I remember the sound of rain before I died—thin, silver needles tapping on a city street. My blood spread across the concrete, and all I could think about was how quiet it felt to lose everything. Then came a voice, calm and merciless.
"You were born to rule, not to serve. Prove it."
The next breath I took burned like fire.
When my eyes opened again, the sky was red. Smoke curled in every direction. The ground beneath me wasn't asphalt but dirt soaked in blood. Bodies were strewn across the ruins of a village. Human shapes. Other shapes. Things with too many teeth.
For a moment I didn't move; the pain anchored me to the earth. Then I realized the pain was fading—my skin knitting, muscle reconnecting. I watched gashes seal themselves shut, bone straighten with a wet click.
"Regeneration…?"
My voice sounded strange—lower, stronger. I pushed myself upright, breath fogging in the burning air. Every instinct screamed run, but something colder whispered observe.
A corpse beside me twitched. Its jaw cracked open, leaking smoke and a faint growl. Reflex took over. I grabbed the nearest sword—its handle splintered, blade chipped—and swung. The head rolled away, black blood sizzling where it touched the ground.
The silence after was heavier than any scream.
I knelt beside the thing's remains. Its skin shimmered like oil; its eyes, even severed, glowed faintly. Demon. I knew the word before I said it. Somewhere inside, memories from the old world aligned with this new one.
I've seen stories like this. Hunters. Monsters. Breathing styles.
Except this wasn't fiction. The stench, the heat, the tremor in my arms—it was all too real.
"Alright," I muttered. "New world. New rules."
I tested my legs and began walking through the wreckage. Each step felt wrong and right at the same time—like I'd been rebuilt for this place. The broken sword balanced easily in my grip.
Then I heard the first human voice: a ragged cry somewhere beyond the flames.
Third-person view
From a distance, the survivor looked like a soldier of the old order—black uniform, blade with a colored edge, face streaked with ash. He stumbled toward Ryu, limping, one arm torn.
"Hey! You're alive?" the man shouted, hope cracking his tone.
Ryu said nothing. His gaze swept the man's stance, breathing pattern, exhaustion. He saw openings like marks on paper—weight distributed wrong, blade held too tight, oxygen shallow.
First-person
Old training kicked in. Not combat training, but the cold analysis I used to survive back home—reading faces, predicting outcomes. I could almost hear my heartbeat syncing to his breaths.
He's desperate. Trusting. Weak.
When he was close enough to see my eyes, he lowered his sword. "Thank the gods. The demons came out of nowhere. We need to regroup—"
The words died as my blade moved. One motion, silent. His head fell, eyes still full of relief.
I didn't feel guilt. Only calculation.
"Rule number one," I whispered. "Survive."
I stripped the corpse quickly: uniform, sword, small pouch of vials and charms. The jacket hung loose on my shoulders but it would do.
The new sword—the real weapon—hummed faintly when I drew it. A thin light ran along its edge, breathing with each pulse of my heart. I turned it in my hand, testing balance and rhythm. Every exhale made the blade shimmer brighter.
The wind shifted, carrying another sound: a rhythmic pattern of breaths from somewhere beyond the burning houses. Not random. Measured. Powerful.
Curiosity overrode caution. I crept toward it.
Through the haze, figures moved—hunters, cutting through demons with impossible grace. Each motion began and ended with a breath, their bodies flowing like wind through reeds.
I crouched behind a collapsed wall and watched.
Their style wasn't magic; it was discipline. The way they inhaled, held, exhaled—the rhythm fed power into their strikes. It wasn't strength alone but harmony between body and breath.
"So that's how they fight…"
I studied them like a scientist watching a storm. One used short, explosive breaths before each slash—speed. Another inhaled deep and slow, then struck with brute precision—strength. Each form, a different rhythm, a different purpose.
If breath fuels strength, I thought, then control the breath, control the power.
Hours blurred. Bodies fell. Eventually, only ash remained—and me, hidden in the smoke, pulse steady as a drum.
Third-person
By dawn, the fires had died. Ryu stood amid the ruins, eyes cold, mind alive with patterns. His body still healed small wounds, but his thoughts moved faster than his regeneration.
He remembered soldiers, athletes, monks from his past world—all the ways humans learned to harness oxygen, focus, adrenaline. What he'd just witnessed was the same science taken to a deadly extreme.
He inhaled experimentally. Short, sharp. The air scraped his throat but filled his limbs with heat. Then he exhaled, long and slow, grounding the tremor in his muscles. The next step felt lighter.
First-person
It wasn't perfect, but it was a start.
I called it Conqueror Breathing.
Every breath was a claim. Every inhale, an act of taking. Every exhale, a declaration that the world would bend or break before I did.
I practiced until my vision blurred. The more I focused, the more the world sharpened—colors deepening, sounds slowing. I could feel the heartbeat of the earth, faint but constant.
When the next demon crawled from the rubble, I was ready.
It lunged, claws like sickles. I drew in air, steady and deliberate, felt my pulse align with the motion, and stepped forward. The sword's edge met flesh before thought could interrupt.
The head rolled; black mist poured from the wound. I didn't flinch.
The strength wasn't supernatural—it was synchronization. Breath, intent, movement, all as one.
