The Wilds, Outer Periphery of Northern Kingdom:

Mizuki looked around, taking in the scenery. The vast majority of the land in every direction was dry desert sand. There was not the slightest hint of vegetation or water to be seen anywhere. The closest bastion of civilization was the Kingdom’s 54th District, which was twenty miles to the north. That very District happened to be the birthplace and home of a certain Flawed Martial Artist. Her search had led her here, this close to it. Whether that was a coincidence or not, she did not know yet. But it was certainly a fact that her current mission had everything to do with Sura Shen.

She walked forward, heading deeper into the desert. Based on tracking down the access point address of a certain website, she had determined that it was located further along. The Kingdom-wide Internet was based on underground fibre-optic cables that connected the various districts. All the main servers, and most personal computers too, were thus linked by wired connections. Within the Districts, wireless connectivity was available too. Each device connected to the network was assigned a unique “access point”, a number that acted as a virtual address. In conjunction with this, the Magic field resulting from the use of Crystal tech meant that the physical location of each device could be determined too. Thus, if one had the administrator privileges required, one could use an access point to find out where it was located in the real world. This kind of work was not Mizuki’s forte, but she was moderately proficient at it, having needed to do a good deal of it in the past. What was surprising about the current mission was the location of the target. There shouldn’t be any way to connect to the Kingdom’s network from all the way out here. Meaning, whoever was doing it had built and connected their own pirate wires to a server (most likely one in the 54th District). Needless to say, their access point and physical location were hidden. It had taken some work, but Mizuki had managed to break through those walls, and find them out.

She shook her head slightly. Was this what it had come to? Warriors in this day and age were obligated to be skilled hackers too, merely to survive? Ten minutes more of walking, and she came to a stop. This was the place. The access point was less than five hundred feet from where she was. A single step further, and she would be within a Detection Field.

Digital protection wasn’t enough, then. You opted for physical as well.

A Detection Field was a low-Magic consumption Skill. It could be spread over a much larger volume of space than a Barrier, and its only function was to instantly alert the user when certain entities entered it. Fittingly enough, with its weak energy signature, a Detection Field was hard to sense. Whoever had set this up was counting on any intruders not being aware that he was on to them. This would give them time. Either to escape, or to attack, all while still remaining hidden. Mizuki had a feeling they were planning on the latter.

She carefully scanned the landscape in front of her. Aside from the weak energy signature of the Field itself, she couldn’t detect any notable sources of Magic. Nor did she sense any Ki. They must be actively suppressing their presence. She did not think they were already on to her. Which left only one other possibility: they were in the habit of maintaining a suppressed state throughout the day. That in itself was quite difficult, and took a lifetime of training to master. Mizuki knew this, because she had undergone the same training.

So you too walk the same path.

Encounters with others from the same world weren’t something Mizuki ever looked forward to. Yet, this particular meeting wasn’t one she could avoid.

Entering the field was a risky move. He might have prepared additional Skills that would be triggered the moment she was detected. Without knowing what those Skills were, defending against them was an uncertain endeavour. Fortunately, once a Detection Field was exposed, it was made practically useless. From just outside its range, she could activate a Field of her own, and use it to locate her target’s body. But doing so would temporarily raise her own Magic energy output, which would cause them to sense her. If that happened, they might choose to run.

She couldn’t have that happening. Stepping forward, she entered the Field.

She continued to walk forward, actively forcing her Ki into herself, suppressing her Magic. This prevented her from casting a Barrier, leaving her wide open to whatever attack the target would launch. In turn, she would not be aware of the attack itself until the moment the target initiated it. She would only be able to act after it had begun. For a Mage or an assassin, being in this situation was suicidal.

Sure enough, she heard the sonic pulse, which indicated the casting of Magic.

She went into a low stance, widening her base, closing her eyes, and summoned the power exclusive to her.

Magic levels spiked at a distance.

She sensed the attack hurtling towards her.

Surging Ki through herself, she swung, a single, precise movement.

The projectile that had been racing towards her head was bifurcated, each half of it landing on the desert sand, twenty feet away. Where they fell, the ground was twisted in on itself, churning until the very grains of sand disintegrated, leaving gaping, unnatural holes, as though chunks of the world itself had disappeared.

Dimensional Bullet.

Mizuki recognized the Skill, exclusive to the centuries old assassins. A Magic-laced projectile that eroded space-time by creating a concentrated field of ultra-gravity. Magic Barriers couldn’t block an attack like that, even at Level Five power. No amount of armour could protect against it. Any target hit by it would instantly be fragmented and scattered to other dimensions.

“I’ll give credit where it’s due,” she said. “That’s an impressive Skill to master. But it’s useless against me.”

Two more Dimensional Bullets were fired.

Twice more, the power to rend dimensions was cut in half.

The red blade flashed in Mizuki’s hands. Thrice was more than enough. Even with the sniper changing their position, she had read his movements.

She sheathed the blade, inching slightly lower in her stance. Then, with a single, explosive movement, she unsheathed.

