He crouched, tongue pressed to his teeth, energy crackling.
He exploded.
The first got a sword to the guard and a headbutt to the nose—blood, fast and hot, sprayed across the ring. Haneul cackled, wild and bright.
Second came at him—Haneul slid, grabbed an ankle, yanked, then stomped his chest flat as he fell. The third, smarter, tried for stealth—came from behind. Too late.
Haneul spun, braid arcing, frost trailing like a comet’s tail, and leapt, disarmed him mid-air. The weapon clattered to the sand. The third stumbled back, gaping.
Haneul tossed his blade down—a careless gesture, a warning—then panted, sweating, chest heaving beneath the thin jeogori, face radiant, skin glistening, power humming like a living thing.
“Train harder,” he growled, voice raw.
“Or die faster.”
No one spoke. Not even the Fire King.
The boy stood alone in the circle, surroundedby the bruised and the broken, a miracle carved in frost and arrogance. He looked to Seungho, not for approval, not for pride, but as if daring the world to come and take what he’d claimed.
And then—
It ended as it had begun.
He shrugged off the moment, wiped sweat from his brow with a disdainful flick, flicked snowdust from his heel with a sniff, and strode out of the ring. His steps left trails of white on sun-warmed stone. He didn’t strut. He dismissed the entire Fire Clan with one wave of a blood-slicked hand.
“Your soldiers are… pathetic?” His voice rang through the yard, light, lilting, dismissive. “No wonder my clan kept winning the battles…”
He scoffed—LOUD—a sound so arrogant even the crows took flight.
Seungho stood at the yard’s edge, arms crossed, chest heaving from more than just the sight of violence. Molten heat crawled through his veins. His eyes were locked on Haneul, half-glowing, sweat-slick, alive in a way that no one in the yard could name.
Haneul stopped in front of him.
Looked up.
Brows furrowed.
“What?”
A tilt of the head, confusion honest, open, pure.
“Did you have a stroke?”
Seungho blinked.
Haneul poked him in the chest, hard, twice.
“Hey. Stop standing there like a hibernating mountain bear and let’s go eat something—”
A beat, a pause, and then—indignant, as if he hadn't just turned the Fire King’s yard into a holy battlefield:
“I was… RAVENOUS.”
His voice echoed through the stunned silence, bounced off the walls, made the broken soldiers wince.
And finally, Seungho laughed.
Low, slow, rough—
