Rebirth of the Sword Saint: A Reincarnation Epic Fantasy Saga

by DB King

  Well then, I’ll just have to start that particular research if I live to see the next hour, Jin thought bitterly.

  Thunder rumbled high above when Jin’s eyes finally caught a vaguely humanoid shape, standing amidst a graveyard of frozen trees and the desiccated husks of hundreds of creatures, their petrified bodies forming a bed of corpses upon the forest floor. At the center of all this was a swirling vortex of ice and snow, so cold it chilled Jin’s bones even with the Fire Salamander on his chest, keeping him warm in the blinding freeze. If any other human being had been here, without something to protect them from the cold, they’d be dead within ten seconds. The tall, humanoid shadow stood at the eye of the vortex, unmoving, like a thin giant of some kind.

  Jin’s eyes briefly drifted upward. Great streaks of gigantic lightning bolts filled the sky, each one larger than the last, ready to strike down at any moment. Sighing, Jin turned his attention back toward the deviant, whose mere magical presence alone made him feel like an ant that was foolish enough to stand against a stampeding elephant. There were no other trees for him to leap to. They were all on the ground, now frozen husks of what they’d once been, crystallized masses of things that’d once been trees, but were now something else entirely, devoured by the bitter, corrupting essence of the magical cold. Well, it’s now or never….

  For a moment, Jin considered the possible reason as to why the beast had stopped moving. After all, the silhouette was just standing there now, like a colossal statue. However, there were far too many variables that lay out of his influence; turning back wasn’t an option. He had to end this here and now. It’s now or never…

  Jin leapt from the branch and onto the ground, where he landed upon the remains of what was once a Redwood tree, but had now warped into some other thing entirely. As lightning and thunder clouds rolled in the skies above him, Jin raised his sparking right hand into the air and screamed. His voice reached the heavens, piercing the very skies. A great, bellowing rumble echoed forth, like the war cry of a titan. And then, from the stark, nearly-black clouds, spewed forth a veritable draconic form of arcing blue lights and streaks of white, the single largest and most powerful lightning bolt ever conjured in all of Moyatani. It dwarfed everything around it and, for the briefest of moments, Jin wondered if it was even his power that’d called forth such a—

  A great explosion of frigid arcane energies radiated outwards, sending Jin flying back into the still-living trees. As he soared through the air, Jin’s eyes caught sight of the massively tall silhouette slowly moving toward him. And so, with his final breath, Jin called forth his lightning. He crashed through the trunk of a hardwood tree and saw his world turn dark.

  Above him, the sky screamed in pain. The clouds billowed and, in the next moment, the most powerful bolt of lightning came crashing down, resulting in a second, more violent explosion that ripped apart a great portion of the earth. A blinding flash of bluish light filled the forests, surging through the gaps between the trees. Next came the heat, so unbearably hot that the four hundred square-foot area around the lightning’s crash site simply melted and turned to slag, before rapidly cooling once more.

  Jin’s fireproof qualities had saved him from the worst of the damage, but the concussion that’d arisen in his head was a definite sign that kinetic energy was still a very real threat. Thankfully, with his regeneration bolstered enough to match his previous best, it took only ten seconds for the concussion to disappear completely.

  Jin burst through rubble of frozen trees and half-melted remains of rocks and soil. He coughed and sighed and rubbed his face free of dirt. Jin chuckled. “That was… deeply unpleasant.”

  The scenery in front of him was one of pure carnage and destruction, a vast swathe of forested area had simply disappeared, leaving behind only the burnt and melted sumps of trees and glassed soil. At the center of it all, however, stood a creature that caused goosebumps to form all across the surface of Jin’s skin. His eyes widened and, almost on instinct, Jin took a step back as the deviant’s true form became terribly clear to his eyes. It stood at over fifteen feet. Most of its body was humanoid, save for the long, spindly fingers that ended in scything black talons. It was gaunt too – so unnaturally thin that it might as well have been a walking skeleton. Its skin was mostly white and pale green, though there were many areas in its body that lacked actual skin, revealing frozen muscle and clear bone. Its head, however, was that of a malformed elk’s skull, grotesque horns jutting outwards like the branches of a cursed tree, reaching out to the world.

