Let’s light a small lantern of background.

As for where the Nameless Sword Saint hailed from, what feats he carved, what secret technique he kept—honestly, it’s mist over a river to me.

What we do know is this: two centuries ago, he sat cross‑legged before the gate to the Anti‑Magic City, a lone boulder before a flood, an unmatched hero.

Did he spar with the great‑great‑great‑great Hero, or mend some world‑ending rift? Our minds say yes, yet the ink runs in the rain.

The years when the Nameless Sword Saint roamed were the very years I returned from my previous life, a hawk in the Demon Realm watching the mortal plain like a drama.

Even then, the memory is gauze in moonlight.

Not just me—everyone feels that way about him, like trying to hold mist in cupped hands.

He cut his own history, name included, with a single stroke; that’s why he’s forever the Nameless Sword Saint, a blank seal on rice paper.

Because he severed “events” themselves, no jagged fault showed in history; even the god of time, Tim, let the river run.

For that alone, he outshines those legends who split sky and earth, like a quiet blade outshining a thunder hammer.

Why sever one’s history, and to what end? I don’t pretend to read the mind of a martial devotee; their road is a cliff path in fog.

If one were truly clever, one wouldn’t choose the despairing road of martial cultivation; that’s a path of bare feet on cold stone.

The Silver Era had no so‑called Way of Supreme Detachment; no dry wind to strip one’s heart to bark.

One thing is certain: he is strong—so strong you can’t measure him with a yardstick of strength, like measuring a mountain with a teacup.

Sensing his end draw near, he left Swordgate on the Arctic Tundra with his student, snow dusting their tracks like salt, and began what later ages call the Sword Saint’s Pilgrimage.

Along the way he challenged every opponent he deemed worthy, like a falcon stooping on peaks, and took every challenger who came, like rain accepting every roof.

To show he sought only the summit of swordcraft, he wrapped chains around his blade and scabbard, turning a sword into a staff, a thunderbolt into a walking stick.

No one dared belittle him for that; he was the only Sword Saint under heaven, a lone summit above the clouds.

Challengers and challenged alike gave him full weight, yet most fights ended in one or two strokes, like lightning counting to two before the thunder.

His fights are hard to describe; his sword didn’t blaze with will and mana like a legendary warrior’s, no banners of light, no roaring drums.

He drew, he sheathed—so spare that even the best bard would find no cresting wave to sing, only a clean ripple.

The Nameless Sword Saint used a power gods and demons couldn’t parse, a stance beyond the world’s ledgers, a force hammered by a stubborn weakling into iron.

No one understood him but himself; no one knew if each stroke satisfied him, or if he’d spit at his own shadow.

Martial practitioners walk alone, a lantern on a cliff path, hope thin as frost; each step breaks trail where no feet have trod.

He felt he’d walked alone to the path’s end, and hoped another fight might open a higher sky of swordcraft—or let him die as a warrior, face to the wind.

So he went to challenge “the Strongest in the Mortal World,” Augustus; refused by Stini’s father, he even challenged a Divine Being, like a lone wolf howling at a star.

I admire that resolve, a blade held to the storm—but with invasion looming and Anna’s crusade rising like a red dawn, I came to arrange his pilgrimage myself.

More importantly—I feared he’d come cut me down like a stalk of reed.

“This body of Valor shouldn’t rot in bed. Demon King, know this: I’ve come seeking death.”

Moonlight poured over the forest inn, silver on eaves and leaves; this was the first stop Vega and I set for the pilgrimage, a brushstroke of calm on the map.

The Mephi Consortium had bought out the place, so few strays wandered; the quiet held like fresh snow.

Eil, a black‑armored enforcer from the Demon Realm’s inspection corps, and Julian, one of the Lunarfolk chiefs and the Sword Saint’s student, had turned in—maybe pretending sleep like foxes.

