Surviving Restructuring

Wooong—!

His sword returned with a low hum. The blade, sinisterly black from tip to hilt, radiated an ominous energy that warned against touch. Yet, the sharp edge itself flashed with rainbow light every time it vibrated.

The light was brilliant, beautiful, and warm, almost as if trying to lure those who instinctively recoiled from its killing aura.

Sssk!

Eun-Ho ran a hand lightly along the shining blade. He thought the edge would’ve dulled after destroying an entire arena. However, it was sharper than ever, perhaps because it had broken free of its shell.

Then, he thought about the system message that came after he acquired his new title, the Heaven Shatterer.

[A vessel forged by melting iron in blood and cooling it in time now accepts your magnificent title.]

[The Shatter Blade responds to its new master’s will!]

[The Flame Shatter Blade has evolved into the Flame Sky-Shattering Blade!]

[Flame Sky-Shattering Blade]

- A mysterious sword crafted with obsessive care by an unknown blacksmith. Its hidden spirit was awakened by the Heaven Shatterer.

- By breaking through what could never be destroyed, it transcended its original limits.

- Increases Attack Power by +20, and Critical Chance by +1%.

- Warning: It may reject all but the master it chooses.

- Exclusive Skill: Flame Burst(Lv. 1)

The blade had evolved twice—once when it was fused with the Flame Orb taken from the Flame Dragon, and once more when it inherited the title of the Heaven Shatterer.

Amid the chaos, Eun-Ho finally had the chance to read its description carefully.

So, it rejects anyone not recognized as its master. In other words, it refuses to be wielded by the unworthy, Eun-Ho thought.

“Is that why you’re hurt?” Eun-Ho asked.

“When did you even see that?” Yeon Bo-Ra replied, quickly hiding her bandaged hand behind her back.

It seemed like she had burned herself.

Well, serve her right, stealing my sword and playing with it without permission, Eun-Ho thought.

“Wait! Didn’t the blade just get sharper?” she added.

“That’s because it recognizes its master,” Eun-Ho said.

Just as he felt relieved at retrieving it safely, another shell crashed down, collapsing an even closer section of the mud wall.

Boom!

“Aaaah!”

“Unnie!”

Yeon Bo-Ra stared at the people looking only to her, then silently steeled herself. “I gave your sword back, so please buy me a little time. I’m begging you—”

“Wind Blade.”

Swish! Shhk!

“What the?!”

“Like this?”

“Y-yeah, just like that!”

Eun-Ho intercepted the flying shrapnel with sword strikes like gunfire, thinking she’d be raising another mud barrier.

Instead, turning both palms toward the sky, Yeon Bo-Ra whispered, “Summon.”

Perhaps, she had another hidden item.

Then, something translucent began to take shape, gradually filling with yellow and red hues.

Srrrk!

The shimmering object solidified as she cradled it in her arms.

It appeared to be a teardrop-shaped string instrument, reminiscent of a guitar or ukulele. The slim body was around seventy centimeters long, with a thick neck. Rather than the modern world, its design felt like something out of an old martial arts film.

“Is that an instrument?” Eun-Ho muttered.

Clutching it tightly, Yeon Bo-Ra let out a shaky breath. “Haaa...”

Her trembling fingers touched the strings. Then, closing her eyes, she plucked once.

Twang— Twang—

Music spilled out, sharper and more resonant than any guitar or violin Eun-Ho had ever heard.

Twang— Twang—

Even though the melody had almost no rise or fall, it grabbed his attention. The taut vibration of the strings reverberated in the air, the notes burrowing into his mind, clinging to skin rather than ears.

“This is...” Eun-Ho whispered.

Every time Yeon Bo-Ra’s slender fingers plucked a string, the space itself seemed to quiver. Tight, then loose. Light, then heavy. The rhythm shifted unpredictably, drawing everyone deeper into its spell.

Just as the haunting tune captured every gaze, a shell vaulted clean over the mud wall and came screaming down toward them.

Boom!

Its arc was perfect, aimed squarely at the crown of Yeon Bo-Ra’s bowed head, as if mocking her closed eyes. The projectile was nearly two meters across.

Should I cut that? Eun-Ho thought.

A thought that once seemed absurd no longer did. Perhaps because his sword was humming for blood and steel, eager to taste both.

