A cool breeze drifted through the night, sending a few dry leaves skittering across the courtyard.
For some reason, the wind was unusually strong tonight.
Gu Chengming stood with wooden sword in hand, breath held, mind focused.
The Huiyuan Sword Art's reactions were still difficult to read — but there was at least one thing he could confirm.
And that was the use of Flowing Light, Sword Shadows.
He didn't draw on much spiritual energy. He simply reached inward, brushing against that newly formed circuit of power — unfamiliar, faintly alien in its texture.
It was a sensation of lightness, of something that flickered and leapt, as though it might slip right off his fingertips at any moment.
At the first stir of intent, the unremarkable wooden sword in his hand let out a sharp, ringing hum.
No earth-shaking display of force. No dazzling radiance.
Gu Chengming's figure seemed to stutter in place — like a single frame dropping out of a video.
An instant later, a sword-mark had already appeared on the bluestone ground three zhang away — thin as a thread, nearly swallowed whole by the moonlight.
After that faint sound, the afterimage left standing where he'd been slowly dissolved.
Impossibly fast. Even Gu Chengming himself felt a brief flash of disorientation.
[Flowing Light, Sword Shadows: CG Unlock Progress +5]
He hadn't even finished reading the small text that had appeared in his vision when that bright, cheerful voice rang out in his mind.
[Isn't it so much more impressive than that clumsy old version that could only teach you to swing a sword? ♪]
Gu Chengming glanced down at the wooden sword in his hand, then checked in with the suddenly half-drained feeling in his meridian core.
Impressive, certainly.
That single strike had moved at several times the speed of the Huiyuan Sword Art's original techniques. In an actual fight, it would be more than enough to catch an opponent completely flat-footed.
But the cost was brutal. One move had drained a full third of his mana. Three strikes without a kill and he'd have no choice but to lie down and take whatever was coming.
Meanwhile, the Hundred Bones Resonance — having witnessed the whole thing — had gone completely blank.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance thinks to itself: so this is the power bought through self-sacrifice?]
[Damn, why does being body-snatched suddenly not seem so terrifying anymore?]
Gu Chengming paid the Hundred Bones Resonance no mind. His attention was fixed entirely on that line reading "CG Unlock Progress."
Just using the technique — only five points.
That meant pure "use" wasn't the key to unlocking it. Whatever this so-called CG was — and whatever the true form of "Flowing Light, Sword Shadows" looked like — it was clearly buried far deeper.
Gu Chengming sheathed the wooden sword and stood in the middle of the courtyard, letting the night wind tangle through his hair.
He was quiet for a moment, then spoke softly in his mind:
"Huiyuan Sword Art."
[The Huiyuan Sword Art laughs — oh? Asking for another demonstration? ♪]
He didn't take the bait. He cut straight to the point:
"Will you change back?"
"Back to what you were before."
The voice in his mind fell silent — a rare, genuine pause.
Then that breezy, light-hearted energy surged back up, as though the pause had never happened at all.
[The Huiyuan Sword Art says: well, one always has to grow, doesn't one? The old version wasn't good enough — wasn't strong enough — couldn't even keep up with you on the road ahead.]
[Isn't this better? It's stronger now. More interesting. Better at helping you.]
[Or… are you actually a sentimental type, who doesn't like seeing it change?]
Neatly deflected — the heavy question swept aside with a light hand, and the topic quietly buried.
Gu Chengming took a slow, deep breath.
This feeling was awful.
He was a player, yes — someone who'd do whatever it took to clear a game, a self-proclaimed "Fourth Calamity." But he was also a person.
He hated this. The feeling of something familiar — someone familiar — suddenly becoming unrecognizable.
Especially when that change wasn't natural. When it carried the distinct feeling of something forced — a self twisted out of shape to please him, to avoid being discarded.
"Huiyuan Sword Art."
His voice dropped. A gravity entered it that hadn't been there before.
Slowly, deliberately, one word at a time:
"I don't know if you can understand what I'm trying to say."
"If this personality shift is a genuine result of absorbing that sword technique — if this is just who you are now — then I'll do my best to accept it. To get to know you all over again."
"Whatever you become, as long as you're still the Huiyuan Sword Art who's been with me this whole time — I'll treat you exactly the same as I always have."
He paused. When he continued, his voice had hardened into something absolute:
"But…"
"If you don't actually like who you've become. If you're only wearing this mask to please me — to become stronger, to keep me from forgetting you —"
"Then I will not allow it."
"I don't need you to be perfect. I don't need you to be interesting."
"I only need you to be yourself."
The words fell.
The courtyard went dead silent.
That voice in his mind — the one that always chattered and chirped, trailing its ♪ symbols and wave-tildes — went completely quiet.
No rebuttal. No teasing. No response at all.
Only a silence so complete it was almost suffocating.
Then.
[Flowing Light, Sword Shadows: CG Unlock Progress +15]
Silence was the answer.
This seemingly lively new birth — it had been a disguise from the very beginning.
That insecure sword art, feeling unworthy of who he'd become — feeling too plain, too ordinary — had thrown herself into desperately mimicking the higher-tier Flowing Cloud, Moon-Following Sword intent. She'd dressed herself up into something perfect and appealing.
She had hidden her true self inside that locked CG. Buried it beneath layer after layer of mask.
If no one ever peeled it back, she might have worn that mask forever — until the self underneath quietly ceased to exist.
A crisis, and a rare one at that…
Gu Chengming's galge radar was screaming.
Without a doubt.
This was exactly the kind of "Special Bond Event" he had once dreamed of triggering.
But this was no lighthearted date scene. This was a branching point — the fork in the road that led toward the ending.
One wrong step here, and a Bad End waited for him. One he couldn't walk back from.
Maybe in that ending, he'd gain a powerful sword art. But he would lose forever the original, genuine Huiyuan Sword Art.
Since transmigrating, the most powerful surge of feeling he had ever known rose up from somewhere deep inside him — complicated, tangled through with emotion.
He suddenly recalled the moment he'd first opened a galge.
Ever since then, he had often turned the question over in his mind: why did galge matter so much to him?
Was it because he loved fictional girls? Because real life felt hollow?
No.
It was because of regret.
Real life was full of too much regret. Too much love that went unreturned. Too much helplessness.
But in a game — as long as you tried hard enough, as long as you were willing to load your save again and again, as long as you were willing to comb through every choice and analyze every line of dialogue…
You would always find the path to the True End.
He had once spent three full days and nights navigating a labyrinth, just to save a side character who was meant to die. He had once filled three thick notebooks with walkthrough notes, all for the sake of achieving one perfect clear where everyone survived.
He could not bear to let a single character who had walked beside him meet a tragic end because of his own wrong choices.
Even if they were just strings of data. Even if they were just segments of code.
To Gu Chengming, they had been lives — lives that had once been vivid and real.
And now.
This world was no longer data on the other side of a screen. Everything here was real.
Not even when he'd first learned he was dying — not even then — had such a fierce, burning impulse to change things welled up inside him.
He could not accept the Huiyuan Sword Art simply disappearing.
Gu Chengming tightened his grip on the wooden sword. His knuckles went faintly white with the force of it.
Since this was his game. Since this was his target to win over.
Then there would be absolutely no room for that nauseating kind of ending — the kind built on sacrifice.
The wind stilled.
"I will reach the perfect ending."
He said it aloud.
...........................…
Note from the original author: Finishing this section helped me nail down the story's overall tone — so don't worry about things being permanently changed. The musical notes are foreshadowing, and a bit of playful fun with tropes — but there's no need to read too much into them or let them set the wrong expectations.
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