The Black-Iron Village was a place of smoke, sweat, and the rhythmic clanging of hammers. Located at the foot of the Heaven-Sword Mountains, it was a community of failed dreamers. Those who couldn’t manifest a Sword Pulse were sent here to forge the weapons of those who could. Han Ming was the son of the village’s finest smith, but he was a disappointment to the bloodline. At seventeen, his spiritual meridians were as clogged as a rusted pipe, unable to circulate even a drop of the ambient Qi that flowed from the peaks above.
“Focus on the rhythm, Ming-er,” his father, Han Bo, grunted as he slammed a five-pound hammer onto a glowing slab of steel. “If you cannot wield the sword, you must understand its soul. The iron doesn’t lie. It only bends when it is tempered by heat and will.”
Han Ming nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. His arms were corded with muscle, a result of years in the forge, but he felt hollow. In this world, a man without Qi was like a bird without wings. That afternoon, Han Bo sent him to the “Scrap Ravine,” a valley where the discarded failures of the great sects were dumped. Occasionally, they could find high-quality ore or salvageable fragments to melt down.
While digging through a pile of shattered jade sabers and rusted spears, Han Ming’s hand brushed against something that sent a jolt of absolute cold through his body. He pulled it out. It was a hilt—nothing more. It lacked a guard and a blade, and it was covered in a layer of grime that seemed to swallow the sunlight. Yet, when Han Ming gripped it, the emptiness in his chest seemed to resonate.
“What is this?” he whispered.
As his blood from a small cut on his thumb touched the hilt, the world around him went silent. The sound of the wind, the distant clanging of the village—all of it vanished. He stood in a vast, grey expanse of nothingness. In front of him stood a figure composed entirely of starlight, holding the very hilt Han Ming had found.
“The heavens are full of stars, yet they are held together by the void,” the figure spoke, its voice like the grinding of tectonic plates. “To cultivate the sword is to seek the edge. To cultivate the Void is to become the edge.”
The figure swung the hilt. There was no flash of light, no roar of thunder. But the grey world was sliced in two, a jagged rift appearing in the fabric of the dimension itself. Han Ming gasped as a flood of cold, colorless energy rushed into his body, tearing through his clogged meridians like a tidal wave through a paper dam. The pain was excruciating, but for the first time in his life, he felt… full.
When he opened his eyes, he was back in the Scrap Ravine. The hilt was still in his hand, but the rust had fallen away, revealing a dark, matte metal that seemed to pull at the air around it. Han Ming stood up, his movements light. His Sword Pulse hadn’t awakened; it had been replaced by something far more dangerous.