Chapter 1
The city had a name once.
It had been carved into stone, written into laws, sung by children who had never known hunger or war. Now it was nothing more than an accumulation of concrete, steel, and flickering lights stacked toward a polluted sky. Names, Dino had learned, were fragile things. They lasted as long as memory allowed.
He walked through the crowd unnoticed.
White robes brushed against passing coats and uniforms, always clean, always untouched by dust or rain. The outer layer was simple, almost monk-like in its austerity. Inside, where no one looked, black cloth lined the seams like a shadow stitched into fabric. At his waist hung a long scabbard of black wood—too long, too plain, and unmistakably empty.
Beside it rested a bamboo.
Silver-black, smooth as polished metal, shaped like an ordinary piece of tin bamboo one might find growing beside a river. No edge. No inscription. No hint of danger.
People glanced at it and laughed.
"A cosplayer?" someone muttered.
"Is that… a flute?" another asked.
Dino heard them all. He always did.
His eyes were black—deep, unreflective, and calm. Not blind, despite the rumors. Not unfocused. Simply uninterested. He moved with the unhurried gait of someone who had nowhere to be and no reason to rush. Every step was balanced, precise, and utterly unremarkable.
And yet
A group of men across the street stopped arguing.
A barking dog fell silent, tail tucked, eyes wide.
The wind shifted direction.
None of them understood why.
Dino paused at a crosswalk, standing beneath a flickering pedestrian light. Red. He waited. He always waited. Even when there was no traffic, even when time itself would have yielded if he asked.
He did not ask.
Long ago—so long that epochs had not yet learned to count themselves—he had learned that the universe reacted better when he did nothing.
He crossed when the light turned green.
Behind his waist, inside the black wooden scabbard named Eternum, infinity slept.
Every sword that had ever existed. Every sword that would exist. Every sword imagined, worshipped, forgotten, or destroyed.
They were not summoned. They were not called.
They were simply… there.
Eternum did not obey time. It did not care for causality. The moment a blade came into existence—whether forged by a god, drawn by a hero, or conceptualized in a story—it was already copied, stored, and sealed.
Dino had not forged Eternum.
He had outlived the one who did.
The bamboo at his side was the only blade he ever touched. It was not a weapon. It was a choice.
A reminder.
The city breathed around him—engines humming, advertisements flashing, conversations overlapping into white noise. Above, a billboard flickered between luxury watches and apocalyptic movie trailers. Humanity loved endings when they were fictional.
Dino stopped before a convenience store.
Inside, fluorescent lights buzzed softly. A young cashier leaned against the counter, scrolling through her phone. She glanced up when the door chimed.
Her eyes lingered on the scabbard.
"…You know it's empty, right?" she asked, not unkindly.
Dino nodded.
"Yes."
She tilted her head. "Then why carry it?"
He considered the question.
Because the universe would end if he didn't. Because every sword ever made rested inches from her existence. Because absence was safer than presence.
"Habit," he answered.
She shrugged. "Suit yourself."
He purchased a bottle of water and left. Outside, the sky had darkened. Clouds gathered, heavy with rain that hadn't yet decided whether to fall.
High above the city—far beyond satellites, beyond observation, beyond reason
Something watched.
Invisible moons hovered in layered silence.
Red. White. Silver. Black. Blue. Gold. Corrupted. Cursed. Celestial. Gray. Inverted. Mirror. Ancient. Divine. Holy. Demonic.
They did not shine. They did not cast shadows.
They simply were.
Between them, where space folded into itself, a black hole rested like a closed eye. Opposite it, a white hole breathed quietly, exhaling possibility. These were not weapons.
They were attendants.
And at the center of their orbit stood a woman.
She was tall, pale, with white hair that fell like snow over a black dress untouched by wind. Her red eyes reflected the city below—not with hunger, nor contempt, but something dangerously close to affection.
Luna watched Dino walk.
She had watched him for longer than this city had existed. Longer than its ruins would remain. She knew every alias he had ever carried.
Heavenly Demon.
Blade God.
The Death.
The First Swordsman.
And the ones that amused her most:
Stupid swordsman.
Blind man.
The sword master who doesn't use a sword.
She liked those.
He did not know she stood there—not consciously. But his pace slowed. Just slightly. Enough for her to smile.
Long ago, gods had screamed when they sensed him. Demons had gone mad. Immortals had begged.
Dino had killed without lifting a hand. Without spilling blood. Without hatred.
His kill count was not a number. It was a concept.
Close to infinity. Possibly beyond it.
And now
He stopped before a quiet street corner, rain finally beginning to fall. Droplets slid off his robes without leaving a trace.
He looked up.
Not at her. Not at the moons.
At the sky.
"…Still here," he murmured.
Luna's lips curved gently.
"Yes," she whispered, though no sound reached him.
The universe no longer feared him. It no longer remembered him.
But she did.
And this time, she had no intention of letting him walk alone forever.
End of Chapter 1