He walked.
Through ash.
Through rain.
Through the endless whispering woods of the east, where no one sane wandered alone.
The forest did not welcome him. It merely tolerated his presence, like the world had done since the fire. Tikshn's feet blistered, then bled. His ribs ached. He didn't know how long he had been walking. Days blurred into nights, hunger into numbness.
But still—he walked.
His blade was chipped and rusted, stolen from a dead man. He didn't sharpen it. He didn't name it. It wasn't a companion. It was a reminder.
Every step he took, every night spent beneath open sky and cold wind, was a vow:
**Never again.**
He remembered every detail of that night.
His father's last breath.
His mother's shaking hands.
Kirin's silence.
The warmth of Saren's fingers… and how cold they became when he stepped away.
He never let himself forget.
Pain became discipline. Hunger became training.
When the beasts of the forest came, he faced them—not as a warrior, but as a desperate survivor with nothing to lose.
A fangboar charged him on the third night. Starved and half-mad, the beast tore through the trees like a storm. Tikshn didn't run. He couldn't.
He couldn't feel fear anymore.
He planted his feet, raised the broken sword with both hands, and waited.
The boar struck. It smashed into him like a boulder, sending him tumbling down a slope, landing in a shallow ravine. His vision dimmed. Blood soaked through the makeshift wrappings on his chest. But he never let go of the sword.
He crawled back up the hill, dragging his blade and his broken body, until he stood again.
The boar came again.
This time, he didn't move.
He timed the strike. He dropped his shoulder, stepped in, and drove the tip of his rusted sword upward through the beast's underside.
It screamed.
He didn't.
The weight of it collapsed on him. And he lay there for hours, trapped beneath blood and hide and silence.
When he finally pulled himself free, he stood in the moonlight, panting, shaking, soaked in warm blood—and for the first time in days… he smiled.
It was not joy.
It was proof.
He could survive.
---
Later that night, he built a fire—barely. He had no tinder, only flint and rage. But he managed. The flames sputtered to life, flickering against his hollow face.
A figure watched him from the trees.
Cloaked. Silent.
**The master.**
The same one he had once rejected—whose teachings he had scorned, whose students begged for crumbs of knowledge Tikshn had spat on.
He had been following him for days now. Intrigued. Not out of pity… but fascination.
Tikshn knew he was there.
He didn't look.
But the old man stepped from the shadows anyway.
"You should be dead," the master said, kneeling slowly near the fire.
Tikshn didn't reply.
The master tossed something at him.
Bread. Hard, dried. Real.
Tikshn stared at it. Then, slowly, without thanks, he ate.
"You killed that fangboar with a sword that should've snapped in your hands," the master continued. "No form. No footwork. No technique."
Still no reply.
"You survived. That shouldn't be possible."
Tikshn finally looked up. His eyes were hollow. Hard.
"You here to offer your teachings again?"
The master smiled faintly.
"No. I'm here to watch. It's been a long time since I've seen someone whose pain sharpened faster than their blade."
Tikshn stood. Blood crusted his side. The sword dangled at his hip.
"I don't need a master."
"No. But you'll need a path. The wrong one will consume you before you reach its end."
Tikshn turned away, walking toward the shadows.
"I've already been consumed."
The master didn't follow this time. He only watched as the boy walked deeper into the night.
And under his breath, he whispered:
"Then let's see what kind of blade the fire leaves behind."
---
In the weeks that followed, Tikshn continued his journey. But something shifted.
He stopped seeing himself as lost.
He was forging himself.
He studied beasts—how they fought, how they moved.
He mimicked them.
He trained his body in silence. Every scar was a lesson. Every failure, a teacher. He began to create his own forms. Brutal. Efficient. Born from real wounds, not scrolls or elegant schools.
He didn't name his style.
He didn't have to.
It was **survival given edge**.
---
One night, he came across the ruins of an old shrine. Half-buried by vines and time, forgotten by Murim, forgotten by the world.
There, inside the collapsed stone, he found a sword.
Old. Untouched. Still resting on an altar worn smooth by centuries.
It was no legendary treasure. No glowing blade.
Just… waiting.
He approached it slowly, hand reaching out.
And as his fingers closed around the hilt—
He felt something stir.
Not in the air.
In himself.
Something ancient. Something broken. Something that had waited to be claimed by someone just as broken.
The steel felt warm in his hand.
Like it **knew**.
And for the first time since Rihn burned…
Tikshn bowed.
Not to a god. Not to fate.
But to the sword.
---