Ridiculous or not, Eun-Ho felt ready to try. He dashed forward, preparing to carve that tempting hunk of iron into ribbons.

“Wait, don’t!”

“Hold on!” The bun-haired woman grabbed his shoulder, halting him. “Don’t interfere. Bo-Ra’s got this.”

Got this? What could Bo-Ra possibly do while a live shell was about to crush her? Eun-Ho thought.

For a moment, Eun-Ho wondered if these so-called friends were really friends at all. Then, the shell slammed into empty air.

Baaaaam!

Eun-Ho remained speechless as a deafening crack tore the sky. The bomb crumpled mid-flight, breaking apart as if it had struck an invisible wall.

Clang! Crack!

Gunpowder and shrapnel burst outward in a violent spray. Hundreds, thousands of fragments scattered in every direction.

Shhhhk—

Then, the shell disintegrated into dust, leaving nothing behind, as if it had destroyed itself.

“A barrier...” Eun-Ho muttered.

The mud walls hadn’t protected them. Yeon Bo-Ra’s ability to create barriers did. She was the reason how these clueless college students had survived until now.

He had barely started to marvel at her power when the flowing melody faltered.

Twang— Tw—

“Kek!”

Yeon Bo-Ra coughed into a handkerchief that she’d fished from her pocket, wiping her mouth with a swift motion. She rummaged through the handkerchief, already blotched with red stains, and searched for a clean spot.

“Blood?” Eun-Ho muttered.

She hadn’t been touched by the shell. Nothing had pierced the barrier either. Yet, she coughed up blood.

Something’s not right, Eun-Ho thought.

Eun-Ho had been keeping an eye on her Stamina bar ever since she had slammed into the pillar earlier.

[90.5%]

[91.5%]

[92.5%]

[93.5%]

...

Her stamina had been rising every time she played.

So why does she look like she’s breaking down? Eun-Ho wondered.

“What’s happening to her?” he asked aloud.

However, her friends gave no answer. One boy bowed his head in silence. The same friends, who had panicked earlier over a mere scrape on a pillar, now stood frozen.

Wait... A strangely low Stamina bar, and the way it increases the more she plays... Is it really increasing? Eun-Ho thought.

Twang— Tw—

Eun-Ho’s hand shot out, seizing Yeon Bo-Ra’s wrist. The sudden silence of the broken melody startled everyone around them.

“Let go of me! What are you doing?!” Yeon Bo-Ra shrieked, like a cat with its claws out.

He barked back, “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“What are you talking about?!”

“Your stamina! It’s dropping!”

He shouted because he’d finally realized the truth.

[90.5%]

[91.5%]

[92.5%]

[93.5%]

Rather than increasing, it was her maximum stamina that was being carved away.

Yeon Bo-Ra flinched.

“Be quiet,” she whispered, biting her lip.

“So you knew,” Eun-Ho muttered.

Indeed, she knew the barriers were cutting into her life. Yet she kept playing anyway. Jaw taut, he gripped the instrument and a translucent window bloomed before his eyes.

[Jikokuten’s Pipa]

- A modern pipa imbued with the will of the Heavenly King of the East.

- Generates a barrier around the performer, blocking attacks. The barrier’s size and strength are inversely related.

- Warning: If wielded by one deemed unworthy, the performer may take the damage instead.

Hah... It says it right here. Use it without being qualified, and the one playing pays the price, Eun-Ho thought.

“You’re going to die like this.”

“I know,” Yeon Bo-Ra answered.

“Are you sure about that?”

She averted her gaze.

“You could die from tripping on the street, getting a scratch from a cat or even falling out of bed. And you’re still willing to keep playing?”

It made no sense for Eun-Ho.

Is this item really worth bleeding herself dry for? Trading certain death later just to scrape through danger now? Even then, it feels insane.

“What about the others? You’ve got fifteen other people here. Take turns. Share the burden,” Eun-Ho said.

If there was a penalty for playing, then they could rotate playing it.

However, Yeon Bo-Ra only shook her head with a bitter smile. “I said I’d do it. This fight is all because of me.”

“Because of you?” Eun-Ho pressed.

“They’re here to kill me. That’s why they came.”