A semi-circular slice was taken out of the desert land, hundreds of feet in radius. Sand and hard baked earth, slashed clean off the very planet itself, disintegrated without a trace. With its cover destroyed, the target’s underground bunker was laid bare.

And in the middle of it, lying on the ground, face white with fear, was the target himself.

As Mizuki walked towards him, he crawled backwards, away from her, staring in sheer horror at the sword in her hands. He glanced up at her, and recognition dawned on his face.

“The Forbidden One… the Cursed Descendant…”, he muttered.

Immediately, Mizuki closed the distance, holding the point of her sword right at the man’s throat.

“Don’t ever call me that.”

Sweating profusely, the man remained silent, not even daring to nod until Mizuki moved the sword away.

“Apologies,” he said. “It’s just, we always believed you were just a rumour, a myth. The Muramasa Clan was long gone. We assumed it was a government plan. They hunted and chased most Warriors out of the Kingdom and into hiding, after all. We believed they saw the Muramasa’s as their biggest threat, so in secrecy, they…”

He did not finish the sentence.

Even with her existence shrouded in mystery, there was no doubt as to the fate of her clan. She sheathed the sword, and it vanished from sight, fading away in slivers of crimson light.

“That isn’t why I’m here today,” she said. She’d known about the Kingdom’s hunting down of expert Martial Artists, of course. Minor Noble clans, as well as individual warriors of great renown had all gone into hiding centuries ago. The Muramasa’s had survived longer, but they too were gone now, albeit for different reasons.

“Teaching online. Video lessons. Codified documents. All available for free download,” she said. “It sounds almost like some kind of joke.”

“We did what we had to,” the man answered. “Fugitives as we were, our arts were at risk of being lost forever. So we put them on the Internet. Hoping that someone would see them. Learn them. Use them. That our ways would survive.”

“Someone did learn them,” Mizuki replied. “He is at Elysium, striking down the Kingdom’s best Mages like scum.”

The man’s eyes widened in recognition.

“The Demon of the 54th District,” he said.

“You know him?” Mizuki asked sharply.

“Not personally,” the man replied. “But there isn’t anyone in the 54th District or the underground Martial Arts community who hasn’t heard of him. He first became known three years ago, when he brawled and beat a Mage in a local school competition. News of that circulated, but we all put it down to a fluke. And then… it happened again, and again.

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High school delinquents. Local criminals. Mage supremacists. Gangbangers. Molesters, rapists and murderers. Anti-Flawed groups.

All beaten to within an inch of their lives.

At first, we thought it was some fairy tale, some urban legend cooked up by the Flawed.

But news reports backed it up. There was too much evidence.

Against all common sense, we had to accept it: there was a monster in the 54th District, and he had no tolerance for the unjust.”

“Go on,” said Mizuki, sensing there was more to this tale.

“Well,” said the man, “Over time, video footage of him surfaced, and we all took a look at it. It was obvious he was using Martial Arts: Karate, Boxing, Judo. But we’d never taught him in person, nor did any of the clans have a descendant like him. The only way he could have learned was from the sites we had created. A self-taught fighter, who took the information we gave, and used it.”

“None of you were able to track him down?”

“You have to understand, most of us have our hands full making sure the government does not know of us. The sites are accessible only from the 54th District and any rogue access points in the wilds. Anywhere else, and we’d be noticed. We didn’t bother installing any tracking functions either: we just wanted to give people a chance to learn. There are people who need Martial Arts. We had to give them that chance.”

“He needed that chance, and he took it.”

“That he did. The 54th District’s crime rate went down to single digits after his spree. But… then he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

The man’s face had a hint of sadness in it.

“Well, there was an incident that made the news. No names were made public, but we all knew who it must be. Ten high schoolers, suspected of having links to high-ranking officials, as well as local gangs. Turns out they were running a human-trafficking operation. Flawed go missing from the 54th all the time. They’re sold to outlaws in the wilds for a profit.”

Mizuki swore.

“I thought I finished off those bastards,” she muttered.

“Cut off one head of the hydra, and three more will sprout,” the man answered.

“And? What did the ‘Demon’ do with these new heads?”

The man looked up at her.

“Of those ten boys, not a single one will ever walk again. Total skeletal fracture, multiple destroyed organs, significant brain injury leading to permanently impaired functioning.

That’s what the medical reports said, anyway. In my opinion, they don’t sum up even half of the damage. I saw the photos: imagine a human torso, flattened like a squashed fruit.

A hydra may regrow its heads… but there isn’t a sane hydra in existence that would pick a fight with a demon. The local mafias have dropped most of their larger operations in the area since then.”

Mizuki frowned.

“And the boy himself. What happened to him?”

“After the incident, his school wanted to expel him. But there was no concrete proof linking him to what had happened. And so, they couldn’t take any action. But he was placed in a bad position, heavily pressured to leave at the end of the year.”

From there, Mizuki knew how the rest of the story went. She had been able to confirm a few of her theories and learn some important details, but there were still many questions left unanswered.

