Chapter 1: The Blade-less Boy
The clang of steel rang across the mountain winds, echoing like war drums over the cliffs of Saryon. In the eastern courtyard of the Ironfang Dojo, young warriors trained beneath the sun, their swords gleaming, their feet firm, and their movements sharp.
And just outside that courtyard—beside a stack of used, rusted training swords—sat a boy wiping the blood and dust from each blade.
His name was Kael, and unlike the others, he held no sword of his own.
"Faster, blade boy!" barked one of the senior disciples, tossing another dull sword at his feet. "If you can't swing one, at least clean them right!"
Kael didn't respond. He simply picked up the sword and began scrubbing its chipped edge with cloth and oil. His fingers were calloused, not from wielding a blade—but from restoring them.
He had grown up in the dojo as the orphaned child of a disgraced warrior, taken in not as a student, but as a servant. For years, he watched boys his age train and rise, calling down lightning with their swords or splitting boulders with a single strike.
But no sword had ever chosen him.
In this world, swords were more than weapons—they were extensions of the soul. A true swordsman bonded with a blade at the age of thirteen, when their spirit would resonate and awaken a blade from the Temple of Steel. Kael was fifteen. He'd passed the age. No blade had answered.
He was a "Blade-less"—a curse of shame.
As the sun dipped toward the west, Kael finally finished his duties and made his way to the cliff's edge. The winds were colder here, sharper, almost whispering secrets. This was his favorite place—quiet, forgotten, like him.
He stared into the sky.
"Maybe I wasn't meant to fight," he muttered.
Then, the wind changed.
A sudden pulse struck the air, so powerful that even the mountains seemed to tremble. The clouds churned, swirling into a vortex above the cliff. Lightning crackled in violet streaks, and Kael's heart pounded.
The sky shattered.
A blinding beam tore through the heavens, followed by a roaring sound like a sword being drawn by a god. Something fell—no, descended—from the sky, wrapped in starlight, falling toward the earth like a comet.
Kael didn't run. He couldn't.
The object slammed into the ground not far from him, shaking the entire cliffside. Dust and smoke filled the air, and when it cleared—Kael saw it.
A sword.
Unlike anything he'd ever seen.
Its blade was black like a void, pulsing with veins of light. Its hilt shimmered with runes he could not read, and the moment he looked into its mirrored surface—
—it looked back.
Then he heard it.
A whisper, clear as breath against his ear:
"Kael… draw me."
His hand moved on its own, reaching out.
The moment his fingers touched the hilt, a shockwave burst from the ground. The wind died. The world fell silent.
And Kael's body ignited with pain.
Memories not his own flooded in—battlefields, stars dying, screams from the edge of time. His eyes burned. His chest throbbed.
But his grip held firm.
And the blade, once cold, grew warm in his hand.
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To be continued…
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