Chapter 1 - Afterlife

The world was entirely white.

A cold wind swept across the endless snowfield with a low moan. The snow that had fallen through the night slowly covered the brutal traces of blood, fire, and corpses.

The world was also utterly quiet.

The flames that had blazed as though to devour everything, the sword energy that rent the air, the shouts and screams, the sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart—all had subsided.

Only profound silence and a suffocating cold remained.

In the heart of that silent snowfield, two figures stood, barely keeping their feet.

They stared at each other without so much as stirring. Even when blood occasionally welled from their open wounds, they did nothing but stare.

One of them, a black-clad man who had dared call himself the Heavenly Demon, was scarcely breathing.

The dark-red demonic energy that had shrouded his entire body moments before flickered faintly like dying embers. His once steel-like body was riddled with sword wounds, so precarious it seemed ready to crumble. Above all, the black blood he kept coughing up betrayed grave internal injuries.

All of it foretold his death.

The same was true of the swordsman facing him.

Clad in worn white robes, he too stood at death’s door.

Fresh blood had stained his once snow-white robes red. Five blades were embedded in his body. With one short breath, a blade slipped free, leaving four. His left arm was gone below the shoulder.

Yet his back remained straight, and his eyes shone as fiercely as frost. Not for a single moment did his gaze leave the Heavenly Demon.

Ever since the day his sect was annihilated, his life had existed for this moment alone.

Driven by a single, relentless desire for vengeance, he had endured ordeal after ordeal on the brink of death to reach this point. He had reached the end of his revenge.

At last, he had won.

But the price was his own life.

It was mutual destruction in the truest sense, yet strictly speaking, he had come out well ahead. He had infiltrated the Demonic Cult’s headquarters alone, slaughtered everyone within, and would now take even the Heavenly Demon’s life.

It was the end of decades of torment.

The Heavenly Demon, barely standing, coughed up blood.

Fragments of his organs spilled out with the dark-red blood, but he paid them no mind. Gazing at the man in white through dim eyes, he spoke.

"The Blood Immortal of Kunlun... That is what they call you now, is it not? Heh. A fitting epithet, wouldn’t you say?"

There was no burning hatred or arrogance in his voice. Instead, it held an inexplicable warmth.

"Still, it falls a little short. How about the Blood Fiend of Kunlun instead? No matter how I look at you, you hardly resemble a Taoist."

His opponent, the Blood Immortal of Kunlun, answered quietly.

"Call me what you will. I abandoned the Way long ago."

The wind blew.

The Heavenly Demon, who had been swaying precariously, finally crumpled. He looked almost as though he were kneeling.

A little time passed.

After pausing to catch his breath, he spoke again.

"... I met many people after I entered the martial world. Countless swordsmen who proclaimed themselves heroes knelt at my feet or became little more than pools of blood. Yet among all those gallant warriors, not one could match you. Amusing, is it not? That the whelp from the Kunlun Sect—the very first person I met after announcing my arrival—was stronger than anyone else in the martial world?"

The Blood Immortal of Kunlun did not answer.

He merely watched his opponent in silence.

The Heavenly Demon continued muttering, seemingly not expecting a reply.

"It was decided long ago. When I first met you, I had already conquered the Central Plains..."

As he spoke, the smile on his lips deepened. It was a smile steeped in emptiness.

"I often dreamed of that day. The day I cut you down, only to let you escape."

At those words, the Blood Immortal of Kunlun replied.

"And what did you do?"

"I hunted you down and killed you, whatever it took. You appeared in my dreams the next night, so I killed you again. I killed you over and over. Perhaps that is why this situation does not feel particularly unfamiliar."

"It is the same for me."

"Is it?"

"Yes. In my dreams, I died by your hand every time. I died over and over. Perhaps that is why this situation feels quite familiar to me."

"You died...? Then I always won?"

"I killed you once as well. Only once, though."

"Oh? When was that?"

