Rise of the Sword Saint: A Reincarnation Epic Fantasy Saga (Kensei Book 2)
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Kensei 2
Rise of the Sword Saint
DB King
Copyright © 2021 by DB King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
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Contents
Other Series by DB King
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Dragon Magus Chapter 1
Dragon Magus Chapter 2
Dragon Magus Chapter 3
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About the Author
Other Series by DB King
Dragon Magus
Dungeon of Evolution
The Last Magus
Shinobi Rising
War Wizard
Prologue
Thunder boomed, silencing the nine members of the Order in the tent. The fire in the pit roared, snarling like a hound. The chorus of insects and wild beasts died instantly, as if something had smothered them—as if a blanket of death had descended on the land.
Something was coming. Something ancient. Something… dark.
The hooded faces of the Order all snapped to the entrance of the tent, where their tenth and eldest member peeked out into the darkness.
“Brother…” one of the younger members said, stepping forward. “Brother, you mustn’t—”
The old man held up his hand, and the younger man shrunk back to the other hooded figures. The wind slammed into their tent again—but it didn’t deter the old man. He peered deeper into the dark night… and something peered back.
The old man’s eyes widened. He reeled back, screaming. He clawed at his eyes, desperately trying to tear them out—desperately trying to tear it out.
“Hold down his arms!” one of them cried. “Quickly!”
The younger members rushed to restrain him before the old man hurt himself.
“Pathetic,” a voice boomed through the tent. No, through the world itself, as if the wind and thunder and fire spoke for him. “When will you monks learn? Claw out your eyes, claw out your tongues, claw out your very minds… Try as you might, I will have you.”
They all looked at one another. “Is that… him?”
“No, no… it can’t be… the Dark One is not supposed to be in this realm—”
As if in reply, the fire exploded, scorching the ceiling of the tent. Flames gnawed at the thick tarp. A dense, dark smoke sunk onto them. They cough and spat up tar and blood.
“I. Am. Everywhere.” The voice boomed for what felt like an eternity. “I. Am. Returned. I. Am. Death.”
And it only subsided when the first rays of sunlight pierced the dark night. The hooded figures stumbled to their feet. They turned to the eldest member, his eyes blooded.
“It can’t be,” one of them said. “It is too soon… We… We should have had more time…”
The old man sighed heavily. “None of that matters anymore. He is here. The Dark One has come.”
They murmured, shifting nervously amongst the ashes of their camp.
“The Dark One has come,” the old man said, “and he seeks his vessel.”
Chapter 1
“These weapons you have built, dear nephew, how did you come up with them?” Lord Arima muttered as he eyed Jin’s latest invention up and down. It was a wooden contraption with wide arms extending from both sides. At its center were twin columns into which smoothly spun skeins, twisted in numerous, interlocking loops, which locked the arms in place. Between the two columns was a long stretch of smoothened wood, with a deep furrow running through its center. “It… reminds me of a Yari, but this is… far larger than any bow I’ve ever seen. I know for a fact that this is not a bow, though it seems to function in a similar fashion.”
Arima pointed at the furrow. “A massive projectile is to be placed here, yes? I’d say just about as large as a small spear, maybe a bit longer.”
There were others like it—many others. The weapons, designed and created by Jin himself, were aligned and tested and calibrated again and again. Jin had seen to it that each and every one of the contraptions were perfect.
Jin nodded at his uncle’s words and laid a hand on the smoothened wooden surface of the butt of his weapon—a bolt-throwing ballista, perfect for taking out enemy lords and champions from afar. The people of Moyatani would never even conceive of such tactics. They were too focused on honorable battles and heroic deaths such that it was almost to the point that they hardly remembered the whole point of a war was to win.
War wasn’t supposed to be fair.
“Your assessment is correct, uncle,” Jin said. “The weapon is designed to unleash massive bolts that are capable of piercing through any infantry armor. Its purpose is to take out key targets and leaders—cutting the head off the snake, so to speak. I’ve trained its operators to aim for regimental commanders and captains. If we cut off their command structure, we might just throw an enemy army into disarray.”
Arima hummed and nodded. “Many would find such a thing to be dishonorable… but, given our circumstances, I would say it’s all quite fair. Numbers are not on our side, after all. But these weapons will surely level the field and maybe even tip the odds to our favor.”
Jin raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think these are dishonorable?”
His uncle chuckled. “I may not look it, but I had once been a warrior. I was a master of the war bow, a weapon that many bushi would find dishonorable—the weapon of a coward. I hunted a great many deer, elk, and boar with it. A two hundred pound recurve bow that could launch arrows through tree trunks.”
