Yerin. Path of the Endless Sword practitioner. Disciple of the Sword Sage.
Profile
Origin: Unknown village (destroyed by Blood Shadow) Species: Human
Stage: Lowgold
Path:
The last disciple of the Sword Sage, carrying a parasitic Blood Shadow sealed at her waist by her murdered master. She absorbed the Sword Sage’s Remnant to reach Gold, gaining a single silver blade Goldsign. Her Steelborn Iron Body grants physical power beyond her advancement stage. The records confirm she has fought the Blood Shadow’s influence since childhood.
Stage: Highgold
Path:
A Highgold practitioner who crushed her master’s Remnant to advance, choosing survival over sentiment. Training under
Stage: Highgold
Path:
A Skysworn operative who reclaimed her Blood Shadow as a weapon after it broke free during the Bleeding Phoenix’s awakening. Where she once fought to suppress it, she now deploys it as a humanoid combat clone matching her own form. The transformation from parasite to weapon is, by any measure, an act of will the records find exceptional.
Stage: Underlord
Path:
An Underlord whose revelation names the truth beneath everything: she walks her Path because she does not want to hurt anymore. Her Blood Shadow has grown intelligent enough to act independently and saved her life unbidden during her advancement. Six Goldsigns now extend from her back. The Blood Shadow’s evolution from parasite to guardian is a trajectory the records have not documented before.
Stage: Overlord Herald
Path:
The first Overlord Herald in recorded history. She merged with her Blood Shadow, Ruby, in an act that should have been impossible below Archlord. Her Overlord revelation, “I’m not him,” rejects the expectation that she must become her master’s copy to honor his legacy. Her madra now carries a blood aspect, her Goldsigns have turned scarlet, and she cannot sense the Sword Icon. The 18th Uncrowned King. The records note that no such thing as an Overlord Herald existed until she made it so.
Stage: Archlord Herald
Path:
An Archlord Herald who innovated the Phoenix Song technique: a hunger-technique fusion weaving Endless Sword cycling, blood aura, and hunger madra to drain opponents’ physical and mental strength. Her Archlord revelation strips away pretense. She practices the sacred arts to kill monsters. The records observe that she has been doing so since she was seven years old.
Stage: Monarch
Path:
A Monarch who manifested the Death Icon, a vast black scythe of flat, colorless power. The Icon is distinct from the Sword Icon she once touched and lost; it carries echoes of the Reaper’s legacy. Herald and Sage fused into one: the definition of Monarch. She ascended from Cradle alongside
Unsouled
Yerin is first encountered fighting Heaven’s Glory disciples alone in the mountains near
Yerin swears a soul oath with
Yerin absorbs her master’s Remnant and reaches Gold. A single silver blade manifests on her back, her Goldsign from the Path of the Endless Sword. She reframes everything Lindon was told about being Unsouled: “You just started two steps behind, that’s the spine of it. Nothing worth crying about.” [US Ch.20]
Soulsmith
Outside
Blackflame
The Blood Shadow’s influence is accelerating. Yerin describes the threat as “sand rushing through an hourglass,” a countdown toward losing herself entirely. The Path of the Endless Sword offers no defensive techniques: sword aura cannot shield, it can only cut. This makes her relentlessly aggressive in combat and utterly vulnerable if that aggression fails. [BF Ch.13]
Forced into a duel with Jai Long, Yerin finally crushes her master’s Remnant and advances to Highgold. Silver light blazes high enough to be visible for miles. A second Goldsign emerges alongside the first. The advancement represents more than power: she chose to let go of the last physical remnant of her master in order to survive. The Blood Shadow’s true nature is revealed: it is a fragment of a Dreadgod. Yerin has fought its influence since she was seven or eight years old. [BF Ch.19]
Skysworn
Yerin is conscripted into the Skysworn alongside
During the Bleeding Phoenix’s awakening, the Blood Shadow breaks free of its weakened seal.
