“You’ve been trounced Sword Immortal, give up now and we might just bless you with a quick death!” A middle-aged man with a devilish scar running down his face spat the words laced with venom.
“Hah- when will your words actually bear fruition Fist Emperor? How many times do I need to cut you down for you to realize I am unparalleled in this world?” Piercing grey eyes looked apathetically at the man called Fist Emperor.
Shaking his head, he gestured to the veritable army of people behind the man and behind him.
“You know, I might have respected those words more had you been courageous enough to speak them by yourself. Instead, like the dog you are, you surround yourself with a pack of useless riff-raff to find the courage to face me”
“Do you think by gathering a few more dogs you would be able to stand against me?” Chuckling to himself, the man continued to monologue as the enemies surrounding him were deathly still. “Even if you had brought 10 times the amount that stands before me today, I would still be unphased. After all, what is an endless sea of grass to the blade of a sword? And I. AM. THE SWORD MADE IMMORTAL!”
With the last shout of the man, a shockwave exploded from him as the center and spread at sound-breaking speeds into the army of enemies. Not even a fraction of a second later they felt it. Like a freight train running through their skulls, a massive blow was delivered to each and every one of their consciousness; a gentle reminder from the one known as the Sword Immortal.
He grew a legend, unparalleled in his talent with the sword at birth, matchless in his talent for battle and without peer in experience. His meteoric rise to the peak of power, and the subsequent lull in activity, had made them forget- No. It had made the entire world forget, about the absolute terror in human form that he was.
And faced directly with the monster in human skin, and experiencing the after-effects of what was only the man taking one step forward. The Fist Emperor couldn’t deny the dread he felt deep in his bones. Looking back, he couldn’t help but notice that at least 45% of the people gathered to fight the “Great Evil” was already on the ground incapacitated.
It was as if a cloud had been lifted over his mind with that blast, and the Fist Emperor couldn’t help but ruminate on the sequence of events that would lead to his sudden but no doubt inevitable death. For facing the man and his power completely revealed, he knew he stood no chance- hell even if there were a hundred more Fist Emperors, he knew they would die all the same.
As the memories came back to him, he couldn’t help but gnash his teeth in rage. The glimpses of the future the Church spoke of that "told of an unspeakable horror". The first crusade he joined out of pure curiosity and desire for a true fight. The feeling of having his ego trampled on in their very first altercation with the man. The very same time when he was defeated with naught but a stick and left with an eternal reminder of the humiliation on his face.
From that point, his mind grew cloudier and cloudier in his anger, and something else- he could now detect. No doubt the machinations of the "Saintess of the Divine Flock", that demoness. He could see it so clearly now, how she manipulated the entire world into believing that the Sword Immortal would be a calamity of catastrophic proportions if left unchecked. All in hopes of eliminating the one threat that would stop their religion from eclipsing all others and commanding full control of the world powers.
Using her undetectable means, she slowly controlled his mind; and looking around at the disoriented and bewildered expressions of his comrades- he realized he wasn’t the only one. How could he be so stupid? If only he had realized sooner, he wouldn’t have thrown his life away. But facing the man slowly approaching them he could tell there was no escape.
Under the directions of the Saintess, they had slaughtered the entire family tree of the Sword Immortal – and anyone even slightly related to him. A transgression that although he didn’t react to at the time, the Fist Emperor could tell was one he intended on repaying in full this time. And as the man slowly reached for the scabbard on his hip and unsheathed his sword, he and every other Martial Master had steeled their hearts and determined that they weren’t going out without a fight.
"HE’S ONLY ONE MAN- WE CAN FIGHT HIM IF WE STICK TOGETHER!” A desperate attempt, but one that improved the morale of his comrades, no matter how little. And as he charged the man, everyone else followed. The Fist Emperor cursed the Saintess and her scheming church to death countless times. “1st Sword of the 9 Heavens Piercing Technique- Be Still.” those were the last words the pitiful man known as the Fist Emperor ever heard.
Looking at the carnage his first attack caused, the Sword Immortal- his real name long forgotten-felt only one thing, exhaustion. For the entirety of his lifetime-well his most recent lifetime, violence had been the only constant. From birth to being orphaned because he was born with grey eyes, and deemed a demon spawn; to growing up in the streets in his early teenage years, all he knew was violence.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t avoid violence, and to be honest, he had a unique talent for it. Due to his living numerous lives, the size of his soul was incomparable to others, and because of that, his comprehension from birth was unheard of. In addition, with the training he received from his master, he was cultivated for violence.
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Gazing around at the death and destruction he caused, with just a flick of his sword, he was introspective. With all the potential of a reincarnator’s soul and a determination and will that was forged through the fire of numerous lifetimes, his rise to the peak of martial prowess was inevitable. Looking back, he remembered the incident that put him firmly on the path of the sword like it was yesterday.
