Sound came first.
It wasn't just a noise, it was a full-blown assaut. Grinding steel, neighing horses, men dying in languages I didn't know, but which I understood in the trembling of my bones.
War.
Then came the sensations. A cold so profound it burned, the snow whipping like shards of glass, and the strong smell of blood, entrails, and burnt hair permeating the air.
I opened my eyes... a bad decision. The world was white, red, and destroyed.
Corpses lay scattered across the ground like discarded dolls, frozen amidst screams, limbs bent at abnormal angles, armor gaping open like overripe fruit. This was no battlefield, but rather a cemetery where the carnage had not yet ceased.
A shadow loomed nearby. A huge warhorse, clad in lacquered bronze armor, its eyes rolled white with panic or bloodlust, charged directly at me. On its back, a knight in black armor, his face hidden behind an oni mask, raised a naginata gleaming with fresh blood.
Both the beast and the rider closed the distance in seconds, transforming the snowy field into a dance floor of ice and death.
'Beautiful. If not for how deadly it was.'
Then, suddenly, a realization dawned on me. Freedom?
I'm not in academia, I'm not up to speed on everything. Somewhere new... somewhere real.
A sinister smile appeared on my lips. – Relief, perhaps... anger? Always – But, more than that, an insane and electrifying ecstasy enveloped every inch of my soul. Anyone who saw me would think I was a raving lunatic.
'Good!'
For a brief moment, a memory surfaced – a park bench and an old man with gray hair, a tree with a hollow core. It all vanished before I could process it – now there are more important matters.
I struggled to stand. Legs trembling, spine now straight. Without fear, without hesitation. Just a cold, calculating solitude – the thing I hated most about myself, now my only weapon.
I noticed the some changes. My hands were rougher, a dorned with a lightweight lacquered leather, cheap gear, really cheap indeed. My body felt younger, yet ambiguous more worn out.
'Transmigration? Possession? Whatever, it doesn't matter. Survive first, philosophize later.'
In my hand a chipped katana, not standard issue, battered, almost broken.
So I moved to intercept the cavalry. My mind clamored for a perfect parry, the muscle memory of a legacy I'd absorbed in the dream demanding action. But my body slow... this body was weak, pitiful, so I slipped on bloody ice.
'Damn.'
The naginata shaft struck my ribs. I gasped for air, my vision blurred. I rolled to the side just as the horse's hooves slashed where my head had been.
"Die, scum!" roared the knight.
I scrambled back.
Nearby, two warriors faced each other – an old man with a huge odachi and a lancer in lacquered red plate armor. The old man moved like water sculpted in steel. With smooth movements, followed by a kick to the knee, a diagonal strike. The lancer's head hit the snow before the rest of his body.
But there was something wrong with the dead man's eyes. They weren't closed, they weren't wide with fear... they were empty. As if someone had ripped out his soul and left only a shell.
The old man spat on the corpse. "Shinobi slaves hollowed out by the breath of the Asura."
'Asura?'
I didn't ask. Questions can get you killed anywhere.
"Ankor! Move your ass!" the old warrior barked, voice raspy and domineering.
Ankor? That's not my name. But it's close enough to the truth that I didn't argue. So I moved.
...
The horseman turned sharply, already charging again.
The old man sprang into action, the odachi clashing against the naginata in a shower of sparks. He held his position, but the difference in reach and mobility was brutal. He was dodging and deflecting, not winning.
"To the flank, you dushead!" he ordered.
I veered to the left. The rider focused on the veteran, his naginata like a wall of steel, and struck the horse's hooves — uselessly. My reach was pathetic with this trashy sword.
'Think, Kai. Don't try to dominate him by force. Outsmart him.'
We were on the edge of a cliff, the battlefield stretching for miles below. One wrong step and we'd be thrown off. I looked at the horse's saddle. Unadorned. Functional. Military standard. A common girth strap.. leather, worn and almost vulnerable.
"Put him down, damn it!" I shouted. "What are you waiting for, old man?"
He shot me a glare, murderous, calculating, but he understood the play. He finted a bad sidested losing his posture. The rider rose in the stirrups for a crushing overhead strike.
'Now.'
I fell to my knees, sliding on the ice, and struck upwards, not at the flesh, but at the strap that held the saddle.
The blade bit into leather. I roared, putting every ounce of strength into the cut.
SNAP!
The strap gave way. The horse panicked. The rider staggered to the side, losing his balance. The naginata strike missed its target. Before he could recover, the old man's odachi fell. A sickening crunch ended the fight.