Maybe the Sword Saint wanted to walk the trees alone; they feigned slumber so as not to be a stone in his boot.

In the grove, it was only the Sword Saint and me, two shadows under one moon.

I wanted good terms, like when I courted Stini’s favor; if we got along, she didn’t swing first, and I lived to talk another day.

Still, caution—those near death often blaze like dry tinder.

“Hahaha, no need to fret. I’ve no reason to kill you,” he laughed under the moon, eyes clear as winter water reading my mind like ripples.

“Even if I had a reason, I wouldn’t raise a hand. Because all this is normal, isn’t it?” His words fell like stones into a pond.

“Normal? If you call this normal, you’re speaking from above the clouds, not the street,” I said, a smile thin as a blade.

“Demon King, in your eyes, can my strength still count as that of an ordinary man?” He turned with hands behind his back, a pine against the slope.

He stood on the knoll, looking at the moon like a coin on black silk; tonight, the moon felt polished brighter.

I weighed his meaning, a balance scale swinging in my chest.

“You mean your presence would break the balance?” My voice was a pebble skipped across dark water.

It felt like this: say I broke the first pact and smuggled a horde of demons into the mortal world, yet Head still bargained with the gods to treat it as a routine incursion.

The gods wouldn’t strike directly at the demon swarm, like old trees choosing not to sway.

“Balance—what even is balance?” His words drifted like smoke, then thinned.

“I’m curious how much you know of Demon King invasions; knowledge of gods and demons is sometimes a poison in a silver cup.”

He shook his head without a heartbeat’s pause; he didn’t know much, like a traveler choosing not to look back at his footprints.

“Game theory—that’s all I still see. More knowledge and sights, I’ve already cut away,” he said, a blade trimming even its own shadow.

“You chose to forget? Why? Raising your rank and nearing the Divine Being’s tier—that’s the ladder mortals dream of climbing.”

“Not me,” he said, gaze pinned to the moon as if a higher answer hid in its cold lake. “I want to see the highest sky of swordcraft. If I can’t, then let me die as a warrior.”

His voice carried no iron nails, no wind‑soft balm; in stance and tone, he was a sword—plain, direct, spare, a straight path with no switchbacks.

The opposite of the musician I know, who speaks half and hides half, like a fan covering a smile.

“It’s a fine wish. Sadly, I can only set your route, not hand you heaven,” I said, a shrug like a drifting leaf.

“For that, I already owe thanks,” he said, hand on the two chained swords at his waist, tapping them to a tuneless rhythm, open as a door in summer.

He expected it, maybe—me sneaking a strike like a fox testing a trap.

If I struck first, the peerless Sword Saint would have a clean reason to cross blades with the strongest Demon King in the mortal world, thunder meeting thunder.

I wouldn’t give him that.

On the contrary, I’d drain every reason to fight me, and lay his steps toward a final duel with a Divine Being, so he could die at peace and I be rid of trouble, two birds with one stone.

I walked up the rise and stood beside him, not behind, two silhouettes sharing one wind.

I said, “Were you expecting me to come at you?”

“A little,” he answered, as frank as a drawn blade.

“Feel awkward now that I said it out loud?” I asked, a smile like a cat’s paw.

“Not exactly,” he said; his face was a clear lake, unruffled.

I tugged a little cart from the Shadow, a street bar on wheels we’d built for welcoming Anna in SkywardCity, a wheeled counter like a friendly stall under lanterns.

I felt I’d mapped his temper, like tracing a river’s bends with a fingertip.

Balance—besides the edge of swordcraft, that’s the pebble in his palm, the weight he keeps weighing.

Because martial stances sit outside the world’s power ledgers, I don’t know how strong he truly is; maybe he wins on specs outside the rulebook.

Maybe he’s truly strong enough to cleave worlds; either way, the scale tilts the same under this moon.

His thought, in the end, is human—thinking for the mortal world’s sake, wishing the mortal world to endure, a hero shouldering snow.

