The soldier’s shout summoned his comrades, who gathered in groups. Among them were knights.

Seeing the dazzlingly shining pale pink hair under the sunlight, they were convinced of her identity.

“How dare the enemy of House Huster set foot here!”

A knight wearing a cloak embroidered with the emblem of House Huster shouted with contempt. It seemed that the people here harbored a particular hatred for her.

But Aveline didn’t care. Nor did she intend to let them achieve their vengeance so easily.

Without taking her eyes off the soldiers, she raised her sword. The soldiers also drew their swords in response, facing off against her.

Aveline rolled her eyes to quickly assess their numbers.

‘Two knights and four soldiers.’

There were six for now, but she couldn’t tell how many more might arrive. She had to hold out as long as possible to tie them down here.

‘I’ve secured higher ground, so that’s to my advantage for now.’

Then how best to use it?

With her judgment made, Aveline suddenly kicked hard at the ground where she’d subtly dug in her foot. Sand and twigs scattered toward the soldiers.

“Agh! My eyes!”

As the soldiers clutched their faces and bent over in pain from the sand in their eyes, Aveline leapt with all her strength and brought her blade down on the wrist of the nearest soldier.

The hand holding the sword flew off, and blood gushed like a fountain.

“Aaaargh!”

“You wretch!”

A towering knight, face twisted with rage, charged at her. He wielded a sword as massive as her entire body.

A greatsword had immense power, but was slow. That meant he was the perfect opponent for her, who specialized in exploiting such weaknesses with agility.

Sure enough, Aveline easily read the arc of the knight’s swinging blade and swiftly ducked to avoid it. Then she drove her blade—imbued with the power of darkness—into the exposed underarm left wide open by his broad swing.

“Guh…!”

The strike was so swift that the knight didn’t even realize what had happened, only managing a dying scream.

In that instant, Aveline ruthlessly pulled out her sword. The blood, previously blocked by the foreign object, burst forth violently.

“Uwaaaaah!”

The knight let out a horrible shriek. Still, determined to show he was no mere soldier, he switched his sword to his left hand and swung.

But it wasn’t the swordplay of a trained knight—more like a wild tantrum.

To Aveline, there was no sword easier to read. As she effortlessly dodged the massive blade, she timed her move to collide her sword with his just as he prepared to pull back, knocking it away.

It wasn’t his dominant hand, and her unexpected strike left him flustered—he dropped his sword.

Bringing the stunned knight to his knees was easy. Aveline quickly moved to his side and plunged her sword into the seam of his armor. The chilling sound of muscle tearing and bone cracking echoed out. The knight crumpled, clutching his side where the blade had just been.

“Wh…what…?”

In an instant, one knight and one soldier were down—felled by nothing more than a slender, small woman.

But the moment they looked at Aveline again, the preconceived notions lodged in their minds were shattered.

The flowery hair, once praised like a spring blossom, was nowhere to be found. Drenched in her enemy’s blood, she blazed red like a goddess of death sent to claim their lives.

“Aaaaargh!”

Overwhelmed by her killing intent, the soldiers rushed at her wildly, trying to suppress their fear.

But that frenzy was no different from exposing their weaknesses.

Aveline calmly swung her sword, aiming at the openings presented by the charging soldiers.

To conserve the last remnants of her dark power, she didn’t bother dodging unless the incoming blades looked like they’d pierce her. Instead, she let them graze her. Sharp pain flared, and sticky blood flowed—but she had no way of knowing how this battle would unfold, so she had to endure.

Even as pain surged, the soldiers who exposed their weaknesses dropped to the ground one by one. Once three had fallen, Aveline had no time to breathe before she found herself facing the last remaining knight—the one who had so openly expressed his hatred toward her.

“You really weren’t some ordinary wicked wench, huh? I knew it all along! If not for you, House Huster wouldn’t have faltered like this!”

It was a rather absurd rage. This was the first time she had even heard that House Huster had faltered.

“So you’re blaming someone else for stumbling all by yourself?”

“Silence! If only Her Ladyship had become the duchess as fate intended, we could have basked in unrivaled power. The Viscount staked everything on that dream!”

The knight exploded again. Aveline could guess the rest. The Viscount of Huster must’ve expected great gains from his dealings and investments with the Evuteren ducal house, only for them to collapse, dragging him down with them.

But it was absurd to take it out on her. Why should she be responsible for the Viscount’s failed ambitions?

On the contrary, the thought of Clonay Huster’s house collapsing made her want to laugh even in a situation like this.

“That woman got delusional and overreached. That’s all.”

“You b*tch…!”

The man snapped and slammed his sword into hers with all his might.

As the sharp metals clashed with force, sparks flew. With just that one exchange, Aveline instantly realized—he wasn’t just an average low-ranking knight.

‘If any more reinforcements show up here……’

Forcing herself to cut off the pessimistic assumptions, Aveline channeled her reserved dark power and forcefully shoved away the blade she had been locked against.

The knight’s body flew back and crashed into a tree. If not for the bothersome trees, he would have rolled all the way down the mountain. It was a bitter disappointment.

“This… what is this wicked power…?”

The knight, coughing and staggering to his feet, muttered in a voice tinged with fear.

But Aveline showed no mercy. Before he could regain his balance, she lunged forward. It happened in the blink of an eye, but the knight barely managed to reflexively block the blade aimed at his side. The blades, clashing with neither side yielding, trembled slightly.

The knight realized the trembling came from Aveline. It meant she was losing in pure strength, and that brute force might give him the upper hand.

