The Sword That Rose from the Graveyard

Seo-Jun did not move a single muscle. His eyes remained tightly closed.

The wind brushed gently against his pale face, carrying the sweet smell of flowers across the dead field.

For the first time in this endless cycle of death, his mind was finally at peace.

He was not replaying old, bloody wars in his head or searching for lost magic arts.

He was totally done trying to copy the hundreds of warriors he had met across his two long lives. Everything inside his crowded mind finally became perfectly quiet.

One by one, the stolen pieces of sword arts inside his memories drifted away like smoke.

The cold, brutal soldier's blade that only cared about killing fast vanished completely. The beautiful, dancing moves of wandering monks faded away.

The heavy, crushing swings of war generals and the sneaky, hidden strikes of killers disappeared from his soul.

The fancy, perfect forms of old schools melted into the empty air. Every single one of them had taught him a good lesson in the past.

Yet, none of those swords truly belonged to him. The Sword Saint watched him in total silence from across the dirt path.

A proud grin pulled at his mouth.

"...There it is at last."

Seo-Jun slowly opened his dark eyes to the world.

His annoying need to copy others was completely gone. His bad habit of stealing moves had vanished.

His gaze had become amazingly clear and sharp. His eyes looked like a perfectly calm lake untouched by the blowing wind.

The Sword Saint lazily raised his plain steel blade into the air.

"So..." He smiled warmly.

"Let us see what you really have."

Seo-Jun took a single, calm step forward. It was not too fast, and it was not too slow. It was simply perfectly natural.

His breathing flowed right along with the mountain wind. The cracked wooden sword rested easily in his relaxed grip.

He took no special fighting stance and gave no clear opening. There was absolutely nothing that belonged to any old school.

Seeing that beautiful sight, the Sword Saint laughed out loud.

"Hahaha! Now that is much more like it!"

Without another word, the man vanished into thin air. The mountain shook violently. The white flowers exploded into the air like a storm.

The long distance between them vanished in a single blink. Clang! Cheap wood met solid steel once again.

But this time, Seo-Jun was not blasted backward into the dirt. The Sword Saint did not move either.

The two vibrating blades remained perfectly locked together in a struggle. For a brief, tense moment, neither man moved an inch.

The older man's eyebrows rose up in pure surprise.

"Oh?"

Seo-Jun's sword was not magically stronger or insanely faster than before. Yet, for the very first time, it felt completely strange to fight against.

It was not because the wooden stick had changed into a magical weapon. It was because the man holding it had finally changed.

The Sword Saint suddenly twisted his wrist with deadly speed. The angle of his steel blade shifted in an impossible, bending way.

A strike that should have missed became a guaranteed kill. Seo-Jun answered the attack using only his pure instinct.

Taken from NovelPhoenix, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

He did not use a remembered trick or a borrowed lesson from his past. His new body simply moved on its very own.

The wooden sword carved a clean path that had never existed in the world before. It was a brand new path made only to answer this one exact moment.

Clang! The steel blade was swatted away. A tiny piece of a white flower drifted peacefully between their locked blades.

Both men stopped moving entirely. Total silence took over the mountain. The Sword Saint just stared at Seo-Jun.

Then, he slowly looked down at his own plain sword. Right near the handle, a very small, shallow scratch had appeared on the metal.

It was not even deep enough to be called real damage. Yet, that tiny mark had definitely not been there a second ago.

The Sword Saint blinked in shock before bursting into wild, roaring laughter.

"Hahahahahaha!"

His loud, happy laughter echoed freely across the high mountains. He laughed so hard that warm tears gathered at the corners of his bright eyes.

"Very good!"

"That right there..." He wiped a happy tear away with his white sleeve.

"...That is finally your very own sword."

Seo-Jun slowly lowered the cracked wooden blade to his side.

"...My sword."

"Yeah," the man nodded proudly.

"It is not perfect at all. It is definitely not complete yet."

He scratched his cheek with a grin.

"And to be honest, it still looks ugly as hell."

Seo-Jun just gave him a flat look. The Sword Saint shrugged his shoulders playfully.