As long as a human mind beats inside, the game of plots still holds him, like a net under a high wire.

“Drink?” I asked. “We’ve got blood‑amber wine from the Western Frontier, golden grain spirits from the Fengming Range in the East; most things you’d find in the markets.”

“Then—sweetleaf wine?” he asked, a hint of autumn sweetness in the words.

“That one… I don’t have,” I said, palms up, like showing empty sleeves.

“Figures.” He smiled. “It’s a local brew from my home. Rarely goes abroad, like a village song.”

“Where’s home for the Sword Saint?” I asked, cool night air lifting my hair like grass.

“The Fengming Range. Don’t remember where exactly,” he said, voice like a pebble in deep water.

“You came all the way to the Arctic Tundra from there—was your home…” I started, a cloud crossing the moon.

“Don’t remember. I cut it all,” he said, blade‑clean, ending that path like stepping off a bridge.

His face didn’t flicker; I believed him. The Sword Saint had no need to lie; he carried a calm that met any storm like a cliff meets waves.

I shrugged and let it go, a leaf let back to the stream. I mixed Eastern grain spirit the mountain folk favored, and added two local sweet leaves, chasing a ghost of his hometown taste.

“How’s this? Far from your memory’s cup?” I asked, offering the glass like a small moon in my palm.

He drank without a blink, not a hint of poison worry; that wasn’t trust in me, just beast‑path instinct reading the wind.

Stini’s crowd and the Sword Saint are beast‑style fighters; they lean on gut over head, like wolves reading snow.

“A little different, but very good. I’m satisfied,” he said, the words steady as falling dew.

“Make do, then. I’m no pro bartender; I can’t tweak it grain by grain,” I said, grin loose as a sash.

“With moon, with flowers, with wine—I’m content,” he said, cup in hand, sipping now and then, gazing at the moon like an old friend.

I tossed a dangerous topic like a coin. “You won’t kill me. I’m this world’s root; if you cut me, the world would halve, then crumble.”

“I see,” he said, nodding, eyes as clear as mountain springs.

“Don’t you feel it’s a waste?” I asked, voice soft as ash.

“How could I? Wanting someone to fight me is already asking the heavens for a favor; more demands would be ugly, and I can’t stomach that face,” he said, a line drawn true.

“Even though I’m Demonfolk? Even if I threaten humanity?” I asked, curious as a cat near a door.

“Don’t stray from the true heart and soul. Even if you’re Demonfolk, you’re a right part of the mortal world,” he said, like placing a stone in the middle of a garden.

“Haha, if every human were as reasonable as you, that’d be great. Sadly, they still peg me as the enemy,” I said, laughter like wind chimes in a draft.

“Humanity’s enemy is naturally Demonfolk. Humanity’s stance isn’t wrong,” he said, a tree stating where it stands.

“That… also makes sense,” I admitted. “Seems you haven’t heard my news. Swordgate’s couriers are terrible. Perfect timing—I’ll introduce myself.”

I made a showy bow, like a street performer sweeping his sleeve. “Andor—Savior Demon King Andor. Friend of humanity, self‑proclaimed. Ally of humanity, contract signed. The Demon King humans most dread, yet must work with—bar none.”

“I do work for the mortal world’s survival, step after step; sadly, everyone outside the Council of Sages is a sack of bricks about it,” I said, a sigh like smoke.

“And you—Sword Saint. You cut away your history, name, ties, and every external thing. People named you, and children love it,” I added, glass clinking like a bell.

“What’s there to rob from a man with nothing but a sword? Even I don’t understand Demonfolk thinking half the time,” I said, a smile like a slanted moon.

We touched cups and drained them, wine warm as a lantern.

We watched the layered forest dance, and the cold moon ride the sky like a ship.

This journey is long.

Long enough for a Demon King and a Sword Saint to come to understand each other, like two rivers finally meeting the sea.