SWNOVELXO Chapter 5: A sword once given
Chapter 5: A Sword Once Given
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years of pain, sweat, and silence.
Patrick had known no father. No comfort. Only Min — a monster forged in war, bound by honor, and obsessed with one goal: To prepare Patrick for the return of the Bloodmoon King.
But Patrick had never awakened.
No blood magic. No signs of the Bloodmoon flame.
Only that sword — the one Min forged by hand and handed to him on his twelfth birthday.
> "Until your blood stirs," Min had said, "this will be your fangs."
Patrick cherished it. Not because it was strong — it wasn't — but because Min had never given anything else.
---
Now, on the battlefield, that sword lay shattered in the dirt.
Min stood tall, unmoving, his cloak whipping in the wind like a war flag.
Patrick kneeled in the mud, bleeding from the mouth, gasping.
"You disappoint me again," Min's voice cracked through the chaos, calm and cruel. "Is this all I raised?"
Patrick looked up — eyes wide, trembling.
"I'm trying," he whispered. "I've tried for years."
"You've tried," Min said, walking forward, each step pressing like thunder. "But trying means nothing. Only blood matters."
Patrick lunged for the broken sword. He couldn't bear to leave it.
Min didn't hesitate — he raised a hand and summoned a cyclone of crushing force. It pulled everything toward him: shattered stones, broken weapons… and Patrick.
Patrick screamed. His fingers scraped across the dirt, inches away from the remains of the sword.
"I won't let it end like this—!"
Then—
his hand burned.
But it wasn't fire.
It was light. Orange, bright, and pulsing with energy.
The air shifted. The broken sword lifted on its own — hovering.
Patrick's aura flared wildly, crackling with telekinetic force. Stones rose. Dust stopped midair.
The sword flew to him, pieces reconnecting as if time reversed.
Min's cyclone shattered like glass.
Patrick rose slowly, his eyes no longer uncertain — now glowing a deep bloodred, burning with something… ancient.
> "You forged this sword for me," he said, voice shaking.
"It's more than metal. It's proof you believed in me once."
Min stared. Silent.
Patrick roared — a roar that echoed with grief, power, and fury.
The wind howled with him.
The battlefield paused.
And somewhere deep within Min, for the first time in years… he felt pride.
Patrick had awakened.
And he was terrifying.
Chapter 5 (continued): Min's Point of View
"The Weapon I Gave Him"
He was slow again.
Patrick moved like a child on cracked ice — cautious, trembling, hopeful. Min could already see the gap, the hesitation. In war, such moments were death.
Min didn't blink.
He struck with his elbow, sending Patrick tumbling through the dust.
> Fifteen years.
Fifteen years of drills before dawn. Sword stances, breath control, killing blows. Fifteen years of waiting for that cursed bloodline to stir.
But it never did.
Min wasn't angry at Patrick.
No.
He was angry at himself — for believing the boy could become anything more than a shadow.
"You're weak," he muttered, louder than he intended. "Still clinging to that piece of metal?"
Patrick didn't answer. He only crawled toward the fallen sword — the one Min had forged himself.
> "He still holds on to that," Min thought.
"Even after all this time…"
Min raised his hand, summoning the cyclone. It roared with the force of a hundred winds. It should've pulled Patrick to him like a doll — break his pride, force the lesson into his bones.
But the boy didn't let go.
He fought the pull. Eyes locked on the sword like it was the last memory of a mother he never met.
Then it happened.
Min felt it before he saw it — a ripple in the air, a pressure on his lungs.
Orange light.
Crackling. Raw. Chaotic.
The boy's hand lit with a glowing aura — and the sword responded. Not just floated — obeyed.
It flew to him.
Reconstructed. Whole.
Min's cyclone broke apart with a snap.
Patrick rose. Taller, steadier, eyes burning bloodred. But what stopped Min wasn't the power…
…it was the look in the boy's eyes.
Not rage. Not pride.
Conviction.
> "You forged this sword for me," Patrick said.
"It's proof you believed in me once."
Min's breath caught.
He remembered the night he'd made that blade. He never told Patrick why — just gave it to him in silence. A final kindness. A quiet apology for the life he never asked for.
And now… that boy stood reborn.
Min didn't move.
He could've dodged the shockwave. Could've blocked the roar. But he stood there — frozen.
Not because he was afraid.
Because he was proud.
> You finally heard it, didn't you?
The call of your blood.
And in that moment, Min knew…
The king's heir had awakened.