But Aveline had already made the same calculation. Realizing she was at a disadvantage in a contest of strength, she quickly struck and retreated, targeting his openings.

However, the knight was no pushover. Though he couldn’t create room for a counterattack, he blocked her strikes with pinpoint accuracy each time.

A fierce battle with no clear outcome dragged on. The longer it went, the slimmer her chances of victory became.

To hide her growing anxiety, Aveline clenched her jaw and thought rapidly.

‘If I can’t find an opening, then I have to make one.’

The speed of her thr*sts gradually slowed. The knight, convinced that victory was within his grasp, began to show the whites of his eyes as blood vessels popped with strain.

Then, at the moment their blades were tightly locked, Aveline suddenly withdrew her strength.

“Huh?”

The startled knight gasped. With no opposing force, his arms flung wide open.

Taking that chance, Aveline dropped to her knee, raised her sword with both hands, and slammed it into his thigh—where his armor failed to protect.

“Argh!”

The knight collapsed to the ground, driving his sword into the dirt, his leg pierced clean through.

Just as Aveline was about to pull her blade back, she sensed a sudden murderous aura behind her.

She yanked her sword free and spun around. The large knight she thought had been down was charging at her with his sword raised.

Aveline instinctively summoned every ounce of her dark power to block the strike. The thought that a split-second delay could have left her cleaved in two sent chills down her spine.

“Die!”

The knight roared with bloodshot eyes, veins bursting red. His ferocity was enough to freeze the heart, but Aveline already knew—it was a desperate last struggle.

She skillfully deflected the blade’s trajectory as it came at her, and as the greatsword barely grazed past, she struck upward with her sword.

“Guh…”

The man, pierced through the throat, gurgled blood as he collapsed. Just as Aveline was about to catch her breath—

That was when she felt a sharp chill behind her again. She hadn’t even retrieved her blade when she instinctively turned around.

The knight with the impaled leg was charging at her, sword raised high.

‘I’m going to get stabbed!’

She was frozen, staring only at the tip of the blade that was about to take her life, unable to move as the realization hit like lightning.

Something suddenly blocked her view—someone stepped between her and the attack. Because it happened so close, her vision was completely obscured, and only a beat later did she realize it was someone’s back.

The sword meant for her had struck the back of that person instead.

“Hugh…”

The voice gasping in pain was disturbingly familiar. Her head snapped up on instinct.

“What…?”

And the moment she saw the pale, slender hair glowing luminously without sunlight, Aveline’s world came to a halt.

In that time, Luen—having poured the last of his strength into his blade—cut off the knight’s arm and drove the sword deep into his side. The entire sequence played out in slow motion for Aveline, as if time had stretched into eternity.

The knight’s corpse, killed instantly, slumped lifelessly to the ground. Luen’s back, which had been staring down at it blankly, swayed and then collapsed.

Only then did Aveline’s time begin to move again.

“No…!”

She screamed as she rushed toward the fallen Luen. Hot blood gushed from the stab wound in his right chest, rising in steam.

It was a horrifying sight. Nothing could have been more horrific. Aveline clutched her trembling head with both hands. It all felt like a nightmare.

“Why you… why, why—!”

‘You were supposed to take revenge on me. You said you’d kill me. So why—!’

Her throat choked, and her words came out in broken breaths. Her whole body trembled uncontrollably, as if overtaken by a chill. Tears spilled nonstop, burning her eyes, and her face was twisted beyond recognition.

By contrast, Luen’s expression was calm. Peaceful, even. At a glance, it looked as if she were the one dying—not him.

“Now… I understand…”

Luen whispered softly and reached out his hand to her. Aveline quickly took it in hers. The cold she felt at his fingertips made her feel like her own blood was draining away.

Yet unlike her, overcome with the despair of imminent death, Luen even managed a faint smile that reached his lips.

“I… never wanted to kill you.”

“What…?”

Just as his blue eyes captured her entirely, her golden eyes also held nothing but him.

A slightly changed hue from the past. But a gaze that hadn’t changed even across different lives—eyes he had never once forgotten.

The warm droplets falling from those eyes wet his cheeks and lips. Her tears, touching his tongue, were sweet like a life-giving elixir. Perhaps it had always been so. Since long before he realized it… all along…

“I… just wanted to protect you.”

It had been that simple. That certain.

‘I just couldn’t bear to admit it. So I took the longest way around.’

“Like this… with my own hands…”

It was blinding—like being faced with a flood of light in a suddenly opened field of vision. Only upon reaching the dead end of life, with no road left to turn back to, did everything finally become clear.

What it was that he had truly desired. What this feverish yearning, etched deep in his chest since even before birth, had truly been.

When she turned her back at last, leaving behind only the words that he must live on, there had been only one thing he wished for with all his heart.

That he could protect her. That, just once, instead of always being the one rescued and protected by her, he could be the one to save her.

But even after rushing to her side, all he could do was watch her die. And then, he had to run away—leaving her behind.

Why is it only now that he remembers how heavy and grueling every cowardly step away from her had been? Why is it only now that he realizes the short and bitter life that followed had been nothing more than an extension of that damned moment of fleeing from her?

So when death finally came, there had been only one thing he wished for. And the one regret that remained must have been that alone.

“Because… I wanted to protect you…”

Yet, because of her dying wish that he must live, he had no choice but to keep on living through his past life in agony. Because he had hated her so much—for dying and leaving him behind all alone.

He had come this far, vowing never to forgive her.

“But the truth is, it wasn’t you I couldn’t forgive… it was myself…”