The smell of blood filled Jang Young's nostrils as consciousness returned to him. Pain shot through his chest—a hot, wet agony that pulsed with each heartbeat. He opened his eyes to a ceiling of rough stone, dimly lit by flickering torchlight.
I'm... alive?
The last thing he remembered was the training hall back in Seoul. He had been attempting the final form of the Phantom Blade technique—a forbidden martial art said to transcend the physical limitations of the human body. He remembered the sudden snap as something broke inside him, the taste of blood, the darkness...
He should be dead. Instead, he was...somewhere else.
Jang tried to move but his body responded sluggishly, unfamiliar. His hands—smaller than he remembered, calloused in different places—came into view. These weren't his hands.
Voices echoed around him, speaking a language that he somehow understood despite never having heard it before.
"He's still breathing? Tough little bastard."
"Won't last the night. That sword went clean through his chest."
"Shame. Muriel always had heart, even if he couldn't fight worth a damn."
Muriel? The name sparked something—memories that weren't his own flickering through his mind. Streets of packed dirt and stone buildings. Hunger. Fighting for scraps. A desperate charge against armored men. Pain.
Jang—no, Muriel now—turned his head with effort. He lay in a large hall filled with wounded. Men and children groaned in pain around him, some dressed in mismatched armor, others in little more than rags. The smell of blood, sweat, and death hung thick in the air.
A young boy no older than twelve knelt beside him. The child's face was gaunt, his eyes too old for his years. A fresh cut ran across his left cheek, still oozing blood.
"Muriel? Can you hear me?" the boy asked, his voice cracking. "It's me, Thorn."
Another flash of borrowed memory—this boy, Thorn, sharing a crust of bread, watching Muriel's back in a fight, teaching him to hold a knife.
"I...hear you," Jang managed to say, the words strange in his mouth. The voice that emerged was higher than his own had been, but rough from screaming.
Thorn's eyes widened. "You should rest. The healers can't spare any magic for...for..."
"For the dying," Jang finished. With supreme effort, he forced himself to sit up. Pain exploded through his chest, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through it. Twenty years of martial arts training had taught him to master pain, to use it.
"What are you doing?" Thorn hissed. "You'll make it worse!"
Jang ignored him, focusing inward. If this was truly a world of magic like in the novels he'd read, then there should be mana—internal energy that could be manipulated. In his old world, he'd spent years trying to cultivate the faintest whispers of qi. Here, perhaps...
He reached inside himself and found an ocean where there had been only droplets before. Mana, wild and untamed, surged through unfamiliar pathways in this body. The sensation was both exhilarating and terrifying.
Carefully, as if handling a live wire, Jang directed the energy toward his wound. He had no idea if this would work, but the novels he'd read often described characters healing themselves with mana. Worth a try, at least.
The effect was immediate. Warmth spread through his chest, and the pain receded slightly. He could feel tissues knitting together, the bleeding slowing. Not a full healing—he lacked the knowledge for that—but enough to keep him alive.
Thorn stared open-mouthed. "How... how did you do that? You never showed any talent for magic before."
Jang met the boy's gaze, calculating his response. The truth was impossible to explain. Better to use the amnesia excuse that protagonists in his novels so often relied on.
"I don't remember," he said. "The fight... everything's confused."
He looked around the hall again, taking in more details. The wounded were mostly children and young men, dressed in rags but with weapons nearby. War children—mercenaries in training, forced to fight before their time by poverty or circumstance. Among them lay a few older men in partial armor bearing the same insignia—a blue sword on a gray background.
"What happened? The battle..." Jang asked.
Thorn's face darkened. "We lost. The Crimson Fang mercenaries pushed us back at the northern ridge. Captain Mercer sold us out—left the left flank exposed. Half the war children were cut down in the first charge." His small hands clenched into fists. "You ran to help when Darik fell. Took a sword through the chest from one of their knights."
"And now?"
