Chương 5: The Road to Baskerville

Ch 5: The Road to Baskerville The moment the liquid touched my tongue, it simply melted away — no burning, no violent surge, nothing at all for one long heartbeat. Then my heart slammed once, hard enough to hurt, and emerald light burst out of my body in a single blinding wave.

"Ghh—!" My muscles convulsed as though invisible hands were tearing me apart only to stitch me back together a moment later. Every broken meridian lit up white-hot before the light poured through the cracks and began sealing them shut, one by one. My shattered shoulder twisted at an angle no shoulder should move through; bone ground against bone; new flesh spread across the wound like something growing in fast motion.

Even the severed nerves woke up again, feeling returning to fingers I'd been sure I'd never move the same way twice. It hurt more than almost anything I could remember. Compared to the Tower, compared to dying more times than I'd ever admitted to anyone, it was still nothing. I gritted my teeth through it.

"I've endured worse." Outside, the disciples who still had the strength to notice froze where they stood.

"What is that aura?" one of the elders murmured.

"It isn't Qi. It's something far older." The light poured out of the room for hours. By sunset, it finally went still, and I opened my eyes to a world that looked sharper than it had before. I flexed my fingers. My wrist. My shoulder. Nothing. Not even the memory of pain. I stood, crossed the room, and threw a single punch into the empty air. Whoosh. The air split clean down the middle. Not because I'd become stronger.

Because for the first time since I'd woken up in this body, it finally, completely, belonged to me.

"This," I said, "is true recovery." The days that followed passed in a strange kind of peace. The sect rebuilt itself slowly around its grief — damaged halls repaired board by board, wounded disciples easing back into their training one stretch at a time, life resuming because it had nowhere else to go. Every morning before sunrise, I stood alone in Father's old courtyard with a plain wooden sword in my hands. Not Dragon Slayer — this body wasn't ready to carry that yet. Only the most basic forms. One swing. Ten.

A hundred. A thousand, each one identical, each one exact. Disciples passing by slowed their steps at first, then stopped entirely to watch. By the third day, even a few elders had started lingering near the courtyard wall. One afternoon, the First Elder walked over and stood in silence for several minutes before he finally spoke.

"... Who taught you this?"

"My father," I said. He studied me a while longer, then allowed himself a faint smile.

"Perhaps. But whatever path you've found — don't lose it." He said nothing else, and walked away without waiting for an answer. He hadn't believed me. He shouldn't have. Even Father hadn't reached this level of precision in his swordsmanship — not because the forms were complicated, but because they weren't. Every wasted motion had already been cut out of them, years ago, by someone who understood that true swordsmanship isn't about beauty. It's about ending a fight with the smallest possible movement.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. On the fourth morning, a soft knock sounded at my door.

"Fan'er." Mother came in carrying a folded set of robes — deep navy, silver embroidery at the sleeves, a golden sword beneath a soaring griffin stitched over the chest. The crest of Baskerville Academy. She set them on the table without a word, then opened a small wooden box. Inside sat a plain jade pendant, without a trace of Qi in it, without any aura at all — and yet the moment I saw it, Len Fan's memories rose to meet it. Father had carried it with him every time he left the sect.

She lifted it and settled the cord around my neck herself.

"This belonged to your father. He wanted you to have it before you left for the Academy." The jade was still faintly warm, as though his hand had only just let go of it. Beneath where the pendant had sat, a second, smaller thing waited at the bottom of the box — a bracelet of dull scrap metal, tarnished nearly black, three of its links crudely reforged with wire where they'd once broken apart. It looked like something dug out of a battlefield, not kept in one.

Mother turned it over once in her fingers before she held it out to me.

"This, I found among his things afterward. I don't know where he got it, or why he kept it — no physician, no appraiser could tell me a thing about it. No Qi. No aura. Nothing." She frowned faintly, the way she always did at questions she couldn't answer.

"But he wrapped it separately from everything else he owned. Like it mattered to him more than the things that actually looked like they should." I took it from her palm. Ugly, unremarkable, worthless to any eye but hers. And yet the instant it touched my skin, I reached for Len Fan's memories out of habit, expecting some story to rise and meet it the way the jade had. Nothing answered. No name. No warmth. No history at all. Whatever this was, it hadn't come from this life.

"I'll keep it safe," I said, and slid it onto my wrist beneath my sleeve, meaning it more than the words probably deserved.

"You wanted to become as strong as him, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yes." Her expression softened.

"Then don't stay here."

"The sect—""We'll protect it," she said, before I could finish.

"You don't belong here. Not yet. There are people stronger than us. Places you've never seen. Heights your father never reached." She rested a hand on my head.

"So go. Learn. Grow. And when you come back — come back as someone no one in this world can threaten." I said nothing. I simply memorized every word, because this time, I meant to keep it. The next morning, the gates of the Heavenly Sword Sect opened, and hundreds of disciples stood in silent rows on either side of the path. As the carriage rolled forward, every head bowed — not to a young master, but to the son of the man who had given everything to keep them alive. I looked back once.

White banners still moved in the wind above the mountain. The courtyard where Father had taught me to hold a sword. The hall where Mother waited. I bowed deeply toward all of it.

"Father," I said quietly.

"When I return, the Heavenly Sword Sect will stand among the strongest again." The carriage carried me down out of the mountains, past rivers catching the afternoon light, through villages full of merchants and wandering cultivators. Len Fan's memories unspooled the rest of the world for me as the road unwound — four continents making up Domantia: Chronos, Apros, Dalyos, Satos, each home to kingdoms powerful enough to command millions.

The Heavenly Sword Sect belonged to the Statera Kingdom, one of the greatest on Chronos, and our destination sat at its very heart — the capital, Trigatia, city of kings, prodigies, and the academy where all three had once studied together. Baskerville Academy. A place that had produced Sword Saints, Spear Kings, Grand Mages, and Monarchs across its long history.

It had also, if the older histories were honest about it, produced its share of monsters — some who went on to protect the world, and at least one who would one day try to burn it down. I already knew which name to watch for when I got there. A faint smile crossed my face.

"Baskerville Academy," I murmured.

"This year won't be wasted."

"This time," I added, "I already know what's coming. And I intend to be the one who rewrites it." The carriage rolled on toward the horizon. Behind me: the past. Ahead: a new battlefield, one where swords alone wouldn't decide anything. I meant to win it anyway.