BLOOD OATH "Rise of The Silent Blade "

Through the Veil

The Veiled Marsh was every bit as menacing as the legends claimed.

Twisted trees loomed overhead like ancient sentinels, their gnarled branches clawing at the gray sky. A dense fog snaked through the underbrush, muffling sound and warping sight. The air hung thick with dampness, each breath heavy as if it had been filtered through centuries of sorrow.

Kairo stepped carefully over a moss-covered root, his blade pulsing faintly at his back.

“Stay close,” Ayame murmured behind him. “We stray even a little. We lose each other.”

Kairo nodded. His heart beat louder than his footsteps.

For hours, they moved like shadows—silent, watchful. They spoke little, trusting hand signals and eye contact to communicate. The marsh demanded it. One wrong sound, one broken branch, could give them away.

Suddenly, Ayame raised a fist.

Kairo froze.

A low growl slithered through the fog.

Ayame’s hand drifted to the hilt of her left blade. Kairo drew his sword slowly, the metal humming softly, as if it, too, sensed danger.

Out of the mist, a shape emerged. Then another. And another.

Three creatures, no taller than men, but with the hunched backs and clawed limbs of something long abandoned by nature. Their eyes glowed faintly violet—unnatural, cursed. They sniffed the air, teeth clicking in hunger.

“Soulhunters,” Ayame whispered.

Kairo had only heard stories. Once-human assassins—Syndicate experiments gone wrong. Their minds were gone, their souls sold to something far darker than death.

“They see us?” he asked.

“No. But they smell life.”

The largest one sniffed the air again and snarled. It turned sharply in their direction, limbs jerking like a marionette.

“They smell you,” Ayame said. “That sword.”

Kairo's grip tightened. “Then we don’t run.”

He stepped forward, blade low, heart steady.

The Soulhunters shrieked.

Then they charged.

Steel clashed with claws. Screams echoed off trees. The marsh, once suffocating in silence, now pulsed with chaos.

Kairo ducked under a sweeping claw and drove his blade up through a creature’s chest. It hissed, convulsed, and dissolved into black mist. But another was already on him.

Ayame spun into view, slashing clean through its side. “Left!”

Kairo pivoted just in time to parry the third’s strike. It lunged again—faster, wilder—and he barely managed to dodge, its claws tearing through his cloak.

“No more running,” he growled.

His blade ignited with a faint blue flame. It had never done that before.

He didn’t question it.

One step. One breath.

Kairo sliced clean across the creature’s neck, severing it mid-leap. The body turned to mist before it hit the ground.

And then… silence returned.

Ayame stood panting beside him, blood splattered across her cheek.

“What the hell was that?” she asked, staring at the sword.

Kairo looked at the blade in awe. The blue glow had faded.

“I think… it woke up.”

That night, they made camp in a hollow under a willow-like tree. Ayame set a perimeter with tripwire bells while Kairo tended a small, smokeless fire.

Neither spoke for a long time.

Then, Ayame broke the silence. “What if that sword is changing you?”

Kairo didn’t look up. “It already is. I just don’t know if that’s a bad thing.”

Ayame sat beside him. “You held your ground. You didn’t lose yourself. That means something.”

Kairo turned the blade slowly in his hand, watching how the flames reflected in the metal.

“There’s something inside this weapon,” he whispered. “Not just power. Memory. Rage. I can feel it when I swing it. Like it’s… crying for vengeance.”

Ayame hesitated. “Maybe it is.”

Kairo met her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

She looked into the fire. “Maybe that blade was forged by someone who lost everything. Maybe they poured all their pain into it. And now that pain is waking up with you.”

Kairo swallowed hard.

“And if that’s true?” he asked.

Ayame leaned back, resting her head against the bark. “Then you have to carry their pain without becoming it.”

They slept in shifts.

At dawn, the fog lifted just enough to reveal an old stone archway partially covered by vines and mud. Beyond it, a stone path shimmered with faint light.

“The hidden temple,” Ayame said quietly.

Kairo stared at it, heart pounding.

“We made it.”

But something about the air had changed. It was warmer. Heavier.

As they crossed through the arch, Kairo felt the weight of eyes watching from every shadow.

And deep in his chest, the blade pulsed again—this time not with rage…

…but with warning.