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After all, most beliefs are meant to be broken.

Trust, from the beginning, was always a rare commodity that seldom rewarded those who gave it.

If that weren’t the case, the word betrayal wouldn’t even exist, so it was only natural that the inevitable had come.

It wasn’t exactly a new occurrence, but a bitter taste lingered in the girl’s mouth.

Her green eyes scanned the lifeless body lying before her.

It was a woman’s corpse, one she was all too familiar with.

A childhood friend with whom she had spent her early years, the very person she had relied on during the most perilous moments, had just been killed by her own blade.

In this hellish place devoid of law and morality, childhood was synonymous with the time when you were the weakest.

A friend who had been her solace through harsh training and constant threats from enemies who sought her life.

Perhaps that’s why she had been too soft.

She had known for some time that her friend was up to something suspicious but hadn’t questioned it.

She didn’t want to believe that her only friend had betrayed her.

Maybe she was simply too afraid to hear the truth, running away from reality like a coward.

In the end, she had to pay the price for being a coward.

Her friend’s betrayal led to the exposure of their hideout, and in that moment, the girl had no choice but to kill the enemy closest to her.

The image of her friend’s face, blood pouring from her mouth, was not easy to forget.

Had their eyes met at the last moment? She couldn’t quite remember. Suddenly, the girl felt a tightness in her chest.

At times like this, it was almost better to feel physical pain.

‘Get a grip, do you really have the luxury of idle thoughts right now?’

Should she consider this a blessing?

It was all too easy for the girl to cause herself pain.

All it took was a little movement.

Her thin leg took a step forward.

Even with just that slight motion, a sharp pain shot through her thigh. It was from a wound she had received earlier.

Blood trickled down her leg, soaking her clothes, which clung to her skin in an irritating manner.

“Are you going to continue?”

Her glance caught sight of three men.

The man at the front had a mocking smile on his face.

Just a while ago, the girl had slashed at that man’s chest.

It wasn’t very deep. She had aimed for his neck but failed, resulting in a fierce counterattack.

Thanks to that, the girl was still bleeding from several parts of her body.

She hadn’t sustained any fatal injuries yet.

But the difficulty of moving was increasing, and her breathing was becoming strangely labored, possibly due to the blood loss.

“Why don’t we just make this easy? At this point, it seems like you’re not even fighting the boss but rather playing around with us.”

“Yeah, if that’s the case, you should’ve said so earlier.”

The men acted as if they had already captured the girl.

They made crude jokes, spouting obscene remarks as if they wanted her to hear.

But the girl didn’t pay much attention to their words.

It wasn’t the first time she had been threatened like this.

Living in Requitas, one would hear threats like “We’ll kill the men and rape the women” at least once a week.

Somewhere else, there might be people who spoke the opposite, but here, such threats were common.

Yes. Their words were of no consequence.

In fact, their stupidity was almost pitiable.

These men had probably only ever encountered prostitutes in the southern pleasure district, yet they seemed to believe that all women were embarrassed by such vulgarities.

However, despite their stupidity and vulgarity, the real problem was that their skills couldn’t be underestimated.

‘Their coordination is too tricky...’

The training she had undergone so far did not betray the girl. With her skills, she could at least take down one of them.

But there were three enemies, and their coordination hinted at experience.

Coordination—it meant they weren’t just thugs relying on brute strength.

‘Then they must be mercenaries...’

The most frequent visitors to Requitas were usually mercenaries.

This lawless land was close to the frontlines where they were in conflict with demonic forces.

There was a reason why vast amounts of gold flowed into this insignificant city.

Being a mercenary was a well-paying job.

But whether one would survive the next battlefield to actually receive that payment was uncertain.

Since wealth was useless if you died, many of them lived recklessly.

Mercenaries who had received their pay would spend their time indulging in the lawless zone.

When their money ran out, they would head back to the battlefield, and Requitas would periodically bribe the surrounding nobles.

The bribes would then be used to pay the surviving mercenaries.

That’s why, besides the simple-minded thugs, there were often seasoned mercenaries in Requitas.

Some of the visitors, realizing how profitable the business here was, chose to stay.

Those men must be one of those cases. This time, the usual empty threats might actually become a reality.

‘If things become impossible, I’ll have to take my own life.’

If she were captured like this, the girl would become nothing more than a war trophy.

