Chapter 82: The Golden String

The warm, radiant air of the Golden Sun Realm was fresh and soft against Orson’s skin—a stark, bizarre contrast to the suffocating aura that appeared before the breach.

His bat-like wings of solid shadow beat against the atmosphere in smooth, rhythmic strokes, carrying him upward toward the second remaining island. It felt strange. The weapon was an astral projection, and even with the System’s cryptic descriptions, Orson hadn’t fully grasped the reality of it at first. Now, he understood.

The blade converted raw human fear directly into a physical weapon.

The mental strain it exerted on the psyche was brutal, a sickening pressure meant to break a lesser man. But Xander’s mind wasn’t the same as others. Having lived as a War God in his past life, his consciousness was a vast, unyielding ocean, anchored by centuries of blood and command. Still, the voices whispering at the edge of his thoughts were chilling, creepy, and deeply annoying to say the least.

A small price to pay for a weapon I can actually wield, he mused silently.

Flying with the wings was becoming surprisingly natural. Though this was only his second time using the projection, it felt less like a spell and more like an extension of his own spine. He just had to intend a direction, and the phantom appendages adjusted mid-air. Then again, if he was being entirely honest with himself, this was hardly his first life learning how to navigate the sky.

He crested the rocky lip of the second island and touched down.

With a quick mental command, Orson recalled the astral projection. The dark, bat-like wings folded inward, melting back into his silhouette until they vanished into his shadow.

The second island was an absolute wreck. Fractured stone, smoking craters, and the violent echoes of battle stretched across the terrain. The surviving contractors were locked in a desperate, blood-soaked struggle against the remaining aberrant beasts, light-fire clashing against elemental spells.

Orson tapped his spatial pocket ring, retrieving a sword.

The blade materialized into his grip as if woven from condensed starlight, its surface gleaming with an ethereal luster while radiating a dark, biting chill. As his fingers wrapped around the leather hilt, nothing happened. The weapon’s Astral Burden had not yet activated.

He glanced toward a nearby clearing where a cluster of contractors was being pushed back by a pack of feral, wolf-like aberrants. He would have preferred to rely on his fear-born astral projection, but he couldn’t help a dry, cynical thought: Who on this island is going to be afraid of a sword?

He gripped the hilt tighter. Thanks to a stroke of pure luck, he had just pushed his foundation to the peak of the Qi Gathering stage.

In his old world, martial ascension was divided into seven distinct realms, each split into four stages: Early, Mid, Late, and Peak. The lightning he used for cultivation to enter the mid stage of Qi Gathering, and while the energy-dense mortal food of this realm had nourished his vessel at an absurd rate. What should have taken a normal practitioner ten painful years of quiet meditation had been condensed into mere days. It had barely been a week since he arrived in this second life, and already his body was adapting.

Orson let out a slow, measured sigh.

He flexed his right hand, adjusting his grip on the starlight blade to test its balance. He needed to be fast. He had zero intention of lingering long enough for the weapon’s burden to take hold—he wasn’t about to stand by and watch the blade twist the memory of his deceased daughter into a sick psychological puppet.

He swung the sword back and forth, testing the weight of the pommel, tracing short arcs through the warm air to find the center of gravity. Something felt off. The balance was subtle, but it lacked the specific drag he was looking for.

Orson raised the blade to eye level, his brow furrowing as he inspected the steel.

Hmm...

Nothing was wrong with the steel. The balance was clean, the weight was perfect, so why was it so damn hard to find his groove?

Orson stared at the edge, watching the starlight shift across the metal like liquid silver. It was beautiful—hypnotically so. He quickly snapped his gaze away, gritting his teeth as he shut down the pull before the weapon’s consciousness could crawl back under his skin. He wasn’t getting sucked into this blade again.

He was at the absolute peak of the Qi Gathering stage. A basic Sword Art shouldn’t just be possible; it should be effortless. He executed two quick, rhythmic swings, cutting the warm air, but the execution still felt hollow. It lacked the smooth, deadly fluidity of his past life.

A low, guttural snarl broke his concentration.

Over by the fractured clearing, one of the aberrant wolves turned away from the dying contractors, its hollow gaze snapping directly onto Orson. The beast was a sickening mass of exposed bone and flickering white-hot fire, its ribcage pulsing with solar heat as it prowled toward him.

Orson felt the blade in his grip hum, radiating a faint, sharp pulse of killing intent.

A translucent system notification flashed at the edge of his vision. He didn’t bother opening it, but a glance at the floating header gave him all he needed: Crimson Aberrant Beast.

The absolute lowest tier of the lower-class transformations.

Orson didn’t feel a single flicker of fear. After going toe-to-toe with Corvin, he needed a baseline anyway—a practical test to see how a weak Rank 1 beast measured up against his peak Qi Gathering foundation. A Crimson-tier wolf was the perfect warm-up.

The wolf let out a violent roar, its hind legs shattering the stone beneath it as it lunged through the air, bringing a flaming claw down toward his chest.

Orson didn’t panic. He simply pivoted his left foot, stepping cleanly outside the beast’s attack arc. The flaming claw swept through empty air, the heat singing his collar as the wolf landed heavily beside him.

The beast skidded, twisting its skull back toward Orson with a low, taunting growl, its jaws splitting open as if mocking his retreat.

Orson adjusted his stance, his fingers tightening around the star-forged hilt.

Sword Art, First Form: Golden String Slash.

He didn’t scream the technique. He barely whispered it, his voice a flat, deadly murmur.

His body moved before the words fully died in his throat. A single, razor-thin line of brilliant golden light flashed across the clearing. Orson reappeared two paces behind the beast, the starlight blade already completing its arc.

Behind him, the wolf froze mid-snarl. A microscopic line of gold severed its body along the spine, and a split second later, both halves slid apart, collapsing into a heap of smoking bone and fading light-fire.

Orson lowered the blade, looking down at his hands.

A fine spray of dark, singed blood speckled his knuckles. He wiped it off against his trousers, his expression remaining completely unreadable.

The strike had been lethal, but it was sloppy. The flow of Qi had lagged by a fraction of a millisecond at the turning point of his wrist. It still wasn’t good enough.

He tilted the sword, staring at the pristine, starlit edge.

Not even close.