NOVEL WEB Chapter 2: The Blade Beneath the Earth
Rain had ceased. Smoke curled from the blackened husk of the apartment complex—once alive with laughter and the clash of blades, now silent. Neon dusk cast shattered glass like crystallized tears across Metro Nyos. The city held its breath.
Matt Salurga stood amid the rubble, barefoot and bleeding, reborn by ruin. His legs shook. His breath came in ragged gasps. But his hand—
Would not release the hilt.
It pulsed against his palm, ancient metal etched in runes that glowed crimson with each heartbeat. It felt less like a tool and more like part of him.
> Draw it.
The whisper was not his own. It came from the blade. From the Void.
Matt froze. Then the air rippled. Heat shimmered. Reality cracked—and something stepped through.
A phantom in molten black armor, half-machine, half-nightmare, advanced without a sound. A hollow mask concealed its face, but twin void-stars glowed behind it.
> TIER I: IMPERIAL PHANTOM // GODHUNT UNIT
A pigeon fluttered overhead—then disintegrated mid-flight, embers scattering to the ground.
The Phantom lunged.
Matt's instincts roared. He gripped the hilt—
—and the sword answered.
The hilt twisted in his hand as if alive. The blade didn't slide free; it grew, a living extension of shadowfire. Black steel sang as it emerged, crackling with cosmic energy.
The Shadowsidian Blade.
The clash shattered silence. Sparks rained as metal screamed. Matt reeled into a rusted car; ribs cracked. Vision blurred. Yet the blade remained steady in his grasp.
> Let go.
His pupils bled darkness. Time stuttered. Colors drained.
The Phantom struck again—arm-blades singing across the rain-slick pavement.
But Matt moved in perfect sync—
> VOID SYNC TRIGGERED
His body flowed through the fight like memory: centuries-old duels echoing in every strike. He spun, sliced upward—and the Phantom shattered into static and dust.
Silence reclaimed the street.
Matt dropped to one knee. The blade hissed, hungry.
> "What… am I?"
Light coalesced before him into a woman's form—graceful, luminous, sorrow in her eyes.
Amiya.
> "Matt… you found the blade."
He stared. "You're… real?"
> "A fragment. A tether. A piece of my soul left behind."
Tears welled unbidden. He'd mourned her before—forgotten her before.
> "There's no time. Beneath this ruin lies your past. You must return to the beginning."
A tremor shuddered through the sky. A rift cracked open, shadows pouring through.
> "They'll know I reached you," Amiya whispered. "I shouldn't have awakened until your second fall…"
Her light touched his forehead—
> MEMORY SURGE — INITIATED
Agony bloomed in his mind:
A realm aflame.
Children sobbing under shattered walls.
A burning house.
His mother's tears. His father's sacrifice.
A blade buried with him.
A command whispered by Monshin—the Paladin who condemned him.
Matt gasped as the vision ended. The light flickered out.
The blade pulsed against his palm. The ground beneath him groaned.
> "Go," Amiya urged. "Before they erase it again."
Stone split. Earth opened like a wound.
He didn't scream.
He remembered.
And he fell—
> Downward, toward what was buried. Toward war. Toward himself.
> He was never just a child. He was the blade.