Arima’s left hand absently reached up to caress his right shoulder.
Jin stood, intrigued by his uncle’s story. And so he waited for the man to continue. “When I was fifteen, my father sent me alongside a group of warriors to deal with a bandit threat to the east. The warriors, veterans though they were, would serve under me. My father meant for it to be a responsibility. I was to procure th
eir weapons and armor for them and plan out every single thing ahead of time. I was made responsible for their lives.”
Arima smiled melancholically. “Yes… all their lives hinged on my ability to prepare them. And they looked toward me as their lord and leader. I couldn’t let them down. And I wouldn’t.”
There was a brief pause. Jin raised an eyebrow.
“I armed them all with war bows and trained them all for four weeks—just enough so that they wouldn’t shoot their own feet. I taught them to move quietly, just as a hunter stalks his prey through the woodlands—unseen and unheard for miles and miles. They didn’t become masters of the craft, mind you, but I had ensured they were good enough for the job.”
“But?” Jin asked. “I feel a sudden curve in this story, uncle.”
Arima chuckled. “Yes, my father thought I was wasting too much time training my warriors that he sent my older brother instead. Ken was… bashful and arrogant. He favored the nodachi more than any weapon and father praised him for it. He gathered his own troops and went after the bandits the very next day.”
A pregnant pause followed as Arima laid a hand on the ballista’s tension spring, running his palms across the machination’s fibrous surface. The man’s face crumpled for a moment. “My brother returned a few days later… parts of him anyway. The bandits had ambushed his band and massacred them. They never stood a chance.”
“My men were ready by then and we set out the morning after father received Ken’s head, wrapped in bamboo leaves.” Arima’s hand drifted over toward the ballista’s long and powerful arms, caressing them with absent eyes. “My warriors and I traveled through the woods, away from the paths, trekking through miles and miles of forests. Finally, we found the bandits’ hideout. They outnumbered us; I had only fifteen men with me and they numbered around forty. A frontal assault would’ve been suicide. And so we regrouped and planned. I wasn’t about to let my brother’s killers live through the night.”
“We waited until most of them fell asleep.” Arima continued. “They left ten men to stand and watch. We killed them all from afar. Luck was on our side that night as my warriors needed only a single shot each to kill the bandits. After that, we drew our knives and snuck into their camp. Once inside, we slit the throats of each and every one of them. I didn’t care about honor or glory. The only thing that mattered to me was that they all died—and they all did. When I returned home, my men and I carried with us the heads of all forty bandits.”
Jin was… honestly astounded. Arima had never seemed like a man who could do anything of the sort. He was a good man, sure, but not a warrior—nothing about Toyotoda Arima ever indicated such a past. His hands lacked the calluses of a warrior. His eyes weren’t sharp or quick. He wasn’t lying about his past either, Jin knew. It would take a liar of extreme skill to fool Jin.
His uncle wasn’t really anyone to talk about.
And yet, he had almost perceived Jin’s true age—or, at the very least, wondered out loud about it. Toyotoda Arima was not a man to underestimate, it seemed. No… I shouldn’t underestimate anyone, Jin thought. The Hollowed Knight was once a man of little skill and value, and yet he arose and gained enough power to match my own.
A question did form in Jin’s mind. “Why have you stopped training with the bow?”
Arima huffed and sighed heavily. He raised his hands to his face and stared at the smooth surface of his palms. “I guess the simple truth is that I became lazy and complacent after my father’s death and I inherited his role and mantle. There was no longer any need for me to fight at the forefront of every battle. And so I cast aside the bow and… wallowed in my manor.”
Jin nodded and shrugged. “Well then, uncle, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that this weapon of mine is just as capable of shooting bolts through trees—maybe even several trees.”
“That is good to hear, dear nephew,” Arima said, looking outward toward the construction projects around Hirata, where engineers and builders were hard at work, following Jin’s designs and instructions to the letter. A wall was steadily rising, one that would soon loom over their enemies and defend the people of Hirata. “This little village—though I could scarcely refer to it as little these days—is my legacy to this world and to my son. It is all I have and all that I will ever have. I would prefer that it remain standing once a new Shogun is declared.”
Jin dipped his head. “And I will make it so, uncle. Hirata will stand tall and proud when this war is over—if it ever ends.”
Arima raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Jin? Do you not think this war will end when a new Shogun ascends?”
Jin sighed. His uncle may be unusually perceptive and deceptively skilled with the bow, but he definitely wasn’t the brightest politician or analyst. At least, that was the impression the man gave off—Jin wasn’t about to underestimate him again.
