The next town wasn't even on the map.
Lucien found it by accident, following a dried riverbed that curved through the rocky hills like a serpent's spine. The place was small—barely more than a cluster of stone houses huddled around a broken well. A single crooked watchtower leaned in the center, its top missing, torn off by time or war.
No name marked its gates. No welcome signs.
Only silence.
The kind of silence that followed after tragedy had already passed through.
Lucien's instincts sharpened the moment he stepped through the boundary stones. The Wrath Core pulsed faintly. Not in warning. In recognition.
Something here had suffered.
And Sin remembered suffering.
There were no people left in the center of the village.
Only ashes.
Lucien passed by a burned home and saw the outlines of bodies on the walls—shadows scorched into stone. Children. Elders. Scattered weapons. The smell of old smoke still clung to the earth.
A massacre.
Fresh enough to make him tense.
Not bandits. Not beasts.
This was a cleansing.
He crouched near a ruined wall and sifted through the charred debris. Among the broken stone, he found a token—half-melted but still legible.
A phoenix seal.
His jaw tightened.
The Crimson Lotus Sect.
One of the more "noble" sects on the eastern frontier. Known for their righteous doctrines, their fire-element techniques, and their brutal intolerance of forbidden arts.
Lucien turned the token over.
There was a brand mark beneath it—burnt into the stone, seared in ancient script.
Sin-Touched.
This wasn't just a raid.
It was a message.
They were hunting others like him.
He moved through the ruins like a ghost.
Wrath boiled slowly, but he didn't release it.
Not yet.
Instead, he searched.
In the old village shrine—once dedicated to the Moon Mother—he found a survivor. A boy. Thin, maybe ten years old, hiding beneath a cracked altar. His lips were blue from cold, his eyes wide with trauma.
Lucien didn't speak.
He simply crouched nearby, leaving dry rations and a water flask beside the child.
When he turned to leave, the boy whispered.
"They came last week. Said we harbored a sinner."
Lucien stopped.
"They burned everyone. My sister tried to stop them. They... they set her on fire while she was still alive."
Lucien didn't turn around. His voice was soft.
"Did they find who they were looking for?"
The boy shook his head. "No one knew what they meant. They just killed anyone with a spirit mark."
Lucien's fingers twitched at his side.
A part of him wanted to turn back, to find the nearest Crimson Lotus outpost and burn it to the ground. But he wasn't ready.
Not yet.
Instead, he looked at the boy one last time.
"They'll come again."
"I know."
"You should leave. Before they do."
The boy's voice cracked. "Where?"
Lucien reached into his pouch and handed the map scroll—the one he'd copied before leaving the monk's shrine.
"There's a village here. It's hidden. Safe."
The boy looked up. "Why are you helping me?"
Lucien straightened slowly.
"Because I remember what it felt like to scream while no one listened."
That night, Lucien left the village and continued north.
But he wasn't the same.
He walked faster. Tighter. Every step more deliberate.
Because now, the sin inside him wasn't just about growth.
It was about justice.
And someday, he would repay the Crimson Lotus flame with fire of his own.
Three days later, he arrived at the outskirts of the old monastery.
It was not on any map. It shouldn't have existed.
Built into the cliffside, the structure looked ancient—older than kingdoms, older than sects. Its gates were carved from obsidian and iron. Its walls bore no flags, no crests, only one marking:
A blade impaling an eye.
Lucien recognized it from the monk's scroll.
The Order of the Silent Sword.
Not a sect.
A cult.
Exiles. Blade-fanatics. Sin-touched who had surrendered their voices in exchange for survival.
Lucien approached cautiously.
No guards stood at the gate.
No torches flickered in the halls.
And yet, he knew he was being watched.
The moment he passed the threshold, a dozen eyes locked onto him.
None of them blinked.
They met him in the courtyard.
Ten figures dressed in black, faces masked, swords sheathed but close.
One stepped forward. Female. Her robes cleaner than the others, her aura colder.
She raised a hand in greeting.
Lucien nodded once.
She spoke not with her mouth—but with her hand.
Sign language.
"Who walks with sin?"
Lucien understood the signs, as if the Codex itself whispered the meanings into his mind.
He raised his hand.
"Wrath and Greed," he signed.
The woman tilted her head.
"Two already. Few survive one."
"I didn't come to beg," Lucien replied in sign. "I came for a sword."
They didn't laugh.
They bowed.
Inside the monastery, there was no chanting.
Only silence.
And training.
The disciples moved like wind and water—silent strikes, perfect footwork, flawless discipline. Lucien watched them with interest. Not envy. Not admiration. But calculation.
He could learn from them.
He would.
They gave him a room. Sparse. Clean. Stone bed, plain bowl, nothing else.
He didn't ask for more.
Greed didn't want wealth.
It wanted value.
The following morning, he was called into the Hall of Blades.
A massive underground chamber carved from pure obsidian. Dozens of weapons hung on the walls—each humming faintly with blood memory.
At the center stood a sword buried in stone.
Simple. No decoration. No spirit gem. Just steel and silence.
The female master stood beside it.
"The blade chooses. Not us."
Lucien approached.
The moment he touched the hilt—
It moved.
The steel shimmered, humming low, then burst into black flame.
His Greed Core pulsed.
[Memory Detected – Weapon Soul Fragment Located][Do you wish to Devour and Inherit Sword Spirit?][Warning: Fusion irreversible.]
Lucien didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
The flame surged.
And the sword whispered—
Not in words, but in instincts. Movements. Styles. Death.
It wasn't a talking blade.
It was a killing blade.
And it now belonged to him.
When Lucien walked out of the chamber, sword in hand, the Silent Order watched him with wary eyes.
The master bowed.
"Sin-walker. You now carry the Blade Without Name. It will not serve again once you fall."
Lucien returned the bow.
"I won't fall."
She looked into his eyes.
And said the first words anyone in the monastery had spoken aloud in decades.
"You'd better not. Or we all burn with you."