"Just yesterday."

The Heavenly Demon finally burst into laughter.

"Hahaha! A prophetic dream!"

Bloody froth surged up and burst from his mouth as he laughed.

"... Well, then? Are you satisfied now that you have what you wanted? Is the end of your vengeance... sweet?"

After a brief silence, the Blood Immortal of Kunlun murmured quietly.

"... Well. I cannot say."

"It always takes time for things to sink in."

"And what of you?"

"What of me?"

"Did conquering the Central Plains mean anything? Was it worth killing so many people?"

"Worth. Worth, you say..."

His breath so faint it seemed about to cease, the Heavenly Demon barely managed to lift his head and look at the Blood Immortal of Kunlun.

"Did you know? That I, too, entered the martial world for revenge?"

"... What?"

"Then there is no need to ask. We have walked the same path... We are fellow seekers of the Way."

He grinned.

Only the corners of his mouth rose beneath lifeless eyes. It was a dead man’s smile.

With that final smile, the Heavenly Demon fell.

For the great demon who had ravaged an entire era, it was a remarkably hollow end.

"..."

Snow still fell from the sky.

The Blood Immortal of Kunlun slowly raised his head toward the gray heavens.

A cold snowflake settled gently on his cheek. For the briefest moment, he felt its piercing chill.

That cold brought everything crashing down.

The Blood Immortal of Kunlun, who had stood as firm as Mount Tai, slowly crumpled.

As the flames of vengeance that had burned for decades finally subsided, the flame of his life exhausted itself as well.

Very slowly, very quietly, he closed his eyes.

The pure, serene vistas of Mount Kunlun seemed close enough to touch.

The blood-soaked Taoist departed for that place willingly.

Into the deep, tranquil silence.

Into the white snow.

And so he faded away.

A cold wind swept across the endless snowfield with a low moan. The snow that had fallen through the night slowly covered the brutal traces of blood, fire, and corpses.

The flames that had blazed as though to devour everything, the sword energy that had rent the air, the shouts and screams, the sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart—all had subsided.

Only profound silence and a suffocating cold remained.

The world was entirely white.

The world was also utterly quiet.

In the heart of that silent snowfield, no one remained alive.

* * *

Death.

Annihilation. Absolute nothingness.

An eternal stillness in which neither light, nor sound, nor sensation existed.

Everything melted away in the silence of that bottomless abyss, where even time lost its meaning. Every anguish and pain, every joy and sorrow mingled together and became peace.

Perhaps this was the very rest he had yearned for so desperately.

[! @#$_INIT_ERR]

How much time had passed?

A hairline fracture appeared in that pitch-black repose.

[RECOVERY MODE ACTIVATED]

[SYSTEM INTEGRITY CHECK. . .]

A string of green characters of unknown meaning flashed into view and vanished. Like a pebble dropped into still water, that short string began to send out enormous ripples.

[LOADING BACKUP. . . OK]

[MEMORY FRAGMENT DETECTED. . .]

[CORE TEMP. . . UNSTABLE]

[POWER SOURCE. . . EXTERNAL]

[NEURAL MATRIX. . . ERROR]

[REATTEMPTING NEURAL SYNC. . .]

[SENSORY INPUT. . . RESTORED]

[VISUAL/AUDIO ONLINE]

[AWAKENING SEQUENCE. . . NOW<<<]

The final string flashed intensely.

At the same moment, the darkness that had seemed eternal lifted, and sensations began pouring in like a waterfall.

They were artificial sensations, appallingly unnatural and unpleasant.

His vision cleared.

But what spread before his eyes was neither the white snowfield, nor the fallen Heavenly Demon, nor a natural landscape like an ink-wash painting.

Dimly flickering orange lights.

All manner of metal scraps.

Shards of plastic.

Bundles of thick cables and unidentified circuit boards.

It was more than unfamiliar. It was a place whose very meaning eluded him, far beyond the bounds of his understanding.

