It happened almost simultaneously.
The moment Li Qingwei answered the question, a blade lunged out of the darkness, aiming for the back of Lee Mon’s neck.
It was a perfect assassination attempt.
It was a swift, silent, and secret strike — a blow of death that would have ended the life of even a high-level Player before they realized they were dying.
*Clack.*
“…!”
But just before the blade could sever his neck, Chao — the masked man in martial arts attire who had materialized from the void — froze.
His sword was mere millimeters from Lee Mon’s neck.
However, the tip of the blade was caught firmly between two outstretched fingers.
“The Void Advancement Sword Style — it’s a good sword style. Among the Seventy-Two Martial Arts, it’s considered one of the finest masterpieces of stealth.”
Lee Mon spoke in a languid voice.
He didn’t turn his head, nor did he pull his own sword away from Li Qingwei’s throat.
He had caught Chao’s blade simply by reaching one hand behind him.
“But that only applies when a sneak attack actually works.”
The point of an assassination was to remain undetected.
Conversely, no matter how great the swordsmanship, it was meaningless against an opponent who already knew it was coming.
If there wasn’t a certain opening, it was far better to face the enemy head-on rather than attempt a clumsy ambush.
As if teaching a deficient disciple, Lee Mon pointed out Chao’s mistake and lowered his voice.
“If you want to use the Void Advancement Sword Style for assassinations, go back and practice your pathetic stealth techniques first.”
Feeling humiliated at being lectured after his failed attempt, Chao gritted his teeth and twisted the sword.
It was an attack aimed at the fingers holding the blade.
Unless his fingers were made of cast iron, he wouldn’t be able to avoid getting cut, even if they weren’t severed completely.
‘What…?!’
But after twisting the sword, Chao could only stare in confusion.
Even though he had moved the blade, it remained caught between Lee Mon’s fingers.
It wasn’t that Lee Mon was forcefully gripping the sword; it was the opposite.
Before Chao could even twist the blade, Lee Mon had moved his fingers to avoid the edge.
That was only the beginning.
Whether Chao pushed, pulled, or swung the sword, Lee Mon’s fingers were always there, arriving at the sword’s next position first.
Even though Chao was the one holding the hilt, he felt a spine-chilling sensation as if the blade were moving according to Lee Mon’s will.
‘He’s reading my sword’s path!’
As if he didn’t even need to look, Lee Mon continued to stare at Li Qingwei while seeing through and blocking every move Chao made.
Trembling at the impossible situation, Chao hurried to change his tactics.
Instead of trying to outmaneuver Lee Mon in a complex battle of techniques, he decided to push his Psionic energy to its limit and channel it into the sword.
He believed that even Lee Mon wouldn’t be able to withstand his full power with just two fingers.
“Chao.”
But before he could even load the energy into his blade, Chao flinched and froze.
It wasn’t just because he was overwhelmed by an immense Psionic energy radiating from somewhere nearby.
It was a cold, icy voice — one that was incredibly familiar yet sounded utterly foreign — that stopped him in his tracks.
“Who said you could point a sword at my husband?”
The girl stopped Chao with a single sentence.
Li Qingwei looked at Chao with eyes that had sunk into a darkness as deep as the night.
Ignoring the blade still pressed against her own neck, she raised her slender, jade-like hand and lightly flicked her fingertips.
The movement was the pinnacle of beauty.
It was an elegant gesture, like a single move from a classic dance, performed so slowly it looked as if it couldn’t even catch a fly.
But the result was anything but elegant.
*Thump! Boom, crash!*
Chao was sent flying backward as if struck by an invisible giant.
He smashed through a display cabinet and slammed into the wall, coughing up a mouthful of blood.
He wasn’t just unconscious; he was severely injured, to the point where his life might be at risk.
Yet, Li Qingwei didn’t even bat an eye at the sight.
“This time, you didn’t just cross the line; you forgot your place.”
Regardless of whether he was an enemy of the Seven Dragons Association in the past or if he was currently holding a sword to her throat, Lee Mon was the man who would be betrothed to her, the Princess of the Black Dragon Clan.
Attacking him without her permission was an unpardonable overstepping of authority and an act of reckless insubordination.
Li Qingwei followed her explanation with a command.
“Chao, from this moment on, you are dismissed from your position as my personal guard. Retire and remain in self-reflection until I call for you again.”
