VOLUME 1: DARK AWAKENING AND BLOODY OATH

CHAPTER 1: THE WHISPER OF STEEL AND THE WHITE STRAND

This world was a ruthless realm where words lost their meaning and only steel spoke. No matter how blue the sky or how bountiful the earth, the only absolute guarantee humans could cling to in order to survive and protect their loved ones was the cold hilt of the sword at their waist. Yet, in this universe, swords were not merely ordinary chunks of iron forged on a blacksmith's anvil. Every blade was nourished by its master's spiritual energy, acting as a mirror to their inner world and shaping itself according to their character.

People boasted about the size of their swords, hiding behind long blades. However, the size of a sword was nothing but a grand illusion. The might of a blade was measured not by its length, but by the depth of the ocean within its master's soul. Sometimes, even the shortest, most unpretentious blade could harbor a power vast enough to shake worlds in the right hands.

There was a rigid hierarchy of spiritual power in these lands, with colors reflected upon the surface of the steel like a seal. When power awakened and flowed into the blade, a weak soul would remain as faint and helpless as a purple mist. As it grew stronger, it became as fierce as a crimson flame, as agile as yellow lightning, or as deep as a blue ocean. But beyond these colors stood the absolute and legendary summit of power: the awe-inspiring, darkness-consuming absolute black, and the white, which symbolized divine might. Those who possessed a black sword were recognized in this realm as disasters of nature—unstoppable nexuses of power.

At the very heart of this cruel universe, under the shadow of rebel criminals defying the government and sword-wielding demons who fed on the blood of the innocent in the dark, walked a youth who had only seen his fifteenth winter: Yamato Tsugikuni.

Standing at a mere 160 centimeters, Yamato looked frail and small next to his peers. However, the invisible burden he carried on his slender shoulders was heavy enough to crush a whole mountain into dust. The hair that fluttered in the wind and spilled over his shoulders was no ordinary sight; while one side of his hair was as pitch-black as the night, the stark white strand falling on the other side was like a silent, frozen cry of the storms raging in his soul, the premature sorrows, and the traumas he had shouldered since childhood.

The sword sleeping at his waist was no ordinary weapon. In the rare moments it was drawn from its scabbard, it possessed a pitch-black blade—the color of absolute power—that ruthlessly absorbed all surrounding light. Its name was Kurunomi. Yet, this colossal power was no different from a wild, ferocious horse that Yamato had not yet tamed. The young boy struggled to control this immense spiritual ocean within him; whenever he tried to rely on the might of his black sword, he would crash into the walls of his own limits, left gasping for air.

People would whisper as they passed by him, intimidated by his dense and dark aura. Why was his soul so dark and heavy? Because within that blackness, inside every shadow cast upon Kurunomi's blade, lay the bloody memories of the past.

When Yamato was just a young child, the family that illuminated his world and taught him to love and laugh was brutally slaughtered by demons right before his eyes. On that nightmarish night, while the heavily falling snow was dyed crimson with his family's fresh blood, an unshakable, venomous oath spilled from Yamato's trembling lips toward the heavens: "I will eradicate the lineage of demons forever. I will not allow a single one of them to draw breath."

But time had taught him a bitter truth: vengeance could not be taken with hollow rage and uncontrolled darkness. Anger blinded a person, making the hand that swung the sword tremble. Yamato cast aside his pride, his childhood, and his fears to forge this overflowing power within him into a sharp weapon that would sever the necks of demons. Like everyone else, he decided to start from the very foundation of that bloody path: joining the School of Swordsmanship. For he knew all too well; if he could not master his sword, those oaths of vengeance he made upon the snow would melt away with the spring sun.