Hi there! This is a story I've thought up over the past year and have started to put on paper during my spare time. As such, I'll try to release a chapter every week, each about 2,000 - 3,000 words long.

Also, if you spot any errors, please do let me know. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

Regret.

A deep sense of regret was what the nameless assassin felt as he stumbled along the stone hallway. His left hand clutched firmly at his right abdomen in a futile attempt to stanch the blood flowing freely out of a gashing wound. His right hand held an ominous, black guard-less dagger. Carved on its hilt were intricate runes overlaid with circles and I-Ching hexagrams. Behind him lain a fresh trail of bodies, each bearing a single, precise, fatal wound.

‘A little more.’

At the end of the hallway, the assassin stopped in front of a metal door. He grunted as he pushed the heavy door open with some effort, marking it with a smeared bloody handprint. Two armor-clad figures came into his sight in the room illuminated by mounted kerosene lamps. A pale-faced man in his late thirties with matted blond hair moved his trembling hand to the hilt of his sword, clearly shaken at the sight of the assassin. Prince Caleb Ravain, sole heir to the throne.

Standing between the shaking prince and the assassin is a well-built man in his fifties, with short black hair and trimmed beard peppered with streaks of white. He stands tall and robust with his sword drawn, an unmoving sentinel that reeks of danger. General Karn Eisenblut of the Royal Guard. A brilliant commander on the battlefield, he accumulated countless merits in the war to unite the western continent of Paven under the Kingdom of Ravain. But, yet, in this time of peace, he oversaw the illustrious Royal Guard. A promotion, the court ministers said. Karn knew that it was a glorified position to limit his role in kingdom administration. Regardless of his political clout, his standing among commoners is second only to the king. A respected man, loyal to the throne.

“Your vengeance is misplaced. Killing Prince Caleb will solve nothing. Stop your foolishness. It is too late to save you, but I can at least give you a swift end,” said Karn calmly.

The assassin responded with an ironic smile, “Your loyalty is what is misplaced, Karn. You blindly protect this monster and coward. Can you disregard the evil acts he has committed? Can you forget the countless lives that …”

“Enough! Kill him!” interrupted Caleb, some color returning to his face after seeing the assassin’s sorry state.

Shaking his head, Karn said remorsefully as he brandished his sword, “I am sorry that it has come to this.” He took an intimidating fighting stance as he stared at the assassin. A resolute pair of eyes stared back at him.

The assassin took a deep breath and chanted something under his breath. The runes on the dagger flashed red and blood stopped flowing from the wound. A blood-red replica of the dagger appeared on the assassin’s left hand. He gripped the daggers tighter in an under grip as he calculated his final assassination.

“An artifact?” remarked Karn in surprise.

Taking advantage of Karn’s split-second distraction, the assassin launched his attack. He kicked the ground behind him, immediately closing the distance between him and Caleb. He slashed out with his left dagger, aiming for Caleb’s jugular.

“NO!” shouted Caleb.

A battle-hardened man and a grandmaster swordsman, Karn quickly recovered and dashed backwards, pushing Caleb behind him while parrying the assassin’s dagger. Caleb staggered backwards and fell onto the ground.

*Clang*

The assassin launched a flurry of coordinated slashes with both daggers at Karn. Despite the speed disadvantage of a sword, Karn masterfully deflects the attacks.

‘Faster.’

The flurries became faster but Karn matched the assassin’s speed.

‘Faster.’

Karn wrinkled his brows, ‘This is beyond what a human is capable of. Is it the dagger?’ His swordplay could not keep up. He began to dodge some slashes too fast to parry using skillful footwork. Noticing that Caleb is still on the ground, he yelled, “My lord, get up and move back!”

Caleb scrambled up, horror in his eyes. He pulled out his sword and held it in both hands towards the fighting duo. He inched backwards slowly until his back was against the wall.

‘Faster.’

The assassin’s daggers disappeared from Karn’s sight for a second and appeared, slashing horizontally towards him. Karn’s battle-honed reflexes kicked in and performed a quick backstep to avoid it. The assassin’s momentum appeared disrupted as his other dagger found Karn’s chestplate, leaving behind a diagonal line.

‘You over extended!’ thought Karn as he slashed upwards. The assassin dodged it at a hair’s breadth by swinging his body backwards. Karn roared as he rammed towards the assassin with his left shoulder. The assassin smiled. He had anticipated the attack.

‘Not good!’ realized Karn. The assassin took a step back with his right foot and kicked the ground with his left, spinning around. With this fluid movement, he avoided Karn’s attack while bypassing him at the same time. Like a strung arrow taking flight, he dashed towards Caleb.

