I'm In Love With My Possessed Demon Sword

A new fantasy tale for your enjoyment

Today, I’m excited to announce a brand-new story for your reading pleasure, I’m In Love With My Possessed Demon Sword!

You may recall its beginnings as one of the three warm-up stories I introduced last year. And through an exhaustive vote-counting process, it ended up comfortably in third place.

3 new stories, 3 worlds to explore

However, sometimes the muse works in mysterious ways, and so two months ago, the outline of the story formed in my mind unexpectedly. So I took a brief pause from the NYC Questing Guild series to write this from start to finish, and then work out the publishing plan.

As I mentioned last week, you’ll get to follow along as I release this story into the wider world. But first, what the heck is this story about?

Mati was a typical blacksmith’s apprentice, until the fateful day he discovered a long-lost demon sword hidden in a cave near his village.

To make matters more complicated, inside the sword is the trapped soul of a girl named Lyra from hundreds of years ago.

Despite having never left his valley and barely able to lift the smith’s hammer, Mati vows to help gather the eight crystals needed to free Lyra. 

Now, many years later, the duo are near the end of their journey, and Mati has rather inconveniently fallen in love with the disembodied voice of the girl he has never met. 

But with the fateful day approaching, will Mati be able to muster up the courage to not only secure the last crystal, but also confess his true feelings to Lyra?

In terms of inspiration, think Inuyasha with a dash of Secret of Mana. And rather starting at the beginning of Mati’s journey, we are joining right at the end.

Before we get to the start of the story, here’s how this is going to work.

I’ll be releasing a new chapter every day, starting today, on Royal Road. (If you’ve never heard of Royal Road, it’s a site with tons of web novels and ongoing serials, with progression fantasy, isekai, and LitRPG among the most popular genres).

You’ll be able to read each new chapter for free on Royal Road from now until Peter Jackson options the film rights. Once the story is fully up on Royal Road, I’ll be offering an ebook version on my website, Amazon, and other online bookstores.

Just how long is this story? I’m still not telling. As I said last week, I want readers who are here from the start to be surprised all along the way. And that includes not knowing when it will end.

I encourage you to follow the story on Royal Road, so you’ll get notified when the next chapter drops, and favorite it so other readers can find it. You can also comment on each chapter with your reaction, feedback, theories, or whatever else strikes you, and I’ll do my best to respond to each comment.

So without further ado, let’s meet Mati and Lyra!

“That was a nice fight back there,” said the dispossessed voice of my demon sword. “I especially liked when that idiot charged at you and you sliced off his pants instead of his legs.”

“That’s the part you liked?” I said to myself. After eight long years, I still felt a bit weird talking out loud to no one. But despite the sword having no ears, somehow it, or rather, she, was still able to hear my voice. “You were screaming for me to run him through. And you burned my hand when I didn’t!”

“Yes, well, Mati. Sometimes in the moment you don’t appreciate the humor in things. I am, after all, an 18-year old girl trapped inside of a life force-draining blade cast in the fires of the Hellfire Forge by your great-great-great-great-great grandfather. I usually-”

I sheathed the sword into the leather scabbard attached to my belt buckle before she could continue with her long diatribe, and continued down the hill to the small town that intersected the river. In my wake were a dozen bodies of bandits from the nearby Choras Mountains, who had troubled the peaceful village for many years. 

But no longer. I had seen to that.

Or, more accurately, Lyra and I had ruthlessly dispatched the grizzled, bearded, horseback-riding raiders in the span of a few minutes. Such was the power that I channeled from Hauteclere, the simple-looking blade that I had found so many years ago in a long-forgotten cave at the edge of my town. 

However, it was anything but simple.

The sun had nearly set when I reached the gates of Alget, and the silence had been sufficient, so I drew the blade free once more.

“Rude,” said Lyra’s voice in my ears. “You should be thanking me, not silencing me.”

“I thank you after every battle,” I whispered, spotting the “captain” of the town guard approaching, “by not chucking you into the nearest body of water.”

The hilt of the sword again lit up like a small match, and I uttered a quick “sorry” before my partner went quiet again. 

“It is done,” I said to the man, who looked pretty embarrassed to have his town saved by someone who had only drank two ales in his life.

“Thank you, Mati the Hairless,” said the captain, using the derogative that had spread through this valley over the past few years. Evidently the rough-and-tumble men here did not like being upstaged by a Heckran like me. I couldn’t blame them. If a scrawny kid showed up in my town after vanquishing the local goblin clan, my dad would have been pissed too.

