The silence broke into a chaotic roar of laughter and mockery.

-HAHAHA! KIM YECHAN?! -

-The ’No-Talent’ Brother? -

-Why is Kim Jin’s luggage-carrier in the arena? -

-Did he hide in a hole the whole time? How is he still there? -

-Look at him, he’s shaking. He looks like he’s about to cry. -

-Why does he have such a high-tier looking sword? Did he steal it from his brother? -

The live stream chat was a toxic flood.

-LOL THE FAILURE OF THE KIM FAMILY. -

-Jin is probably so embarrassed right now watching from the White Stars lounge. -

-Someone tell the porter to get out before he actually dies. -

-That maroon sword... it looks cursed. Fitting for a loser. -

-He’s bleeding from a head wound and he’s still holding the hilt? Just tap out, loser. -

But as the laughter continued, a few people who were the scouts in the spires and the seasoned veterans in the crowd began to stop.

They noticed something the casual viewers missed.

Yechan was indeed shaking. He looked terrified.

His eyes were wide, darting around the arena like a cornered animal.

But he wasn’t standing in a hole. He was standing in the center of the wreckage of the arena’s strongest players.

Sang-hoon was gone. Ha-neul was gone.

The Monsters of the 13th floor had been cleared in a single, violent burst, and the only one left standing was the "Failure."

A scout from the Iron Aegis Guild leaned into his microphone.

"Check the mana readings again."

"Sir, the sword is... it’s not reading as an item.

And the player... his mana capacity is F-rank, but his ’Weight’... it’s off the charts."

Yechan slowly stood up.

The maroon blade hissed as it brushed against the frozen ground, the ice melting instantly upon contact.

He wiped the blood from his eyes with his sleeve, his hand trembling so hard the blade rattled.

"I... I told her it was too much...

...fuck...I’m aching all over."

Yechan murmured to himself, his voice barely audible over the wind.

「Don’t be a coward, brat. You survived the story. Now stand like a King.」

"uughhh..."

「Tsk...the stars are still doing this broadcasting nonsense? How pitiful. Those bastards never seem to get satisfied...」

The voice resonated from the maroon blade itself.

One of the remaining players, a survivor who had been blown to the edge of the crater, scrambled to his feet.

It was a swordsman named Choi Myung-dae. He was furious. He had been a favorite to win, and he had been tossed aside by some nobody.

"You!"

Myung-dae screamed, his pride shattered.

"I don’t know what kind of cheat item you’re using, but a loser is still a loser! Give me that sword!"

Myung-dae lunged, his blade glowing with a golden light as he activated a high-tier dash skill.

He moved like a blur, the tip of his sword aimed directly at Yechan’s chest.

Yechan didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to see the attack coming. He looked paralyzed with fear.

"Yechan, move!"

asomeone from the crowd yelled, a rare moment of sympathy.

But as the golden blade reached within an inch of his heart, the maroon sword in Yechan’s hand moved on its own.

It didn’t strike and deflected.

With a movement so fast the cameras barely caught it, the dark blade swept upward.

CLANG.

Myung-dae’s golden sword broke into pieces.

The force of the parry sent the swordsman spinning backward, his arm snapping with a sickening pop before his safety charm could even react.

He hit the ground and vanished into light particles, eliminated instantly.

The crowd went silent again. The mockery in the chat slowed to a crawl.

-What... what was that? -

-He didn’t even look at him. -

-Is that a passive ability? -

-No... look at his feet. He’s standing in the ’Defiance’ stance. -

Yechan looked down at the maroon blade, his face pale.

He looked like he wanted to drop the sword and run, but his fingers were locked around the hilt as if they had been welded there.

He looked up at the holographic screens, seeing his own terrified face mirrored back at him a thousand times.

The shock of Myung-dae’s elimination was still reverberating through the stadium when the leaderboard in the sky began to flicker frantically.

On the eastern edge of the Ghost-Iron Graveyard, a blinding streak of silver light was carving a path through the remaining elite players.

It wasn’t a clean, graceful movement but a jagged, desperate blitz that looked more like a falling star than a martial art.

A Tier-2 shield-bearer from a minor guild raised his bulwark, but the streak bypassed his defense entirely, reappearing behind him.

A flash of steel followed, and the player was ejected before his mana-shield could even register a hit.

-WHAT IS THAT SPEED? -

-Holy shit! -

-He’s moving like he’s on fire! -

-5 players left... 4... 3... -

The arena was a cacophony of shattering and the shrill whistle of displaced air.

The last few survivors, a pyromancer and a heavy lancer tried to back-to-back their way to safety.

But the streak of light didn’t give them a chance.

Two daggers, glowing with a frantic, white-hot mana, sliced through the air.

The pyromancer’s fire was snuffed out mid-cast, and the lancer was kicked into a rusted pillar with enough force to trigger his safety charm instantly.

The holographic counter rolled over with a heavy, digital thud.

[PLAYERS REMAINING: 2]

The dust and metallic smog that had choked the center of the graveyard began to settle, thinned by the biting arctic wind.

Silence fell over the thousands of spectators.

Even the VIP spires were deathly quiet.

On one side of the crater stood Kim Yechan. He was a mess of blood and dirt, his hands still trembling as they gripped the maroon blade.

Thirty meters across from him, standing atop a pile of rusted scrap metal, was Sung Su-been.

The streamer was unrecognizable from his polished profile pictures.

His attire was shredded, and his chest heaved with such violence it looked painful.

He held his twin daggers in a reverse grip, the blades notched and stained with mana-residue.

Sweat rolled down his pale face, freezing into tiny ice crystals on his chin.

His eyes weren’t on the cameras, they weren’t on the fame.

They were locked onto Yechan.

"Just... one more."

Su-been wheezed, his voice a dry rasp that barely carried over the wind.

Yechan didn’t say anything.

He simply tightened his grip on the maroon hilt, his knuckles white.

The "Failure" and the "Desperate" stood alone in the grand arena of the 13th floor.

Two men with nothing to lose and everything to prove.