Chapter 1 ….
Shedding
Pathetic.
That was the sentiment of a man called a “monster wearing a human face” as he gazed upon the world.
Twenty-five years had passed since he first held a sword.
Every path the Absolute had walked was stained with blood.
Fights, battles, wars.
His life was a continuous struggle, and victory alone proved his existence.
At fifteen, he took the life of his first opponent with his victory.
After slaying a hundred, he gained the first recognition of his name.
By his thousandth victory, his fame became legendary.
When he broke ten thousand swords, people praised him.
And when he single-handedly cut down an entire nation, the world feared him.
And then…
No sword remained unbroken.
No opponent remained to challenge him.
The world lay prostrate beneath him, honoring him as the master of swords.
He faced crises, but never defeat.
The strongest being on Earth who had never lost.
A man said to have reached the ultimate pinnacle of the sword as a human.
The Sword Master, Luke Rider.
Yet, even for an Absolute who had accomplished everything, one thing came: profound loneliness.
He had only ever known struggle, so a life in calmness was nothing but suffering.
At the mere age of forty, he still hungered for combat and sought to go further.
He wanted to grow even stronger.
But…
“There’s no sword left to break.”
No one in the world could oppose him.
This realization filled him with despair.
Then a thought flashed through the Absolute’s mind:
“A sword to oppose me…”
In this generation, no rivals existed.
He had defeated them all.
Then…
“Why not forge one myself?”
A sharp sword to match his spirit.
An opponent from the next generation to aim at his heart.
He could raise it himself, with his own hands.
“Perfect… Yes!”
The thought alone thrilled him. His eyes glimmered with madness as he gazed upon the world.
Before long, a single message spread like wildfire across the globe:
[Those with talent, come to me!]
It was both a promise of the Absolute and…
[I will provide fertile soil where your talent can bloom, and thus…]
A declaration of a festival of blood.
[Plant your sword in my heart! Whoever severs my neck shall inherit all that is mine!]
The world went into a frenzy at the Absolute’s declaration.
The Sword Master’s entirety.
Some called it the last enlightenment he had achieved.
Some said it was absolute power capable of controlling the world.
Some said it was the succession of the Sword Master, capable of attaining everything.
No matter how you looked at it, inheriting the Sword Master’s entirety meant becoming the ruler of the continent.
Those confident in their abilities grew greedily excited, and those with talent entered the festival battlefield set by the Sword Master.
Forty-two years had passed since the Sword Master’s proclamation.
The festival, called the “Usurpation of the Sword Throne,” continued.
To claim the Absolute’s throne, stained with more and more blood.
To cover that throne with even more blood.
A spray of red blood splattered everywhere.
“Ugh!”
The man who vomited blood lay sprawled on the ground, his dead eyes sweeping the area.
‘Could this place… be hell?’
What he saw left no other conclusion.
Buildings burning.
Bodies and blood scattered everywhere.
‘A hell of slaughter and carnage.’
There was no other word to describe the scene.
‘How… did it come to this?’
The task assigned to his squad was supposed to be simple.
Wipe out a small mountain village that had angered the lord.
It was such a trivial mission that it could have been mistaken for a casual midnight stroll.
Even as he burned buildings and cut down people rushing out in panic, he found it tedious rather than tense.
In less than ten minutes, a small village of about twenty households was annihilated.
Every home was destroyed, and most residents were killed by the blade.
Except for the last house.
The smallest, most dilapidated house at the edge of the village, so unassuming that no one expected anyone to live there, would become an unexpected variable.
Flames ignited the last house, and the first person to rush out—a frail old woman—was cut down.
The man assumed the mission was over.
But from that very last house…
‘A mon… ster.’
A monster appeared.
A creature wrapped in thick darkness.
It erupted from the flames, rampaging wildly.
[Stop it!]
[What is that?!]
[Run!]
All their fighting spirit, all their lifetime of martial skill, was useless against the monster.
In the blink of an eye, all twenty of his comrades were torn to pieces.
“Hahaha…”
Recalling the horrific scene, a laugh that was almost a sigh escaped his lips.
‘So this is how it ends…’
His sword-wielding arm was ripped off, and he could no longer feel his lower body, possibly due to a spinal injury.
Blood loss blurred his vision.
‘I never thought I’d die like this…’
He had been ready to die at any moment, but he hadn’t expected this small mountain village to become his grave.
As he lamented, footsteps approached.
Soft, small steps.
In his blurry vision, a small pair of moving feet appeared.
His heart raced, and his vision cleared.
Then he saw a single figure:
Pitch-black hair, golden eyes.
And a small mole under the left eye.
A boy no older than seven stood there, holding a broken kitchen knife.
Despite his mountain upbringing, the boy had pale skin and delicate features. Yet the man felt a tinge of fear.
“You…”
A fragile-looking child.
But the man knew.
The monster that had killed twenty of his comrades…
The monster that had ripped his arm…
It was this child.
“Ugh!”
The man vomited again as his racing heart sent blood surging.
The boy looked at him indifferently and spoke.
“Why did you do it?”
“…”
“Why… why did you do it?!”
The small, undeveloped voice rang loud.
