Harlan (3)

Harlan's voice softened, though his gaze remained stern. "There's more to wielding a blade than just knowing how to kill. A true swordsman understands the balance between power and grace, between the blade and the hand that guides it. You've got the skill, boy, but you lack the understanding. You're letting the beast inside you control the sword rather than mastering the beast and letting the sword become an extension of yourself."

'Mastering the beast inside me?'

The moment I heard about this, I suddenly thought of the past. They were fragments, fleeting images of a time when everything was simpler yet far more complicated.

When I first picked the weapon, and my master started teaching me, he also mentioned the same thing.

'You are smiling when you fight.'

He had watched me with those sharp, discerning eyes of his, and I remember the day he spoke to me about it.

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