The night after the trial didn't feel like victory.
It felt like an omen.
Rain sliced across the windows of the Shadow Fang guild house. Thunder rolled over Tokyo's towers like drums at the edge of a battlefield. Most of the guild slept uneasily, but Minwoo sat alone in the guild's under-chamber, lit only by a flickering torch and the eerie glow of the Bakura Dagger resting in front of him.
The gem at its hilt pulsed again.
Low. Hungry.
It wasn't just a weapon anymore.
It was a warning.
Minwoo stared at it in silence—then reached out and gripped the hilt.
The dagger screamed.
In an instant, the world peeled away like wet paper.
Minwoo was falling again—but this time, not into stone or shadow. He fell into memory, into bloodlines not his own, into voices buried beneath centuries of silence. He landed in a black expanse, surrounded by drifting shards of broken time. No floor. No ceiling.
Only whispers. And watchers.
Above him, cold lights hung like the eyes of ancient rulers—immortal, unmerciful, and silent. Not gods. Not saviors.
Rulers of the forgotten. Kings of shadow.
A presence stepped from the dark.
It wore his face, but more refined—older, armored in living shadow, eyes burning violet with authority no man should carry.
"You're not the first to wield the Bakura Dagger," the shadow said. "But you may be the last."
Minwoo's fists clenched. "I control it."
"No," the figure replied. "You were its wielder. Now you are its replacement. It was just the beginning."
The ground split open beneath them—revealing a glowing, vertical scar in space.
A rift.
And inside it, floating midair, was a blade. Not forged. Grown.
Obsidian-black, with veins of red light pulsing through its surface like blood. The hilt was bone. The edge shimmered with darkness so dense it bled into the air itself.
The voice echoed, booming now.
"Bakura was a dagger. This is a Crownblade.""Born from the Rift. Fed by your will.""Claim it—and become what the rulers fear."
Minwoo reached out—and the moment his fingers touched the hilt, the Domain collapsed.
He woke on the chamber floor—gasping, eyes wide. His heartbeat wasn't his own anymore.
The Bakura Dagger was gone.
In its place, stabbed into the stone, was the Riftblade.
Longer. Heavier. Alive.
The shadows around the room bowed to it.
Minwoo stood and grabbed the blade. It didn't resist. It welcomed him—like it had been waiting centuries to be wielded again.
Then, instinctively, he whispered:
"Shadow Rift."
Reality tore open ahead of him—faster, sharper, larger than before. A vertical slice in the air, glowing red-black. He stepped through it and vanished, reappearing behind the stone training dummy across the chamber.
He slashed once.
The dummy didn't just fall—it evaporated into drifting ash.
He wasn't done.
He raised his hand, focusing. His mana split—fracturing four ways.
The clones burst into existence without effort now. Each one silent, armored in shadow, and carrying spectral versions of the Riftblade. They moved instantly, perfectly synced. Not illusions. Not tricks.
Echoes of his will. Multipliers of his wrath.
He looked down at the sword in his hand. It pulsed in time with his breath.
Not a tool. A bond.
Upstairs, Kinro stirred from his sleep and growled low. Lira sat upright in bed, staring at the door, skin cold. Jin blinked at the ceiling, uneasy for reasons he couldn't explain.
Something had changed.
Far away, in the storm-wracked sands of the Southern Expanse, the masked seer felt the air bend.
She turned to her acolytes and said simply:
"He's claimed the Crownblade. The Riftborn lives."
Behind her, the obelisks lit up—each one marked with a symbol of an ancient ruler, long dethroned, long forgotten.
"The real war begins now."