Rebirth of the Sword Saint: A Reincarnation Epic Fantasy Saga
Page 1
Kensei 1
Rebirth of the Sword Saint
DB King
Copyright © 2021 by DB King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
v001
Free progression Fantasy Novel!
Join my email newsletter to receive a free ebook of the progression fantasy novel, Hellion Mage.
Contents
Free progression Fantasy Novel!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Shinobi Rising 1: Chapter 1
Free progression Fantasy Novel!
About the Author
Prologue
There was a certain comfort in knowing what would happen. He—the greatest mage of his generation—was rather proud of his ability to predict people and their future deeds, their future goals, and whatever else they’d do that might affect him. He had done so with his enemies, predicted their every move so he attacked at the perfect moment, bypassing any hope of defense they may have had. He despised the thought of being reactive—it was always better to plan ahead and move before your enemies did.
He had foreseen his own rise to power. He had seen the exact moment that he would sit upon the highest throne, reserved only for the most powerful of mages—the Infinite One, upon whose hands the magical forces danced freely. He had seen the glory of his rule, of the mighty works and marvels built in his name. He saw cities rise and fall under his dominion—entire civilizations ground to dust at his heels as the people bowed their heads in reverence and praise.
He was the conqueror—the mightiest mage and the greatest warlord.
He saw all of that.
He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that all of that would happen.
And it did. He climbed the highest of steps and sat upon the highest of thrones, and reached where no mortal man has ever dared reach. He’d thought he’d seen every single possibility—every single strand of fate.
Everything but this.
“Why do you stand against me, my beloved generals?” His heart cracked apart with each word. They, each one a close friends and ally, stood there with their weapons drawn and raised toward him, their eyes burning with murder and hatred.
None of this made any sense—they were his most trusted. They’d fought and bled together on countless battlefields, journeyed together into the depths of the foulest places, and stood side by side at his coronation as Mage-Emperor.
“My friends, has someone corrupted your mind against me?” It was certainly possible. His generals, as powerful as they may be in their own right, were far from the most powerful mages, whereas he and he alone stood at the very top. Someone whose power neared his own could have easily warped their minds. Yes, that must have been exactly what had happened—there was no other explanation.
And yet he had reached the pinnacle of power. There wasn’t anyone near his level.
His eyes darkened. The Mage-Emperor raised a gauntleted arm, magical energies dancing at the tips of his fingers. “My friends, I will free you from whatever has clouded your minds.”
They all stepped forward, the Hollowed Knight, his first friend, leading them. “We are in control of ourselves, oh great and powerful Mage-Emperor.”
“Then why do you do this? Why do you raise your weapons against me?” None of this made any sense. They were loyal to him, weren’t they? They’d sworn their absolute loyalty to him in blood and friendship. Were those bonds so easily shaken and destroyed? Were they... were they never truly allies to begin with?
“Our dream, if you’ve forgotten, was to save this world from tyranny and strife and war,” the Hollowed Knight declared. His armor was forged of Hellbound Steel, ripped from the darkest depths of Hell itself and quenched in the blood of demons. It glinted with a dark and powerful light. “And yet here you are, the world’s worst tyrant, the destroyer of nations and cities. Have you any idea the lives you’ve ruined, Mage-Emperor? Have you any idea the pain that you’ve caused this world? Everything would’ve been far better without you. You, who have brought such suffering and torment in the name of your quest to become the greatest of all, do not deserve to sit upon that throne!”
The Hollowed Knight, the Burning Queen, the Crimson Paladin, the Wind Tamer, and the Dragon Prince. All of them stood against him, the greatest of his allies—now, the greatest of his enemies.
“I have united this world and brought peace and prosperity to all peoples!” He shouted back, pushing himself up off his throne. Rage boiled within him. Fire and lightning danced around him, like withered bands of cloth stuck in a harsh and unforgiving gale. The floor cracked at his feet. The earth itself shook at the display of his unfathomable power. “There was carnage and bloodshed, but they were necessary! Look around you! The greatest empire this world has ever seen, built on progress and science—not superstition and cruelty. Children no longer fear sickness, famine, and poverty. I have built a utopia!”
Burning tears fell from his eyes. “That its foundations are soaked in blood and gore, I do not deny. I do not deny the cruelty that I have unleashed for the sake of peace. I do not deny the crimes of my soldiers and the needless deaths they have caused. I deny none of it, and yet you, my friends, call me a tyrant?”
“If that is what it takes to bring this world to heel, then so be it—I shall be a tyrant!” Hellfire and lightning burst from the Mage-Emperor, arcing and thrashing in all directions. “I shall be the greatest tyrant this world will ever know! None shall overtake me! I will be a god!”
The Hollowed Knight released a heavy sigh, one of profound sadness and a deep longing for simpler times—when they had lived in peace and quiet in their lonely little village on that mountaintop. The Knight’s sword glinted in the faint light as he charged. The others followed after him, warriors of renown and legend, warriors whose names would be etched upon history forever.