“None of you found his abilities strange?” she asked.

The man got to his feet and dusted himself off.

“He is Flawed, yes, but we both know Magic is not essential to gaining power.”

He did have a point. The vast majority of the human body’s potential was untapped, even among those who did physical training. By pushing oneself past their current limits, but not to the point of destruction, it was possible to unlock this latent power. This, of course, required many things. Gaining the ability to consciously turn off the limiters on one’s nervous system in order to fully recruit muscles, being able to consciously alter one’s body’s hormonal and chemical balance to effectively function at that level, and of course, knowing exactly how far to go, since one couldn’t count on the body’s normal warning mechanisms in such a state. If one was able to do this, and alternate it with the right amount of recovery time, one could force the body to adapt to superhuman levels of exertion. Essentially, it was training oneself to become superhuman.

However, this knowledge was highly secret.

Even among the ancient Martial clans, it was only ever taught to a select few.

Mizuki had checked the sites herself, and to be sure, none of them had the training methods for this process listed. In other words, if one trained only according to what was available in those places, one would only train as a human Martial Artist. Not a superhuman. Had Sura then learned the hidden methods from somewhere else? Perhaps some other teacher, with ulterior motives of their own, in teaching something so dangerous to one so young?

No, it was highly unlikely.

The truth was infinitely more terrifying.

Far more likely, he had discovered the method on his own, experimenting with his training, and pushing himself further and further. On that borderline between fear and madness, where the smallest error in training meant death or permanent disability, he had kept perfect control, and made progress.

That in itself was a feat worthy of a prodigy unlike any recorded in human history.

But that wasn’t the extent of his achievement.

There were other superhuman Martial Artists. Exceedingly rare, but they did exist. Mizuki herself was one. But even among them, Sura’s raw physical ability was unheard of.

At the base level, without the use of Ki to provide any kind of amp, Sura was actually stronger than Mizuki. He was eighteen right now. It was unlikely he had trained for longer than eight years at most. Mizuki herself had trained for close to two decades, and she had had the benefit of personal instruction from the Muramasa clan.

“He’s a lot stronger than you know,” she said aloud to the man. “Do none of you have any records of anomalies among superhumans?”

The man frowned, racking his brain as he searched his store of knowledge for anything that might be relevant. With a start, his jaw opened slightly.

Mizuki raised an eyebrow.

“It appears you know something.”

The man looked at her once more.

“It’s just some old anecdotes. I doubt any of them are fact, as opposed to fiction.”

“What are they?” Mizuki asked sharply.

“Well… if anything, I thought the Muramasa clan would be more familiar with those tales than me.”

He saw the darkening expression on her face, and hurried on.

“T-the accounts go that occasionally, there have been those who attempted to seize for themselves a forbidden power that lies beyond the realm of humans or superhumans. They were cast out as heretics, fallen from humanity forever. They devoted themselves to eternal violence, the path of the Fallen One.”

Mizuki frowned. She’d heard one or two of those stories before. But neither of the warriors in those tales had been anything special. Pathetic wretches who had been unable to control their lust for power. They’d gone on killing sprees, living in the wild and becoming increasingly animalistic, until they were hunted down and killed.

“Drunkards and impotent fools,” she snapped.

“Yes,” agreed the man. “All of those stories have a pathetic end. Fitting for imitators. Those aspiring to be something they were not. Men attempting to be monsters, and failing. But what of the one they were trying to imitate?”

Mizuki’s eyes widened.

The man continued.

“The Fallen One himself. An invincible, undying warrior, who gets stronger with every fight. A monster with an insatiable thirst for pure, unblemished violence. With each fight, he sinks deeper into darkness. And the deeper he falls, the stronger he becomes, until eventually, he consumes the entire universe.

They say the Fallen One was the true adversary of the gods.

If somehow, he were to exist in this world again…”

“Enough.”

Mizuki had her sword in her hand again, pointed at the man’s throat. He raised his hands, immediately falling silent.

The man’s version of the “Fallen One” was incorrect, of course. She knew this, because she was quite familiar with the original legend, which had been outlawed thousands of years ago, but kept alive in the Muramasa clan. Still, despite how ridiculous his telling of the story was, he had managed to point Mizuki in the right direction.

It was true Sura was nothing like those men, the ones who had attempted to imitate a monster, and fallen short. No, his power was the real thing. And certainly, everything he had done so far was in line with that reasoning. It was still early, but Mizuki was now sure that the task she had set him was the right one. If he did indeed manage to surpass Level Fours with nothing but his physical strength, he would be far beyond the realm of any humans. And if that was the case, then he may be the one she had been looking for all along.

She shook her head.

Impossible.

He’s a force of nature. I’m sure he can surpass Level Fours. But even if he does, he’s only a human being. Sentiment and fairy tales have no place in this. I’m his teacher: I’ll make sure to keep him on the right path. That’s all there is to it.

So saying, she began to walk away.

Yet, she couldn’t entirely eliminate the nagging thought that had been planted in her brain.