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The man’s life was
far from glorious. Although gifted with strength from childhood, harsh
reality awaited him outside of the village where he dreamt of adventures
as a youth. The strength that was lauded within his village was far from
remarkable in the real world. But the man survived through an age ravaged
by war and finally attained the key to achieving success. Pieces of metal belonging
to a traveling merchant... The man spent all the money in his possession
to purchase every last piece from the merchant, who was selling them as
amulets against evil. That night, as he
gazed upon the metal fragments in the dim light of an oil lamp, he recalled
a story passed on by a traveling swordsman.
Soul Edge, the ultimate
weapon surpassing all others... The drunkards in the tavern did not believe
the swordsman's tale, but he did. He sensed something in the eyes of the
swordsman. He followed the warrior in hopes of getting more information
about Soul Edge out of him. The swordsman probably thought that he would
do the same, so they talked about the weapon. As it turned out, the swordsman
knew nothing. They parted ways without wasting any more words.
The tale he heard
could have been a hoax. But it was enough to arouse his curiosity and set
him off on his singular pursuit of Soul Edge. The people around him dismissed
him as an eccentric with a fantastic dream... And thus the object
of his pursuit was in his hands, before his eyes. He believed with conviction
that these metal pieces were from Soul Edge. But fatefully, he
was slain by bandits shortly thereafter. Because of his over-protective
nature for his precious metal fragments, a rumor circulated in the cities
that the man was in possession of something extremely valuable. Naturally,
he did not own anything that would have interested the bandits. And as
customary with these bandits, they threw their victim's corpse into a ravine.
The man's tenacity
to protect his precious fragments never wavered in his final moments. The
hand of the abandoned corpse in the ravine still had the pieces in its grasp... Several months had
passed. No one bore witness to the fact that the pieces had disappeared
over time. They were definitely gone, leaving behind several incomplete
corpses in the ravine. There were trails left besides the corpses, as if
something had crawled about them. In time, the rains that fell upon the
ravine erased the trails.
The life form, or
whatever it was, walked under its own will... But the will of that being
was not driven by sentience, the force that drove it was closer to instinct. A being formed by
blood absorbed from the hand of a dead man. A being that wanders the earth
to search for its kindred in order to become whole once again. A being
that grows by greedily devouring fragments with the same evil aura as it
has. A being that responds by reading the innermost thoughts of those it
meets... The metal pieces that
the seeker of Soul Edge possessed was, without a doubt, the genuine article!
  
  
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