"Retreat. We're holed up in the old temple about five miles from the battlefield. The healers are saving their magic for the veteran mercenaries." Thorn spat. "War children are expendable."
Jang nodded, understanding the situation. He was in the body of Muriel, a war child from a defeated mercenary company. No one important. No one who would be missed.
Perfect.
In his novels, reincarnated protagonists always woke up as nobles or talented commoners destined for greatness. He'd expected the same. Instead, he'd landed at the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy. But that was fine. He knew what it meant to start from nothing. His entire life in Seoul had been a struggle to escape poverty, scraping together money for martial arts training while working menial jobs.
"Help me stand," he ordered Thorn.
"Are you insane? You can barely—"
"Help me up," Jang repeated, his voice taking on a hard edge that made the boy flinch.
Reluctantly, Thorn slipped a shoulder under his arm. Jang stood, swaying slightly as he adjusted to the balance of this new body. Shorter than he was used to, but wiry with muscle. He could work with this.
"Where are our weapons?" he asked.
Thorn pointed to a pile of blunted swords and dented shields in the corner. "What's left of them. But you're in no condition to—"
Jang was already moving, each step more confident than the last as he adjusted to Muriel's body. He reached the weapon pile and sorted through it methodically, testing the balance of each sword. Most were practically scrap metal, but he finally selected a short blade that was relatively straight. The edge was dull, but that could be fixed.
A commotion at the far end of the hall drew his attention. A tall man with gray-streaked hair and a commander's bearing had entered, flanked by two guards. His armor was of higher quality than the others', though still dented and bloodied from battle. A blue cloak bearing the same sword insignia hung from his shoulders.
"Commander Drake," Thorn whispered, awe and fear mingling in his voice.
Jang watched as the commander moved among the wounded veteran mercenaries, speaking briefly to each. Occasionally he would nod to one of the few healers, who would then approach the indicated mercenary with glowing hands. Other times, he would place a hand on a dying man's shoulder, say a few words, and move on.
Decisions about who was worth saving.
The commander's path would not bring him to the section where the war children lay. Why would it? They were just cannon fodder, children desperate enough to fight for the chance at a meal.
Jang's fingers tightened around the sword hilt. In his past life, he'd clawed his way up from nothing, only to die attempting a technique beyond his capabilities. This time would be different. This world had magic. This world had power he could actually grasp.
"Thorn," he said quietly. "Tell me about Commander Drake."
The boy looked surprised at the question. "He leads the Azure Blades. Been commander for twenty years since he took over from his father. They say he's never lost a battle when he personally leads the charge." Thorn hesitated, then added, "He's fair, for a commander. Pays on time. Doesn't send war children on suicide missions like some companies."
"But he still uses children as soldiers."
Thorn shrugged. "That's just how Arslan works. Better than starving in the streets."
Jang nodded, absorbing this information along with the fragments of Muriel's memories that continued to surface. Arslan—a kingdom with no king, ruled by competing mercenary companies. A harsh land where the strong survived and the weak perished.
He looked down at the sword in his hand, then back at Commander Drake. The man had finished his rounds and was speaking with his lieutenants near the entrance.
"What are you thinking?" Thorn asked nervously. "You've got that look Muriel always had before doing something stupid."
Jang smiled thinly. "I'm thinking it's time to stop being expendable."
He started walking toward the commander, ignoring Thorn's frantic whispers to come back. Each step sent jagged pain through his chest, but he welcomed it. Pain was an old friend. Pain meant you were still alive.
Commander Drake noticed his approach, surprise briefly crossing his weathered face before it settled back into impassive authority. The guards flanking him tensed, hands moving to their swords.
"Stand down," Drake ordered them, studying Jang with mismatched eyes—one blue, one brown. "What do you want, war child? Shouldn't you be resting?"
Jang stopped at a respectful distance and straightened despite the pain, meeting the commander's gaze directly.
"I want to fight," he said simply.