She had never heard of any family members of rival bosses being treated well in Requitas.

The most comfortable ending was death, but even then, they often mutilated the body as a lesson to others.

If she couldn’t preserve her honor after death, she at least had to avoid the disgrace she would face while alive.

Just as the girl steeled herself, the men’s swords began to close in on her throat again.

Despite their crude jokes, they didn’t leave any openings.

The girl tried swinging her sword several times, but each time, they blocked it and counterattacked.

The more their swords clashed, the more apparent it became. There was a significant power gap between the girl and them.

By now, the girl couldn’t deny it. The only reason she was still alive was that they hadn’t killed her yet.

Their goal wasn’t to kill her but to capture her alive, which was the only reason she could resist at all.

But that luck seemed to be running out.

“This is getting annoying. When you think about it, you don’t really need both arms, do you?”

The attack intensified immediately. As the men pressed harder, the girl had no choice but to retreat.

She couldn’t even attempt a counterattack, and the narrow alleyways of the slums didn’t give her much room to maneuver.

How many minutes had passed?

No, had it even been a few minutes?

It wasn’t a long exchange. When she blocked their swords, a kick would follow, and if she dodged the kick, a cut would appear on her arm.

When she came to her senses, the girl was battered and cornered.

There was no more room to retreat. She desperately fought back.

The result wasn’t good. One of the men’s swords stabbed into the girl’s side.

“Ugh!”

“Damn, that was a mistake. I think I went too deep.”

It was a fatal wound. Intense pain and weakness enveloped the girl’s entire body.

The strength in her arms vanished in an instant, and her body staggered.

One of the mercenaries didn’t miss the opportunity. The girl’s sword was taken from her, and her hair was grabbed.

Despair spread across the girl’s face.

Regret surged within her. She should have slit her own throat the moment she was cornered.

The mercenary drew back his arm as if to slap her.

If his palm had connected, it would have left a bright red mark on her cheek, but his intention was thwarted.

A hatchet suddenly flew out of nowhere and lodged directly into his head.

“Guh?”

“What the hell?!”

The mercenaries, though flustered, quickly assumed a defensive stance, while the girl, now forgotten, collapsed to the ground.

She frantically scanned her surroundings. Her pretty green eyes seemed to whirl.

Beyond the corpses, a man in black clothing had approached within arm’s reach.

He had a rugged appearance. For a moment, his black attire fluttered, and then, in an instant, he decapitated one of the mercenaries.

Having wielded a sword herself, the girl could recognize it immediately.

It was an astonishingly beautiful sword stroke. The act of drawing the sword from his waist alone was a technique that sliced through the mercenary’s body.

For a brief moment, she glimpsed the unrealistically smooth cut, before the two halves of the corpse collapsed to the ground.

The last remaining mercenary fared no better.

The man strode over and grabbed the mercenary by the neck, lifting him off the ground.

A faint smile played on the man’s lips.

“Now that I’m up close, I can tell. You must’ve only just started using the drug? I was wondering why there wasn’t any stench of blood from afar.”

Crunch!

The mercenary’s neck snapped as if by magic.

It was the mercenary’s end, leaving not a single word behind.

Was a human neck really something that could be twisted so easily?

Even a chicken’s neck wouldn’t break that easily. The girl swallowed hard.

Time stretched, every moment feeling eternal. Three lifeless bodies lay sprawled on the ground, and finally, the man turned and looked at the girl.

She saw his dark black hair and piercing blue eyes.

The moment their eyes met, the girl felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“Gasp...”

To the girl, the man seemed to embody death itself.

It was a rough and ferocious death. His mere presence seemed to evoke a primal fear deep within her.

She clenched her toes so hard that she curled them up, fearing she might lose control of herself otherwise.

No amount of coarse insults or threats she had heard so far could compare to the terror of the man’s gaze.

Death scanned her up and down, then tilted his head slightly to the side.

That gesture made him seem like a predator contemplating whether to devour its prey, causing the girl’s fingers to tremble once more.

Then, death spoke. His deep voice resonated as if it was reverberating inside her mind.

“You’re badly hurt. What’s your name?”

“Isha... My name is Isha.”

“Isha? Are you the Isha of the Crescent Moon?”

“I... I didn’t hear you well, but yes, my name is Isha.”

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