The Sword That Remembers Blood
Namgoong Sega, Anhui Province, China.
Changcheon Sword Emperor Namgoong Min sat upon the throne in the family head’s audience chamber, lost in deep thought.
It was a humiliating past.
“My god, the main base is being pushed. Four players are out.”
“Why?! Why?! All they had to do was wait!! The Changcheon Sword Emperor is pushing the side lane. If they had just held the standoff, they could have won!!”
“Four deaths again! They can’t overcome their operational flaws. Namgoong Sega is collapsing.”
The same recurring problem.
The failure he had never been able to overcome.
Namgoong Min had despaired.
“The Changcheon Sword Emperor stands alone against the Nexus. In recognition of his spirit? The Heavenly Demon withdraws his teammates and accepts the one-on-one duel.”
“It’s a clash between rank three and rank one, but numbers mean nothing to these supreme absolutes of the Middle Kingdom.”
“They collide!!”
He wanted to win.
He desperately wanted to defeat that bastard.
Yet all that waited for Namgoong Min was frustration.
“The Changcheon Sword Emperor falls to the Heavenly Demon’s blade.”
“Namgoong Sega and the Changcheon Sword Emperor longed for the heavens more than anyone. But the demon of the heavens had no intention of yielding his domain.”
“The Nexus is destroyed.”
“Namgoong Sega’s wings are broken.”
He challenged them every time.
He always declared victory.
Yet the result was always the same.
Failure. Frustration.
Defeat. Despair.
His pride was shattered, his dignity tarnished.
To his shame, the man known as the Changcheon Sword Emperor was neither of the blue heavens nor an emperor of the sword.
Namgoong Min could not bear the humiliation of that truth.
Perhaps that was why he had taken that bastard’s hand.
“I need money. So if I fix that bug-infested head of your guild, how much can you pay me?”
A masked intruder who had slipped past the Sega’s strict security all the way into the family head’s chamber.
Namgoong Min recognized him instantly.
A powerhouse. At least his equal.
The moment he saw the sword sealed with iron chains on the man’s back, Namgoong Min felt goosebumps for the first time in years. Pulsing blue veins and eyeballs writhing across the blade—it was a sword, yet also a monster.
“Hey, eyes off. ‘They’ really hate being stared at. Let’s just get the deal done. This thing here is an Ego Sword I modified…”
Ego Sword.
A blade that possessed a soul.
In novels, they were portrayed as items with self-awareness that became excellent partners to their users. In reality, however, very few Ego Swords possessed that level of consciousness.
But the one the masked man offered was different.
It had a clear sense of self. It could even hold conversations. And in tactical knowledge… it was, embarrassingly, superior to him.
“No need to bruise your pride. I trained this one with great care. If you can surpass it, I might as well bury my face in the dirt and die.”
“If you accept the deal, I’ll split this guy into five daggers. One blade that becomes five, five blades that are one.”
Splitting a Legendary item into five pieces? It was beyond common sense.
Items held value only when kept whole. Breaking them apart should have reduced them to mere scrap.
Yet the masked man had simply scoffed.
“Don’t compare me to those brain-dead idiots. Listen, I carry the blood of the phoenix. I’m only here because I need quick cash. You really think someone like you could have gotten a private audience with me otherwise?”
“So, are we doing business or not?”
In the end, he accepted the deal. He didn’t know why. No, he did know.
Because he wanted to win. Because he desperately wanted to win.
A few days later, the masked man placed five daggers before him.
“You carry this one. Give the rest to four others. The difference is that I can ‘interfere’ with those four. Think of it as me personally guiding and disciplining those shit-for-brains. It’ll be good for you.”
“Just so you know, you don’t have to worry about losing control. It’s not a demonic sword yet. Not yet, hehe. Well then, I’m off.”
The transaction was clean, and the results were spectacular.
This season, Namgoong Sega had completely shed its reputation for having no brains. They were now hailed as the smartest guild in Chinese history.
And when he finally defeated his lifelong nemesis, the ‘Heavenly Demon,’ Namgoong Min could at last shout it proudly.
I am the heavens. I am the emperor.