“Prin…cess…”
Chao managed to open his mouth while coughing up blood, seemingly more shocked by his dismissal than by the blow that had sent him flying.
However, Li Qingwei didn’t give him a chance to explain.
She simply stared at him with her obsidian-like eyes and asked softly.
“Are you going to make me say the same thing twice?”
“…!”
Chao flinched and trembled.
But it was only for a moment.
Staggering as he rose to his feet, Chao sheathed his sword.
He then placed one fist over his palm in a respectful salute and spoke in a trembling voice.
“I… obey your command.”
*Swish.*
Chao vanished as if melting into the shadows.
Perhaps it was his final bit of pride that compelled him to use his stealth technique to withdraw, despite his internal organs being so mangled that even moving was agony.
Or perhaps he simply didn’t want his beloved Princess to see him in such a pathetic state.
Li Qingwei didn’t bother to wonder about the reason.
She simply turned back to Lee Mon with a look of apology.
“I’m sorry for the trouble. Chao is far too rigid and doesn’t know the meaning of flexibility.”
Chao had just been beaten and dismissed, and a blade was still pressed against her own throat, yet she acted as if the whole thing were a minor hiccup — or as if she couldn’t even see Lee Mon’s sword.
She looked so bashful that it was hard to believe she was the same person who had coldly struck down her subordinate moments ago.
Lee Mon watched her with a strange expression.
He spoke tentatively.
“Aren’t you a bit too merciless with your inner circle? He looked pretty devastated.”
The Seventy-Two Martial Arts weren’t common techniques.
They were the supreme secret arts of the Seven Dragons Association, which only those who had undergone rigorous vetting for talent, character, and loyalty could even hope to learn.
If someone had mastered them at such a young age, they were the elite of the elite within the association.
For such a person to be her bodyguard meant they were a confidant she could trust with her life.
To dismiss such talent in an instant was enough to make even Lee Mon, the target of the assassination attempt, feel a bit uneasy.
“Hmm, I suppose I was a bit harsh.”
She could have just scolded him, but she admitted that hitting him was a bit much.
Li Qingwei nodded to herself, muttering under her breath.
“If you knew that, why did you do it?”
Lee Mon found her easy admission almost absurd.
Li Qingwei’s answer was simple.
“Because if I hadn’t done that, you would have cut Chao down yourself, wouldn’t you, Sword Master?”
It was better to be in a little pain than to be dead.
And if he could use this incident to fix his rigid personality, it would be killing two birds with one stone.
Lee Mon scratched his cheek after hearing her bright explanation.
“Well, that’s true.”
It was no exaggeration.
The moment Chao had begun to gather his Psionic energy, Lee Mon had slightly adjusted the position of his fingers — specifically to cut Chao’s throat.
If Li Qingwei had been a moment later in her intervention, Chao’s head would have rolled regardless of his full-power strike.
In that sense, her ability to sense his killing intent was basic; her response in punishing Chao and making him retreat was impressive even to Lee Mon.
If she had tried to get away with a half-hearted gesture of mercy, Lee Mon wouldn’t have let it slide.
“But Princess, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What would that be?”
The only problem with her response was the one detail she had ignored.
Tapping her snowy-white neck with the tip of his blade, Lee Mon spoke coldly.
“It’s all well and good that you saved your subordinate, but the fact remains that your own head could fly off at any second.”
When he had asked if she was the mastermind who had moved Lee Chun-gi to oppose him and plotted the conspiracy to corner Yu Na-kyung, Li Qingwei had admitted it calmly.
She had confessed this to Lee Mon, a man who had stormed the Blue House and fought the Sovereign of Infinity just to collect a blood debt.
That alone was reason enough for Lee Mon to cut her down.
Since he already had a blade to her throat, it was only natural for Chao, as her guard, to attack.
“Before you take my head, may I offer a few explanations?”
However, Li Qingwei showed no sign of fear.
She simply requested a chance to explain herself.
“What kind of explanation?”
“I want to tell you in detail exactly how we brought about your downfall.”
Lee Mon was momentarily speechless.
She wasn’t some villain from an old story.
To explain the method of his downfall to the victim himself?
And to do so while a sword was at her throat was truly astounding.
“Do you think I’m going to listen to that?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you so certain?”
“Because you came here to collect a blood debt, Sword Master.”
Hearing her answer, Lee Mon couldn’t help but furrow his brow.
“You said it yourself, didn’t you? The most important thing when collecting a blood debt is not to mistake the target.”