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“When will you teach me how to fight old man? When will I be ready?” a much younger version of the Sword Immortal, a boy still, grumbled indignantly. “Impatient brat, you aren’t yet able to run two laps around the city without taking a break, yet you seek to harness powers beyond your comprehension-” A gray-haired, hunchbacked ancient man smacked the young boy's head.
“When I deem you ready, you will be.”
“But all I’ve been doing for the past few months is running around and exercising the whole day! At least show me what I’m doing all this for!” He stood defiantly before the old man and their eyes locked for a while before the older man shook his head and sighed.
“Fine. But this would be the first and last time I would be proving myself to you. If even after this I hear a word of complaint from you, forget about learning anything else from me. Hmph-” With that sound the young boy found the world around him shift before settling back into place, and along with an intense feeling of nausea.
“Blerghh- What- Blerghh- was that for old- Blerghh- man?” Panting and dry heaving the boy found himself sprawled out on the ground, in a bed of grass, which before was dirt and stone.
“Heh- You said you wanted to see what you’ve been doing all this for, so open your eyes!” at the old man’s words the feeling of nausea started receding and the young sword immortal was able to take in the sights around him. Tall towering trees that seemed to support the sky were laid bare before his eyes, where not long ago the decrepit stone and wood houses of his home city were supposed to be.
“Whe- Where are we?” his voice trembled, he couldn’t grasp what had just happened. Never before in any of his lives did he see anything like this. One moment they were in the capital surrounded by 12 ft. high stone walls, and the next moment he was here; in a clearing, he noticed as his awareness returned even more.
“Why we’re in The Edge Forest, home to all manner of monsters and calamities” The enthusiasm in the old fart’s voice was lost on the boy as he processed what he said, and a feeling of overwhelming fear overtook his mind.
“How can that be true? The Edge Forest is over 2 thousand miles away!” Logically his mind denied the impossibility, but looking at the old fart and the mischievous glint in his eyes, he couldn’t shake the feeling he really was in The Edge Forest. One of the most dangerous places in the known world and a forbidden place for all of humanity.
“You old geezer- Why? How? We need to get out of here- Do whatever you did and take me back home before-” As if on cue- his worst fear materialized, as a stomach-rumbling growl exploded from all around them. The hair on the back of the boy's neck raised as they have only time before. When he was in absolute-unavoidable danger.
Slowly turning around, to where he felt a piercing gaze coldly observing him, the boy immediately shat his pants. Veritable glowing globes, the size of houses would have been a wondrous sight to him at any other time. But now, as he stared into the globes and he realized they were staring back at him, he only felt overwhelming dread.
“Haha- would you look at that! An elder serpent on the cusp of becoming a bonafide wyrmling. Pay attention brat, you’re about to see the end goal of the path you’ve barely started walking” The boy had honestly forgotten the old man was there in all the commotion, as he turned so that he could see both him and the beast. You know with the whole him shitting- and pissing himself too- he now realized, as the distinctive scent of ammonia wafted up to his nose. Not to mention death incarnate appearing and sizing him up as the weak prey he was.
But when he did remember the old fart, for a second, all the fear, dread, and warm sensations from his pants disappeared. And in its place, a wave of smelting anger took root. Anger at the old man for bringing him to this place to die, at the monster about to devour him, and most of all at himself for having to open his big mouth. “F*CK!” he felt cathartic at the release of all that emotion, only to once more sink into the profuse feeling of dread.
But that was when he felt it, and he recognized, the overgrown snake had felt it too. As the eyes that were leisurely gazing at him instantly seized up and frantically started rolling around. He could feel it, a power so sharp it made time stop. The idle noises of insects froze as everything, even the trees refused to move out of fear.
The old fart closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, all the pressure the boy was feeling was instantly directed towards the serpent. Like a knife through butter, the boy watched as something cleanly cleaved through the beast in a horizontal slash. One second the creature was whole, the next, it and everything behind it was split in two.
The boy was not over-exaggerating. Everything he could see behind the monster, miles and miles of gargantuan trees that would need at least ten men to wrap around them, was gone. The other half of them just completely erased from existence, and all of that, from just a gaze.
It was at that moment his path forward and eventual rise as the Martial Master known as the Sword Immortal was cemented.
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With another sigh, as he reflected on that day, so many many years ago, eyes that were unfocused, grew sharp within an instant. Where a middle-aged handsome man was before, an eye-piercingly serious and aloof immortal had taken his place. Cutting everything around him with his gaze, he eventually leveled them with the sky above, and in that gaze was the presence of profound madness.
“Heavenly Dao! Today only one of us will remain! Either my Heavens Piercing Technique will do just that, and you will exist no more, or I will fall under your pressure and fail to reach the absolute peak of sword arts!”
Immediately at the end of his words the sky rumbled and roiled as it split and out of it came a void-like miasma. Taking one last glance at the world he had spent the last millennium in, The Sword Immortal leaped into the sky with his sword unsheathed, insanity now completely overtaking his visage, and disappeared into the heavens.