Ever since he’d been dragged into this novel, Ruvian hadn’t once tested his swordplay in earnest. Not when the stakes reached past pride and into blood or death.
The previous encounter with Ardyn had been different; it was a problem solved through spacing, communication, and calculated risk. A coordinated skirmish where knowledge mattered more than instinct. But this… this was stripped of all that. Just him, a blade, and the sharp edge of consequence.
The masked attacker pressed forward, twin daggers slicing arcs through the dim lounge air with terrifying efficiency, but Ruvian matched him as well. He didn’t parry for show, didn’t move unless it mattered. His sword—Mountain of Light—danced with purpose, never wide, and never wasteful.
And the wind moved with him.
A short spell, casted around his heel, sent a focused current surging just enough to propel him sideways. Barely a foot, but enough to let a dagger slide past his ribs instead of through them.
Another spell chanted, this one at his lower back, gave his next lunge a burst of speed. An angular motion that twisted his whole torso mid-thrust, turning a basic strike into something unpredictable.
It wasn’t elegant. But it was effective since Ruvian remembered all the incarnations perfectly, he even had 'Write That Down' to help him.
His Tier II Spellcore now passively regenerated mana, but the stream was slow, unfamiliar, and not yet part of him in the way it would eventually become.
He didn't have the perfect time to practice the Conceptual method yet, but he already had accumulated enough knowledge and logic to perform it. But to avoid recklessness, he intermittently switched between Mantramancer's method and Ideomancer's method.
Because it's kind of difficult for him to cast with Ideomancer's method as he still had to think about every draw, and had to feel the strain building behind each cast.
There was also no margin for brute force, no wellspring to abuse. So instead, he rationed his magic. Each spell shaped with narrow intent, each surge of power held just long enough to matter and no more.
With a sharp flick of his wrist, Ruvian knocked one of the twin daggers from the masked assassin’s grip, the weapon clattering against the floor. It was a small victory but not an undeserved one.
Most of his stats had been carefully redistributed through the [Character Stats Customization] screen a few days ago, and while he could certainly feel the difference, that wasn’t the main reason he could match this enemy strike for strike.
‘Well, the truth was simpler.’
He got a boost from the Mountain of Light’s enchantment, and also because…
Their movements were hollow, their instincts too mechanical. Their attacks, though executed with precision, lacked the fluid unpredictability of a true fighter.
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Ruvian’s gaze fell to the featureless mask of his opponent as their blades separated once more. There were no lines or ornamentation on it. Just a smooth shell of bone-white porcelain, with vacant eye sockets and no hint of thought or emotion behind them.
In the novel, they had been called the Puppets of the Faceless Circle, tools stripped of identity and turned into instruments of murder. They didn’t breathe rage, didn’t express pain, didn’t falter under pressure. That, paradoxically, was their weakness. They moved in clean, predictable patterns—efficient, but easy to read if one paid attention.
The real threat with them, as he recalled, only emerged in numbers… when their dead coordination turned into a swarm without ego, moving in harmony.
His eyes flicked sideways, brief but telling. Silvena was still dancing with the help of the winds through her own engagement, utterly composed amidst three opponents.
One of them, limbs twisted unnaturally, was already pinned to the wall like some grotesque decoration. The remaining two circled her mindlessly and somehow… she didn’t seem pressed at all. If anything, she moved with theatrical leisure.
Ruvian understood why. Silvena can end it if she wanted to. But she decided not to. Because she wasn’t testing them.
She was testing him, in fact.
‘Haaa, I would have hoped she can just settle all of this now and help me but instead, she wants to see how I fight… and how much of an asset I am to her.’
Ruvian smiled faintly under his masquerade mask, a slow, private smile reserved for truths that only made sense to him. Of course she would. This was the Silvena he knew from the novel.
‘Fine, I’ll play to her rhythm.’
Then, with a sharp breath and a sudden pivot, Ruvian launched into the next exchange—his Mountain of Light, sweeping in a crescent as he ducked beneath an overhead slash.
He had already deciphered the puppet’s pattern, broken it down into frames, and in that moment, he struck not where the opponent was, but where it had to be next. With one fluid motion, the head dropped before the body did.
A clean severance of life from form. (+50PP)
Even as the corpse collapsed in a boneless heap, Ruvian remained where he stood, letting the moment breathe while he reclaimed his own.
The fight had almost exhausted him. His gaze drifted sideways. Silvena was still in motion, her lithe form weaving between attacks with grace. It was only now that Ruvian truly saw how she fought.
‘Hmm, each lash of her whip flows in a tune. Even her footsteps are light. She looks almost like… an experienced dancer.’
Ruvian decided not to dwell on the feeling. Then, as if sensing that he was watching her… Silvena ended her fight. The final two puppets fell in the same breath, her whip moved in a blinding arc as wind spells coiled around it.
With one flick, the silence reclaimed the lounge as the bodies dropped dead on the floor.
She wasn't even sweating. Silvena turned toward him, emerald eyes glittering beneath her mask. She tilted her head. “Oh wow, you’re not as rusty as I feared.” she said with a lilt that bordered on amusement.
Her smile widened, just a touch.
“Either way, today’s date is fun~!"
Ruvian wanted to frown, but suddenly he recalled...
‘Normally, where there are Puppets, there is always a Puppeteer.’
Ruvian thought. It was a simple rule, one he’d remembered too late.
His eyes followed the faint shift in Silvena’s gaze, angling downward toward the main stage.
A solitary figure cloaked in mystery, stood still, half-shrouded by the curtain’s velvet shadow. Wearing a sharply tailored suit, the silhouette might have passed for any highborn attendee if not for one detail… his face bore the same porcelain mask as the Puppets, smooth and bone-pale, save for a single marking carved just above the brow.
Then, the figure simply receded behind the curtain, vanished.
Ruvian’s gaze dropped to the corpses at his feet. But already, the word “corpse” felt misplaced. The lifeless bodies were now unraveling. Threads of dark mana peeled from their skin like vapor.
Their limbs, bones, and weapons melted into silence, until nothing remained but scatterings of pale-gray ash, crumbling softly against the lounge’s polished floor—
...Like they were never truly alive to begin with.
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