Several strict procedures were required to pass the Confirmation Sacrament and become a Master of a Sword Style.
First was a trial to prove one’s mastery of the Sword Style through strength before the family’s Masters.
*Clack.*
Along with the sound of a mechanism activating, the largest of three sandglasses, which were intricately intertwined like clockwork, flipped over and began to run.
“It has begun.”
Neither breath nor sound, not even a wisp of vapor, escaped Sien’s mouth.
At that moment, a shadow that had been silent in the darkness moved.
*Whoosh!*
The figure’s appearance was obscured by a La Bauta mask and a black cloak. However, there was no way Sien could fail to recognize that messy, blood-red hair.
“My, you’ve grown quite a lot since I last saw you.”
The voice was as playful as ever. The man was Vigo’s godfather, Mikhail Nightwalker.
“To think you are already claiming to be a Master of the First Style.”
Sien did not answer. His opponent was not here for a leisurely conversation either.
*Swish!*
Deathly spiderwebs swirled from all directions, tightening around Sien. It was as if a spider were weaving a nest to hunt its prey.
Just as Sien was undergoing the trial using only the Pose of the Wraith to prove his mastery of the First Style, the Masters facing him could only use the single Sword Style they had mastered.
The stance Mikhail unleashed was the Seventh Style.
Additionally, the Seventh Style was one of the three Sword Styles that the Family Head, Laila, wielded as a Grandmaster.
“Black Widow Stance.”
On the surface, it appeared similar to the Net Spider Stance that his Big Brother Vigo had previously used. After all, the Net Spider Stance was a derivative of the Seventh Style.
True to its name, a practitioner of the Seventh Style did not use a sword. Instead, they used clothing woven from special fibers as a weapon, imbuing them with aura to spin threads of death.
Furthermore, the Black Widow Stance was not a technique specialized for rear support like the Net Spider Stance. It was a killing Sword Style designed to ensnare and devour prey with one’s own hands.
It was the sword of an Assassin.
However, Sien was no longer the immature Sien of the past. Like Mikhail, he was a proper member of the family who had mastered a Sword Style and requested the Confirmation Sacrament.
No, he was more than that.
‘I will target the intersections of the threads.’
Despite the deathly spiderwebs coiling around him from all directions, Sien remained calm and motionless.
‘The web collapses just by cutting a single intersection point that serves as an axis.’
He was simply calculating the most certain way to dismantle the Seventh Style in his head.
It was easy to say. However, identifying the structure and finding the vulnerabilities of a web while hundreds and thousands of threads tangled together to choke one’s neck was by no means easy. It was even more difficult when the opponent was a Master of that specific Sword Style.
Nonetheless, Sien’s sword swung.
The weave of the spiderweb, which should have been tightly knit, unraveled. It was perfectly precise.
Sien’s attack did not stop there. Destroying the web was not enough. Unless he targeted the spider itself—the practitioner of the Seventh Style—the web would endlessly regenerate.
*Clang!*
The distance closed.
Just as Laila had done before, Mikhail’s cloak deflected Sien’s **[Kingslayer]**.
A whistling sound echoed every time the hem of the cloak danced. Before he knew it, the collapsed spiderweb had been reconstructed, restricting Sien’s movements like a heavenly net.
‘As expected, it’s not easy.’
His opponent wasn’t claiming to be a Master of the Seventh Style for no reason.
Moreover, as long as he was undergoing the Confirmation Sacrament, Sien could not use any techniques or magic other than the First Style, nor could he borrow the power of equipment like artifacts.
“Next.”
At that moment, the voice of the Family Head, Laila, rang out.
Soon, Mikhail’s movements, which had been pressing Sien, stopped. Likewise, Sien’s sword, which was about to strike the intersection of the spiderwebs again, also halted.
Of course, this did not mean the trial was over.
The Master of the Seventh Style, Mikhail, stepped back with a polite bow. Silence descended.
In the midst of the darkness and silence, another shadow rushed in.
At a glance, it was an ordinary swordsmanship with no notable characteristics. Sien was well aware of what that signified.
‘Thorn Stance.’
The opponent was a Master who practiced the family’s ritualistic technique, the Thorn Stance.
True to its name, it was a technique that involved replacing some of the 206 bones in the human body with “blade bones” and ejecting them.