He had already suspected there was a story behind it. It wasn’t that hard to guess, the way the enemy had zeroed in on her from the start. He hadn’t asked because it hadn’t seemed like his business.

Now, she opened up at last.

“Well... During the Character Evaluation trial, our group was matched against theirs,” she confessed.

“The Character Evaluation?”

“Remember the Nightmare trial?”

She was referring to the trial where Dream Demons twisted reality, making everyone see monsters in the faces of their allies. Survival was the only rule.

Eun-Ho remembered how his own team had survived. He could understand the Demons’ words with his Order Opposer title. Ji-Eun’s mental resilience also let her tell humans apart from Demons. Besides, they had even shared elixirs that resisted the mind attacks.

But Yeon Bo-Ra’s group probably had none of that. So how did they make it out?

“We were terrified,” she said, her expression crumpling. “So, I built a wall to keep them from coming our way...”

When the arena was divided by invisible barriers, her group had chosen to isolate themselves from the Demons by cutting the field in two.

While her group cowered in safety behind the walls, carnage erupted on the other side. Trapped in that narrow space, the others slaughtered each other, surrounded by Dream Demons.

“So you walled off your team to survive,” Eun-Ho added, “while the rest got butchered.”

“... Yes.”

Cold-blooded. That’s one way to see it. Saving herself by condemning the rest, Eun-Ho thought.

“And now the survivors want you dead?” he asked flatly.

“They said if I hadn’t sealed them off, they might have found another way...”

To them, she was a thief of lives, a coward who had survived while others perished. However, Eun-Ho wondered what if it had been him.

What would he have done if he’d had no special title, rare items, and strong teammates like Ji-Eun? Would he have charged into the slaughter with no plan? Or would he have built a wall too? He knew that he would’ve done the same.

“And so now, you’re making barriers to take responsibility, while the friends you saved just stand there?” he asked.

Yeon Bo-Ra bit her lower lip hard, caught between regret and defiance.

Eun-Ho had thought she was just a prickly, cat-like type. “Haa...”

Turns out she was all bark, no bite.

Booom!

“Just stay out of it!” Yeon Bo-Ra snapped, her face twisted with anger. “I’ll take responsibility for everything!”

However, her pale face and the cold sweat rolling down her temple betrayed her limits. She lifted the oversized pipa again, clutching it tight against her trembling self. Her movements were sluggish, almost pleading for someone to intervene.

“Bo-Ra...”

However, no one stopped her. Not a single person stepped forward. Instead, all she received were hesitant glances and cautious silence.

Eun-Ho remembered these glances from his old days.

“He’ll be fine.”

“He’s not going to last long anyway.”

“There’s no need to get too involved. There’s no harm in treating him that way...”

Those were the same kinds of looks Eun-Ho had grown used to seeing every time he changed companies. He hated them.

He hated the cowardice of the weak and the sight of Bo-Ra throwing her life away. He hated this twisted world that had forced a bunch of twenty-year-old college kids into this nightmare. He hated all of it.

Thump.

Before he realized it, Eun-Ho was moving. “I get what you’re trying to do, but...”

He yanked the pipa out of her arms. She didn’t resist. Perhaps she didn’t have the strength left, or lacked the will.

“But responsibility means you need the strength to carry it.”

Her eyes widened.

“What you’re doing isn’t taking responsibility. It’s committing suicide.”

Crack!

The next moment, the barrier overhead shattered like glass.

Booom!

The shell plunged through the ruins of the barrier. Eun-Ho grabbed her thin wrist and shoved her away, sending her stumbling out of danger.

“W-why are you—”

“Acceleration.”

“Noooooo...”

Time around him stretched, affecting the shell. There, Eun-Ho stood alone beneath its shadow.

Swoosh—!

With careful precision, he carved open the steel casing, peeling it apart as if unwrapping a fruit. Then, with hands hardened by Petrify, he gathered the deadly powder within and hurled it back beyond the mud wall.

“Blade Wind!”

[You have activated the skill, Flame Burst(Lv. 1)!]

His Blade Wind even carried sparks with it.

Tick!

Yeon Bo-Ra’s voice cracked as her perspective snapped back to normal. “W-what?!”

Babababam—!

The sky lit up as the shell detonated far above, shaking the battlefield.

I told you. I’m pretty strong.