"By royal decree of the Queen: Ethan Ashford is appointed as King-Consort. The King-Consort was born blind and dislikes public appearances, so the wedding ceremony will be kept private. This is a royal command!"
"What! The current King-Consort is a disabled young man with no family name, no standing, and no power!?"
"Outrageous! The other kingdoms will mock us for this!"
"Remove Ethan Ashford and choose someone worthy! He is unfit for the title!"
"There's a rumor going around that the King-Consort doesn't even know the Queen's true identity. I wonder if it's true..."
The Kingdom of Gold mere.
Royal Palace, the Throne Hall.
A handsome young man with long, flowing hair stood in the courtyard, a black silk ribbon wrapped around his eyes.
Ethan Ashford held a watering can, moving slowly between the flower beds along the fence.
"Three years since I crossed over," Ethan murmured to himself, his mind drifting.
He had been an ordinary office worker in his past life. One late night, after finishing a fantasy novel called Clash of Crowns, he woke up to find himself inside its world.
He had read the story front to back. He knew exactly what kind of novel it was — a power fantasy built around one unstoppable hero.
Ethan had no interest in being a stepping stone for someone else's glory. So he made a deliberate choice: stay invisible, stay quiet, stay alive.
And then the system awakened.
[Blind Sword Saint System]:Seal your eyes, suppress your spiritual sense, and cut yourself off completely from the outside world — and you will grow stronger without limit.
Nearly every minute, Ethan's cultivation and his Space-Time Blade Intent grew at a staggering pace.
He didn't hesitate. He sealed his sight and his perception immediately.
He wasn't truly blind, after all. Once he was strong enough to be untouchable, he'd unseal everything. Until then, he'd keep his head down.
And so Ethan became a wandering blind swordsman, drifting through the martial world alone.
The first stretch was rough. Without sight, even eating was a challenge, and his cultivation was still shallow. He came close to starving more than once.
It was at that low point that he met a young woman and struck a deal with her.
Her name was Vivienne Goldhaven — the daughter of a wealthy merchant family in a small village, so her maid had told him. Her family was pressuring her to marry, and she needed a name on a contract more than she needed a husband. The arrangement was simple: become her live-in consort in three years' time, and she'd pay ten gold coins upfront as a deposit.
Ethan agreed without much thought. He figured a wealthy merchant's daughter would eventually find someone she actually wanted and let him go without a fuss.
He never expected that after three full years, Vivienne would send someone to find him and hold him to the agreement.
Ethan was the kind of man who accepted his lot without complaint and kept his word without fanfare. So he quietly became her live-in consort and thought nothing more of it.
That had been half a month ago.
His current realm was the Mountain-Shaker Stage, and his Space-Time Blade Intent had reached full mastery.
(Realm divisions, from lowest to highest: Ninth to First Rank → Skyrise Realm → Mountain-Shaker Realm → Tide-Turner Realm → Moonlight Realm → Dawnsun Realm → Clearhaven Realm...)
In the early arcs of the novel, a Mountain-Shaker Stage fighter was considered a serious threat. Combined with Ethan's rare Space-Time Blade Intent, he was more than capable of fighting well above his rank.
— [Ding. Three years of sealed sight accumulated.]
— [Super Reward triggered! Hundredfold Critical Bonus!]
— [Immortal-grade: Space-Time Blade Intent — This Blade Intent allows the wielder to influence the dimensions of time and space. At full mastery, one strike can reverse time; another can fold space. Ranked among the strongest all-purpose Blade Intents in existence.]
Ethan's breath caught. His usual calm cracked — something wild and enormous surging behind it.
The system rewarded progress in eight tiers: Common, Refined, Rare, Superior, Immortal, Sovereign, Grand Sovereign, Supreme.
It reminded him of grinding in an old RPG from his previous life — chop enough trees and sometimes the loot table drops something legendary.
In three full years, he had never once seen an Immortal-grade reward. This was the first. And it was the one thing he had always hoped for — the all-purpose Space-Time Blade Intent.