Still, did he think the war was going to end?
The short answer was a concise no. Jin really didn’t think this new war would ever end. “The way I see it, uncle, the only way for this war to end is for a new Shogun to rise and establish a new Shogunate. However, with so many factions and Daimyos throwing their weight around the whole country in hopes of gaining power, everyone everywhere would be at war with each other. After all, only one clan can rise to the seat of the Shogunate and there are over two hundred Great Clans, and a thousand Minor Clans in Moyatani. They will never truly unite. They might, for a time, in order to bring down a much larger foe, but then—when that’s over—they’d just splinter and fight amongst themselves once more.”
“The only way for this war to end is for something… extremely powerful to come and force every single clan to heel. However, that’s not happening anytime soon. The only way to bring all the Daimyos to heel is with an army, forged from at least ten clans united—that was how the first Shogunate was established in the first place. However, that’s never going to happen, since every single clan is evenly matched with each other, which means they would have no reason to form an alliance or a coalition.” Jin explained. “Basically, this war is never going to end—not really. It might slow down and there might be periods of peace and stability as the clans recuperate, a cold war—so to speak. This war is going to outlast both of us, uncle. I’ll have died of old age and the conflict would still be bloody and brutal.”
Arima’s mouth twitched to speak, but Jin spoke first. “That is, of course, if nothing happens to change the coming tide, but I cannot speak for the future or what could be. However, I believe that something will prove me wrong. This war might just end a lot earlier than I’d imagined, but through means I could not have conceived.”
Jin paused. Yojimbo had spoken of a great empire beyond the shores of Moyatani, one that stretched across the known world. They would be a threat someday—Jin was sure of it. But their coming likely wouldn’t occur for another two or three decades. Before that happened, before the first foreign ships arrived with soldiers, horses, and monsters, Jin planned to conquer Moyatani, but he wouldn’t deign himself Shogun.
No, Murasaki Jin would be an Emperor.
He had ruled over his previous world and he would rule over this one.
All in good time… Jin smiled at his uncle. “Regardless, would you like to see the other weapons, uncle? This ballista is powerful, surely, but I wouldn’t call a terror upon the battlefield, no. There are other designs that I’d love to show you.”
Arima nodded and gestured for Jin to lead the way. “Of course, dear nephew, I would love to see more of your designs. They’re really quite innovative—incredibly advanced too… almost as though they came from another world entirely. I’ve never seen such contraptions before.”
Jin smirked. “Well, uncle, it’s quite amazing what wondrous things humans are capable of building in times of war. We are at a time of war, and I have built marvels. And I will build more… in time.”
There were four weapons that Jin found were suitable enough to pull from his memory. First to mi
nd was the Ballista, of which he had built five, though only two had been constructed thus far as the blacksmiths toiled in their forges to craft the necessary components. Next he thought of the Polybolos, a much smaller variant of the ballista, which was capable of repeatedly unleashing bolt after bolt after bolt, each one able to pierce through steel armor, which most Moyatani infantrymen did not possess. Third, the Onager, which was essentially a variant of the ballista that flung large pieces of stone, instead of spear-like bolts. And, finally, the Sunmaker, which functioned similarly to the Polybolos, but ejected scores of tiny, sharpened shrapnel directly onto enemy forces—mostly useless against armored targets, but highly effective against masses of lightly armored infantry.
Arima marveled and drooled over the weapons, praising each of them as works of art. They were, after all, so far beyond anything in Moyatani it was almost hilarious how ironic it was for a warrior culture to not have any innovations in siege warfare and artillery. Once his uncle’s appetite for Jin’s engines of war was sated and the man returned to his manor, Jin was finally able to breathe out a sigh of relief. Giving tours and demonstrations of his machines wasn’t something he was keen on doing ever again. Though, to be fair, Jin couldn’t exactly say he didn’t enjoy explaining the machinations behind each artillery piece. It was rather refreshing to play the part of a teacher—a profession he’d given up on, save for the small amount he taught Ebisu.
With nothing left to do for the next hour and the sun already at its zenith, Jin journeyed back into his office, deep in thought. It had been six long months since the Wendigo’s appearance and subsequent disappearance, and Hirata has grown to greater heights. Already, a great wall of stone was underway, soon to be finished. Around that wall would be an equally great moat, filled with spikes and stakes. The warehouses were filled to bursting with grain and rice, and ten new blacksmith forges were now hard at work, making weapons and armor for the warriors of Hirata. Given another six months, the small town would become a veritable fortress that only powerful mages would ever be able to breach. But Jin had already laid out his plans on how to deal with such foes.