Since there was no reaction from his opponent after he had broken such a fundamental rule of chess, Han Xuhan didn't hold back anymore. One after another, he sent out his major pieces across the board without caring about the state of the game.

In the darkness, he could feel the pieces with his hands and get a good grasp of the arrangement he was creating in the central area of the board. After eight moves, almost all of his major pieces were placed out there, but not a single of his pawns had been moved from their row.

While placing the pieces, his fingers occasionally came into contact with the pieces of his opponent. However, every time he tried to get a feel of the piece to see what it was, he ended up touching the opponent's hands somehow, and she slapped his fingers away.

It seemed that she was guarding her advanced pieces in order to ensure that he couldn't figure out her game plan by feeling around in the dark.

At this point in the game, some complaints had to be voiced.

"Hey, since I can't see the position of my pieces, I have no idea exactly which square each of them is standing on. I'm not even sure if any of my following moves will conform to the rules of the game. Other than the rooks and the pawns, all of my pieces are going to move around the board chaotically."

"Mm, don't worry about it. Keep playing your natural game. As long as your pieces are within the board, moving in their original pattern of movements, how many rules could you truly break even if you wanted to?"

Plenty. He could break enough of them to turn the game into a meaningless waste of time. But facing this mysteriously powerful woman's passion for a game of blind chess, Han Xuhan didn't have the guts to argue. He kept moving his pieces, now focusing on developing the pawns...

About ten moves later, just as Han Xuhan was beginning to give in to the temptation of moving his major pieces across the board without regard for the rules of movement, something inexplicable took place.

A soft noise of two chess pieces hitting came from the board. Since Han Xuhan wasn't moving anything, it must have been a contact between pieces initiated by his opponent.

At that moment, a strange vision suddenly appeared in his mind, replacing his thoughts with an overwhelming force to unfold itself vividly down to the most minute details.

In this vision, he saw a stout soldier, garbed in thick leather armor and brandishing a long silver saber, the eyes under the steel helmet shining spiritedly. The soldier rushed towards him with an unstoppable momentum and slashed his saber diagonally at his neck, clearly aiming to kill.

Han Xuhan heard the whistle in the air as the saber's edge cut through it, even getting a whiff of hot steel and blood-soaked soil reeking from the soldier's body. It fired off every nerve of terror inside his head, his instincts screaming at him to evade the attack.

For a moment, he forgot that he was inside a mental vision. All he wanted to do was move his body.

However, his body refused to move. In this vision, his body seemed to be beyond his mental control. In fact, when Han Xuhan saw a gauntlet-covered arm rise from his side to intercept the oncoming saber, he realized that he wasn't even in his own body.

Clang!

Steel edge slammed against steel plates, breathing orange sparks between the two combatants. The spirited, victorious gleam in the soldier's eyes turned into a look of horror as Han Xuhan shrugged off the force behind his saber strike with ease.

Han Xuhan's gauntlet covered arm didn't even shiver as it retracted a little and then struck out in a casual punch, headed straight toward the soldier's face.

Still in the middle of recovering his disturbed balance, the soldier could only watch in desperation as the fist slammed into his nose. The result shocked even Han Xuhan.

With a sickening squelching noise, the soldier's face caved in. The metal forefront of the helmet he wore couldn't dull the force behind Han Xuhan's punch. His neck twisted backwards as several bones in his upper spine seemed to disintegrate alongside his nose and upper jaw.

Staggering back a few steps, the soldier fell backwards like a log, showing no signs of life as he lay crumpled on the checkered floor.

Han Xuhan was trying to examine the black gauntlet that covered his right arm, but it was nearly impossible to do since even his eyes didn't seem to belong to him. He only saw what the owner of the body saw—a black and white floor made of carved and polished marbles, just like a chessboard.

The only detail that didn't escape his frantic search was a distinct seal on the largest plate of the gauntlet. It seemed to be written in a script that was both familiar and unfamiliar to him, much to his befuddlement.

Under the letters was a simple insignia, displaying an arrow piercing through a shield.

At this moment, Han Xuhan's vision came to an end. The bright and colorful battlefield disappeared, replaced by pitch-black darkness. The scent of violence permeating the air was replaced by a fragrance of mud and old wood.

What kind of hallucination was that?!

Was it induced by the fog? Or was it something else?

It didn't take a genius to figure out that he was still sitting on the porch of the hut where he was playing a game of chess. He could faintly hear the stable breath of the woman sitting three feet away from him in the dark.

"My pawn came across one of your Bishops. It unsuspectingly bit off more than what it could chew."

Her voice roused his thoughts back in motion. He couldn't help but ask in confusion, "How can a Bishop defeat a piece in a head-to-head confrontation? Bishops can only move diagonally!"

"Hahahaha!" The woman sounded exhilarated.

"This is the best part of the game! My soldier was at a dead end when facing your Bishop. A dead piece in my hand would only wait for your Bishop to move. But no living soldier can afford such luxury on the battlefield. And if you attack a force stronger than you, you can only die!"

"...Aren't we playing with dead pieces on a board?" Han Xuhan said, unable to see the logic behind her words. The hallucination couldn't represent what was happening in the game.

"Don't be so dense! Who said we're playing with dead pieces? It's so dark in here that you can barely tell what pieces you're holding in your hand. How can you tell if it's dead or not?"

As the taunting voice posed the question, Han Xuhan's hands recoiled from the chessboard, fingers twitching uncontrollably, as if he had been electrocuted.