Behind the boy, a dark form shimmered like a heat haze.
Then…
Slash!
The man’s last remaining arm was gone.
Blood spurted.
Feeling the imminent end, fear vanished from the man’s face.
He smiled at the boy.
“Ha… hahaha. Why… why did you do it?”
The boy asked why the village had been burned.
Why innocent villagers had been killed.
The man had only one answer.
“Weak… because you were weak… you were trampled.”
“…”
“And… because I was weak… I… die by your hands.”
A faint voice, as if about to vanish, yet one filled with conviction, left a mark on the boy’s heart.
“…Because we were weak?”
“The weak are trampled and eliminated, but the strong… defeat and evolve.”
“…”
“That… is the age of the Sword Master.”
Although the world had been conquered by the Sword Master, it had grown more chaotic under him.
A ruthless world where the strong dominated absolutely.
People called it the Age of the Sword Master.
“In that sense… you are fully qualified to enjoy the Age of the Sword Master.”
A monster capable of slaughtering twenty knights with a mere kitchen knife would indeed become the protagonist of this cruel era.
‘Have fun, heh heh.’
With that thought, the life left in the man’s eyes vanished.
“….”
The boy stared at the dead man, then turned and walked away.
His steps stopped after only a few paces.
Nearby lay the bloodied body of the old woman.
The boy stared blankly at her corpse.
Then a strangled voice escaped his lips.
“All this… just to die like this…?”
Sadness, joy, pain, relief—emotions impossible for a child to feel fully blended into his voice.
A low rumble came from behind him as the dark form reacted, swirling before vanishing.
Three days later.
A middle-aged man carrying a large wooden box entered the mountain village.
“Wh-what is this?!”
A traveling merchant who had spent years selling goods and buying leather in these mountains was horrified by the scene before him.
‘It’s all burnt to ashes!’
Where the village had been only three weeks ago remained nothing but blackened ruins.
‘What happened?’
The merchant cautiously entered the village, glancing around.
He noticed something and froze.
Blackened remains and reddish marks everywhere.
He recognized immediately:
‘Bloodstains?!’
A chill ran down his spine.
‘I need to get out of here!’
Bloodstains meant something had gone terribly wrong.
The disaster might not even be over.
As he turned to flee, a voice called from behind:
“Mister.”
“Eeek!”
Startled, he spun around.
Seeing who had called him, his pale face brightened.
“You… you are… Yuri, right?”
The boy with black hair and golden eyes who had always followed him curiously.
The merchant approached Yuri cautiously.
“What happened here?! Why is the village like this?”
He looked over Yuri.
Her clothes were covered in black ash and red crusts, her fingers coated with blood and dirt.
And…
‘What the hell is with that kid’s eyes?!’
When he met Yuri’s empty gaze, the merchant shivered.
Stepping back, Yuri spoke again.
“…Mister.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“Do you know what this is?”
She handed him a small token.
An item taken from the one who had attacked the village.
The merchant examined it, frowning.
“Oh? That’s…?”
A curved sword emblem engraved on an iron tag.
Having traded in this region, he recognized it instantly.
“It looks like the Pauly family crest.”
“The… Pauly family?”
“Yeah, the family that recently became the local lord here. Thieves! No skills, only greed, raising tolls by 50%! What are they doing in this backwater? They’re starving merchants like us!”
“….”
“I heard they brought mercenaries to form a haphazard knight squad… and to cover costs, they’re pillaging the territory.”
The merchant rambled, then cleared his throat.
“Anyway, that crest seems to be the Pauly family’s… but where did it come from?”
“…Thank you.”
Yuri withdrew the tag, bowed slightly, and walked away silently.
“Kid!”
The merchant tried to stop her, but her body did not respond.
Frozen by an unknown eeriness.
Meanwhile, Yuri’s eyes glowed red.
‘Trampled because they were weak?’
That’s the Age of the Sword Master?
If such a trivial reason caused this…
‘Then let’s see you get trampled.’
Her shadow stirred slightly in response to her strong resolve.
Only after Yuri disappeared into the distance did the merchant exhale.
“Wh-what?!”
Gasping for air, he tilted his head.
‘Wait… wasn’t that at her waist… a knife?’
In his muddled memory, it seemed that at Yuri’s waist was a half-broken kitchen knife.
A muddy, broken kitchen knife.
‘Was it really a kitchen knife?’
As he traced his memory, he noticed behind where Yuri had stood.
Dozens of freshly made mounds of earth rose from the ground.
“Huh…”
The merchant realized.
The bloodied fingertips, the muddy broken knife—
What they meant.
‘She… made these graves alone?’
His gaze lingered on the dozens of mounds.
Two weeks later, a piece of news swept through the area around Yuri’s mountain village:
[The Pauly family was devoured by a monster!]
A family that had once claimed influence in this remote area was wiped out overnight.
The Pauly mansion burned, leaving no survivors among those inside.
Those awakened by the screams said the black, enormous monster had swallowed the mansion whole.
For a while, people spoke endlessly of the monster that destroyed the Pauly family.
But no one knew of the broken kitchen knife left in a corner of the burned mansion.
And from that day…
Eight years passed.
