With a swish of his long onyx ponytail, the foreigner hopped off the wall.

  “I have heard strange stories about you, little demon sword. And I’m here, to find truth behind tales,” he declared rather loudly.

  His hand brushed back the lingering trails of his hair and he crossed his arms, striking a pose.

  I took a look behind me. Except for the trees, the ravens, and me, there was no one else here.

  Who’s he performing for?

  “What do you want to know? I will try my best to answer. But if you played the original game, there are some questions I want to ask you.”

  “No. We must cross blades in a contest of spirit to see who is stronger.”

  “Why? Can’t you tell?” I could tell from looking at him that he was strong, definitely higher level than the Count. There was power and prowess in his movements.

  I made a guess based on his visual strength, ”You already beat the DLC over in the Dragon Realm.”

  He nodded as he slowly circled me. “I finished my story, but here I stayed. So I’m here. To finish main story as well.”

  “And you came here to kill me? To expose me?”

  Long shook his head. “Your story has not started. You are too young. Something not right. All others come at start of story, when fifteen or sixteen.” His eyes moved up and down over me, accusing. “Transmigrate, not reborn.”

  That made sense. Aaron had celebrated his sixteenth birthday as Lark when he came here. It seemed that Long and most likely Sarsee had similar timelines.

  Wait… Joan was sixteen when I became her.

  Josephine is different because of the demon sword? In a way, I wasn’t reborn—I came over as the sword.

  “So what are you going to do about it? Did Sarsee send you?”

  “I came on my own. To test my jian against demon steel.”

  Schwinng!

  The long blade of a straight double-edged sword sang out of its scabbard. Long shot toward me, his body a streak of gold through the air. There was no call to a skill, no buildup of magic currents around him. If I hadn’t been watching his eyes, and his footwork, I would’ve completely missed it.

  Clang!

  My dull practice blade clattered against the razor sharp edge of his sword, barely deflecting it. It ground past, leaving a deep notch on the side of my sword.

  He shot past me once more, sending the dust swirling around me. Again, he didn’t shout anything out, and I didn’t sense any flow of magic around him. Though I did sense a void around him, as if he had already drawn in magic previously.

  His blade drew a white arc, coming within an inch of slicing apart my right arm. It was only because I had read his movement a second before that my blade was positioned to catch his.

  CLANG!

  The collision jarred violently through my hands.

  Another notch appeared on my sword. It wouldn’t last a third strike.

  “How are you catching my Hidden Serpent Strikes? You shouldn’t be able to see them. No knights here caught them before.”

  I ignored the words, locking on to his gaze, posture and pose. He was targeting my arms and legs, so far he had been aiming not for a mortal strike, but to… cripple?

  No, he said he wanted to test against “Demon Steel.”

  Murion had mentioned that no one here should be able to hurt me. But they obviously had, the foreign lord and the orcs had wounded me before.

  That strange metallic sound when a sword cut deep enough to hit bone came back to me. Maybe Murion meant the sword itself.

  Does this idiot want to cut deep enough into me to hit bone?!

  “Are you insane! Do you realize what the consequences are of injuring a Duke’s daughter as a royal retainer?!”

  “We beyond their laws. Now, how are you avoiding my attacks? Can you see my qi?”

  I debated on calling up my spells. I could use my shroud and sword spells, but part of me wanted to see how far I could push my martial knowledge. Whether my lifetimes of training could help me overcome a far superior enemy.

  Plus, I was getting a read on his pattern.

  My right shoulder dropped ever so slightly. He saw. The colors of his armor, hair, face and eyes bled lines through the air as he dashed toward me.

  “Hundred Fold Blade!” he shouted in an unknown language.

  A skill! An active one. But this one was already completed by the time the words left his lips. I didn’t have time to see the complex structure of magic forming.

  Copies of him, each thrusting a sword came at me from all directions.

  Clones? Shadows? Illusions? I couldn’t tell, but I sensed their disturbance in the air as they closed in on me. The sharpness of each blade held threat. There was lethal intent in each pair of eyes.

  But my mind had already shifted them into layers. I discarded the obvious, the lazy, the feints, and the too direct.

  Monsieur Besnard’s voice reverberated through me: Focus on the movement, and the path will become clear.

  My practice sword couldn’t take another strike. And I had no idea if his copies would hurt.

  But it doesn’t matter, I found the inevitable thread.

  I dropped my sword and surged to meet the true him, grabbing his thrusting blade with my bare hand.

