Night fell over Bone-Fist Pavilion like a black curtain laced with cold wind.
In the dark of his hut, Xu Shen sat still, eyes half-closed, breathing in steady cycles. The air was quiet—too quiet.
"No birds. No crickets. No footsteps."
He opened his eyes.
Someone was coming.
He stood slowly, moving toward the rear of the hut. Outside, moonlight glinted off steel.
"Already? That didn't take long."
Hours earlier, as Xu meditated beneath the old pine tree, something deep in his spiritual sea had stirred.
[Memory Sync: Life #77 – Bone-Wind Saber Style]
[Fragment: Storm Fang Slash – Unlocked]
The memory hit like lightning.
A silver-bladed saber. A sweeping arc of wind that split stone. A style that killed with momentum—speed and weight woven into elegant destruction.
In Life #77, he had been Shao Liang, an elite assassin of the Bone-Wind Sect—exiled for using forbidden techniques that bent wind laws unnaturally. He'd died on a cliffside fighting five Dao Elders at once… and taking four with him.
Now, that power was his again.
Xu stood now in the moonlight, back straight, hands empty.
From the darkness, a shadow slipped into view—a figure wrapped in black, mask on, blade drawn. No sound. No aura.
An assassin.
"You've made the wrong kind of noise, Xu Shen," the masked man said. His voice was cold, professional. "Elder Mo was too curious. That style you used today? It's not from the Pavilion."
Xu said nothing.
The man sighed. "They wanted you silenced quietly. But you seem to be wide awake."
He struck.
The first strike came like a whisper of death—a sideways cut aiming for Xu's ribs.
But Xu had already moved.
Ghost Step.
A blur to the left.
Then a roll. Dirt kicked up. Blade missed by an inch.
The second strike came mid-air—overhead slash aimed at the skull.
Xu's foot caught a buried root. His body twisted awkwardly.
He couldn't dodge it cleanly.
Instead—he reached.
Fwsssh!
A weapon, hidden in the hay pile behind his hut: an old saber, half-rusted, long and slightly curved.
He gripped it in reverse.
Time slowed.
"Bone-Wind Saber. Storm Fang Slash."
He turned with the wind.
And cut.
The air screamed.
The assassin's eyes widened as a burst of chi exploded from the saber's edge—a compressed cyclone shaped like a fang. It hit him square in the chest and hurled him ten meters back into a tree.
Crack.
Xu panted, blood leaking from his nose.
That move costs too much chi at this stage…
But the man didn't rise.
He was breathing—barely.
Xu walked over and tore off the mask.
The face beneath was young. Pale. Eyes full of confusion and dread.
"Who sent you?" Xu asked.
The man tried to speak. Blood bubbled in his throat.
Xu leaned in.
"You were sent to kill me because I remembered something the heavens want forgotten. That means I'm on the right path."
The man's eyes dimmed.
The next day…
Pavilion Elder Mo Lin sat in silence, staring at the broken saber placed before him.
It pulsed faintly with wind energy—wild, ancient, unstable.
"The Bone-Wind Saber Style was banned two centuries ago," he whispered. "How does a child in this realm even know it?"
Another elder leaned closer. "Shall we report this to the Inner Clans?"
Mo Lin's eyes narrowed.
"No. Not yet. If the boy is what I suspect… he won't need our protection. Or our permission."
Far away, in a temple floating above the clouds, a jade bell rang.
A woman dressed in silver armor opened her eyes.
"The Devourer has awakened."
That night, Xu Shen stood at the cliff's edge, saber across his back, robes fluttering in the cold wind.
The mark on his chest pulsed—faintly.
His memories were still fragmented, broken like puzzle pieces scattered through time.
But he had taken another step.
"Life 10,001… and I've already killed a hunter sent by the heavens."
"Let them come."