The moment the blade landed in Raen's hand, the orchard changed.
Wind stilled.Shadows thickened.The moon felt like an eye — wide, silent, watching.
The man in the cloak took one step back. Just one.
And Raen knew.
He recognized me. Or what I used to be.
The man spoke first. Voice still calm. Still sharp.
"A Soul-Bound weapon… no record, no aura… impossible. You're not registered in any archive."
Raen's eyes narrowed.
"Good."
Then they moved.
The man threw the silver dagger, and it vanished mid-air — reappearing behind Raen's back like a glitch in space.
Raen ducked.
The blade missed him by a hair, but cut through the tree behind like it was made of mist. The bark turned white — memory-erased.
That blade erases anything it cuts. Even the idea of it existing.
But Raen was already in motion.
He spun, sword in hand, slicing the air.
The man blinked away — teleportation, short-range.
Too slow.
Raen predicted it.He turned with the flow of his swing, dragging the blade across where the man appeared mid-blink—
Clang.
The sound cracked the sky.
The man blocked it with a second knife — this one humming with truthsteel, a metal only wielded by the Crown's agents.
But Raen's blade… it didn't resist.
It ate the impact.
The man's arm twisted unnaturally as he was launched backward, crashing through a fence and skidding across the ground.
He stood up coughing blood, but still smiling.
"You're worse than a reawakened hero…""You're unarchived."
Raen didn't understand.
"You shouldn't exist," the man said.
He pressed a hand to his chest. A sigil glowed — teleport beacon.
"Next time, we come with chains."
And he vanished in a pulse of silver light.
Raen dropped the sword.
His body shook.
Not from exhaustion.
From awakening.
Something inside him stirred — not memory… not power.
A presence.Sleeping. Watching. Smiling.
"Now you've done it…" a voice whispered inside him."You've been seen."
That night, Garrick didn't ask questions.
He just handed Raen a cloth and nodded at the blood on his arm.
Raen didn't speak. He sat by the forge and stared at the blade now glowing faintly.
Not gold.Not silver.
Crimson.
The color of forbidden magic.
The color of rewritten fate.