  His eyes bulged. Dumbfounded shock twisted his features as I pulled his lunging form toward me. I spun, slamming the back of my other elbow toward his face.

  “Fla… Flame Dragon Ascent!” he cried out in a high-pitched, out-of-control shrill.

  A fiery serpent shot out of the ground, twisting up around his legs, body and sword arm. It moved like lightning, its dragon head of searing white hot flames engulfed the blade of his sword and roared toward me with a wide open maw.

  The air crackled and wavered under its heat. The power was overwhelming. Too much for me to take on physically.

  I am going to fry.

  There was only one thing to do against this much firepower.

  [Indomitable Aura]!

  I activated my ability just as the head of the serpent reached my hand. Using both hands, I grabbed its open jaws, clamping it shut. Flames raged furiously against my fingers and palm, only to be repelled back by the shield of my aura. My hands closed over the raging inferno, trapping the oncoming rush of white heat from the serpent into a single point between my palms.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  More heat rushed in until the point turned blinding hot and exploded backwards, shooting a destructive torrent away from me.

  Crack!

  A splintering sound shattered the air and bits of molten metal flew, some bouncing off of my shield.

  “Mother fuck!!!” Long screamed. He dropped to his knees, clutching at his stomach. Shards of metal perforated his armor.

  I stood over him. “You were trying to kill me there.”

  “No! Mistake. Me panicked when you grabbed jian!” Long gasped. Blood spurted between the fingers covering his stomach. “Was only trying to catch you. Ah… Please help.”

  I checked my spirit points and it was at:

  That attack took 500 spirit points to counter! That was more than any attack I had seen in The Hundred Years War, even heavy artillery didn’t do as much!

  In fact, 500 might be some sort of limit.

  Though if that was the case, I was glad the aura didn’t just fail at the limit.

  “You were definitely trying to kill me there.”

  He waved a bloody hand at me. “You are demon sword. Won’t die from damage. I won’t die either. Just pain!” He doubled over and groaned as if to emphasize the point.

  “Don’t you have healing potions?”

  He shook his head. “All used. Big boss battle.”

  “Ah!!!” he groaned again, sounding rather pathetic. “Can’t believe you broke Heaven’s Spire.”

  “It’s your own fault. But fine, you better answer my questions then.”

  He bobbed his head. “Yes, yes… just get healer!”

  “No, I’d rather not cause a scene.” I didn’t want to deal with the questions that would be sure to arise if I brought him inside. And I needed to get answers in private.

  “You need to promise to be my follower, at least for now.”

  “What?” His pallid face stared at me in confusion.

  “Just do it. My ability requires you to be a follower. You have to believe that you will follow my commands. Ok?”

  “Okay, strange girl. I follow you.”

  I placed my hand over him, and started the usual prayer from my past lives.

  “Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grace…” — Hail Mary, full of grace…

  The [Voice of The Maiden] poured through my words into him. The color returned to his face, and the bleeding stopped.

  Strangely, Long was staring up at me with dazed eyes. “You… is that real you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Real you from real world! I saw your face, gold hair, blue jewel eyes. Like goddess!” He grabbed at me and I jumped out of reach. “You model in real world?!”

  The taste of salt saturated his aura.

  He saw Joan. He didn’t see my true self. He saw the general from The Hundred Years War—the out-of-place all too perfect game rendering.

  But how? Did Zadina and the others see similar things when I used the voice?

  “I have Soul Sight! I see truth! That real you!”

  I debated on telling him the actual truth. If I told him I used to be a guy, I was sure it’d clear this strange look he was fixing me with right now, and the salt encrusting his soul. He was practically drooling.

  But I needed information from him.

  And in a way, that was me. It was what I had spent the majority of my existence as.

  “That’s what’s left of me,” I mumbled.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Joan, and yours?”

  “Liu Xia. That my full name. When we get back, we find…”

  His words dried up in his throat. The light in his eyes dimmed, darting away from mine as he lowered his head. A tinge of sweetness lined his soul.

  A raven dropped a flask of water into my hand, and I handed it off to him.

  “Go on… you promised you’d talk. So you and Sarsee have a plan to get back to the real world?”

  “How you know?”

  I waved at his face. “You basically said it. So what is this plan?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t tell you.”

  “Why? Because it involves me? You said you’d answer my question!”

  “Not that. It best you not know.”

  I grabbed the collar of his armor and yanked him back toward me. The guilt in his eyes told me all I needed to know. “It involves killing me, doesn’t it?”