One of the guards snorted. "You can barely stand, boy."
Drake raised a hand, silencing the guard. "You took a sword through the chest not six hours ago. By rights, you should be dead." His gaze hardened. "What's your name?"
"Muriel."
"Muriel," Drake repeated, as if testing the name. "I don't recall you distinguishing yourself in previous battles."
That aligned with the fragments of memory Jang had gleaned. Muriel had been earnest but unskilled, always training but never improving much. A warrior with heart but no talent—until now.
"Things change," Jang replied. "I've changed."
"Have you now?" Drake's tone was skeptical, but there was something else there—curiosity, perhaps. "Show me."
It was a test, and Jang knew it. With his wound still fresh, any normal demonstration would be impossible. But he wasn't normal anymore.
Without hesitation, Jang dropped into the starting stance of the Crescent Moon technique—a defensive style perfect for a wounded fighter facing a superior opponent. The stance was unknown in this world, one of many he had mastered in his previous life.
Drake's eyes narrowed at the unfamiliar stance. "Interesting. But a stance means nothing without—"
Jang moved. Despite the pain, despite the unfamiliar body, he executed a perfect Crescent Moon sequence—a series of defensive parries transitioning into lightning-fast counters. The blade whistled through the air, tracing patterns that would have deflected attacks from multiple opponents before striking vital points.
He finished the sequence and returned to a neutral stance, breathing heavily. Fresh blood seeped through his bandages, but he remained standing, eyes locked on Drake.
The hall had gone silent. Even the groans of the wounded seemed to have paused.
Commander Drake stared at him, mismatched eyes calculating. "Where did you learn that technique?"
"I don't remember," Jang answered, using the amnesia excuse again. "When I took that sword to the chest... something changed. I remembered things I never knew."
It wasn't entirely a lie. He had died and remembered a lifetime of martial arts from another world.
Drake exchanged glances with his lieutenants before returning his attention to Jang. "You're still injured. That demonstration reopened your wound."
"I can still fight," Jang insisted.
"Perhaps. But not today." Drake gestured to one of the healers who had been saving their magic for the veteran mercenaries. "Tend to him."
The healer looked startled but obeyed, approaching Jang with glowing hands. As the warm magic flowed into his wound, Drake stepped closer.
"When we return to Arslantia, report to the Azure Blade compound," the commander said quietly. "If you survive that long, I may have use for someone with your... unique talents."
Jang inclined his head, hiding a smile. The first step of his ascent, achieved.
Drake turned away, but then paused, looking back. "War child—Muriel. What happened to your eyes?"
"My eyes?"
The commander didn't elaborate, simply walking away with his entourage. Jang turned to the healer, who was finishing her work.
"What did he mean about my eyes?" he asked.
The woman glanced up, then quickly averted her gaze. "They're... different now. Cold. Some would say the eyes of a dead man walking." She finished the healing spell and stepped back. "Rest. The magic can only do so much."
As she hurried away, Thorn appeared at his side, staring up at him with a mixture of awe and fear.
"What did the commander want?" the boy asked.
Jang looked down at his young friend—the first ally in this new world—and allowed himself a small smile.
"He offered an opportunity," Jang said. "And in this world, opportunities are all that matter."
He gazed toward the entrance of the hall, where moonlight spilled through an open door. Somewhere out there lay Arslantia, the capital of a kingless kingdom. The first step on his long road from war child to Sword Saint to King.
"Things are going to change, Thorn," he said quietly. "For both of us."
The boy looked confused but nodded anyway. "Whatever you say, Muriel."
"Jang," he corrected without thinking. "My name is Jang now."
Whether it was a slip or a deliberate choice to begin crafting his new identity, even he wasn't sure. But as he stood there, wounded but healing, with a borrowed sword in his hand and ancient techniques in his mind, he knew one thing with absolute certainty.
This world would remember the name Jang, the Sword Saint who rose from the slums to change everything.