Those strings of characters appeared again.

[VISUAL CALIBRATION. . . DONE]

[AUDIO NOISE FILTERING ACTIVE]

Electronic beeps and the grinding of rusty machinery.

The noise was the complete opposite of the silence he had experienced in his final moments.

He tried to cover his ears against the unfamiliar warning tones, but it was no use. He could not feel his arms. His left arm had been severed, but surely he still had his right.

It was not just his arms. He could feel neither his legs nor his torso—nothing at all.

It was a grotesque sensation, as though only his head remained, floating in the air.

Only alien visual and auditory information flowed into his mind. It was nothing like his last memory, nothing like the chill of the snowflake settling on his cheek.

"Did it... work? This thing’s working, right?"

He heard a young girl’s voice.

Wait, a girl?

Had there been a girl?

"Can you see me?"

A humanoid left carelessly in a corner like so much garbage—nothing but a head mounted on a stand—adjusted its optical sensors to focus on the moving figure.

Only then did the girl come into clear view.

Perhaps it was her roughly tied-up hair or her grease-stained jumpsuit, but there was something rough and ungainly about her.

Her features, by contrast, were sharply defined.

She had a cold look that could seem almost haughty at first glance.

Her behavior, however, was another matter entirely.

She clenched both fists and gave a little cry of delight.

Seeing her like that, she was unmistakably a young girl.

Her clothes, her looks, her behavior—nothing fit together. She was a bewildering girl.

"It worked!"

She shouted and spun excitedly around the workbench before coming to stand in front of the humanoid again.

The girl shifted left and right in odd poses. The optical sensors glowed teal as they followed her movements from side to side.

"I knew it! I’m a genius!"

Suddenly, she leaned in until her nose nearly touched him and cradled the metal head in both hands. She looked truly delighted.

The humanoid, however, was not.

He had not the faintest idea what was going on.

Worse, the girl spoke a peculiar language he had never heard in his life. He could not understand a single word she said.

It was maddening.

He wanted to say something, anything.

Where was this place? Who was this young lady? Why was he like this?

But no voice came out.

Whenever he tried to speak, those strings of characters merely appeared again.

[VOICE OUTPUT MODULE. . . OFFLINE]

[ERROR:HARDWARE NOT DETECTED]

[RECORVERY ATTEMPT. . . FAILED]

[CONNECTION UNSTABLE]

Never mind a voice—he had no arms or legs. All he could do was blink the optical sensors attached to his head furiously.

The girl watched him for a moment, then tilted her head.

"Huh? What’s wrong? Can’t you talk?"

Sensing something was wrong, she picked up the data pad beside the workbench and rapidly worked its controls. Her expression soon grew grave.

"Yeah, you can’t. All the other modules are shot. I guess you could say the main core is barely running. Looks like half the memory section is gone, too."

After muttering to herself, the girl looked at the humanoid—at him—again. Unlike before, her gaze was calm and appraising.

For a moment, her eyes seemed to gleam coldly.

It was something entirely different from the bright, cheerful manner she had shown until now.

"No. Looking for another core now would be ridiculous. I should be grateful for this much. As long as the main core isn’t damaged, that’s enough. I can fix everything else. It’s fine. I can do it. I’m a genius, after all."

The glint in her eyes was already gone.

Her expression softened again, and she moved a little closer.

"You might be a little uncomfortable right now, but just hang in there. I’ll have you good as new in no time. I’ll give you arms and legs, and get your voice back, too. So... once I’ve fixed you all up, then..."

She pursed her lips for a moment, then shook her head vigorously and brought her face even closer. Her mischievous smile filled his vision.

"You’re going to help me. Got it?"

She pointed at her own face.

"My name’s Akina. Akina Greenwood. Here’s to us getting along!"

He still could not understand a word she said.

Except for one thing.

He could just about make out that this girl’s name was Akina Greenwood.