  A tired chuckle escaped his lips. “What… what the hell is this thing doing in this world?”

  There was no mistaking the physical form of one of the most accursed beings to ever exist anywhere, the Wendigo, the devourer of men and souls, the eater of flesh and bone, the drinker of blood and viscera. Even in his previous world, the Wendigo was renowned and feared by those who lived in the northern reaches, where the spirits of storm and winter gathered and cursed those who fed on their fellow men, turning them into blood-starved beasts whose bottomless stomachs endlessly yearned for more and more, until they grew so hungry and so desperate that they’d end up eating themselves to death. Their power, however, was nothing to scoff at.

  The fact that a Wendigo also existed in this world was… unsettling. These things were a pain to deal with and an even bigger pain to make sure they never come back.

  Jin’s eyes narrowed. First, he saw what surely must have been a demon during that time in the northern woods when he first fought an Earth-Shaker Boar and was promptly sent tumbling down a river, memories altered – a creature that definitely existed in his previous world, though only through very specific circumstances. Now, a freaking Wendigo was standing a few hundred feet from him – a creature that also definitely existed in his previous world and was the source of many headaches during his campaigns in the northern reaches of the world. Did they follow me here?

  Well, it could just be something that happened to look like a Wendigo, but is something else entirely. The demon from my memories didn’t act like a demon – the damn thing was drinking water from a river. I can’t discard the possibility of a convergent development of creatures across two worlds. Just as the thought passed Jin’s mind, the grotesque creature took a single step forward and immediately arrived in front of him.

  Twin, black pits met Jin’s eyes. The Wendigo lowered itself in front of him, meeting his gaze. “You’re shorter than I remember, Mage-Emperor.”

  Jin’s eyes widened.

  Chapter 21

  “You’re shorter than I remember, Mage-Emperor.” The Wendigo’s voice was like the cracking and grinding of ice and frozen fissures – a dreadfully painful sound that brought chills to the senses. It spoke in an almost hushed and whispering tone, like a man at the crux of death and despair, speaking his final words as the last vestiges of his own life slowly departed his body. Jin cringed at the sound, but kept himself firm as he leapt away, and immediately settled into a guard stance. “A lot younger too; didn’t you have a beard when we last met?”

  The Wendigo, tall and imposing, merely tilted its ugly, misshapen head, before seemingly disappearing and reappearing right beside Jin, bypassing his defense. Eyes wide, Jin’s sword flashed through the air in a blind, reactionary strike that wasn’t aimed at anything in particular, though he was at least certain that it would hit something. Agito’s dark crimson blade clanged against the Wendigo’s frozen skin, burying itself half an inch into rotting flesh, but moving no more than that. Jin gritted his teeth. Its flesh was possessed of an unnatural hardness.

  Even worse than that, however, was the fact that he suddenly could not pull back his blade; it was as though the Wendigo’s flesh had taken hold of Agito and was refusing to let go. Seeing no other choice, Jin relinquished his grasp over his sword’s handle, dashed backward ten feet, and held out both his forearms forward. From his palms came both lightning and fire. The combined elements surged through the air, screaming and cackling,
before crashing into the Wendigo’s exposed chest and exploding with a great hot whiteness that radiated outwards across the desolate woods and ashen soil.

  That’s hardly enough to scratch it. Fully aware of the Wendigo’s incredible durability, Jin ran circles around the creature’s silhouette, obscured by a soft haze of dust. With both hands, Jin alternated between great globules of magical flames and cackling arcs of devastating lightning. The Wendigo stood in place – unmoving and unwavering, even in the face of such destructive magic. Nothing’s working so far; I’ll have to utilize my most destructive powers if I’m hoping to even catch its attention.

  With a simple thought, Jin willed forth twenty fire clones, each one cackling with wild, magical flames as he hardly focused on their appearance, though they each vaguely resembled Jin himself. They fanned out, spreading themselves and surrounding the Wendigo, before each one unleashed massive waves of blazing infernos from their fingertips toward the creature. The combined forces, colliding and crashing from twenty different angles, coalesced into a single, flaming vortex that surged upward like a burning tower.

