CHAPTER 1
The world had already ended once.
Civilizations razed by crimson storms. Empires buried beneath black suns. The proud martial clans of the Central Continent were nothing more than ghost stories now, whispered by madmen and scribbled into rotting scrolls. In this age of ashes, only one thing still moved hearts, bent nations, and carved history: power.
And the one who once stood at the peak of it all... was him.
Oozaru.
The name had been purged from the tongues of the world after his death. A traitor. A mad god. A man whose sword split the heavens and bled the stars. He wielded not just steel, but Nen—a forbidden art from before the collapse, one that bent the soul into a weapon. When he fell, ten thousand sects sighed in relief. When he vanished, the land finally breathed.
But now...
Now, in the midst of rotting ruins and martial decay, a boy gasped awake in a stone crypt. Bones cracked, aura surged, and golden veins pulsed beneath pale skin.
"I... remember dying," he murmured, blood spilling from his lips. "Why am I back?"
The tomb shattered.
A flare of Ren exploded around him, sending stone shards flying. His aura, wild and untamed, painted the air golden as if the sun itself had taken root in his flesh. The rusted remnants of talismans burned to ash in the light of his return.
Oozaru—the Sword God who destroyed the old world—had been reborn.
AURA, STEEL, AND SINS REFORGED
Oozaru sat beneath a scorched tree, eyes closed. His body was youthful again, but the rage in his soul had not diminished. He felt it—the flow of aura, sluggish but still obedient to his will.
"Ten," he whispered, clenching his fist. Aura settled around his body like a second skin, stabilizing his presence. His breathing slowed.
"Ren." His aura surged outward, expanding like a storm.
"Zetsu." In an instant, he vanished.
Even the crows above couldn't sense him anymore.
He was rusty, yes. Reincarnation hadn't granted him full mastery. But the foundation was there—the same core that once let him stand alone against the Seven Emperors of the Martial Heaven.
In this ruined world, Nen had become a myth. Only wandering madmen and ancient specters still spoke of Gyo or Hatsu. Martial artists relied solely on brute force now—blunt ki and unrefined techniques.
They had forgotten the depth of Nen.
And he would remind them.
Oozaru drew a breath and looked at his hand. It pulsed with golden light, faint but defiant. A whisper of his former self.
His Nen type had not changed: Transmutation.
He could turn his aura into something else—flame, lightning, even steel. But that was the surface. Beneath it was the technique that had annihilated a continent: Heaven's Howl – The Blade of Endless Regret.
He hadn't unlocked it yet. Not in this body. Not yet.
But he would.
THE FIRST SLAUGHTER – ASHES OF THE HUNGRY TIGER SECT
The Hungry Tiger Sect was once a noble force. Now they were carrion-feeders—bandits wearing the robes of martial disciples. They roamed the broken lands, stealing women, burning temples, and devouring the weak.
When Oozaru walked into their camp, barefoot and robed in rags, they laughed.
"What's this? A beggar who thinks he's a warrior?"
"I like his hair. Shiny like a woman's. Cut it off, hang it on my blade."
Oozaru stood still.
He didn't speak.
He didn't breathe.
His Gyo-sharpened eyes locked onto their pressure points. Nen allowed him to see the soul beneath flesh—the aura coils, the flow of life.
Then...
He moved.
A blur.
A single flick of the wrist.
His aura, transmuted into vibrating edge-light, cleaved through the nearest man's head. No resistance. The skull split like a melon, and the others didn't even register it until the body dropped.
"What the—?!"
Too late.
Ten steps.
Five corpses.
Blood sprayed like rain, and Oozaru exhaled for the first time since entering.
He stopped in front of the sect leader, a bloated man with a scimitar and dead eyes.
"You... you're using it. That cursed thing... Nen."
Oozaru's voice was calm. "Tell me where I can find a Seer. I need a map of this new world."
The man snarled and swung his blade—
—and died in that instant.
Oozaru's aura carved through his core, not just killing the body but silencing the soul. Zetsu followed. The aura receded.
The camp burned behind him as he walked away.
He had returned.