"What? Did you really think I was going to start praising you like a good boy? Keep dreaming."

He pointed his steel blade at Seo-Jun's chest.

"You have only just stopped walking around in stupid circles. The real climb up the mountain has not even started yet."

Seo-Jun looked at him and quietly asked....

"...Why?"

"Hm?"

"Why did you stay to teach me?"

The man stared at him like he had just asked the dumbest question in the world. He snorted loudly and put his sword away with a soft click.

"Teach you? Do not flatter yourself, brat. I was not teaching you anything at all."

"I was just fixing a broken toy that really annoyed my eyes." Seo-Jun tilted his head slightly to the side.

The Sword Saint crossed his arms over his chest.

"Imagine spending hundreds of years making your sword completely perfect."

"Only to watch some stubborn, blind brat swing around dirty pieces of everyone else's garbage."

He clicked his tongue in disgust.

"It was ugly. Absolutely, horribly ugly to watch."

Then, a very warm, kind smile appeared under his messy silver hair.

"So, I decided to give that total idiot a few hundred hard beatings."

His smile grew wider.

"It turns out he finally listened to me."

The gentle mountain wind suddenly grew much stronger. The beautiful red sky began to shimmer and shake.

The entire fake world started melting away into glowing dust. The memory dream had finally reached its absolute limit.

The Sword Saint glanced over at the crumbling sky with a calm face.

"Well, it looks like our fun time is finally up."

Seo-Jun remained perfectly silent. He still had a hundred questions he wanted to ask the man.

He wanted to know his real name, his hidden past, and if they had truly met like this before.

But he kept his mouth firmly shut. He knew that some deep answers simply did not need spoken words to be understood.

The Sword Saint looked back at him one last time. His annoying, playful grin quickly returned to his face.

"Oh, wait. I have one last thing to say to you."

Seo-Jun met his golden gaze. The man raised a single finger in the air.

"Do not waste your life chasing the title of the strongest swordsman in the world."

He pointed that finger directly at Seo-Jun's heart.

"Become the very first... Seo-Jun. That will be far more fun to watch."

The mountain vanished completely. The wind died, and the white flowers turned into floating light. The man's body slowly faded away.

Right before he vanished into nothingness, he flashed one final, bright grin.

"If we ever happen to cross our swords again in the future..." His warm voice echoed through the dying world.

"...Please try not to embarrass me, brat."

Then, everything simply vanished into thin air. Total silence reclaimed the dark room.

✦ ✦ ✦

Memory Reconstruction Session Complete

Current memory interpretation system has reached its effective learning limit.

✦ ✦ ✦

Seo-Jun quietly stared at the floating blue words. Then, he slowly closed his tired eyes.

"...I understand now."

The bloody path behind him had finally become crystal clear. His past no longer chained him down like a prisoner.

It no longer forced him to walk a set path. It had simply become a strong, solid foundation to stand on.

At that exact moment, something moved deep inside his very soul. It was a heavy, ancient sound.

It sounded like a massive stone gate, locked for a thousand years, had shifted just a tiny bit.

The great gate was not opening for him just yet. It was simply letting him know that it existed in the dark.

Seo-Jun opened his eyes. For a split second, an endless, terrifying darkness flashed inside his pupils before vanishing completely.

The cold white walls of the training room slowly returned to his vision. The beautiful mountain was totally gone.

The falling white flowers had vanished without a trace. Only the heavily cracked wooden sword remained tightly gripped in his hands.

He looked down at the ruined weapon and smiled very gently.

"...Thank you."

He did not know if he was thanking the cheap sword, the fake mountain, or the strange man who had never even told him his real name.

He finally turned his back and walked toward the heavy exit. Right outside that metal door, the real world was waiting for him.

And somewhere out there in that vast world, there were countless new paths to walk.

There were countless strong foes left to meet and endless new memories to forge in blood.

As Seo-Jun stepped toward the door, the ancient presence hidden in his soul fell perfectly silent once again.

It was patiently waiting for the day he would finally force its heavy gates open.

His next path forward would not be stolen or inherited from a dead man. It would be a path he created all by himself.