Reader's POV
---
The air at the summit wasn't thin — it was silent.
Not quiet. Not peaceful.
Silent.
Like a world waiting to exhale.
Like the pause between lightning and thunder.
Like the space before a sword leaves its sheath.
Even our footsteps made no sound.
Not muffled — absent.
We'd climbed all night. No monsters. No puzzles. No interruptions. Just stone steps, spiraling like an ancient promise toward the peak.
And now we were here.
---
Above us, embedded in the mountain's highest ridge, the legendary Sword of Breath pulsed with a lightless glow — not illuminating anything, but outlining possibility.
It didn't shine.
It… hummed.
Reflected not light, but potential.
Thousands of glimmering threads — futures, regrets, decisions we hadn't made yet — twisted along its blade like ethereal veins.
> "So this is it," Jiwoon said, knuckles white around his staff. His voice was steady, but his breath wasn't.
> "The final trial of Murim," Ereze added, gazing at the sword, her voice reverent. "The culmination of Shenhua's myth."
> "The test of the Breathing Blade," I whispered. "Balance and violence in one strike. Mercy in motion. Power restrained."
And carved into the cracked stone beneath our feet — not etched, not painted — but seared into existence in living silver fire:
> "The Blade Remembers."
"The Blade Judges."
"The Blade Forgives Nothing."
---
Then she appeared.
Not walking.
Becoming.
Petals rose from the edge of the cliff, swirled into a storm, and settled into the shape of a woman.
She was shadow and blossom — both blooming and withering at once.
Her hair was ink spilling into wind. Her eyes burned violet, but not warmly — they weren't lit by flame.
They were lit by memory.
And memory, we'd learned, was the cruelest fire.
She held no blade.
Because she was the blade.
> "Welcome, Children of Chaos," she said. Her voice echoed like a prayer lost in a canyon. "I am Shenhua's echo. The Breath given form. The sword unstruck."
> "If you have reached this peak, then you are ready to unmake yourselves… or become something truer."
---
The fight didn't begin with a war cry.
It began with a breath.
Hers.
She exhaled — and the mountain split.
Not literally. Not physically.
But we felt it.
Like the world had blinked.
Like something ancient had awakened and remembered it had teeth.
Jiwoon raised his staff, twisting raw momentum into a shield of compressed air. The gust rebounded, carving a trench in the stone behind us.
Ereze was already gone. Vanished in mid-motion — her sword slicing the air where the echo had stood a second before.
Me?
I activated Memory Blink.
Dodged the fractured echo she sent — a ghost of me, burning with doubt, mirroring my every move with perfect malice.
---
This wasn't a normal boss fight.
This wasn't even a trial.
It was a mirror made from war and woven from fear.
She didn't strike our bodies.
She struck the versions of ourselves we were afraid to become.
> "Coward," she whispered, slicing toward Jiwoon. His illusion shattered — and for a second, he was a boy again, knees shaking, begging for someone to save him.
> "Monster," she said to Ereze, whose sword faltered mid-swing. Her hands trembled as blood — real, not imagined — dripped from her fingers. Blood from someone she once called friend.
> "Imposter," she hissed at me.
And I stumbled.
Because part of me — that old, lurking part — believed her.
Believed I had no right to be here.
That I was only ever pretending.
---
Everything slowed.
The arena blurred.
The wind froze.
Our breath thickened in the air like dying fire.
And then —
> Clink.
A single sound.
A sword drawn without hesitation.
Ereze.
Her voice was steady. Her blade, not.
But it didn't matter.
> "We're not perfect," she said. "But we're not that either."
Jiwoon stepped forward, eyes clear again.
> "We're not here to become gods," he said. "Just better versions of who we were."
And me?
I stepped last.
No more blinking. No more dodging.
> "I'm not your Reader anymore, Shenhua," I said. "I'm part of the page now."
---
We moved. Together.
Not in formation.
In faith.
No strategy. No call-outs. Just rhythm.
One breath.
One blade.
One strike.
And the Blade shattered.
---
She fell to her knees, smiling.
Her body faded into petals — but her voice remained.
> "You have remembered," she said. "Not the technique. Not the form. But the why behind it."
"Shenhua will sleep once more… until the next storytellers awaken her."
And then she was gone.
No explosion. No epic system jingle. Just a quiet end.
Like a breath released after holding it for a thousand years.
---
> [Final Trial Complete: The Breathing Blade – Shenhua's Testament]
Reward Unlocked: Shenhua Fragment (Passive Skill)
When fighting for someone else, strength increases by 20%.
New Trait Unlocked: Mythborne Memory
You can now carry one "truth" across timelines. Permanently immune to memory reset zones.
---
The arena cracked apart — not violently, but with the solemnity of a closing book.
From the space between stone and sky, a golden portal bloomed.
Not a circle. Not a gate.
A lotus.
Swirling with stories. Pulsing with consequence.
> "City's collapsing," Jiwoon muttered, watching the peak crumble behind us.
> Ereze raised an eyebrow. "Again?"
> I smiled. "Guess that means we passed."
We didn't linger.
Didn't celebrate.
We stepped into the portal without looking back.
And behind us, the city of Murim —
its petals, its stories, its scars —
sighed its final breath.
And vanished.
---
Next Destination: The Labyrinth of Shifting Thrones
> New Objective:
Unseat the Past. Rewrite the Crown. Survive the Games of Gods.
---
As the portal shimmered shut behind us, we thought we were alone.
But then a voice threaded through the space between worlds.
Silk-wrapped and venom-tipped.
Kairoz.
> "You've passed your first arc. How delightful."
"But you know the structure now, don't you?"
"One ending means the beginning of chaos."
"So… ready to become the villain of your own story?"
---
I didn't answer.
Because there was nothing left to say.
This story isn't mine anymore.
But I'll rewrite it anyway.
---
End of "First Murim"