Dawn fell cold upon the kennel.
The night had ended, but no wolves howled to greet it. No captains barked commands. No chains rattled in ritual. The courtyard, once alive with hunger and madness, was still.
Still—except for corpses.
The stones were black with them. Wolves sprawled in heaps, their flesh twisted in every possible way: some foamed black from poisoned lungs, some burned hollow to ash, others tangled in strings that cut to the bone. The unlucky few bore all three marks at once. Silence hung over them like a shroud, as if even death feared to disturb the ruin.
I staggered through it, my chains dragging behind me. Each link scraped the stones, red-stained, twitching faintly as if alive. My body was weak, trembling under its own weight, but my veins…
My veins burned.
* * * * * * * * *
Wei Lan limped at my side, her laughter cracked and ragged. She spat black blood into the dirt, her lips curled in a grin despite her ruined lungs.
"Leader," she rasped, "you really did it. Hah. You… outlasted them."
Qiao Han followed, stoic as always, though his right arm was bound in strips of his own torn shirt, soaked crimson. He held his saber in his left hand, knuckles white.
"We didn't outlast anything," he said flatly. "We survived by accident."
And Shen Yu—
He crawled behind us, fingers scratching bloody spirals into the ground. His lips moved ceaselessly, whispering nonsense and prophecy alike. "Storm eats storm eats storm… wolf devours wolf… the wolf of blood devours storms—"
* * * * * * * * *
I could not answer either of them.
Because inside me, storms were screaming.
Widow's poison hissed in my lungs, every breath black and heavy.
Flame's fire burned in my marrow, searing my bones with every step.
Ghost's threads coiled in my veins, tugging at my heart.
Reed's silence gnawed at my thoughts, threatening to erase even memory.
I stumbled, coughing crimson, and the blood that fell was not mine alone. It glittered strangely, poison-black, ember-red, thread-silver. The fragments of the captains were inside me.
I pressed a shaking hand to my chest, chains rattling faintly.
They didn't die… not completely.
They had drowned in their obsessions, but their Lein had spilled with their blood. And my Blood Chains—parasitic, hungry—had drunk it all.
Widow, Flame, Ghost, Reed.
Dead in body. Alive in me.
* * * * * * * * *
Wei Lan steadied me with a bloody hand. "Leader. Your veins—look at them."
I glanced down. My skin was spiderwebbed with dark lines, glowing faintly beneath the flesh. Some veins shimmered black like poison, others flickered with ember-light, some traced silver threads, others pulsed emptily, silent.
Qiao Han's face hardened. "This isn't survival. It's infection. If you let those things spread, they'll kill you from the inside."
Shen Yu cackled, scratching his face until blood dripped down his chin. "Not infection—consummation! He eats captains, he eats storms! Wolf of blood binds chains, chains bind storms—"
* * * * * * * * *
I sank to my knees among the corpses. My chest convulsed, my body wracked with coughs that tore fire and venom up my throat. My chains lashed violently, stabbing into the dirt as if trying to anchor me.
If I do nothing, I'll drown like them.
Widow's poison would rot me from inside. Flame's fire would turn my marrow to ash. Ghost's threads would strangle my heart. Reed's silence would erase my will.
But… if I bound them—
If I forged chains around their storms—
Then they would not consume me. I would consume them.
* * * * * * * * *
I cut my palm with my own chains. Blood dripped into the dirt, hissing as if alive. The fragments inside me stirred violently, sensing the offering.
I let the blood pool, then thrust my chains into it. Links sank into the gore, then coiled back into me, dragging fragments of storm along with them.
My body seized.
Widow's poison roared first, flooding my veins. Black mist poured from my mouth, searing my lungs. My skin blistered with venom that wasn't mine. I clawed at the ground, but chains lashed tight, refusing to let go.
Wei Lan shouted something—I couldn't hear. Qiao Han tried to pull me back, but my chains struck the ground, keeping him away. Shen Yu howled laughter, chanting nonsense.
* * * * * * * * *
The storm filled me.
For an instant, I saw Widow's eyes: black and gleaming, her smile dripping venom. Her voice echoed through my skull. "Poison lingers. Poison kills. Poison drowns."
Her storm pressed into me, demanding to be master. My blood chains rattled in fury.
I clenched my teeth, forcing breath after breath.
Not your storm. Mine.
I bled harder, chains tightening. Slowly, they coiled around the poison, binding it. Link by link, they dragged Widow's obsession into shape. Not a storm, not a flood—just a fragment, shackled in blood.
My veins burned, but the black lines steadied, settling into crimson chains veined with poison.
* * * * * * * * *
I gasped, collapsing forward. My mouth still tasted of venom, but I was alive.
The storm was bound.
I raised my trembling hand. Chains slithered from my palm, crimson and glistening. From their edges dripped faint black drops—venomous, lethal.
Wei Lan's eyes widened, then she laughed until she coughed more blood. "Leader… you… you stole her storm! Poison… in your chains…"
Qiao Han's gaze was grim. "You've bound it. But how many more can you hold before it tears you apart?"
Shen Yu pressed his bloody fingers against the ground, whispering frantically. "Wolf eats poison. Wolf eats fire. Wolf eats silence. Wolf eats the world."
* * * * * * * * *
I closed my fist, the chains shivering back into my blood. My chest still burned, but I could breathe again.
One fragment down. Three storms left.
