the earth before her ripped free—an intact chunk of soil hurled into the sky and straight down toward me.
She could do that?
I hadn’t anticipated this.
Even in the game, she never used her threads to rip up the earth itself.
Still, the open field was far more favourable for me.
Here, I could swing my blade freely, without worrying about obstacles.
Snap!
Instinct took over.
I dashed across the open field, narrowly avoiding the falling mass.
Lee Ga-hyeon closed in, chasing fast.
Shhhhk!
She slashed the air.
Crossed strands of silver wove an X in front of me, trying to block my path.
I couldn’t just slice through them with a simple swing.
Drawing mana from my core, I imbued my blade and slashed.
The threads unravelled, dissolving into the atmosphere as mana particles.
Ping!
She extended her clenched fists and released her threads like a whip.
They caught my sword.
Then, with the next move, she spun and landed a brutal kick to my side.
I deflected just enough to avoid a fatal hit, but was still thrown back.
She chased after, brandishing her blades.
CLANG!
Her dual swords collided with my Blue blade.
The sound rang through the field like a thunderclap.
FWOOOM!
Suddenly, the night sky lit up.
A flare.
Eun-bi made it out safely and came back to assist.
Ko Eun-bi had fired an arrow into the sky.
A signal.
FWOOOM!
Another blast followed, bathing the clearing in brief daylight.
Under the sudden brightness, I could see her crimson eyes, and the red threads of vein-like stress crossing her face.
Lee Ga-hyeon didn’t react to the light.
Perhaps she assumed it was merely an effort to illuminate the dark forest.
She wasn’t entirely wrong.
That alone would’ve sufficed.
But I was hoping for something more.
Next time the light explodes…
That’s when I’ll strike her blind spot.
I lowered my stance and pushed off the ground.
We clashed again in a storm of blows.
Slash!
Her blade grazed my cheek.
It burned.
Likely a shallow cut—but a wound nonetheless.
I didn’t worry.
A hunter who flinched at mere scratches wouldn’t survive long.
It wasn’t the first time she’d landed a hit on me either.
So I waited.
For the right moment.
And then—
FWOOOM!
An arrow surged skyward.
The flare burst, scattering bright light across the battlefield.
Now.
With a quick pivot, I swept my sword diagonally across the ground.
Soil erupted upward.
The mana dripping from my blade formed a curtain of energy, cloaking my presence.
Beneath the lingering flare-light, I vanished.
“You think cheap tricks will help you!?”
Lee Ga-hyeon sliced through the curtain with her threads.
But I was already gone—behind her.
“…!”
Shock spread across her face.
I met her gaze.
And then unleashed the electric storm coiled within my Blue blade.
───!!
A chorus of blue lightning shrieked into the night.
It roared, threatening to tear the world apart.
The current surged like serpents, splitting the sky in luminous veins.
Let’s see if you can handle this.
The thunderstorm blasted forth from my sword, consuming Lee Ga-hyeon in a flood of azure bolts.
“KYAAAAAAAH!”
She screamed.
Tried to escape.
But her body, paralysed by the current, refused to move.
The lightning danced across her, burning—devouring.
“This alone… won’t stop me…”
She was of Demon kind.
Though gravely wounded, she was not destroyed.
As the electric storm waned, her laughter rose again, trembling.
Of course, I didn’t wait.
Before the current faded completely—
I charged.
Lee Ga-hyeon, barely standing, blinked in disbelief.
“What…!?”
The lightning shackles dissipated.
I snapped my blade like a whip.
The arcing slash cleaved through the air before she could even react.
Her head flew.
“Ah…”
Her dazed voice trailed off, like it couldn’t believe what had happened.
Her severed head soared into the air.
And dropped—
Or so I thought.
“You didn’t really think cutting off my head would end this, did you?”
“…Of course not.”
Her head didn’t fall.
A thread, silver and taut, extended from her neck.
It caught the head mid-air, suspending it.
With eyes on the ground and lips toward the sky, her disembodied face stared at me and giggled.
