The silk village burned.
Not with flame—but with silence.
By the time Ji Haneul climbed back to the surface, the air had changed. It no longer carried mist or dust, but ash. The dye vats had dried. The threads had all turned black and hung lifeless from the lines. Even the sky above seemed dimmer, as if light itself refused to shine on Yejin any longer.
Haneul didn't look back.
He followed the map Suon had given him, heading northwest by moonlight. His pace quickened. Each step landed more sharply than the last.
The echo of the masked man's words clung to his thoughts.
"We call it preparation."
Preparation for what?
When the trees finally parted, the Black Crane Teahouse stood in the distance—its crooked lantern still swinging in the breeze.
He entered without knocking.
But it was no longer the same.
Chairs overturned. Tables broken. No guests. No music. The woman in grey lay slumped against the kitchen wall, eyes open but vacant.
Haneul closed them gently.
He stepped through the back door, into the courtyard.
Suon was waiting.
His arm was bloodied. His robe torn. But he was alive.
Barely.
"You were right," he rasped. "Yejin was a message."
Haneul handed him the silk thread from the altar.
"They're moving again," he said. "And this time they're not erasing. They're recruiting."
Suon stared at the silk. "What did you see?"
"Nothing."
"…Nothing?"
"No rage. No ambition. Just structure. Cold and perfect."
Suon sighed. "Then it's worse than we thought."
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small cloth scroll.
"While you were gone," he said, "we found something. A report from a merchant runner who passed through four villages east of here."
He handed it to Haneul.
Unrolling the scroll revealed names.
Twenty-four of them.
Each one belonging to a minor sect or martial family.
Each marked 'Vacated.'
No signs of battle. No smoke. No blood.
Just gone.
All within the last two months.
"They're testing something," Suon said. "Perfect silence. Not even rebellion. Just disappearance."
"They're building a foundation," Haneul murmured.
"For what?"
Haneul looked out over the ridge. The land below spread like a quilt of broken memories—empty towns, scarred soil, buried blades.
He tightened the sash around his waist. The thread of black silk still hung from his scabbard.
"To find out," he said, "I need to go west."
"West?"
"Toward Gansu."
Suon blinked. "That's where the Order's root was supposed to be. But nobody's returned from that far since before the Purge."
"I'm not returning."
The two men stood for a long moment.
Then Suon smiled faintly.
"You really are the sword we forgot."
"No," Haneul said.
He turned toward the descending path.
"I'm the sword they left unfinished."
And with that, he vanished down the slope—his shadow long beneath the snow.
The Black Crane's lantern swayed behind him, still giving off its dim red light.
But it no longer warded anything.
Not anymore.