The wind howled through the narrow canyons of the Cloudspire Range, carrying with it the acrid scent of burnt pine and charred parchment. Smoke still curled in lazy tendrils from the distant ruins of the Hollow Pines Monastery. Tikshn did not look back. There was nothing left for the dead. Only purpose for the living.
Master Ryujin and the orphaned girl—Alia—walked silently behind him, the weight of ash and memory pressing against their every step. Alia had spoken little since the monastery's fall, her voice stolen by the horrors of what she'd seen. Tikshn understood. Words were frail in the face of grief.
They traveled deeper into the eastern wilderness, crossing bone-chilling rivers and frost-slick cliffs. Game was scarce. Their meals consisted of dried roots, moss-bread, and whatever Master Ryujin managed to trap. Tikshn refused to part with his sword, even while sleeping. It lay across his lap during rest, gripped as if his soul was woven into its steel.
It was on the third day of silence that the sword began to hum.
Not a sound. A vibration. A memory.
A place.
The Sword Tomb.
The name came unbidden into his thoughts, like a half-remembered dream. A hidden valley where legendary blades were buried, their spirits lingering, waiting for those who dared listen. A whisper he had heard in his childhood, long before tragedy had stolen innocence.
Tikshn paused on a mountain ridge. Below, shrouded in mist and broken trees, was a clearing that pulsed with stillness. As if time itself dared not breathe.
"This is it," he murmured.
Master Ryujin frowned. "You're certain?"
The Silver Sorrow pulsed again in answer.
---
The descent was treacherous. Alia slipped more than once, and Master Ryujin had to carry her across jagged crevices. The wind bit deeper here, whispering with the voices of the long dead. As they reached the bottom, the mist parted to reveal a ring of broken stone pillars—half-swallowed by earth and vine.
And in the center, a circle of swords.
There were hundreds. Rusted, broken, some still gleaming as if freshly forged. No two were the same. Spears, sabers, jian, crescent blades. They were driven into the ground, blade-first, forming a ring like a forgotten tribunal.
Tikshn stepped inside.
The hum in his sword turned into a wail.
Visions crashed through him—warriors long dead, duels beneath blood-red moons, promises carved in steel. One by one, the spirits of the blades stirred.
And one rose.
A figure materialized before him. Neither ghost nor man. Clad in ancient armor, his face veiled by a steel mask. In his hand: a jagged, pitch-black blade that drank the light around it.
"You seek power," the spirit said. "But you carry more than hatred."
"I carry the weight of the powerless," Tikshn answered. "And I will never lay it down."
The spirit raised his blade. "Then you will be tested."
Tikshn drew Silver Sorrow.
The valley trembled.
---
The duel defied nature. The wind died. The mist halted midair. Even Alia and Master Ryujin were frozen outside the circle. The spirit moved like a legend given form. His strikes were timeless, unburdened by fatigue, carved from a lifetime of war.
But Tikshn moved not with the grace of a master, but with the desperation of the broken.
He fought with the cries of his family, the memory of his powerless father and mother cut down like leaves in the wind. He remembered his brother's body—cold and still—slain by a sect guard for no reason other than defiance. He remembered the friends who tried to protect him, only to be crushed by the heel of those stronger.
He remembered Ailari.
Her laughter, her hand in his, the small wooden sword she carved for him as a child. She had no cultivation, but she believed in his dream—his dream to become the blade that could cut through fate itself.
They promised to leave the village together.
But fate came early.
She burned with the rest.
Their blades clashed, again and again.
Sparks lit the dusk.
Blood flowed from Tikshn's side, his shoulder, his leg. Yet he stood, panting, blade firm in his grasp.
"You bleed," the spirit said. "Still you stand."
"This sword remembers," Tikshn growled. "And so do I."
With a final cry, Tikshn unleashed a flurry. Silver Sorrow moved like a comet—one last, desperate arc that cleaved through the air. The spirit staggered.
The black blade cracked.
The spirit dropped to one knee. "You are not like them. You do not crave the blade's glory. You endure its sorrow."
The spirit dissolved into mist. And from it, the black blade remained, transformed—no longer jagged, but smooth and pure obsidian.
Tikshn did not pick it up.
Silver Sorrow glowed faintly.
"One sword is enough," he whispered.
---
As they climbed out of the Sword Tomb, Master Ryujin asked, "What was that place?"
"A graveyard," Tikshn replied. "But also a promise."
Alia looked up at him. "Can I become strong like you?"
Tikshn looked into her eyes—still full of fear, but no longer hollow.
"No," he said. "Stronger."
And somewhere beyond the range, the Grand Sects stirred. They had felt the awakening. They knew the name of Tikshn now not as a whisper, but as a threat.
he storm was no longer coming.
It had already begun.