But now I knew it was possible.
I had refined poison into my Blood Dao.
* * * * * * * * *
The corpses around me were silent. No captain stirred, no wolf rose. Only I remained, trembling, dripping crimson chains veined with poison.
"The kennel drowned in storms," I whispered hoarsely. "But I will not drown. I'll build a Dao from their storms. Widow, Flame, Ghost, Reed… you are mine now."
My chains rattled in answer.
And for the first time since the massacre, I smiled.
* * * * * * * * *
The poison had been shackled.
But shackles were not enough.
My body was still weak, the body of a wolf barely above the common men of Murim. I could not carry storms with these brittle bones, this frail marrow, this bleeding heart. If I tried to bind all fragments like Widow's, my vessel would crack and collapse.
So the only path forward was pain.
I had to forge my body into a vessel strong enough to carry storms.
* * * * * * * * *
Wei Lan leaned against a toppled column, knives clattering beside her. Her lips were cracked, but her grin was wider than ever. "Leader… what now? We're alive. Barely. Do we crawl away and lick our wounds?"
Qiao Han shook his head before I could answer. His voice was steady despite the blood soaking his bandages. "No. If he does nothing, those storms will eat him alive. If he trains, maybe he lives. That's all there is."
Shen Yu giggled, scratching spirals into the corpse-stained stones. "Forge body. Forge chains. Forge wolf. Storm in veins… storm in bones."
They were right.
I had no choice.
* * * * * * * * *
I stripped the torn cloth from my arms, letting the cold wind sting fresh wounds. Then I faced the nearest wall of the ruined courtyard. It was cracked from Flame's final blaze, stone blackened and brittle.
I clenched my fists. Chains rattled faintly inside me, itching to lash out. But I forced them still. This wasn't about Lein. It was about flesh.
I struck the wall.
The stone bit back, cutting my knuckles raw. Blood sprayed, but I hit again. And again. Each blow sent shocks through my weak bones, each strike threatening to shatter me.
Wei Lan cackled. "You'll break yourself before you strengthen anything!"
But I did not stop.
Blood dripped from my fists. Chains within me hissed in agitation, responding to each crack of bone. My marrow screamed as fire fragments flared, searing through my skeleton. Threads tightened around my heart. Silence pressed into my mind.
Every fragment inside me clawed to break free.
* * * * * * * * *
I struck harder.
The wall finally cracked wider, stone shattering under my fists. My arms shook violently, blood pouring down to my elbows, but my bones had not broken. Not yet.
Qiao Han stepped forward, his expression hard. He seized a fallen timber beam, charred but solid, and set it before me. "Lift it. Carry until you collapse. If you want your body to be a vessel, then make it one."
I stared at the beam. It was heavier than a wolf's corpse, heavier than my trembling body could bear.
But I bent, gritted my teeth, and raised it onto my shoulders. My legs buckled instantly. The beam crashed down, bruising me, almost snapping bone.
Wei Lan whistled mockingly. "Hah! Some vessel. A cracked cup, more like."
I didn't answer. I tried again.
The second time, my chains coiled around my muscles, steadying them. With their support, I lifted the beam. My veins screamed with borrowed poison and fire, but I carried it. I staggered through the courtyard, across the corpses of wolves, until I fell.
And then I rose again.
* * * * * * * * *
By the time the sun set, my body was broken. My fists were raw flesh, my shoulders swollen black, my back bleeding where the beam had crushed me. I could barely crawl.
But I could still breathe.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
Twenty-one.
I had measured before. In the massacre, I had survived nineteen breaths before collapse. Now, with poison bound and my body tempered in pain, I reached twenty-one before falling to my knees.
Each breath was agony. My veins hissed with venom, fire scorched marrow, threads pulled tighter, silence threatened to erase thought. But my chains bound them, breath after breath.
Wei Lan sat cross-legged nearby, her grin sharp as ever. "You're insane, leader. But if pain makes you stronger, then break yourself. I'll watch."
Qiao Han tended her wounds with cold precision, though his eyes never left me. "If this is the path, then take it. But don't lose yourself before you finish walking it."
Shen Yu rocked back and forth, blood dripping from his bitten lips. "Twenty-one… twenty-one… storm devours storm devours storm… wolf of twenty-one breaths…"
* * * * * * * * *
Night fell.
I sat in the ruins, my body cracked but alive, my chains restless within me. Widow's venom fragment pulsed faintly in the blood-links. The others still writhed unbound: Flame's embers, Ghost's threads, Reed's silence.
They gnawed at me, whispering promises and threats. If I ignored them, they would consume me.
But I smiled through blood and pain.
Because now I knew.
I had bound one storm.
I had carried twenty-one breaths.
I had taken the first step of cultivation.
* * * * * * * * *
"The kennel drowned in storms," I whispered to my wolves, voice hoarse but certain. "But I… I'll devour storms. Poison, fire, threads, silence. Even if I bleed to death, I'll bind them. I'll make their storms mine."
The chains rattled in agreement, crimson links veined with faint black venom.
Wei Lan's laughter rang like broken bells. Qiao Han bowed his head in silent acknowledgement. Shen Yu howled nonsense at the sky.
And I closed my eyes, bleeding, trembling, but alive.
Not a wolf of the kennel.
Not a captain's shadow.
Something new.
The wolf of blood.
The wolf of storms.
The wolf of the Blood Dao.