Yerin’s full history with the Blood Shadow is revealed. As a child, her talent attracted a fragment of a Dreadgod. The Shadow destroyed her village and everyone in it. She held it back alone for years before the Sword Sage found her and chose her anyway, sealing the parasite at the cost of his own safety. “Everybody in town said how shiny my future was going to be. Made me stick out, even to a Dreadgod.” [SK Ch.10]
When the Phoenix’s awakening breaks the seal again,
Ghostwater
With the Blood Shadow now under her control, Yerin deploys it as an independent combatant. The clone can use a blood-tinted version of her Rippling Sword technique and acts with growing autonomy. Yerin is learning to treat it as a partner rather than a prisoner, though it still tests the boundaries of her control. [GW Ch.3]
Yerin advances to Truegold during a battle against Sophara. The trigger is a memory of her master: a cave behind a waterfall where the Sword Sage saved every stone from her failed practice cuts. His voice in the memory: “I can’t wait to see what you do tomorrow.” For the first time, Yerin deliberately deploys the Blood Shadow against a serious opponent rather than restraining it. Her Endless Sword technique is maturing: where it once produced a storm of uncontrolled cuts, it is approaching the precision of wind, leaving only a single line. [GW Ch.16]
Underlord
Yerin’s lifeline is damaged in battle, giving her roughly two months to advance or die. She trains in isolation, fighting with her sword sheathed to rely purely on Endless Sword aura manipulation. Her Steelborn Iron Body and Truegold-level Flowing Sword Enforcer technique make her physically dangerous even without a weapon in hand. [UL Ch.16]
Yerin advances to Underlord during combat with the Truegold Meira when her Blood Shadow emerges unbidden to save her life, catching a lethal strike before it connects. Her revelation: “I practice the sacred arts because I don’t want to hurt anymore.” She finds it embarrassing: “Heaven’s truth, I wish it had been about protecting people.” Six Goldsigns now extend from her back. The Blood Shadow, once a parasite that nearly consumed her, has become intelligent enough to protect its host of its own volition. [UL Ch.18]
Uncrowned
Yerin competes in the Uncrowned King Tournament as a peak Truegold (ranked 87th in the oracle-maintained combat ranking at age nineteen). She develops new capabilities during the tournament: the Final Sword, a collaborative technique designed with
During tournament combat, Yerin touches the Sword Icon for the first time, entering a state of heightened awareness where she moves on pure instinct and looks identical to the Sword Sage himself. The contact is fleeting: conscious thought breaks it, and it leaves her spirit strained. [UC Ch.16]
Wintersteel
Yerin advances to Overlord under pressure from the Winter Sage, who insists she study the Sword Sage’s example more closely. Yerin snaps: “I’m not him! Not trying to be him, am I? He would have wanted me here, so I’m here. All he wanted was to pass on his Path, and I’m going to do it if I bleed for it! But I’m NOT HIM!” Her Overlord revelation crystallizes: she is not the Sage of the Endless Sword. The most important thing about her is that she is not somebody else. [WS Ch.23]
After losing the first two fights of the tournament finals against Sophara, Yerin proposes the impossible: merging with her Blood Shadow Ruby the way Heralds merge with their Remnants. Ruby, now fully autonomous and intelligent, agrees. They clasp identical hands and pull their wills together. Years of fighting the Blood Shadow have prepared both of them perfectly for the merger: Yerin knows how to resist intrusion, Ruby knows how to push through resistance, and neither flinches. [WS Ch.25]
The Winter Sage attempts to stop the process with a Sage command. Yerin and Ruby resist together and break through. Ruby’s memories flow into Yerin: defending Lindon from dreadbeasts, Lindon holding her hand, grief that their time was too short. Then it becomes Yerin’s grief. She forges herself anew: one lock of bright red hair, Ruby’s red eyes, six Goldsigns turned vivid scarlet. Her madra now carries a blood aspect. She can no longer sense the Sword Icon at all. [WS Ch.25]