He felt it remaking itself inside him, and his cultivation climbed sharply alongside it.
For a moment, he nearly lost control. A single wisp of the Intent slipped free — and it tore a hundred-meter hole clean through the clouds above.
"That's… a lot of power. My realm hasn't changed, but my overall strength has doubled, at least."
He reeled it back in with effort and exhaled slowly.
Good thing he lived among ordinary villagers. None of them had cultivation. If any real fighters had been nearby, that surge would have drawn every set of eyes in the region.
He was still thinking about how right he'd been to stay hidden — when the courtyard gate swung open.
A young woman in a pale blue dress hurried inside, her expression tense.
Ethan had already heard her coming. With his eyes and spiritual sense sealed, his hearing had sharpened to something extraordinary. Nothing within a hundred meters escaped him, no matter how faint.
Lily rushed forward, reaching out to check him over.
"Sir, are you alright? I heard something — are you hurt?"
Ethan smiled and reached out to pinch her cheek, giving it a light tug. Soft and warm. He shook his head inwardly.
The Goldhaven family really did raise their servants well.
Thanks to half a month of Lily's careful storytelling, Ethan had been led to believe he was living in a quiet backwater called Restwell Village — the kind of place where you drink today's wine today and don't ask questions about tomorrow.
"Sir, stop teasing me!" Lily huffed, red-cheeked, and pushed his hand away with her slender fingers.
She had been at Vivienne's side three years ago when Ethan first crossed paths with her mistress. They had gotten along well enough since.
Ethan let go, still smiling.
"Lily — do you want to learn swordsmanship?"
She blinked, then nodded earnestly. "Yes. I want to be able to protect my Lady and you, Sir."
"Good. I happen to remember a sword scripture — an old white-haired wanderer passed it to me years back on the road. I'll recite it for you." He straightened the hem of his robe, settled into the stone chair at the garden table, and poured himself a cup of tea.
Blind as he was, Ethan moved with unhurried precision, his awareness of the space around him so complete that it never showed.
Lily tilted her head. "Sir — how did you know he had white hair?"
Ethan paused.
…Right. I'm blind.
Should I tell her the old man doesn't exist and the scripture is just things I figured out myself?
"Are you going to listen or not?" He cleared his throat.
"Yes, yes — sorry, go ahead!" She quickly knelt beside him in the grass, not minding the dirt, and looked up at him with wide, attentive eyes.
Ethan composed himself, and slowly began.
"Keep the blade sheathed until the moment is right. Build the weight of it. Let heart, mind, and breath move as one…"
Time passed. Ethan sat as still as stone, reciting steadily.
Lily had knelt intending to listen politely — her true identity was that of a gifted sword cultivator, and she hadn't expected much from a blind man's recitation.
But somewhere along the way, she stopped pretending.
The words settled into her like water into dry earth. Without meaning to, she slipped into a state of deep focus.
Faint sword-marked petals bloomed around her in the air, and a blue blade-sigil flickered to life deep in her pupils.
When she surfaced — startled, breathless — the world felt sharper and further away at once.
That… that was a full treatise on the Sword Path. Something a grandmaster would spend decades composing.
I just broke through to the Skyrise Realm.
She looked at Ethan — calm, unhurried, a cup of tea cooling in his hand — and felt something close to awe.
Ethan, for his part, hadn't seen any of it. But he had felt the cold, sharp edge of a Space-Time Blade Intent radiating from her body.
Even through sealed senses, that much was clear. She was genuinely gifted.
He spoke quietly.
"I remember quite a few more scriptures like that one. Come back whenever you have time. I'll recite them for you."
Lily's breath hitched.
There are more?
"Such precious teachings," she said softly. "I'm not sure I deserve them."
Ethan's mouth curved — the black ribbon hiding whatever his eyes might have shown.
"Don't worry about that. To me, they're just words I happen to know."
Lily straightened the sash of her sword-robe. Through a dark strand of hair falling across her face, her clear eyes settled on the black-clad young man beside her.
The King-Consort, she thought, is truly unfathomable.