The storm did not relent.
It screamed. It tore. It raged—but it no longer mattered.
Loid stood at the center of it, a shattered boy clutching a blade that weighed more than his life. Blood and rain soaked his body until he could no longer tell which was which.
The Man stepped forward unsheathing his sword, the storm parting around him like a beast before a greater predator.
He stopped an arm's length away, eyes sharp as blades honed beyond mortal time.
Then, without warning—he swung swung.
Not at full speed, not with full strength—but fast enough, precise enough, to kill.
The black cloak blurred. The world snapped into motion.
Instinct screamed.
Loid barely brought the sword up in time—a clumsy, desperate block that sent shock ricocheting through his arms, rattling his bones like dry twigs. His knees buckled again, but he did not fall.
The man did not wait.
Another strike—fluid, relentless—a slice aimed to shatter his guard. Another. Another. And another.
The blade became the only thing between Loid and death. His breath came in ragged gasps. His mind spun into white noise. There was no technique—only survival.
Each clash rang out like the cracking of the world's spine.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
The Master pressed harder, his movements like the heartbeat of something eternal—slow at first, then faster, faster, until Loid's arms felt like they would rip from their sockets.
Yet Loid held on.
Every muscle screamed rebellion. Every fiber of his being begged him to yield. But something deeper—something born in the broken marrow of him—kept him upright.
"You are nothing," the Master spoke—his voice cutting through the maelstrom. "Until you carve yourself into something."
A horizontal blow smashed into Loid's sword, driving him back through the mud.
"You are weak," the Master said, swinging again, the words as cutting as the strikes. "Until you choose to become strong."
Blow after blow, the lesson was burned into his flesh. Into his very his soul.
"You are dead," the Master spoke, raising his sword high, the red lightning framing him as a god of ruin, "until you choose to live."
Then a strike came.
A strike that would cleave him in two if he faltered.
Loid planted his feet.
He screamed inside his bones.
He raised the blade.
Steel rang on steel.
The impact tore through the world, through Loid's arms, through his soul. Carving deep trying to unravel his stubbornness, his determination, his will. It screamed at him, his feet sank into the mud his knees bending from the pressure.
And he roared back, the core of his being twisted like the storm above and surge out. He wouldn't fall here, not now, not ever. The storm seemed to recoil—for a heartbeat the rain stopped—as if recognizing something it could not yet destroy.
The Man lowered his blade and stared at him for a long, grim moment.
In the dead center of the storm, amidst the ruin of the world, a boy stood.
Not ready. Not skilled. But chosen.
And that was enough.
The Man turned away, the storm parting once more before him.
"Follow," he said.
Loid staggered forward, sword dragging a line through the mud—a brand upon the world itself—and stepped after him into the dark.
The storm raged on, but now, it sounded almost distant.
As if it knew: A new storm had been born.
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The storm faded into a distant roar behind them, swallowed by the endless black of the world beyond.
Loid stumbled after the Man, sword dragging behind him, each step a war against the tremble in his legs. His lungs burned. His vision blurred. His body had long since stopped feeling like his own—it was just pain wrapped in skin.
The Master led him to the remains of the forest—a place where trees stood broken and stripped bare by the storm's passing. Their skeletal forms reached up like the fingers of drowned men.
Here, in the dead woods, he finally stopped.
Without turning, without even looking back, the Master spoke.
"You sword choose you."
His voice was quieter now—not gentle, but cold, like iron cooling after the forge.
"You will not part from it again."
Loid collapsed to his knees, the sword still clutched in his blood-slicked hands.
"Now you become one with it."
The Man turned at last—his eyes two black suns that saw everything.
"From this moment forward, it is not a tool. It is not a weapon."
He knelt down, lowering himself to Loid's level.
"It is your body."
He tapped the blade, a single metallic chime that echoed through the shattered forest.
"It is your mind."
Another tap—harder this time—driving the truth deeper.
"It is your soul."
The Man leaned in, his face inches from Loid's.
"If you ever set it down," he said, voice dropping to a whisper sharper than any sword, "you die."
The words were not threat, nor warning.They were law.
Loid gritted his teeth, a raw sound rasping from his throat. He forced himself upright, every part of him screaming in protest. He clutched the sword tighter, willing it into himself.
The Man rose as well.
"From now on even if you are broken—the sword does not leave you."
He pointed to the broken woods around them.
"Gather wood," he ordered.
Loid blinked through the rain and blood still dripping from his lashes.
why? He wanted to ask.
The Man only stared.
Loid's fists clenched around the sword.
There would be no restNo help.No mercy.
Only him.The sword.And the demand to endure.
But he knew one thing—No matter how brutal this stranger had been, no matter how much he hurt. He wanted this. Somewhere beneath the blood, beneath the exhaustion, was a flicker of something terrifying and beautiful:
Hope.
He didn't know why the Man wanted to train him.He didn't care. He would accept it.
And he would accept it with pleasure.
Loid clutched the sword tighter against his side, the metal biting into his torn skin.
"Yes, Master," he said.
The words came rough and low, but steady.
A proposition.A bond.A choice.
For the first time in his broken life, Loid chose someone to follow. The Master said nothing. Only stood there, silent and still, his gaze narrowed but unreadable.
And Loid—Without waiting for praise, without daring to expect help—limped forward into the ruins of the shattered woods. The broken branches clawed at his legs as he stumbled, the storm-wet mud sucking at his feet. But he did not let the sword go.
He dragged it through the muck and splintered wood like it was a part of his own flesh. The night closed in around them, and somewhere far above, the storm growled in the dark, distant now, almost sullen.
A new storm had been born—and it walked on shattered legs, bleeding and grim and beautiful.