“You’re welcome, Captain Ozzlop,” I said, resisting the urge to chide him for his rudeness. “Now that the matter of the bandits is settled, I believe you have a piece of parchment for me.”

“See, here’s the thing,” said the man, scratching the back of his head with one hand, while moving the other to his belt. “The village elder told us under no circumstance should we ever hand that over to anyone. Not even if Mephizesque himself showed up to kill us all. ‘We should all perish by the flames than surrender the Pergamon,’ he always says. Me, I’m not as idealistic.”

He withdrew a small dagger that was clipped to his side and pointed it somewhat menacingly at me.

“No one asked for your help,” he said. “Me and the boys, we had a good deal going with the bandits. We let them pillage a bit, maybe abscond with a few of the more striking but annoying women for a fortnight. In exchange, we get a cut of their loot, we get to play the hero now and again, and more importantly, we get a purpose.”

“Wow, this guy is an asshole,” said Lyra. 

“And then you came along. Decided you had to be the hero. And to boot, you want the Pergamon fragment. That’s a bargain I never agreed to. So, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to come into the village, battered and bruised, and tell everyone that you failed. That the bandits are still out there and now they’re pissed.”

“Do I look battered and bruised?” I said. “And that’s a ridiculous plan. You’re just going to pretend the bandits are still out there? You want to fight ghosts?”

“Plenty of my men would gladly leave this dump of a village to become the new bandits. Hell, I would join them if I could. But, you know, appearances to maintain, etc.”

“Yes, of course. I know all about the importance of a reputation. Maybe mine has not preceded me. So let me tell you. I’ve cleared the Sunken Forest of the elder spider yokai, slain the frost giants of the Jurten Pass, exorcised more spirts than I can count, and on top of that, saved an entire city from the demigod Drakon in an afternoon. Do you think I’m scared of a low-born brute such as yourself? Please.”

“Bluster on top of bluster,” said the captain. “Your arms are barely big enough to lift your precious sword. Which I’ll be taking after I’m done with you, by the way.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“You’re going to stop me? That’s a good one! Now that I can’t spar with Marco, I guess I’ll have some fun with you.”

Ozzlop whipped the dagger at me in a sidearm motion, but Lyra was faster, pulling my sword arm up in a flash to easily deflected the attack. The captain tried to hide his shock, but I could see the desperation creeping into his face. Like so many before him who had underestimated me, he was about to get a cold dose of reality.

“What’s next?” I asked.

“Shut your mouth, whelp,” he replied, unhooking the rather large axe from his back. “I was just gonna bloody you a bit, but now you’ve pissed me off. I think I’ll take one of your ears as a trophy.”

“Good luck with that,” I said. 

The man charged at me with a scream, spittle flying from his mouth. 

“Deflect or dodge?” I whispered.

Lyra’s energy flowed out of the sword again, and time slowed. I waited for what seemed like an eternity for the captain to arrive a few feet in front of me, before stepping aside. The world returned to its normal state when I did, and Ozzlop was surprised to find only air when he brought his axe down on what should have been my head. Instead, the head of his weapon plunged into the damp soil, where it became stuck. As the captain tried in vain to pull the axe free, I took the liberty of knocking his legs out from under him, sending him sprawling to the ground.

“Are you quite done?” I asked, holding Hauteclere to Ozzlop’s neck.

“Fark you!” he said, before spitting in my face.

“No thanks,” I said. “Now, who in the village can I see about the Pergamon fragment? You mentioned the elder?”

“No one’s giving you anything, as long as I’m around,” the captain replied. 

“Well, then, I guess we have our solution.”

I raised the sword up with two hands, ready to plunge it into the man’s underbelly, but he finally relented.

“Please,” he said. “Don’t. I’ll give you what you want.”

I paused for a moment, trying to pierce through his words to see if he was being genuine. But it only took a second to me to realize that he was full of crap, as I spotted the remainder of the town guard reflected in my blade, creeping up behind me.

I turned around and was met with a dozen grizzled men, weapons drawn, looking to their captain in disbelief that he had been bested by the young, scrawny boy.

“You’re done,” said Ozzlop. “Even with a mystical sword, you can’t beat all of us. For we are the Raiders of Choras!”

“Hooo-ah!” the men yelled in response, and the captain smiled as I backed away from him. The group quickly formed a circle around me, bloodlust in their eyes, as if they couldn’t wait to tear me limb from limb.

“Show them who you are,” said Lyra, quietly. “My power is yours, Mati.” 

Read the rest of chapter 1 by pressing the button below. I’ll be updating this post when each new chapter hits as well.

Are you excited to read along daily? Or will you come back when it’s done? Let me know what you think of the experiment by leaving a comment.