“Demon kind, you see…”
The thread was retracted.
Her head floated back, reattaching to the stump in a clean fit.
“…are not so easily undone.”
With a wet, slithering sound, the silver thread pulled taut, drawing her severed head back to her shoulders. The cut was sealed as if it had never existed, leaving no trace of the wound behind.
“See?” Lee Ga-hyeon giggled. “I told you. A little thing like that can’t kill me.”
Even as her voice retained that eerie sweetness, her eyes glowed more viciously than before.
“You’re fun. Most people just scream and die, you know? You’re different.”
“…”
I didn’t reply. My breathing was steady. My gaze never left her.
And my fingers gripped the hilt of my Blue blade even tighter.
This wasn’t fear.
It was focused.
She had taken a fatal blow. And yet, she stood.
That was the kind of being I was up against.
A monster.
A true Demon kind.
“Still,” she said, tilting her head with a playful glint in her eye. “Even for someone like me, that hurt. You actually managed to get me.”
She flexed her fingers.
The silver threads unfurled like snakes, their tips glinting faintly beneath the moonlight.
“Which means,” she whispered, “you’re worth killing personally.”
I didn’t wait.
The longer the conversation went, the more her wounds would heal.
I rushed in—faster than before.
Not in a straight line. I twisted and shifted like a dancer in combat, each step an unpredictable swerve.
Lee Ga-hyeon laughed.
And met me head-on.
Our blades clashed once more.
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
Sparks flew.
The rhythm of steel against steel echoed through the clearing like a war-drum.
This time, she didn’t hold back.
The grace of her previous attacks vanished.
She fought savagely now, like a beast cornered.
My Blue blade met her twin swords over and over.
She twisted mid-air, spinning silver lines like a net.
She leapt from one thread to the next like a marionette freed from gravity.
I followed, slashing and cutting every time she moved.
Our battle filled the clearing—blades, silver threads, shouts, lightning, and dust.
But neither of us relented.
Somewhere behind us, the flare light had faded.
The forest returned to its natural darkness, and the moon rose high above.
Sweat clung to my brow.
I could feel the strain building in my limbs.
Lee Ga-hyeon was breathing harder, too.
Her elegant composure is now marred by wildness.
I needed to end this.
Now.
There was one move left.
A technique I had barely mastered.
And never used in real combat.
But now was the time.
I gathered mana into my blade. Not in surges, but compressed—so dense it warped the air.
Lee Ga-hyeon paused.
Something in her expression changed.
“…You’re going to use it, aren’t you?” she whispered.
She recognized the stance.
“This will be fun.”
She didn’t run.
She didn’t defend.
She launched herself at me.
At the same time, I moved.
“RRRAAAAAAGHH!”
A final roar.
My blade cleaved through everything.
The earth cracked beneath my feet.
The air split.
The threads snapped like twine.
And for the first time, she couldn’t block it.
Her body jerked mid-air.
Blood sprayed across the moonlit field.
She slammed into the ground.
Her threads fizzled into sparks.
A deep silence fell over the field.
I lowered my blade.
My breath is heavy. My vision is dimming.
But I didn’t let go.
Not yet.
Not until I was sure.
And then—
She stirred.
Not laughing.
Not smiling.
Just breathing.
Her body was broken.
But alive.
“That…”
She coughed up blood.
“…actually hurt.”
Her voice was raspy.
Her limbs were twitching.
And even now—
She was still smiling.
“You’re strong, Do-gyeon-woo.”
“….”
I stood over her.
The Blueblade pointed at her heart.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“I’ll come back anyway.”
Her red eyes gleamed in the darkness.
“I always do.”
I didn’t hesitate.
My blade plunged down.
Straight through her chest.
Her body shuddered once.
Then went limp.
Her threads were scattered.
And her eyes dimmed at last.
I pulled my blade free.
Letting her body fall.
The battle was over.
But I didn’t relax.
Not truly.
Because deep down—I knew.
This wasn’t the end of Lee Ga-hyeon.
It was only the beginning.
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