No, the Mage-Emperor resolved. Not if they stand against me. He wouldn’t just defeat them—he’d erase these traitors from history, burn every tome that were stained with their names. He would destroy them entirely.
Their clash shook the earth and shattered mountains. Whole islands were sunk, whilst others were raised from the depths. Verdant plains and grassy fields became realms of fire, ash, and embers. Cities and towns disappeared almost instantly, and the map of the world was remade. Their battle lasted seven days and seven nights, never stopping, until—at last—only the Hollowed Knight was left standing. All the others had fallen, cut down or reduced to ashes by the Mage-Emperor’s godlike power.
And yet that very same emperor now lay wounded, limping, his seemingly divine powers finally spent. His blood pooled around him, seeping into the desolate soil that had once been an emerald grassland, teeming with life and color, dotted with tiny villages and trickling streams. The Mage-Emperor fell to his knees, eyes wide, his body covered in
wounds that refused to heal.
The Hollowed Knight took a single, shaky step forward. He too sported wounds and injuries that would soon take his life. Unlike the Mage-Emperor, however, the Knight had enough strength to do what he needed to do for the last time. And so he forced his feet forward, one after the other, gradually making his way toward an old friend who’d lost his way.
The Mage-Emperor huffed and allowed himself to fall backward, the last of his strength draining from his limbs. The Hollowed Knight loomed over him. “Do you remember when we were children? We used to play by the stream that ran under the mountain. We caught fish and let them go right after….”
The Mage-Emperor huffed and forced a smile, blood pouring from his lips. “I remember you could never catch anything, no matter how hard you tried. Didn’t your grandmother used to chase us all around the village whenever we used loose clothes as towels?”
The Hollowed Knight chuckled and groaned as he fell to his knees right beside the Mage-Emperor. “Those were simpler times, weren’t they?”
“They truly were… do you regret it? Do you regret our dream?”
“I… I regret only the means we used to achieve it.”
The Mage-Emperor coughed blood. “I understand—I should have taken the mantle of the Hollowed Knight, not you. You would’ve been a better leader of men.”
“I suppose none of that matters now, eh?”
“If you could, would you do things differently?” The Mage-Emperor asked, his eyes looking upward to the clearing skies. “If you could go back… if you were given a second chance—would you change your fate?”
“I’d probably just stay home if I could,” he said, chuckling softly.
The Mage-Emperor smiled. “I do regret the slaughter… I regret all the lives I’ve taken and all the lives that were lost in my name. If I had a second chance, if I had another life, I would….”
His voice trailed off, the light leaving his eyes.
For what seemed like an eternity, there was only darkness—an endless darkness. In that time, he dreamed of a second chance, of a life that he could live, of choices he’d make differently. But second chances were for good people. With everything he’d done, there was no doubt that this endless void was to be his afterlife. Time had lost its meaning and he occupied himself with dreams and hopeless longing.
Until a light sprang forth.
There were voices.
He didn’t recognize any of them.
With every last ounce of his will, the Mage-Emperor reached for the light.
Chapter 1
“Do not rely solely on the strength of your arms, Jin,” his father instructed. The middle-aged man raised his wooden tachi and laid its edge over the surface of Jin’s left thigh, then over his stomach, then his back, and, finally, over his chest. “Use the strength of all your muscles—your whole body. All must move as one when you strike. Do you understand, Jin?”
The training sword’s glossy surface felt cold against his bare skin. He grimaced at the fact that the wooden tachi was thicker than his arms and that his own wakizashi could barely qualify as anything more than a long knife. Then again, he was only three years old; he couldn’t hold up a weapon that was true to scale no matter how hard he tried. Thus, the tiny, curved thing that he now held with both hands, raised over his head. “Yes, father. I understand.”
“Show me your strike.” For now, Jin had three choices before him: a simple downward slice that would swerve to his right, a downward slice that transitioned into a thrust toward his imaginary opponent’s face, or a full-body vertical slash that would use up every muscle he had to slice open an enemy from his head to groin. There were, of course, hundreds of other possible choices in his clan’s Murasaki Style Kenjutsu, but all of them required him to either switch his stance or move more than once. His father, Hamada, wanted him to kill with only a single stroke.
Jin breathed out a cold wisp of air. Around him, blades of tall grasses danced in the wind and shimmered with the midnight dew, still clinging onto their slick surfaces. They stood at the center of a clearing, where silence was their only witness amidst the tall, looming trees, whose red and brown leaves fluttered with the throes of the howling gales that came down from the mountains in the distance.
