A Blade That Knows No Master

The sound of rain tapping against the cold pavement was the only thing Kaito Tanaka could hear as he walked through the dimly lit alley. His latest job had been clean—quick, efficient, just like always. The body was already disposed of, and in a few hours, no one would even remember the man had existed.

To the world, he was nobody. A shadow.

He stepped onto the main road, slipping his hands into his pockets as he exhaled a quiet breath. Another night, another kill. The underworld knew him as Shinigami, but to himself, he was just a man without purpose.

Then came the screech of tires.

His senses flared, his body tensed. Too late. A pair of headlights cut through the darkness like twin swords of light.

Move!

His instincts screamed, but his body refused to react in time. The impact was brutal. Pain erupted through his ribs as his body twisted through the air. His skull cracked against the pavement, and everything went black.

---

A sharp breath. Cold air filled his lungs.

He woke to the scent of burning incense, unfamiliar yet strangely calming. His body felt different—heavier, yet lighter at the same time.

Slowly, he pushed himself up, his fingers pressing into the soft texture of silk sheets. The dim light of paper lanterns cast flickering shadows across the wooden walls of a traditional Eastern chamber.

Confusion gripped him. This wasn't a hospital. It wasn't anywhere he recognized.

Then he saw it—the mirror.

A bronze disk sat on the bedside table, polished to perfection. Hesitantly, he reached for it, tilting it toward his face.

And what he saw was not his own reflection.

A young man with sharp features and long black hair tied into a loose ponytail stared back at him. His skin was pale, his eyes cold yet filled with an arrogance that felt… unnatural.

And then it hit him.

This face. These robes. This world.

He had seen them before. In a Murim manga.

The realization sent a chill down his spine. He knew this character. Jin Tae-Hyun, a side villain from Chronicles of the Northern Blade. A young master of the Southern Edge Sect—arrogant, reckless, and destined to be killed by the protagonist within the first hundred chapters.

He was a stepping stone. A nobody in the grand scheme of the story.

His breath came out slow and measured. He had spent his previous life as a contract killer, a ghost in the modern world. And now… now he was reborn as a doomed side character in a brutal Murim world.

For the first time in a long time, a grin crept onto his lips.

If fate had given him another chance, he wasn't going to waste it.

This time, he wouldn't be a nameless ghost. He wouldn't be a disposable villain.

This time, he would carve his own legend into this world.

The paper doors slid open with a sharp swish, revealing a kneeling servant girl.

"Young Master, the elders await you at the training grounds."

Jin Tae-Hyun—no, Kaito—stood, rolling his shoulders as he adjusted his robes. His mind was already working, already planning.

The Jin Tae-Hyun of this world had been born weak. Doomed to be a discarded pawn in a grander game. But Kaito Tanaka had walked through hell. He had killed men whose names had been spoken in hushed fear. He had danced with death so many times that it no longer felt like a stranger.

If this world believed he would meet the same fate—forgotten, broken, and discarded—then it had no idea what kind of devil it had just brought back.

Now, in this new life, he would make sure that his blade would never be forgotten.

And if the protagonist stood in his way?

Well… no story was set in stone.

A blade that knows no master cuts through anything.