  Jin didn’t stop there. Gathering magic into his right hand, he willed forth lightning bolts from above, each one striking into the eye of the flaming vortex again and again and again. His magical core was slowly, but steadily depleting. Jin had time, however; it’d take a full day of constantly using up his magic to really put a large dent in his core and, even then, he’d still have enough for another ten hours.

  Jin unleashed everything and anything he could think of. He conjured great walls and pillars of fire. Sent down bolt after bolt of powerful lightning strikes, causing the very sky itself to rumble and darken considerably more than it had been before. Jin was unleashing magical flames in such quantity and volume that the area around him was steadily morphing from frozen wasteland into a burning sea of ashes and half-melted rocks. The Wendigo’s unnatural cold fought back, but Jin’s flames surged through it regardless, crashing into the creature again and again, scorching its rotting flesh and frozen skin.

  However….

  I’m not even scratching this thing, am I? With the amount of power Jin unleashed, mortal enemies would have long since perished and burned and turned to ashes – even other mages. However, it had been an hour since Jin had begun his barrage of magical flames, and the Wendigo was still just standing there.

  And his previous experience in dealing with this creature didn’t help either. In his previous world, Jin dealt with Wendigos by tearing it asunder using spells that affected the very fabric of time and space itself. Otherwise, the creature’s unnatural resilience, coupled with its annoying ability to possess the corpses of cannibals, made it an extremely aggravating opponent. However, Murasaki Jin did not have the power to morph and twist time and space to his liking.

  He couldn’t hope to defeat this thing – not as he was now.

  But that doesn’t mean I won’t stop trying. He couldn’t defeat it – yes. But he could draw its attention away from Hirata and that was enough. It had to be enough.

  For next two hours, Jin unleashed spell after spell, raining fire and lightning and death upon the Wendigo, unceasing. He continued until the very earth itself crumbled and melted beneath his feet. Even then, Jin did not stop.

  A great cloud of ashes and dust had arisen from the carnage. Jin paused for a moment. It’s not fighting back. It doesn’t need to fight back. It doesn’t even care about the flames… well then, let’s see how well it fares if I send another one of those giant lightning bolts?

  As Jin sent out another mental command toward the skies to summon forth another massive bolt of coalesced lightning, the Wendigo blurred forward and its bony hand reached outwards, surging across the air with such speed and precision that it caught Jin’s throat in a single movement. Blood and saliva sprayed out of Jin’s mouth as he gagged and struggled against the Wendigo’s frigid grasp, kicking, burning, and electrifying.

  “That was a fun little game you were playing. If you continued for another year or so, you might’ve been able to make me feel something. Unfortunately for you, I do not have that much time to play.”

  The tall, accursed creature held him out in front of it. Jin stared into the black, bottomless pits that were its eyes and held his gaze. From his position, Jin held out his right hand and unleashed a single bolt of lightning directly into the Wendigo’s face. Its body flashed and cackled with untamed energies, smoking and smoldering, but was otherwise unfazed. Almost as though it was sighing, the Wendigo’s shoulders seemed to slump forward, and its head shook side to side.

  “Your power has greatly diminished Mage-Emperor; mine has stayed the same and will stay the same for all the decades to come. This world is bursting with magic and here I see you struggling to even grasp at the powers in front of you.”

  “Yeah, it’s good to see you too, you annoying icicle.” Jin growled out as his eyes narrowed. What did it mean when it said I was struggling to grasp the powers of this world? There is definitely more to the magic of this place than I’ve come to understand; that’s for certain. It knows more than me – figures. Then again, there is something strange about how magic functions in this new world. There’s something I haven’t grasped yet – something no other human being has probably grasped yet.

  Once more, Jin’s thoughts turned toward the Magical Beasts and their interactions with the arcane. Those things held the key to the secrets that still eluded him, to the foundations and inner workings of power that still lay beyond his grasp. If I survive this, I should probably try capturing a Magical Beast and conduct experiments with it.