Breathing in, Jin closed his eyes. His father, Hamada, stood in silence, watching and waiting patiently. His grip over his training sword’s hilt loosened by just a tiny bit—that had been a pointless use of his strength, after all. His shoulders relaxed and so did every other muscle in his body. Elasticity of mind and body was the core tenet of the Murasaki Style Kenjutsu. Mastery over the power gained from extreme relaxation to extreme tension within the blink of an eye was what had carved their clan’s name into legend.
Jin brought his blade down. His muscles felt almost liquefied, like slick tar, but they were far less fluid than they needed to be. Hamada often spoke of how one’s muscles must be like water when performing their clan’s fabled Kenjutsu. He was far from this point, but no other three-year-old child could do what he could do. Jin’s eyes snapped open and every muscle in his body tensed and hardened as he swung his sword down, swerving it to the right. A forceful gust blew from his form and flattened the grasses around him.
That… was almost perfect.
His face crumpled into a grimace. Where had he gone wrong? Were his shoulders too relaxed? Were his thigh muscles too lax? Were his muscles, overall, simply underdeveloped? He was only three years old, after all. And yet Jin couldn’t force away the disappointment that welled in his chest. Almost perfect wasn’t nearly good enough; it needed to be perfect—it needed to be more than perfect.
His musings crumbled at the sound of his father’s clapping. The man stepped forward and knelt beside him, laying his calloused hands over Jin’s left shoulder. “That was amazing, my son. I have never seen anyone grasp the basics of the Murasaki Style as quickly as you have. What you did today would’ve taken lesser men years to even come close to—and yet here you are, my son, three years of age and already at one with the sword.”
No, Jin could be better—he will be better. But compliments and praise were both well and good, he supposed. “Thank you, father. I will endeavor to master our clan’s blade.”
Hamada, as he’d observed, was a man who hated wasting his words on nonsense. In fact, he hardly said anything at all. Whatever came out of his mouth was both honest and important—a combination that was always baked into his commands, which the servants followed to the letter. The Murasaki Clan, after all, was known to all of Moyatani as a clan of great scholars, philosophers, and honorable warriors, who valued honesty above all. Hamada had given him praise, which meant the man had truly meant his words.
Jin wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to feel about that. He only wore a keikogi shirt that was far too big for him and a hakama that caught under his feet as he walked.
Hamada straightened up and walked forward seven steps from Jin. He was tall, far taller than most people—and Jin wasn’t just saying that because he was three. Hamada wore a kuromontsuki, the family crest hanging proudly over his heart—a demonic face with fire and lightning in its eyes—and contrasting against the solid black fabric of the kimono. His long, black hair was tied to a ponytail, and his face was shaved clean. A single scar ran down his forehead and through his right eyebrow. Though much of his body was covered in cloth, Jin saw the layers upon layers of iron-clad muscles rippling beneath all of it. His father was a great warrior, after all, even among great warriors. He had bested numerous champions and masters in duels to the death—and he fought without the aid of magic, only his skill and the strength of his body.
The older man raised his wooden blade in front of him in the Turtle Guard Stance, with the hilt hovering just above his left foot and the blade itself pointed toward the heavens; it was the Murasaki Style’s defensive stance. Jin raised an eyebrow. Was Hamada thinking about sparring—with a three year old?
“Attack me with everything you kno
w, my son. I will only defend; I will not fight back.” Hamada declared. “If you manage to hit me even once, I will elevate your training to include the styles of other clans.”
Jin’s eyes widened. Hamada had never been one for following tradition, especially if said tradition was a waste of resources and plainly illogical. One of the strongest traditions in all the clans of Moyatani was that learning the Kenjutsu of other clans was a taboo. It was akin to shunning one’s family heritage, since most clans were sure that their sword style was the best and that all the others were inferior. Hamada, it seemed, didn’t care about that tradition either… huh, Jin could actually respect the man for that.
After all, in his past life, he didn’t give a damn about tradition, either.
Jin grinned. “Very well, father. I’ll make sure to go easy on you.”
Hamada smiled and met his gaze. “Oh, I’m shaking.”
Jin’s eyes steeled. He considered his options. Obviously, the aggressive stances were out, since he couldn’t hope to overpower someone who had more muscles in one forearm than Jin had in his whole body, which immediately ruled out both the Black Moon Stance and the Crimson Petal Stance as both of those relied on using excessive force to crumble an enemy’s defenses. There was also the fact that his father’s training sword was much taller than him, though Hamada did say he wouldn’t be attacking. Jin knew the basics of every stance, and only one of those seemed to be useful for this particular duel.
Jin lowered himself, almost to a crouching position with his torso leaning forward and his thighs bent. He stood on his toes. He held his sword at his waist, its “sharp” end sticking out all the way behind him, like a tail—sort of. This was the Leaping Tail Stance. Its purpose was simple: killing one’s enemy in one strike from long distances, using the entirety of one’s body to generate a deadly momentum. He wasn’t very good at it, and the stance had so many nuances and movements that he could train for a whole year and not know half of them. Still, he knew enough.