At long last, the Changcheon Sword Emperor was complete.
At that moment, the sound of the audience chamber door opening snapped Namgoong Min out of his reverie.
“Guild Master. Everything is ready.”
“Let’s go.”
When the doors opened, a vast training ground stretched before him.
It was so enormous that calling it ‘expansive’ felt inadequate. The entire Sega force stood in perfect formation across it.
White backgrounds adorned with blue clouds, hawks, and the great character for Namgoong—all symbols radiating majestic spirit.
Stepping onto the raised platform, the Changcheon Sword Emperor Namgoong Min gazed at them and slowly began to speak.
“My beloved Namgoong. We have finally reached this point.”
His voice was thick with emotion. Every eye grew misty.
“It has been a long and arduous road.”
Despite possessing greater wealth than any other faction.
Despite conquering a region and reigning as emperor.
Despite producing powerhouses who defined every era.
They had been constantly looked down upon. Told they had achieved nothing.
“The people beyond those gates mocked us. No matter how much money we threw around, no matter how many talents we monopolized, they said we would never succeed. They scorned us as fools.”
“Truly difficult days.”
A faction that had everything except a brain.
A falcon that kept plummeting.
“But! Our Namgoong has finally overcome it all.”
United as one, they defeated the Heavenly Demon, stood at the peak of China, and crushed the world’s strongest with unbreakable solidarity.
“Unity. Cohesion. The key that broke the wall of our long despair was binding ourselves as one. An individual is weak. A group is strong. This obvious realization has elevated us to the ranks of the strongest.”
Reduce personal greed. Conceal individuality. Fill that empty space with the name ‘Namgoong.’
“The glory of Namgoong is my glory. Let us all engrave it in our hearts.”
Namgoong Min stroked the dagger at his waist and looked down.
He spoke to the four at the very front of the formation, each holding an identical dagger.
“We are Namgoong.”
Just one step remained until they reigned as Asia’s supreme power.
“Now begins the era of Namgoong!”
The legend shall be rewritten by us!
Let’s go!!
“The Nexus… is destroyed!!”
“It’s destroyed!!”
“Mir Guild takes the first set!!”
……Huh?
* * *
“What do you mean, ‘huh?’”
In the team waiting room, Lee Shin smirked as he watched the Changcheon Sword Emperor’s stupefied face on the screen.
“Hyung, look at him. He really thought he was going to win. That’s the face of a man who just lost the world.”
“He must have genuinely believed he would win. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gone on and on about unity and solidarity in front of the press like that. You saw the crowd when we entered the stadium. They swarmed like bees.”
“Kk, yeah they did.”
The finals were being held in China based on last year’s results. Naturally, Mir Guild had to play away. The ‘welcome’ they received from the airport onward had been anything but warm.
The polite ones simply cursed them, saying they would never win and that the washed-up Mountain King would eventually fall to the Changcheon Sword Emperor.
Others brought up irrelevant history, claiming small nations should bow to great ones, that Korea had always been part of the Middle Kingdom, and other nonsense.
What caught Lee Shin’s eye most was the mock execution show.
From the second-floor railing of the airport, they had hung dolls resembling the guild members and thrown them down.
“Only in China would they put on a show with such cheap dolls. If they’re going to do that, they should have bought the license from us. How much could it possibly cost?”
“…Was the quality really the issue?”
“Of course. You saw it too, hyung. They made me and our old man look like steamed buns.”
“Ha… I can’t tell if you have a heart of steel or just no sense at all.”
Chae Dong-ha shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it, then continued.
“Please finish what you were saying earlier.”
“Where did I leave off?”
“You said that Namgoong Sega is currently receiving support from an Ego Sword, that it is likely a Legendary-grade item, and that its true identity is probably the Sword of Themis’s Judgment.”
“Ah, right.”
Themis, goddess of law and justice.
She wore a blindfold, held scales in one hand and a sword in the other, and judged sin.
The sword in question was undoubtedly the true form of those cute little daggers.
“The Sword of Themis’s Judgment is a fairly high-level Ego Sword. It’s a mysterious thing that passes judgment when it detects sin.”