Karn recovered and turned around as he saw the assassin knocking Caleb’s sword away using the hilt of his blood-red dagger. The assassin’s arm flickered as he slashed vertically at Caleb’s throat. Disbelief flashed in Caleb’s eyes as he made a gurgling sound and grasped his neck with both hands. Like a raging river breaking a dam, blood bursted out and seeped out between the crevices of his fingers. Life drained from his eyes. Caleb was no more. Despite his ferocious loyalty to the throne, Karn was a pragmatic man. ‘This fight is over,’ he thought as he dropped his battle stance and sheathed his sword.

The assassin’s red dagger slowly disintegrated into a blood-red mist as he dropped onto his knees beside Caleb’s body. This act of vengeance, his personal crusade, felt like a hollow victory. No, he convinced himself. His motive was a selfish one, but his actions had implications beyond that. He was preventing the rule of a power-hungry sociopath that treated all life as means to an end. Then what was this sense of regret that still hounded him?

A shadow fell over the assassin. “Was it worth it?”

The assassin stumbled around into a sitting position against the wall and looked up towards Karn. Blood was flowing out of the wound again. The assassin grew weaker with every breath he took. Smiling weakly, he responded, “Does it matter? It’s over now.”

Karn shook his head and said in a defeated tone, “Over? Do you know what this means for the kingdom?”

The assassin chuckled and coughed out some blood, “Job security for you.” He continued solemnly, “Court politics and governing may be beyond me, but even I know the consequences if Caleb becomes king. You just refuse to believe it.”

“It cannot be worse than war,” retorted Karn as he stared at the assassin. The two men stared at each other in silence for a few minutes, emotions running deep.

The assassin broke the silence, “Farewell, old friend.” He closed his eyes for the last time.

‘Maybe you are right… The least I could do is to send you off.’ Karn shook his head and crouched down to perform the final rites. Before Karn could touch the assassin’s body, the runes on the dagger, still in his hand, abruptly flashed blood red again. Karn reflexively jumped backwards. The red intensified and slowly spread to cover the whole room. The world was dyed in a monochromatic red.

Fear. As a man who has stared death in its eyes countless times and have seen the depravities of war, Karn had not felt this sensation in a long time. Adrenaline rushed through his body. His hair stood on its end. His spine tingled. He heard his heart pumping. ‘Run!’ his brain screamed, but his body would not respond. The dagger became black again. A black blacker than that of the darkest night. A black blacker than that of a bottomless ravine. A black that threatens to devour everything.

The darkness spread outwards in a sphere and slowly enveloped the assassin’s body. It lingered for a few seconds when in a split second, it shrank into a single point and drew the red into it. As abruptly as it appeared, it disappeared with the assassin’s body. Color came back to the world and Karn fell onto the ground, white as paper.

***

The assassin remembered his last moments. His consciousness was fading when it was suddenly jolted back. He had no physical body but felt his consciousness traveling somewhere. He was surrounded by darkness when it flashed a blinding white and a scene appeared before him.

‘What is this?’

Staring from above, he was looking at his last conversation with Kane moments ago. Their mouths were moving but the words were inaudible.

*Flash.*

A sword in his right hand and the dagger in his right, he was slaughtering his way through the prince’s castle. Exhausted from the constant battle, his concentration slipped for a mere second. That was enough for the an elite guard to deal the fatal wound that plagued him in his last moments.

*Flash.*

The assassin was crouched beside a man wearing a black cloak with a short sword stuck in his abdomen. The man smiled and uttered his last words, “Get him.” The assassin uttered his goodbye and closed the dead man’s eyes.

‘Am I traveling back through time in my memories?’

*Flash.*

Earlier that day.

He was in an underground room, faintly lit by candles. Three men, dressed in black cloaks, looked over a map of Prince Caleb’s castle. A red circle was drawn around a small room on the north-east corner of the castle. With a determined look in their eyes, they grabbed their weapons. The assassin rolled up the map and held it over the flame. The parchment caught fire as he threw it into a metal basin.

*Flash.*

Three months ago.

He was slumped over in a dark alley with a bottle of liquor in his hand. A man wearing a red cloak walked towards him and stared into his dead eyes. After a short conversation, the man in red extending his hand. Grabbing it, the assassin pulled himself up.

*Flash.*

A year earlier.

His left hand covering the mouth of a woman, he drove his short sword into her back. He felt her body grow limp. The job was done. He turned the body over and laid it down when a familiar face stared back at him. A rush of emotion overcame him as he staggered backwards. Horror. Grief. Sadness. He let off a primal howl. The assassin locked the door and carried the body to the bed. He folded her arms across her chest and gently placed an obsidian coin into her hands.

‘No!’

*Flash.*

Three years prior.