"Conqueror Breathing—First Form: Assertion."
The name slipped out without meaning to, but it fit.
First person
The night bled into morning, and smoke turned to fog.
I had no destination—only instinct. Every step I took was slower, quieter, more measured.
I wasn't walking anymore; I was studying. Every muscle, every breath.
Hunger bit at me, not just for food, but for understanding.
The more I breathed, the more I felt the world answer back: the weight of air, the pulse of flame still smoldering under the ashes.
I whispered the name again, letting it settle in my lungs.
"Conqueror Breathing."
Each inhale drew the world inward; each exhale returned it reshaped.
I could feel the rhythm between my heartbeat and the wind. It wasn't harmony. It was dominion.
Third person
When the fog lifted, Ryu saw them—three hunters moving through the ruins with precision. Their armor was cleaner, their eyes harder. A reconnaissance unit.
He crouched low, watching their formation: vanguard, flanker, rear guard. Perfect textbook spacing.
One of them stopped. "Movement, east sector."
The leader nodded once. "Investigate. Don't break rhythm."
Ryu's lips curved slightly. They spoke like soldiers but breathed like monks.
He let his heartbeat slow until it matched the scrape of their boots.
First person
I counted their inhalations.
Four heartbeats per step. They were using a pattern—steady, practiced, limited. Good, but predictable.
I'd spent my old life reading people. Business partners, cops, killers. Breath always gave them away.
If power comes from rhythm, I thought, then the only rule is control.
When the nearest hunter passed the corner, I moved.
No shout, no warning. Just the sound of a blade leaving its sheath.
He managed half a turn before my sword entered between his ribs. His exhale turned into a gurgle.
The others reacted instantly—disciplined, not panicked. That impressed me.
One swung; I ducked. Another lunged; I sidestepped and let my momentum carry the cut upward.
The new breathing pattern—my pattern—made everything slower, clearer.
Every inhale compressed the world; every exhale expanded my reach.
For a heartbeat, time bent.
The second hunter fell in two motions—attack, silence.
The last one hesitated, eyes flicking between his dead comrades and the stranger standing calmly amid the smoke.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
I almost told him the truth. Instead, I smiled.
"A survivor."
He charged.
I met him halfway, breathing deep, drawing the air until my chest ached.
"Conqueror Breathing—Second Form: Overtake."
I stepped through his guard, faster than instinct should allow.
Steel met flesh.
Silence again.
Third person
When it was over, Ryu stood alone, surrounded by still bodies. The fog had thinned; sunlight bled through, touching the blood on his blade until it glimmered like bronze.
He cleaned the sword methodically. No triumph, no guilt—only calculation.
The uniforms were marked with an insignia: a stylized flame inside a circle.
Their order would come looking for them. That could mean danger… or opportunity.
First person
I dragged the bodies into the ruins and studied the insignia. A symbol of authority—fear and respect wrapped in one.
If I wanted to survive here, I needed information, shelter, access to the strongest.
Infiltration was the cleanest path.
"If you can't outrun the hunters," I murmured, "become one."
I stripped one of the spare cloaks and pulled it over my shoulders. The smell of iron clung to me. Fitting.
The village lay dead behind me. Ahead, the forest stretched endless and black.
Each breath I took drew me deeper into its rhythm—trees swaying, leaves trembling, my pulse syncing to the whisper of life itself.
"Third Form…" I breathed, tasting the air, shaping it into a weapon of will.
"Assimilation."
I disappeared into the woods.
Third person
For days he followed the paths of patrols, learning their routes, their speech, their rituals.
He watched from shadows, mimicking their breathing exercises at night until he could copy their motions perfectly—then twist them into his own.
Where their breath served devotion, his served hunger.
Where theirs sought balance, his sought control.
By the time he reached the outskirts of the nearest fortress-city, Ryu's heartbeat was indistinguishable from the wind.
He looked human enough to pass inspection.
He looked calm enough to hide what he was becoming.
First person
The guards stopped me at the gate. Two of them, armored and bored.
"Name," one said.
I thought for a second. "Ryu. From the southern detachment."
They glanced at my cloak, saw the insignia, and stepped aside. Simple faith in symbols—the oldest weakness of any organization.
Inside, the city was cleaner than I expected. Stone walls, torchlight, market noise.
Ordinary life existing beside monsters.
It reminded me of home.
I kept walking, breathing slow. Every inhale drew strength; every exhale pushed fear away.
In my mind, forms were already taking shape—Fourth, Fifth, Sixth. Each one a step closer to mastery, each one a piece of the throne I intended to build.
"Conqueror Breathing isn't about killing," I whispered.
"It's about taking the right to exist."
Third person
That night, Ryu found a place among the recruits of the Hunters' Guild.
He spoke little, listened much, and practiced until dawn painted the barracks floor gold.
When he finally slept, his dreams were of breath and blood—the two currencies of every world.
And as he dreamed, the rhythm of his chest echoed through the barracks like a quiet drum.
A few men stirred, restless, their hearts matching his pulse without knowing why.
First person
Even asleep, I was learning how to command the air itself.
Breath is life, and life is obedience.
Soon, they'll all breathe the way I do.
Then this world will belong to me.