She seemed to believe without a shred of doubt that Lee Mon — who had confirmed his debt by shaking down everyone from the Seven Dragons Association to the Sovereign of Infinity — would never refuse her a chance to explain.
With a beaming face, Li Qingwei smiled.
Lee Mon glared at her with narrowed eyes before finally snapping.
“Start talking.”
His irritation was palpable.
However, since it was a clear acceptance, Li Qingwei opened her mouth with a faint smile.
“As you know, our Seven Dragons Association has spent a long time trying to spread the teachings of our founder.”
That was the purpose of the Seven Dragons Association.
It was a centuries-old faith and obsession: to recreate the utopia once ruled by the seven dragons.
“But every time we tried, we were blocked by you, and unfortunately, we lacked the strength to overcome the Sword Master.”
Lee Mon was the one who had always stood in their way.
He was an absolute being who never lost and never compromised.
Neither bribes, nor beautiful women, nor enticements, nor persuasion, nor pressure, nor negotiations, nor hostages worked on this monster who never aged or died.
To the Seven Dragons Association, Lee Mon’s existence was nothing short of a nightmare.
“However, when the Constellations appeared thirty-two years ago, someone made a suggestion. If we can’t defeat the Sword Master, why don’t we just… not defeat him?”
“What are you talking about?”
Not defeating him because they couldn’t?
Lee Mon looked at her with an absurd expression, as if he were listening to someone claim a mental victory.
But instead of answering his question directly, Li Qingwei smiled and asked him back.
“Have you never thought it strange, Sword Master?”
“What?”
“Dungeons are places of immense vested interest. It wouldn’t be strange at all if international conflicts broke out over their ownership.”
“Why are you stating the obvious now?”
“But has any such conflict ever escalated into an actual war?”
At those words, Lee Mon’s face instinctively hardened.
In this Iron Age, dungeons were the geese that laid golden eggs.
They were infinite mountains of treasure where the number of a nation’s Players and the amount of dungeon byproducts were determined by how many dungeons they possessed.
They were valuable enough to start a war over a single border dungeon.
But as Li Qingwei said, there had never been a single war related to dungeons.
Realizing this fact anew, Lee Mon remained silent as Li Qingwei continued.
She acted as if this were only the beginning.
“Furthermore, Players are individuals who are easily intoxicated by power.”
“Among them, do you think there were truly no ambitious men who wanted to establish their own kingdom, or madmen who wanted to cause chaos for no reason?”
That was impossible.
Having worked as a PAB agent, Lee Mon knew. He knew just how many Players naturally committed outrageous acts while believing they were the protagonists of the world.
“In the past, after you defeated the Demon God, the dark mages abandoned their futile ambitions and went legitimate.”
“But do you believe every single dark mage truly disappeared? Do you believe not a single person tried to take advantage of the changing times to overturn the world once more?”
That was equally impossible.
Dark mages were those who used magic forbidden by the gods.
No matter how much they claimed to have gone legitimate, their very nature compelled them to defy providence and cause chaos.
“Despite all that, since the dawn of the Iron Age, there has never been a major war in the world.”
People of this era might think it’s natural.
They might think that because the world has become more prosperous and people have become more civilized, it’s only natural for wars to stop.
But Lee Mon, who had seen how ruthlessly ‘civilized’ people slaughtered ‘savages’ and how easily those in power started wars for the smallest of gains, knew better.
He knew exactly how strange this was.
“Do you think all of that was just a coincidence?”
When he saw Li Qingwei’s quiet smile, Lee Mon understood everything.
No, he had no choice but to understand.
“Hey, wait a minute.”
Lee Mon gasped as he realized the hidden meaning behind her words and the reason she was telling him this story.
“The way you brought about my downfall… was it really…!”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Seeing Lee Mon’s jaw drop in disbelief and utter shock, Li Qingwei smiled brightly.
“In order to bring about the Sword Master’s downfall, we did only one thing.”
They couldn’t defeat Lee Mon.
Therefore, they simply chose not to defeat him.
And the method was incredibly simple: they never gave him the opportunity to win.
It was a single conspiracy that had been carried out for thirty-two years.
The Princess of the Seven Dragons Association — an organization once feared and rejected as a demonic cult because they would stop at no massacre to overturn the world — made her cheerful confession.
“We used every ounce of the Seven Dragons Association’s power to protect world peace.”