Prologue 1 - The Swordmaster

(Note: "for sound" 'for thought/inner monologue')

In a field filled with countless corpses, a man kneeled, leaning on a chipped blade. The blade was colored an amaranth red that seemed to glow with a fierce twinkle; it was seemingly carved out of a gigantic bone of an unknown creature, it's edges driping with blood.

"Caw, caw"

Raven cawing sounded as they descended to feast on the bodies in this deserted, ashen land, covered in a bloody sunset.

The man's gaze was blank - his eyes could no longer see, and his ears could no longer hear.

"Thud"

With a noise, the man's body collapsed, his legs finally giving out.

'I was... So close... If only I hadn't attempted to steal the Imperial Blade...'

With a sigh, the man felt the thunderous beating in his chest weaken; even the Sword Aura of a Great Grandmaster proved useless in the face of millions.

As the last bit of Aura seeped into the earth, he felt his heart losing the last bits of Vitality left in it.

As death began closing in, he decided to attempt his last attemp; it probably didn't deserve to be called an atempt, but rather the last laugh of a person with nothing left to lose. He raised his sword. And he slashed down. His target wasn't a person - it was this shitty place which never gave him peace of mind, always haunting him with the faces of the innocents he had killed.

And as he slashed, the technique - the sheer elegance and grace of his blade - cut apart the fabric of space. He suddenly felt a terrifying force grip him from the other side.

'Huh... It worked?'

He couldn't question it anymore, because the force grabbed the Essence - the very Nature of a Swordmaster - and pulled it towards the rift, the black void beyond.

The man felt his mind become black, as he desperately fought against his own body's limits attempting to live on. However, it was all for naught, as he fell into the endless abyss...