NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 7: The Severed Storm
A Containment Record from the Archives of the Umbral Dominion
Threat Codename: "Black Tide - The Twin-Heavens Burial Blades"
Classified Combat Log - Secure Access Only
[EXCERPT: The Initial Engagement]
LOCATION: Ruins of the Azure Shrine
CONDITIONS: Torrential Rain, Heavy Mist, Midnight
STATUS: Contact Confirmed
The shrine stood silent, drowning under the weight of the storm. The rain hissed as it struck broken stone, pooling in the deep scars left by battles long forgotten. Yet, the past had not settled. Not tonight.
Two figures stood amid the devastation.
Arueyn – the ephemeral swordsman whose blade cut like fleeting petals on the wind.
Kuronami – the storm incarnate, a twin-sword specter of the Black Tide.
Neither spoke. There was no need. The wind carried the weight of intent.
Kuronami smirked, tilting his head slightly."Iaijutsu against Niten Ichi-Ryū? A fleeting petal against a storm... Interesting."
Arueyn did not answer with words. His weight shifted. A subtle breath—one that could not be measured. The prelude to an unseen cut.
The air stilled. The world held its breath.
Kuronami's fingers tightened.Then—
Steel whispered. The first strike belonged to the wind.
[EXCERPT: The Blooming Flash Slash]
The shrine's shadows twisted in the wake of motion. No footfall, no displacement—only the absence of presence where Arueyn once stood.
A blade did not sing as it was drawn.
It was already in motion.
The storm erupted in a horizontal arc of light.
Hanasaku Shunsen – The Blooming Flash Slash.
Cherry blossom petals—ripped apart by the force. The mist recoiled. The cut was perfect, absolute. A single stroke meant to end the battle before it began.
Yet—Kuronami was not there.
His first blade tilted, barely grazing the storm-lit steel of Arueyn's katana. A fraction of deflection, so slight it almost didn't exist.
A perfect miss.
A step forward. A pivot. The second sword was already descending, a brutal reverse stroke aimed at Arueyn's ribs—
Niten Sōjin – The Twin-Heavens Burial Slash.
Steel clashed against the howl of the storm.
Would Arueyn counter? Or had Kuronami already moved beyond the moment?
[EXCERPT: The Overturn]
A flash—A contradiction.
Arueyn moved, but his movement was unwritten before it was made. The shrine's mist warped, its narrative undone. The blade at his throat?
A suggestion, not a fact.The strike in motion?A hypothesis, not a certainty.
Reality did not dictate this battle.
The Overmap fractured.
"Your blade is faster than the eye… but what happens when the future is already waiting?"
Kuronami's voice—cold, calculating, already seeing the outcome.But the moment of certainty was the moment he lost.
A new cut materialized—Not a counter. Not an evasion. A severance.
鏡界裁断 (Kyōkai Saidai – Overmap Severance).
The future where Kuronami had taken control—cleaved from the script.
His stance unraveled. His presence fractured.
The steel at Arueyn's throat? Gone.The battle? Reset.
But the next move had already begun.
[EXCERPT: The White Haze of Mount Hua]
The air split into white mist—Mount Hua, a distant legend, bleeding into the present.
Arueyn stood in the eye of the storm.
His swordwork did not belong to the present moment.It existed between what was and what could have been.
A storm of slashes unfolded, a dance of inevitability:🔹 未練の刃 / Miren no Ha – The Lingering BladeA cut that existed before the attack itself.
🔹 遠蓮の斬 / Enren no Zan – The Distant LotusA strike without an origin, appearing from nowhere.
🔹 終華の閃 / Shūka no Sen – The Final BloomA severance of possibilities—the negation of an action before it could be made.
Kuronami had no counter.His movements did not exist.His choices had already been erased.
The Black Tide warrior stood still, untouched—but unable to act.
"No footfalls. No motion. Just a blade that has already finished its work."
[EXCERPT: The Observer's Cut]
"A blade that does not cut where it is, but where it has already been seen."
Seventy-seven slashes converged.
A flaw in the pattern.The 77th path did not reach its mark.
A single misalignment.A distortion in Arueyn's own perfection.
Kuronami's grip tightened.A mistake? No. A bait.
"77 paths you carved, but you only needed 76 to kill me."
He stepped into the absence.
His blade did not parry. It redirected.
The air hummed. Steel met steel—not as a block, but as a rewriting.A single flaw—exploited.
The seventy-eighth strike was never Arueyn's to make.
It was Kuronami's.
The Black Tide was not undone yet.
[EXCERPT: Pending Outcome – The Severed Storm]
The shrine was silent.
The storm continued to rage, indifferent.
One swordsman would walk away.One would not.
The overmap was fracturing again.The world was rewriting itself.
The battle was far from over.
ARCHIVE STATUS: INCOMPLETE
OUTCOME: UNKNOWN