Passerby of Wandering Cloud

A withered branch once made into a hairstick, with a flower bud opening at its tip. Now that the old story is over, a golden bud is inlaid on the hairstick, to commemorate the beginning of a new life.

A nameless man awoke from a long sleep. A tension both distant and familiar stretched on without end, and the pain was clear and sharp. The past had become jagged fragments, and he had forgotten even his own name.

During one aimless wandering, he drank melted snow to soothe his thirst, slaughtered wild beasts to satisfy his hunger, and cut a withered branch to pin up his long hair.

His black hair flowed like a rushing spring, the muscles beneath his skin stirring like fish swimming with the current… A miraculous power reshaped his body without pause, and the agony of bones shattering and knitting back together spread everywhere. Along with countless torments, the broken past began to fit itself back together… As he gazed at his own reflection on the water, the beginning and the end of the tragedy also grew clear.

By the time the face beneath the water was no longer a stranger, the nameless man suddenly saw flower buds opening on a dead, withered branch.

He was struck by a sudden realization. The curse of immortality still burned fiercely, the old grudge had not yet gone out, and he was the flower newly blooming on this withered branch.

A bracer made from golden coral and beast hide. Only the skilled artisans of the Dragon race could craft a piece with such extraordinary workmanship.

Things that come in pairs seem to sense one another. Though only one of the nameless man's bracers remained, at a touch he could still feel the warmth of the other.

He closed his eyes, wanting to use all his strength to chase down that faint, half present link to the other one: its location, its owner.

A slender yet powerful hand once wore that other bracer, holding a long spear in a duel, its point sharp and cold as a shooting star. Its owner had also once raised a cup and drained it with him, lifted their head to watch the cold moonlight, and sat lost in thought. And in the end it was that same person who, stubborn and unyielding, turned sincere feeling into a monster and cast everyone into a bottomless abyss of hatred.

The two halves of a pair will meet again one day, and the old grudge between them is like a gourd of strong wine, sipped slowly, until every debt of kindness and every grudge is settled.

Does the owner of that other gauntlet feel the same? He does not care to know.

An old coat with a torn hem, its embroidery ripped open by a sword cut. Flesh heals quickly, but cloth does not, just like a person's pain.

The nameless man drifted through an endlessly long exile like a soulless corpse, until a tall woman in sunglasses and armor blocked his path. Before the two could so much as greet each other, a sharp sword had already left its sheath, and after a fierce fight the woman smiled and proposed a deal he could not refuse.

And so the nameless man accepted the invitation, took on a new identity, and returned once more to civilization and order.

The nameless man was taken to a tailor's shop, measured and patterned, the cloth cut and sewn into proper clothes… Someone also trimmed his hair and groomed his appearance, restoring the look he had worn years ago. For a moment, old memories came flooding back in a haze. He had once meant to give a jade vase he made with his own hands to an old friend, but by the time he made up his mind, that person was already gone.

He understood it all: this body, this life, this love and hatred… even these clothes, all of it was borrowed.

He wanted to repay every debt of this life, and then breathe his last.

A sturdy pair of boots that has crossed many worlds and walked through life and death.

The nameless man followed the slave's orders and traveled to the far shore of the sky together with a companion he had only just met. His footsteps carried hatred and bewilderment, leaving their marks on countless worlds, circling again and again between life and death.

He had long forgotten the joy of creation, caring only for his hurried steps, from one battlefield to the next.

In the past he tasted the flash of countless blades, his body torn to pieces after a hundred thousand defeats, his opponent always finishing with a sword through the heart. Now the sword strokes that left a chaos of scars across his body are engraved there forever, tempered and raised higher through duels of life and death. He swings his sword to cut away the obstacles in everyone's path, falling and rising again time after time. In those moments of holding his breath and giving himself wholly to the blade, there were times when he forgot his hatred.

The slave promised a permanent ending for him and for all of his hatred: a funeral, an eternal rest. The nameless man nodded, sheathed his sword, and set out for the next world.

If a life is a journey made of footsteps, then he hopes to walk through his enemy's pool of blood before he arrives at the “final point”.