The forest didn't just go silent; it seemed to hold its breath. Moonlight filtered through the canopy in jagged shards, illuminating the clearing where Dextin's target stood.
The latest wielder of the Red Katana was barely a man—perhaps twenty, with knuckles white as bone as he gripped the hilt. He looked less like a warrior and more like a boy holding a lightning bolt he didn't know how to ground. When Dextin stepped into the light, the boy didn't raise his guard. He just looked tired.
"The Green Katana..." the boy whispered, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "My blade spoke of you—"
He never finished the thought.
In a blur of motion that defied the eye, Dextin vanished. The sound of steel whispering against leather followed a heartbeat later. Dextin stood behind the boy, his blade already halfway back into its sheath. For a second, nothing moved. Then, the boy's head slid from his shoulders with sickening silence, his final expression of relief hitting the dirt before his body followed.
Dextin clicked the hilt into place. The sound was final. He looked down at the Red Katana, which lay abandoned in the grass, pulsing like a fresh wound.
"Too easy," Dextin muttered, a sharp, jagged grin pulling at his face. "All this legend... just waiting for a hand strong enough to take it."
He reached down. His fingers brushed the cold steel.
BOOM.
A violent discharge of crimson lightning tore through the clearing. The force didn't just push Dextin; it detonated against him. He was launched backward, his body snapping through branches and skidding through the muck. His chest burned as if he'd swallowed hot coals.
"What... was that?" he hissed, spitting blood into the leaves.
The Red Katana didn't wait for an answer. It began to hum, a low-frequency vibration that rattled Dextin's teeth. Then, with a sudden, violent burst of light, it shot toward the heavens—a blood-red streak that vanished into the clouds.
You should be dead, a voice rasped inside his skull. It was the Green Katana, sounding older and heavier than before. If I hadn't absorbed the brunt of that strike, you would be a pile of ash.
Dextin's jaw tightened. "You forgot to mention the security system."
It is not a system, Dextin. It is a soul. Only the chosen may touch the Red. To any other, it is not a weapon—it is an executioner.
Dextin stood, shaking off the tremors in his hands. "And the Sword Master? You said if the next one is him, I'll never have it."
Correct. The Sword Master does not just carry the blade. He becomes it. You cannot steal what is already whole.
"Then I change the rules," Dextin said, his eyes turning cold and dark.
For months, the pattern repeated. A new wielder would rise; Dextin would find them; Dextin would kill them. And every single time, the Red Katana would scream into the sky, escaping his grasp. His hands weren't just stained with blood anymore—they were calloused by failure.
"Enough!" he roared into the empty woods after the tenth escape. "It only leaves when the heart stops beating."
The Green Katana hummed. And what will you do? Stop the killing?
"No," Dextin whispered, a new, more dangerous light dancing in his eyes. "I stop the running. I'll turn Xiphosia into a cage. If I rule the village, I rule the people. And if the next wielder is born in my house, they will hand me the hilt willingly—or watch their world burn while they hold it."
He didn't just build an army; he built a shadow. Xiphosia, once a place of peace, became a fortress of iron and fear. The brave were buried; the rest learned to look at the ground when Dextin walked by.
He sat on his new throne, watching the horizon, blinded by the green glow of his own blade. He was waiting for a spark.