That was correct.
The story was actually quite simple.
A blade that judged sin had learned tactics, split itself into that form, and was now acting as a proxy brain for a bunch of idiots.
It was an event beyond common sense, a mysterious incident.
Yet Chae Dong-ha showed no doubt. Because the man before him had always said the same thing.
There is nothing about the guild that I don’t know.
And as expected, Lee Shin did not disappoint.
“The basic mechanism starts with ‘teaching’ the Ego Sword.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“Shh, just listen. This is extremely valuable information.”
Half a century ago, the world had given birth to a genius.
A blacksmith who had reached the heavens. He dreamed of forging the strongest sword.
So he agonized his entire life.
What was the strongest sword? Was it enough to have high attack power? Or should it have extreme durability? Or perhaps it needed to possess ever-changing mystical abilities?
No matter how strong its attack power, the moment a sword with even higher attack appeared, it would no longer be the strongest.
The same applied to durability. And as technology advanced over time, even mystical abilities would eventually become outdated.
Then the genius realized something.
Let’s create a sword that grows through learning!
“You infuse a soul into an Ego Sword to create a vessel. Then you fill that vessel. In the most weapon-like way possible.”
Lee Shin drew a finger across his throat.
Chae Dong-ha swallowed hard.
“So you’re saying that sword learned tactics by… killing people?”
“Correct. You just uncovered one of the world’s secrets.”
Once that was understood, the rest was easy.
An Ego Sword that had learned tactics through blood was split into five pieces.
An item that was one and five, five and one. When equipped, the five became linked.
“It creates a kind of ‘mental link’ state.”
“So that’s why! Before the first set, you gave the Mountain King an accessory. I wondered why you were giving him a useless mental-type accessory.”
Exactly.
In the canyon, mental magic was practically nonexistent.
Yet Lee Shin had prepared it anyway. And not a debuff that confused the opponent’s mind, but a buff that calmed excitement and brought clarity.
“Hehe, the easiest way to break a mental link is to bring the other party back to their senses.”
The effect had been immediate.
The first set had been even, but during the 5-vs-5 team fight, one of Namgoong Sega’s hunters suddenly ignored formation and charged straight in.
From that point, the match tilted sharply.
That was why the Changcheon Sword Emperor looked like he had lost the world.
Whether he realized it or not, he probably felt like he had gone back to that moment a year ago.
“Well, now that the opponent knows, it’ll be hard to use again next set. But we still got one set for free.”
“Best of seven, first to four wins. Taking the first set in a multi-set match is huge. Besides, that’s not the only thing you prepared, is it, Director?”
“Hehehe, of course not. I prepared everything because I didn’t know what they’d like.”
It was a stage countless guilds had dreamed of.
A stage every hunter in the world had desperately longed for.
Lee Shin had felt the same. He loved this world more than anyone.
Every day was fun. Every day was fantastic.
He raised the hunters he cherished, laughed and chatted with fans who told him this was reality, and step by step, he had lifted the guild to the top.
Yet now that they had finally reached the summit, these bastards were pulling cute little tricks in the sacred finals?
How adorable. So adorable he wanted to bite them to death.
Lee Shin’s smile twisted into a sneer.
But then Chae Dong-ha stared straight at him and spoke.
“That’s not the only reason you’re angry, is it?”
“Huh?”
“Tell me now. What exactly are you worried about?”
“What? I’m the same as always.”
“How many years have we worked together? Don’t even think about lying to me.”
Normally, the moment the Nexus shattered, Lee Shin would have been dancing to the sound of victory.
He would have shaken his hips until they nearly broke and rolled across the floor, yet today he had done none of that.
It was unmistakably unlike his usual self.
And Chae Dong-ha was certain the reason was the Ego Sword that Lee Shin was staring at so intently.
“Is there something more to that sword?”
“…Not bad. As expected of our SS-rank genius general manager.”
Chae Dong-ha waited silently for an answer.
Lee Shin scratched his head awkwardly, then finally opened his mouth.
“Hyung, what would you do if a disaster was right in front of you?”