Northstrider observes: “No such thing as an Overlord Herald. Until now.” Yerin defeats Sophara three fights to two, becoming the 18th Uncrowned King. [WS Ch.25]
Bloodline
Yerin accompanies
Ruby’s influence has softened Yerin’s emotional defenses. Speaking to Lindon’s family about him, she shows a vulnerability that the old Yerin would have buried: “He doesn’t give up. If you cut off two legs and an arm, he’d fight you with one hand and his teeth.” [BL Ch.15]
During the Wandering Titan battle, Yerin deploys her Final Sword as a red-chrome energy beam wide enough to freeze the Titan’s leg, overloading her master’s sword binding to produce ice-cold light. A survival tactic, not an attack. “My list ends with me and you.” [BL Ch.19]
Reaper
Yerin meets Lindon’s parents for the first time and is visibly nervous, breathing “like facing an executioner” when Seisha examines her. She has faced Dreadgods with more composure. [RP Ch.4]
The Bleeding Phoenix targets Yerin specifically during combat, seeking to reclaim the fragment that became her Blood Shadow. Ruby briefly resurfaces in terror: Yerin’s own Goldsigns cage her as the Phoenix’s blood aura reaches for what it considers its property. The fear is absolute, and it is personal. [RP Ch.15-16]
Dreadgod
Yerin innovates the Phoenix Song technique: a hunger-technique fusion that weaves Endless Sword cycling, blood aura, and hunger madra elements. The technique creates silver-red chains that bind targets and drain their physical and mental strength without touching their madra. [DG Ch.11]
Yerin advances to Archlord. Her revelation: “To kill monsters.” Blood aura resonates through her as she destroys a Phoenix avatar and captures Red Faith’s Remnant. Three revelations trace the arc of a life: she fights because she does not want to hurt anymore, she is not a copy of her master, and she exists to kill monsters. She has been doing so since she was seven years old. [DG Ch.16]
Yerin broadcasts the truth to millions through the Dreamway network: “The Monarchs are letting the Dreadgods live.” The oath-bound trick that bypasses secrecy changes the political landscape of Cradle overnight. [DG Ch.21]
Waybound
Yerin trains in Ghostwind Hall under time acceleration, honing the Reaper’s Sword technique: an adaptation of
Yerin deploys the Phoenix Song in lethal engagements, killing Yushi (the Thunder Fairy) and capturing her Herald Remnant. Alongside
Yerin manifests the Death Icon: a vast black scythe of flat, colorless power and absence of sound. The Icon is distinct from the Sword Icon she once touched and lost after merging with Ruby. It carries echoes of the Reaper’s legacy, channeled through the Reaper’s Sword technique she mastered. As a Herald who has now manifested an Icon, Yerin reaches Monarch. [WB Ch.26]
Yerin contributes to the killing of Malice, the Akura Monarch, in the final confrontation. She and
Yerin ascends from Cradle alongside
In the series epilogue, Yerin’s red eyes are described for the first time in twelve books, the only explicit reference to her eye color in the entire series. [WB Epilogue]
Threshold
When
Yerin returned to Greenpeak, her birthplace, on a 72-hour leave from Abidan duties. She and
She visited a polished black stone memorial to the Bleeding Phoenix attack and touched two names: her parents. “Felt like the Phoenix killed everybody and his brother, but guess it was only this handful.” Redmoon Hall had been secretly maintaining Greenpeak for years in her honor. The Silent Servants arrived uninvited. Akura Charity arrived miffed. Kelsa, Seisha, and Jaran followed through a portal. Larian of the Eight-Man Empire crashed in from another continent: “Did I hear someone say something about free food?” [TH S13]
In a quiet moment, Yerin said: “Don’t have too many memories in this town. Not good ones, at least. But THIS? This feels like home.” Her final word on the gathering: “First light tomorrow, though, I’m tossing them into a portal. And I don’t care where it goes.” [TH S13]