The sky burned.
Dragons covered the heavens, their wings blotting out the sun. Flames fell like rain, swallowing cities and forests alike. The land trembled beneath their roars — gods of flame and fury soaring over a dying world.
And in the heart of the chaos stood one man.
Silver hair. Steady eyes.
A blade that gleamed like moonlight through smoke.
Arden Vale.
The Sword God.
The last and greatest swordsman of humanity.
His armor was cracked, his cloak torn, yet his will shone brighter than the inferno around him. Aura — raw, untamed — surged from his body like a living tempest. It wasn't mana. It wasn't magic.
It was him.
> "The end of an age," he whispered. "Let's make it a clean cut."
---
Before him descended Zar'eth, the Eternal Flame, the mightiest of the Dragon Sovereigns. His wings spanned the sky, his scales glowed like molten suns, and his eyes — twin furnaces — burned with ancient malice.
"Human," Zar'eth rumbled, his voice a storm that shook the clouds, "your defiance ends here. You cannot sever eternity."
Arden lifted his blade and smiled faintly.
"Then I'll just cut eternity too."
He stepped forward—
and the world exploded.
The clash of aura and flame shattered the sky.
Mountains crumbled. Oceans boiled. The ground screamed beneath their fury.
Each swing of Arden's blade split the horizon. Each roar of Zar'eth tore the stars from the heavens. Fire met light. Power met will.
The dragon's breath scorched the air, turning stone to ash, but Arden's sword cut through it — cleaving flame itself. The world seemed to hold its breath as the two forces clashed again and again, every strike echoing across continents.
For seven days and seven nights, they fought.
Each blow reshaped the land.
Each step left craters and burning rifts.
On the eighth day, silence fell.
---
Arden stood alone amid the wreckage of creation. His body was torn, blood trailing down his arm, yet his gaze was unbroken. Before him lay the dragon king — wings shattered, flames fading to embers.
Zar'eth raised his head weakly, smoke curling from his maw. "You cannot kill eternity," he hissed.
Arden's blade gleamed as he raised it for the final strike.
"Watch me."
But then—
> "Master…"
A voice.
Human. Familiar.
Arden turned, the blade pausing midair.
Through the drifting smoke stepped Elian — his most trusted disciple, the boy he had trained since childhood. His eyes trembled with sorrow, his hands gripping a sword too tightly.
Behind him came others — Arden's comrades, the brothers and sisters who had fought by his side for years.
All armed.
All silent.
Arden's voice was calm, though his heart grew heavy. "So… even you?"
Elian's lips quivered. "They promised peace, Master. If we hand you over… the dragons will end the war. Humanity will live."
For a moment, the battlefield stilled.
Only the wind moved — whispering through ash and blood.
Arden exhaled slowly, a trace of grief flickering across his face.
> "Peace built on fear isn't peace," he said quietly. "It's submission."
Elian's grip faltered. The boy's eyes, once bright with admiration, now brimmed with tears. Memories flickered — a child struggling to hold a sword, Arden's hands steadying his stance.
> "Again," Arden had said. "Your sword must follow your will, not your fear."
Now, that same student stood trembling, his sword aimed at the man who had taught him everything.
---
Arden turned back toward Zar'eth, aura surging one last time — pure and absolute, enough to make the heavens quake. Even the dragons who lingered in the distance drew back, their ancient eyes filled with dread.
The ground cracked beneath Arden's feet. The very air distorted around him. His aura flared like a second sun — a defiant storm of silver and white.
And then—
A spear of light pierced his chest.
Not from the front.
From behind.
Elian's hands glowed with fading mana, his expression shattered.
> "Forgive me… Master."
The words trembled like the boy's voice.
Arden staggered, blood trailing down his lips. His blade wavered, its glow dimming. Yet even through the pain, he smiled faintly.
> "You were always… too kind."
The dragons roared in triumph. Golden runes burst into the sky, forming an ancient spell older than the stars. Chains of divine fire erupted from the earth, wrapping around Arden's body and soul.
His aura raged, resisting — an endless tide of willpower that shattered mountains and tore through the clouds — but the chains grew thicker, heavier, unstoppable.
He fell to one knee. The ground beneath him split open, and his sword slipped from his hand, plunging into the earth.
Light consumed everything.
> "You can seal my sword," he whispered, his voice echoing through the collapsing sky, "but not my will."
Then silence.
The light faded.
And the Sword God was no more.
---
A thousand years passed.
Then two.
Then ten thousand.
The dragons built their empire upon his grave. They forged the Mana Control System, binding the flow of life itself — restricting humans to eight cycles of power and erasing all traces of aura.
They rewrote history.
They turned truth into myth.
And the name Arden Vale became nothing more than a bedtime story told by those who still dared to dream of swords.
They hunted every swordsman who sought to go beyond the eighth cycle, calling them heretics. And whenever one reached too far — whenever one's aura even flickered — the dragons descended and erased them from the earth.
Over time, humanity forgot what aura even was.
They began to worship mana instead — a system the dragons had carefully designed, elegant and limiting.
---
Ten thousand years later, the world thrived in golden cages.
Cities of floating spires gleamed beneath dragon-built skies. Mana crystals pulsed at the heart of every home, powering machines that mimicked magic. Humanity had forgotten struggle, forgotten freedom — content to exist within the walls their masters built.
Priests and scholars preached the same words:
> "Aura is chaos. Aura is false. The Ninth Cycle is a myth."
Children laughed at old sword legends.
Kings and nobles bowed before dragon envoys, offering tribute in exchange for protection.
And in the grand academies, the history of the War of Fire and Steel was dismissed as fable — a tale to entertain, not to believe.
The dragons looked down upon their world and saw perfection.
No hunger. No rebellion.
No swords.
---
Yet beneath the deepest ruins of the last battlefield — a place no map marked and no dragon dared approach — the silence began to stir.
The earth trembled faintly. The air shimmered, disturbed by something ancient, something alive.
A single drop of light bled through the cracks of stone — soft, silver, and pulsing like a heartbeat.
> "…The seal weakens."
The words were not spoken, yet they echoed through the void.
No dragon heard it.
No human felt it.
The world slept peacefully, believing the age of swords had ended long ago.
But deep below, the forgotten blade began to hum again.
Its voice was low, but steady — a whisper that carried across the stillness of the ages.
The blade that had once cut through flame, time, and even fate itself… waited.
And far above, dragons dreamed in their citadels of gold, unaware that the silence beneath their feet was breaking — that something old and terrible was waking.
For ten thousand years, the world had forgotten Arden Vale.
But the sword had not forgotten him.
Nor had it forgiven.