  Why does it always have to be that? It would be even more hilarious if it involved burning me this time as well.

  Long held his silence.

  “At least tell me what my role was in the game. I never even played it.”

  That jerked him out of his stupor. “You never played? Of course, you model! Models don’t play dating games.”

  I shook him hard.

  “You think this is a joke? This is my life! Now, what’s my character’s role in the game?!”

  He looked up into my face and sighed. “You are villainess. You do bad things to Main Character. Block love interests, including Prince.”

  “That’s it? What usually happens to me at the end of the game?”

  He sulked, slumping in my grip. “You are also Demon Sword. If you live then…” His voice faltered.

  I desire only the end.

  I released Long and grabbed at my chest. That thing deep inside of me, what it and even I, desired most was… oblivion.

  My eyes roamed over the garden: the leaves, the branches, the dark blood staining the grass tips.

  Would I bring an end to everything?

  “Maybe I could change. Sarsee was a Villainess right? Look what happened to her.”

  Long Aotian slowly shook his head. “I know you are good woman, pure heart, clear like spring water, beautiful soul. I saw. But Sarsee just person. You are Demon Sword.”

  He hesitantly reached out and pointed a finger at my chest. “You know that won’t change.”

  I found myself swaying, unable to refute him. My mind scrambled for an escape, something other than this…

  “You shouldn’t trust Sarsee. She murdered the hero of her game, a young boy, by trapping him against a boss.”

  “I know,” Long said evenly as he rose to his feet. “She did what she must. I had to as well. He was a friend. He was from our world. We thought we could change story. But no.” His hand clenched into a tight fist. “In the end, either him or me.”

  “So is that why Sarsee is hunting for the heroine of this game? To neutralize her for your survival?”

  “Neutralize her? Kill her?” Long raised an eyebrow at me. “We are looking for her to protect her.”

  “From who?”

  “We thought you knew the game. And stories of you were scary.” He gazed long and hard into my eyes. “In game, she was the only way.”

  The only way to destroy the Demon Sword.

  That must be what he meant. They were looking to protect the heroine from me? Because I had reincarnated here earlier. Because they had heard about my strength.

  It all fell into place. She was their one key against me, so they couldn’t risk me destroying it.

  He’s here to ensure that I wouldn’t try.

  “So… she ends me. And you two somehow use that to get back home. Get everyone home maybe? But obviously not me.” I picked up a bloody shard from the ground. “That’s why you paused when you mentioned finding each other when we get back…” My chest heaved a dry laugh at him. “Your loss…”

  “I am sorry. I don’t mean to be cruel.”

  I closed my eyes.

  What do I even want? I don’t want to live much longer. I’m too broken to go back to my original life. Maybe my destruction is what I wanted.

  But then I thought of the warmth of Mama, the girls, and Ben. Even Father now.

  I wouldn’t mind holding on a little longer.

  “I will see you later, moonlight beauty. We see each other in the dungeon dive with the Prince.”

  “Why would I agree to that?”

  “It moves forward our plan.”

  “And I’d care?”

  Long’s dark eyes moved toward the tree tops, where the pitched rooftops of our residence poked through. “I saw the way you look at your maids. First, I am confused. But seeing your soul… Now I know why. You want them all to be happy. Not end them.”

  My teeth ground against each other as something cracked inside of me.

  I can’t even stay to enjoy their warmth. A little bit is all I have.

  “I thought you said you weren’t cruel.” I turned away and pointed to the wall from which he came. “Get out of my sight.”

  His gaze stayed on me. I felt it boring into my back. The sweetness of his soul now vied with the salt.

  Small victories.

  The air shifted as he leaped away. My ravens circled and cawed before perching themselves on the tree branches.

  He was gone.

  My insides were cold and empty as I glanced about. On the grass covered ground were the shards of his shattered jian, many sitting in pools of crimson.

  The sun had set, and darkness had crept in between the trees and hedges. I raised [Shadow Fingers] all around me, just to ensure I was alone.

  I need to be alone.

  Will I be alone again at the end? Another agonizing end, besieged by betrayal and hate.

  The sword within me slowly unsheathed itself, and the cold enveloped me. My fingertips gently stroked the thin fabric covering my heart.

  “No. They think they have us. But none of them know what we are truly made of.”

  An empty vial from my inventory appeared in my hand as I crouched down over a small, red pool.

  “We will have what we’re after.”