  Jin’s mind wandered for a moment as ancient memories surfaced. Huh, how many times did I kill this thing, before it finally decided to leave my armies alone?

  The creature, as if sensing Jin’s errant thoughts, spoke, “I remember our battles; you destroyed tens of hundreds of my bodies – forcing me to flee each time. You were powerful then, inconceivably so; even with all my powers brought to bear, I could not match you, Mage-Emperor.”

  “But you couldn’t kill me in the end, human. I was a primal force in the world. I was the embodiment of ravenous, cannibalistic hunger. You couldn’t destroy me any more than you could destroy the very idea of hunger. I celebrated your death – the whole world celebrated it. And yet… something happened then that I did not quite expect.” Its grotesque voice grated on Jin’s ears. Try as he might, however, Jin could do little but hopelessly struggle against the creature whose power dwarfed his own by several orders of magnitudes. He was listening to it, however, and took its words into his memories. The Wendigo continued. “I wanted to devour your soul… but something stopped me. It was a force unlike anything I’ve ever known. It dragged me into a dark place, far from the roots of my power, and I awoke here.”

  “For thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years I have slept and feasted on the flesh and blood of the mortals, waiting and watching in the shadows of the world.” Despite his predicament, Jin maintained enough subconscious curiosity to raise an eyebrow at the Wendigo’s words. He’d never really communicated with the spirit before; so, talking to it now felt strange and awkward. However, Jin couldn’t deny the fact that its words had resonated with him, somewhat. Some great and otherworldly power did pluck him out of his previous and drop him into this new one.

  A foul black ooze dripped out of its hideously grotesque maw. It hissed when it made contact with the ground, white vapors steaming upward where it made contact. The Wendigo’s grip over Jin’s throat tightened. “I am not the only one who has crossed over into this new world; there are many of us who arrived here.”

  Jin’s mind raced. There were other creatures, others like the Wendigo, that came from his world? What else was here? Did the freaking Void Dragon come here too? What about the Devourer of the Sun; was that monstrosity here as well? This new world was huge – far bigger than just Moyatani and the creatures that dwelled here. Many of the unnatural entities from his world could easily
make their home here.

  “I truly wish I could just snap your neck and be done with this.”

  Much to Jin’s surprise, however, the Wendigo released its grip over his neck. Jin fell to the ground, wheezing and gasping for air. When he looked up, Jin saw the grotesque creature staring down at him. Looking at it now, Jin couldn’t help but think how easily he could have trashed this thing if he had his old powers back and if they had been fighting this little duel in his previous world instead of this new one. It would have been remarkably easy.

  “Unfortunately, I cannot kill you yet, Mage-Emperor. I just came to say hello.”

  It sniffed the air, growled, and whipped its head to the left, where it sneered at the distant woods.

  The Wendigo grumbled under its breath. “I wasn’t even going to kill you and it’s already- consider yourself lucky, Mage-Emperor, or should I refer to you by your new name? Have you embraced the name of Murasaki Jin? Ha! You humans and your pathetic attachment to symbolism….”

  “All the same, we’ll meet each other again in the far future, Mage-Emperor and I will- hey, wait a minute-” An invisible wave of power crashed into the Wendigo’s spindly form from its left. The force cracked its bones and ripped its flesh, sending it flying outwards and crashing into the distant trees and beyond. The rotting, frozen creature roared in defiance and rage, “How dare you attack me?! I am the Wendigo! I am the end of life and the eternal hunger! I take no-”

  An infinitely malicious and higher presence extended itself from the leftward side of the wasteland. Jin’s eyes widened at the sheer malevolence and power being exuded by a single entity; in the depths of his own senses, Jin closed his eyes and listened on to the cacophonous wailing of a million suffering souls, all crying out as one. The wendigo itself froze and stiffened. Not a moment later, a more powerful blast of invisible energies crashed into it once more. Agito fell from the Wendigo’s flesh, spinning wildly in the air, before plunging deep into the ground.