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Soul Edge
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Soul Calibur 3
The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks,
They are all fire and every one doth shine,
But there's but one in all doth hold his place:
-"Julius Caesar," William Shakespeare
Once, in an age now found only in myth and long since buried in the shifting sands of time, there was a man known by the name of Olcadan. He was skilled in every kind of fighting art. His skill with weapons, in particular, could be compared with that of all heroes past and present, from East or West. He might even surpass them all.
It was a time of endless tribal warfare, and the troubled world sought a hero. But Olcadan had no interest in the affairs of the world. He found meaning in strength alone. The people were in awe of him and treated him as an eccentric, but Olcadan paid no attention to this and devoted himself entirely to honing his skills.
By the time Olcadan had reached manhood, there was no human being on earth who could challenge him. With one single exception that had ended in a draw, he could boast that he had been undefeated in the countless duels he had fought. So he turned his eyes to those with greater power--the gods. He began by hunting the great owls that were said to have been sent out so that the god of war might observe the world. By doing so, he could judge how close his ability had come to rivaling the gods. That confidence, which some would call vanity, was also backed by undeniable skill and courage. He took on the messenger of a god as an opponent and successfully defeated it.
Olcadan brought back the owl's head as proof of his victory, but the people did not extol his achievement, for they feared the wrath of the gods.
The gods' wrath came swiftly. Affected by the light of the moon and sun and the movement of the stars, Olcadan's head would transform from human to owl and back again. Upon seeing this curse, the people tried to obtain the gods' forgiveness by capturing Olcadan. Sorcerers known as the "Sages of the Oak" were sent after him. Olcadan resisted them, but they took advantage of the vow he had made in order to become strong and formulated a plan to capture him.
As Olcadan lay chained to the altar at the top of a mountain, the god of war appeared before him in the form of a headless great owl. Without a word, the god threw Olcadan down into an ancient ruin that sprawled deep beneath the earth.
"I shall give you time without end. Within this endless labyrinth, you shall realize your folly."
Much time had passed since Olcadan began wandering the sealed labyrinth in search of an exit. Time within the ruin flowed differently than in the outside world. Nothing changed, no matter what he did. He did not grow old, or hungry, or thirsty. There was nothing for him but the cold and endless corridors. Eventually, he gave up and accepted his fate, remaining in one room in the labyrinth and falling into a deep slumber.
The silence was suddenly broken. The deafening roar that shook the entire labyrinth and the great waves of power that followed were enough to wake even him. The sealed labyrinth had been opened--he could tell from the change in the way the air was flowing. The torrent of power that ran through the labyrinth in that moment must have forced open the door.
At that time, Olcadan had no way of knowing that this phenomenon was the power of the Evil Seed.
Stepping out from the labyrinth for the first time in an eternity, he learned that the world outside had changed greatly since his era. Just how much time had passed? The gods that he had once challenged had lost their power. The curse placed upon him would likely never be broken. He was not particularly troubled by this, however.
Those waves of power that had interrupted his sleep were undoubtedly the greatest power of this era. When he realized this, his body trembled with excitement.
Leaving the ruin to find the source of that power, he learned that to do anything in this world, one needed something called "money." It was a completely foreign concept to him, but if that was the way of this world, then he had no choice but to accept it. He earned an income by teaching people the fighting techniques that he himself had developed, and, over the course of several years, gradually learned about this era.
...And now, in order to restore the combat senses that had dulled over the course of his long sleep, he has once again severed all contact with the world by holing up inside the labyrinth.
He will challenge the most powerful opponent of the era. That opponent is a pair of swords. They had been young and weak in his era, but these weapons, crafted by the hands of man, now rivaled the gods...
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