No matter how much one’s posture was broken or how many openings were exposed, it was an optimal defensive Sword Style that could still respond. At the same time, the fear of not knowing where a “bone blade” might pop out from the body was the greatest strength of this stance.
*Zip!*
As proof of that, as soon as the opponent parried a normal sword strike, they moved their fingers toward Sien.
It was a mere flick of a finger.
However, a blade bone was fired from the tip of that flicking finger.
Literally, a finger bone was fired like a crossbow bolt. As soon as Sien hurriedly twisted his body, the pressure continued with “ordinary swordsmanship” once again.
At the point of closing the distance to clash swords, one could never know where another blade might emerge from the body. Even if the distance was widened as it had been just now, it was possible to eject them in the form of bullets.
One of the techniques of the Thorn Stance, **[Finger Bullet]**.
‘There is no way to know where the blade will emerge.’
Under that pressure, the ordinary swordsmanship being displayed was no longer ordinary.
“Next.”
After exchanging several blows like that, Laila’s voice rang out again.
Sien and the Master of the Fifth Style stopped their movements. The Master of the Fifth Style bowed and withdrew.
Only a small portion of the sand in the hourglass had fallen.
This was a venue to prove one’s mastery of the Sword Style through strength before the family’s Masters.
In the silence, another shadow rushed in.
*Clang!*
A sword strike laden with power that was incomparable to the previous ones.
There was no finesse or trickery involved. There was no need for such things.
It wasn’t even a concept of exchanging offense and defense. It was a sensation of being unilaterally overwhelmed by force, as if falling toward a bottomless abyss.
Sixth Style, Naraka Stance — .
True to its name, every time he parried an attack, a crushing pressure surged as if the ground beneath his feet were collapsing.
**[Naraka Slash]**
Furthermore, this stance was one of the three Sword Styles that Sien had mastered as a Grandmaster in the future. Therefore, he knew the way to dismantle this stance more clearly than anyone.
It was to not parry the first strike.
To refuse to engage.
That was the most certain way to deal with the Naraka Stance, which sought to crush the opponent with strength and trap them in a quagmire.
However, the swords had already clashed.
Theoretically, from the moment the swords met, there was no escape from a Master performing the Naraka Stance. It was effectively Sien’s defeat.
Nevertheless, Sien did not waver.
This was because the opponent before him was by no means a “Master in the true sense.”
They had merely passed the family’s Confirmation Sacrament and gained approval at the negotiating table; they were nothing more and nothing less. Of course, even that was no easy feat, but that was as far as it went.
*Grind.*
Because of this, the sword of the Master, which should have been driving the attack relentlessly to plunge the opponent into the abyss, faltered for a moment.
This was because Sien’s figure there felt as fleeting as a phantom.
**[Su-wol]**
Moon in the Water. True to its name, it was a technique to deceive the opponent of one’s own existence.
It was a deceptive technique that the Pose of the Wraith took pride in.
It was the ultimate shield that made one invisible even when seen and inaudible even when heard, preventing even the strongest from easily landing an attack.
Of course, there was no one among the Nightwalker family who did not know the Pose of the Wraith. The technique Sien had just performed was no exception.
The deception was only for a split second and would not last long. Even for Sien, who sought to become a Master of the First Style, this was no exception.
But that was enough.
The movement that had been falling into the abyss was liberated.
His body was light. His two feet were free.
And there was no need to face the Naraka Stance head-on as it tried to strike him down again.
“Next.”
The voice rang out once more.
The Master of the Sixth Style, who had regained his posture and was about to attack again, stopped his movements and withdrew.
“Huff, huff…”
In that gap, Sien also caught his breath and composed himself.
A Simultaneous Match.
It was a format where one player competed against multiple opponents at the same time.
Furthermore, Sien’s opponents were by no means inferior to him in skill. In fact, in terms of their current stage of cultivation, they were actually above him.
To prove one’s strength by continuously facing those Masters.
As the Master of the Sixth Style withdrew, a new Master appeared before Sien.
After a brief rest, Sien also regained his posture.
This was only the beginning.
***
By the time the dusk that had faded into the western sky rose again as the dawn of the eastern sky.
*Clang!*
The whistling sound still echoed.
With ragged breathing, a blood-soaked body, and a wretched appearance that was unrecognizable compared to the start, Sien was still there.