The assassin held a palm-sized obsidian coin in his hand. Carved onto one face is a figure of a left palm facing outwards and the other a circle. The symbol of one of the core assassins of The Hand, Ravain Kingdom’s shadow organization. In The Hand, no one had an identity. No past. No future. No present. They blink into existence only for the moment their blade finds their target. And just as they appeared, they disappear. Age was therefore inconsequential and no one kept track of it. But, even without any record-keeping of age, it was evident that he had just became the youngest person to assume that role. He bowed slightly to the hooded man in front of him and took a seat beside five other hooded figures. For this young assassin, the Hand broke tradition and appointed its sixth core assassin for the first time. Where others would feel pride, the assassin felt nothing. He existed only to kill.

*Flash.*

A month before.

Death lingered in the city of Zan. The once green cityscape was replaced with withered plants with dried brown leaves. Desiccated, charcoal-colored bodies of humans and animals alike littered the streets. Half a million human lives just ceased to exist. Not knowing the consequences, the assassin had activated a rune above the tower in the center of the city as instructed. Life within the radius of the circular city drained into an egg-sized, translucent gem placed above the rune. The assassin held the now green gem in his hand. It pulsated as if alive. That was the day his mind truly broke. That was the day he lost his humanity.

‘No! Stop this torture!’ the observing assassin’s soul howled.

*Flash.*

Two weeks before the Massacre of Zan.

The assassin had become a grandmaster assassin and quickly rose through the ranks within the past four years. Caleb personally visited him and the Adjudicator, the utmost authority of The Hand. Caleb pushed a small ornate wooden box adorned with the figure of a phoenix towards the Adjudicator. The Adjudicator slid the top open and pulled out a parchment. He unfurled it and laid it on the table. A single intricate runic diagram was drawn on it. Caleb’s lips moved. “I was never here.”

*Flash.*

Four years prior during an assassination and item recovery mission.

The assassin had just recovered the ornate wooden box. His extraction group was discovered and had to find his way out of the ancient city of Aman. He escaped into an old Wind God temple built into the mountain, a relic from the time where humans used to worship the Gods. Such temples were built where turbulent winds gather and, as such, often opened into windy mountain passes. It was here that he discovered a hidden room below the altar and found a black runic dagger and a worn-out tome. On the first page was a single world, written in cursive; Pangu. It described a strange concept of cultivating internal energy, qi, which will temper the body and strengthen the mind. This was achieved through the [Primordial God’s Foundation] detailed in the book.

*Flash.*

Six years earlier.

A young boy held his dying friend in his arms. On the ground beside them laid two white masks, splattered with blood, and two swords, one dyed red with blood. The friend smiled at the boy as he took his last breath. Two boys died that day and an assassin was born.

‘Please. Stop.’

*Flash*

A year prior.

The boy was brought to the temple of The Hand. His hands were chained and his shirt was torn on the back, revealing raw red whip marks. Yet, there was a determined look in his eyes.

*Flash*

Six months before.

The boy watched as knights rode into his family’s estate, declaring his family traitors to the kingdom. His father, Duke Aran Sturm, was executed at the capital for treason and his family’s land are seized by the throne. His mother and elder sister will be sent back to his grandparent’s, another duke of the kingdom. Him, being the male heir, was to be sold to slavers, stripped of his nobility. As they were separated, his tearful sister leaned in and whispered in his ears. A face he had just saw moments ago.

From his vision, the assassin could not see her lips. ‘What did she say? Why can’t I remember?’

*Flash*

Five years prior.

The boy held a blunt-edged wooden sword in his hand. The sword, though wooden on the outside, had a core made from grey volcanic ore, making it extremely heavy. There was a strained look in his eyes, but he wielded it anyway. He distributed the sword’s weight efficiently through his body. His sword instructor, master swordsman Karn Eisenblut, nodded approvingly as the boy practiced his sword swings. The boy’s father set his quill down and watched proudly from the window of the study.

‘I am sorry. I wasn’t the man you wanted to raise me to be.’

*Flash*

Six years before.

A bright-eyed four year old girl ran into the room with anticipation. “Is he here? Is he here?” On the bed was a woman, holding her newborn baby. The wet-nurse stepped aside and walked to the stove to get more hot water. Her husband, who was fawning over his wife throughout the whole process, looked relieved. He smiled at his daughter and nodded. He picked her up under her arms and hoisted her closer to her newborn brother.

The woman whispered loving to the baby boy. “Welcome to the world, Edan Sturm.”

An identity the assassin had forgotten. His soul mourned.

‘I am sorry. I lost myself.’

‘I am sorry, my family. I wish things were different. I wish I were stronger. I wish I had the mental strength to break free. I could’ve found you. We could’ve avoided this fate.’

***

What seemed like an eternity passed.

He opened his eyes to a blinding light. He blinked a few times as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light. His ears ringing from a chatter of voices. It is too bright. It is too loud. But, he recognized this feeling. Where he felt ephemeral earlier, he now felt solid.

‘I’m alive?’