Dying wasn't the dramatic, movie-type event I always imagined.
No slow motion.No tragic music.Just pain… then a stupid realization:
I was killed by my own sword.
One slip.One loose display mount.One beautifully forged blade falling at the worst possible angle.
And that was it.
When my eyes opened again, I knew instantly something was wrong—because I didn't have eyes.
I wasn't breathing.I wasn't moving.I wasn't even alive.
I was cold metal.Heavy.Ancient.Rooted into stone like a forgotten relic.
A sword.
But not the same one that killed me.This one… felt older. Stronger. Wrong.
Its consciousness—my consciousness—was fused into a core of red light deep in the hilt. Every vibration, every distant echo, every shift in the cave air moved through me like instincts, not sensations.
I tried to scream out of panic, but swords don't scream.
So all I could do was think.
Where am I? What happened? Why does this feel so real?
A faint wind brushed past, carrying dust and a strange scent:the smell of mana, old and unmoving.
I was in a cave.A sealed place.Untouched for years… maybe decades.
And I wasn't alone.
Footsteps.
Soft. Uneven. Weak.
Someone was approaching—slowly, like each step hurt more than the last. I sensed their breathing before I saw them. Rapid. On edge. Struggling.
A child?
The dim light reached him first: a thin boy, clothes torn, ribs visible, wounds half-dried on his arms. His eyes looked dead—no spark, no hope, just exhaustion.
He stumbled deeper into the cave, dragging himself forward until he collapsed barely a meter away from me.
For a moment, he didn't move.Then… his hand lifted. Trembling. Reaching toward me, almost blindly.
What…Why is he touching me?
His fingers brushed against my hilt.
And everything inside me ignited.
A pulse.A glow.A violent surge of energy that had been rotting inside my core suddenly burst awake.
[WIELDER DETECTED][RESONANCE POSSIBILITY: 3%][IDENTITY: UNKNOWN]
The boy flinched, eyes widening in fear as he felt the shock run through him. He tried to pull away.
I didn't let him.
Not by intent—but by instinct.
Chains of light wrapped around his wrist, invisible to him but painfully clear to me. A faint crimson rune flickered along my blade.
Something inside me whispered:
Take him.Choose him.Bind him.
But the boy wasn't strong enough to even resist. He was starving. Beaten. Days away from death.
And still…
Still he lifted his other hand and held onto me harder, like I was his last chance.
"Please…" he whispered, voice breaking."Anyone… anything… don't let me die."
The cave fell silent.
And for the first time since I woke up in this cursed form…
I wanted to answer.
Not because I was kind.Not because I pitied him.
But because something deep inside my blade—a hunger I didn't understand—
reacted to him.
The resonance amplified.
[RESONANCE LEVEL: 51%][SOUL LINK INITIATED]
A blinding light exploded from the hilt.
The boy screamed.I felt my consciousness snap toward him like a chain locking into place.
And in that split second, a vision hit me:
A goddess.White hair.Cold eyes.Her hand crushing my human soul.Her voice dripping with disdain—
"Arrogant mortal. Be a weapon.A tool.A ruin that destroys everything it touches."
Then the vision vanished.
The cave returned.
The boy lay trembling, breathing hard, staring at me with terrified eyes…
But also hope.
A foolish, fragile hope I didn't deserve.
And the connection between us stabilized.
[FIRST WIELDER SELECTED][RUIN PROTOCOL AWAKENED]
Darkness swallowed the cave again.
But now…now I wasn't alone.