The rider's body collapsed, but his mask cracked open— revealing not a face, but black veins crawling beneath skin, pulsing like worms.
"Corrupted," the old man muttered. "He's been marked."
"By what?" I asked, breath ragged.
"The thing that calls itself a god." He cleaned his blade. "The Asura."
...
I leaned against a rock, gasping. Every bone and muscle ached.
"Not bad, kid," grumbled the old man. "For a boy who fights like he's never held a real sword before."
"I've held worse," I said, thinking of the ivory-dark sword that killed me every night.
He studied me. "You're not from the Sakura Legion. Your posture is wrong. Your eyes… too old for that face."
"Does it matter?" I shot back. "I just saved your life."
He chuckled, a dry, broken sound. "Maybe. Or maybe you just bought us a few more seconds."
I looked at the battlefield. Armies in sakura-pink armor clashed with soldiers in black and crimson. But that wasn't what chilled my blood. In the heart of the valley, miles away, the world was falling apart. Purple and black lights erupted in geysers. Blurs moved faster than sound. And in the center, a giant, three meters tall, shrouded in shadows, fought a swarm of elite warriors as if they were insects.
"Asura! Run for your worms" someone shouted.
"The Light Swordmaster is here! Push back the Shinobi slaves!"
'Asura and now a Light Swordmaster?'
The pressure of that distant battle hit me like a physical wave. This was no mere war. It was a clash of gods.
I tried the interface.
"IO?" Silence. "Grace?" Nothing. "System!?" Awkward silence... Typical. Always alone in the end. I never depended on them anyway.
"The orient, huh?" I murmured, observing the oriental armor. "At least the aesthetics are nice."
Then, a flash.
A deafening roar incinerated the valley in red flames and blue lightning. Debris fell like meteorites. The shockwave knocked me to the ground.
"We won!" someone shouted. "Victory for the Highter priestess and—"
...
RUMBLE.
It wasn't a tremor, a collapse followed. The ground beneath my feet groaned. A thin crack split the ice... and then widened.
"Oh, fuck me," I whispered.
The cliffside gave way. The entire ice shelf detached from the mountain.
"Ankor!" the old man yelled, reaching out.
Too late. I was falling. To my left and to my right, soldiers, friends and enemies, screamed as they plummeted into the blue abyss.
I didn't scream, I acted strucking my trashy katana against the passing wall of ice.
SCREEEEEECH.
The metal sparked against the stone. The impact nearly ripped my arm from its joint. The pain blinded me, but I held on. I slowed down, just a little.
'I can survive this. Just need a ledge—'
CRACK.
I looked at my right hand. The cheap steel couldn't withstand the pressure. The blade shattered.
My grip vanished. Gravity reclaimed me.
As I fell backward into the freezing dark, watching the circle of sky shrink above me, a single thought occurred to me:
One day, everything will end.
'But not this damn day. '
I twisted my body, diving headfirst into the unknown. And then, warmth. Not from outside, from within. Buried deep,beneath the bonds, beneath the deaths, beneath eighteen years of pretending to be Kai, an ember still burned.
I closed my eyes and reached out my hand. And it answered. Three golden cubes materialized in the air before me, hovering, spinning, vibrating with silent power. But the moment they formed, a sharp pain shot through my skull, cutting, invasive, like a memory being ripped away.
'The park bench. The old man. The tree… gone.'
I let out a gasp of astonishment. The loss was physical. Real. The old man's voice echoed in my memory:
"Light swordmaster… you fight like a ghost who forgot how to die."
Perhaps I had... but ghosts don't bleed, ghosts don't burn. I concentrated and soon the cubes collided, rearranged themselves, fitted together, and in my hand formed a blade not of steel, but of solidified sunlight.
Above, the battlefield had vanished. Below, only a emptiness void. But I wasn't afraid. Because the fire within me had finally awakened.
[Grace]: Trial Phase 1 – Survived.
[Classification: Reckless. Effective. Broken.]
[Fate: Reach the Ashen Temple.]
[Warning: The Asura remembers your face.]
[Status: Hunted.]
[Side Effect Detected: Memory Fragment Lost – "Sanctuary Tree"]
I tried to laugh and ended coughing up blood instead.
'Hunted?'
Great, let them come! If my name was Light. I was the guardian of the fire. This nightmare had barely begun, and I want some answers.
[Estimated time until impact: 47 seconds]
[Recommended course of action: Pray.]
[Grace]: Ha.