Rain had ceased.
Smoke curled from the blackened husk of the apartment complex—once alive with laughter and the clash of blades, now silent.
Neon dusk cast shattered glass like crystallized tears across Metro Nyos. The city held its breath.
Matt Salurga stood amid the rubble, barefoot and bleeding, reborn by ruin.
His legs shook. His breath came in ragged gasps.
But his hand—
Would not release the hilt.
It pulsed against his palm, ancient metal etched in runes, glowing crimson with every heartbeat. It felt less like a weapon—and more like a scar he'd always carried.
> "Draw it."
The whisper was not his own. It came from the blade. From the Void.
Matt froze.
Then the air shimmered. Heat warped space. Reality cracked—
And something stepped through.
A phantom in molten black armor—half-machine, half-nightmare—advanced without a sound.
Its hollow mask hid all expression, but two void-stars gleamed behind the eye slits.
> TIER I: IMPERIAL PHANTOM // GODHUNT UNIT
A pigeon fluttered overhead—then disintegrated mid-flight, embers scattering to the ground.
The Phantom lunged.
Matt's instincts roared. He gripped the hilt—
And the sword answered.
The hilt twisted in his grasp—not drawn, but born.
The blade grew, forged in mid-air from pure shadowfire.
Black steel screamed to life, crackling with cosmic energy.
The Shadowsidian Blade.
Their clash shattered silence. Sparks rained as metal screamed.
Matt reeled into a rusted car; ribs cracked. Vision blurred.
But the blade—
The blade never wavered.
> Let go.
His pupils bled darkness.
Time stuttered.
Color drained.
The Phantom struck again—arm-blades slicing through rain-slick air.
But Matt moved in perfect sync—
VOID SYNC: TRIGGERED
His body flowed through the battle like a memory:
Centuries-old duels echoed in every movement.
He spun, blade whirling, and struck—
The Phantom shattered into static and dust.
Silence reclaimed the street.
Matt dropped to one knee.
The blade hissed.
Hungry.
"What… am I?"
Light coalesced before him into a woman's shape—
Graceful. Luminous. Eyes full of sorrow.
Amiya.
"Matt… you found the blade."
He stared. "You're… real?"
"A fragment. A tether. A piece of my soul… left behind."
Tears rose, unbidden. He had mourned her before.
Forgotten her before.
"There's no time. Beneath this ruin lies your past. You must return to the beginning."
A tremor shook the sky. A rift cracked open—
And from it, shadows poured.
"They'll know I reached you," Amiya whispered. "I shouldn't have awakened… until your second fall."
She raised her hand—light touching his forehead—
> MEMORY SURGE — INITIATED
Agony.
A realm on fire.
Children screaming beneath crumbling stone.
A burning house.
A mother's final prayer.
A father's final stand.
A blade buried with him.
A name erased.
A command whispered by Monshin—the Paladin who condemned him.
Matt gasped as the vision ended. The light flickered out.
The blade pulsed.
The ground beneath him groaned.
"Go," Amiya urged. "Before they erase it again."
Stone split.
Earth opened like a wound.
He didn't scream.
He remembered.
And he fell—but as he fell, memory rose.
A younger Matt.
Small hands clutching a broken toy sword. Dusty cheeks. Wide eyes.
Amiya knelt beside him in that ancient, sunlit temple. Her armor was cracked. Her smile wasn't. She held out her hand, not like a warrior—but like a sister.
"Someday, you'll be stronger than all of us," she said.
"Even the gods?"
"Especially the gods."
The sky outside had been burning. Screams echoed from the valley below. But in that moment, she gave him the pendant—the one he'd buried and forgotten. The one now pulsing against his chest.
"Promise me something," she whispered.
"Anything."
"When they break you… don't break back. Burn."
He took the pendant.
And now—
Falling through darkness, through time, through blood and fire—
He opened his fist.
The pendant glowed faintly.
He never let go.
Downward. Toward what was buried.
Toward war.
Toward himself.
He was never just a child.
He was the blade.