The man’s life was far from glorious. Although gifted with strength from childhood, harsh reality awaited him outside of the village where he dreamt of adventures as a youth. The strength that was lauded within his village was far from remarkable in the real world. But the man survived through an age ravaged by war and finally attained the key to achieving success.

Pieces of metal belonging to a traveling merchant… The man spent all the money in his possession to purchase every last piece from the merchant, who was selling them as amulets against evil.

That night, as he gazed upon the metal fragments in the dim light of an oil lamp, he recalled a story passed on by a traveling swordsman.

Soul Edge, the ultimate weapon surpassing all others… The drunkards in the tavern did not believe the swordsman’s tale, but he did. He sensed something in the eyes of the swordsman. He followed the warrior in hopes of getting more information about Soul Edge out of him. The swordsman probably thought that he would do the same, so they talked about the weapon. As it turned out, the swordsman knew nothing. They parted ways without wasting any more words.

The tale he heard could have been a hoax. But it was enough to arouse his curiosity and set him off on his singular pursuit of Soul Edge. The people around him dismissed him as an eccentric with a fantastic dream…

And thus the object of his pursuit was in his hands, before his eyes. He believed with conviction that these metal pieces were from Soul Edge.

But fatefully, he was slain by bandits shortly thereafter. Because of his over-protective nature for his precious metal fragments, a rumor circulated in the cities that the man was in possession of something extremely valuable. Naturally, he did not own anything that would have interested the bandits. And as customary with these bandits, they threw their victim’s corpse into a ravine.

The man’s tenacity to protect his precious fragments never wavered in his final moments. The hand of the abandoned corpse in the ravine still had the pieces in its grasp…

Several months had passed. No one bore witness to the fact that the pieces had disappeared over time. They were definitely gone, leaving behind several incomplete corpses in the ravine. There were trails left besides the corpses, as if something had crawled about them. In time, the rains that fell upon the ravine erased the trails.

The life form, or whatever it was, walked under its own will... But the will of that being was not driven by sentience—the force that drove it was closer to instinct.

A being formed by blood absorbed from the hand of a dead man.
A being that wanders the earth to search for its kindred in order to become whole once again.
A being that grows by greedily devouring fragments with the same evil aura as it has.
A being that responds by reading the innermost thoughts of those it meets…

The metal pieces that the seeker of Soul Edge possessed was, without a doubt, the genuine article!