The Demon Blade rarely held his blade with both hands. The hilt of the thick-backed saber was broad and long; even clasped in both hands, it did not seem crowded.
His eyes gleamed brightly. His entire body drew in and contracted to the utmost, as though he stood naked amid ice and snow in bitter cold, conserving every scrap of heat within himself to withstand the brutal elements.
All at once, the Demon Blade's thoughts detached from the battlefield before him and flew back to that midsummer night—the moment that changed his life.
He no longer remembered the exact time. His former hometown had long since become a barren wasteland where not even a blade of grass grew, vanishing into the river of time.
Yet the full moon hanging high, the starlight shining down, and fireflies filling the sky remained a scene he would never forget for all eternity.
It was a village in the countryside, not entirely quiet. Household dogs barked shortly from time to time, and dim yellow light seeped through paper-pasted windows.
After laboring all day, a young boy had secretly slipped out of his home. Without realizing it, he sat hugging his knees beside the brook at the village entrance, bare feet stirring the cool streamwater, utterly lost about the future.
He had been too young, perhaps only ten. He had never attended school or received any proper education. He merely followed his parents in caring for his younger siblings and worked among the field ridges, never knowing whether his future would be brilliant or whether his life would be happy and complete.
Then, beneath the moonlight, he saw a man lying on his back in the stream.
The man drifted downstream, a long blade in his hand giving off a dark-red gleam and a reek