Sien’s opponent was Mikhail, the Master of the Seventh Style he had first faced.
However, Mikhail’s demeanor as he pressed Sien was full of composure throughout. He did not expose the weaknesses of his spiderweb as easily as he had at first, nor did he allow any attacks.
‘It has to be that way.’
The Masters facing Sien could take turns to preserve their stamina and rest.
They could even calmly review their own battles while resting, or observe Sien to memorize his unique movements and habits.
However, the candidate for the trial, Sien, was different.
He was not allowed any rest and had to continuously expose his own combat style, unilaterally giving information to his opponents.
The Confirmation Sacrament was merely a negotiating table to gain the family’s consent. There was no way in the world to mathematically quantify or measure whether one had truly reached the pinnacle of a Sword Style.
Therefore, this was the way to gain the Nightwalker family’s “consent.”
‘I will target the intersections of the threads.’
His legs were trembling. Even so, he could not fall. Nothing would change.
*Zip!*
No matter how advantageous the opponent was or how disadvantageous he was, it remained the same. Unless he proved it, he could not obtain the family’s consent.
Mikhail’s spiderweb, which had been surrounding Sien without a single gap, collapsed.
“!”
It happened far more pointlessly than imagined.
‘Did he… let me win on purpose?’
Realizing the meaning, Sien wore a bitter smile.
“That is enough.”
It was at that moment Laila’s voice rang out.
“Mikhail, you have forgotten the rules of the Sacrament.”
“There’s no way that’s the case.”
“There’s no way your spiderweb would collapse so pointlessly, is there?”
At Laila’s words, Mikhail shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.
“Hmm, I was fighting quite hard, you know.”
“Is that so?”
“I came back from the fight and found my house had collapsed.”
Mikhail said in his usual playful tone.
*Tick.*
It was at that same moment the last grain of the mountain-like sandglass fell.
Initially, three sandglasses were set in the room.
However, Sien had only exhausted one sandglass so far.
“Prepare the Highmaster’s trial.”
Laila spoke, leaving the wound-covered Sien behind.
Her voice was cold, devoid of even a trace of emotion.
She was desperately hiding her faintly trembling fingertips.
***
The trial of the Highmasters was a bit different.
Unlike the previous Masters who could only use the Sword Style they had mastered, a Highmaster could not use the family’s Sword Style, nor any techniques derived from it.
What they displayed was not the family’s swordsmanship.
The Stance of the Twin-headed Eagle used by Imperial Knights, the Fleur-de-lis Stance favored by the knights of the Charlemagne Kingdom, the Red Rose Stance of the Archipelago of Seven Kingdoms, and so on…
It was the swords of their enemies.
It was to see how well one could deal with the family’s enemies that overflowed in this world.
His legs were trembling, and his entire body was in pain. His vision was stained with blood, making it impossible to see clearly. His body creaked and screamed.
Furthermore, his opponents were the family’s greatest powers, the Highmasters.
Even if they didn’t use the family’s Sword Styles and adjusted their strength appropriately, the sheer quality of their refined movements was on a different level from that of the Masters.
There was no way it could be easy.
At the same time, every time he parried their swordsmanship, an unwavering conviction bloomed in Sien’s chest.
‘As I thought, our family’s swordsmanship is the strongest.’
The conviction that no stance in this world could ever be a match for the Nightwalker family.
‘I won’t fall from just this.’
No, he couldn’t fall.
Sien prided himself on having fought against the swords of enemies more than anyone else. Even more than all the Highmasters before his eyes combined.
Therefore, he would not let go of the sword in his hand until the very end.
**[Kingslayer]**, the obsidian blade that would one day be driven into the heart of a king, true to its name.
*Tick.*
The sound eventually echoed.
It was the sound of the last grain of sand falling in the sandglass.
Of the three sandglasses, the second had now flipped over.
The only one remaining was the final sandglass.
It wasn’t even one-tenth of the size of the first sandglass.
It was one-hundredth.
He wiped away the blood obstructing his vision and steadied his breathing. Whipping his exhausted, blood-stained body, he regained his posture once more. The final sandglass began to move.
At the same time, Laila’s voice rang out.
“**[Eternal Night]** — .”
It was one of the ultimate techniques that only those who had mastered the Pose of the Wraith and understood its profound truth could use.
The eternal night swallowed Sien’s world.