The mountains stretched in silence.
Wind crawled through blackened ridges, carrying the faint stink of ash and rot from where the Lotus Kennel had once stood. The storm of captains, wolves, and slaughter had ended, but its echoes still lingered in the marrow of the land. The rivers ran slower, as if mourning, and the earth felt scorched from within.
Xuan walked those paths with three shadows trailing behind him.
Wei Lan limped on her left leg, still clutching her knives. Her usual smirk was dull, worn thin by exhaustion. Qiao Han walked without sound, face impassive, back straight even though blood seeped through his bandages. Shen Yu muttered to himself at the rear, laughing at jokes only he could hear.
For days, none of them spoke of the kennel.
The silence weighed more than screams.
* * * * * * * * *
One evening, as the red dusk bled across the horizon, they stopped by a rocky outcrop. A stream trickled weakly nearby, its waters murky, as though poisoned by the storms of battle.
Wei Lan sat with a grunt, pulling her knives from their sheaths and laying them flat across her lap. She polished them in silence, each stroke sharp against the quiet. Finally, she broke it with words that Xuan had known were coming.
"Leader," she said, her tone bitter but unshaken, "you're walking a road we can't follow."
Xuan did not look at her. He sat with his back against the rock, eyes half-closed, chains coiling faintly beneath his skin. "I know."
Wei Lan gave a short laugh. Not mocking, not cruel — almost tender in its roughness. "You're colder than you used to be. Colder than the kennel made us. But…" She trailed off, staring at her reflection in the blade. "…you're still kinder than this world deserves. That's why we'll leave now, before your kindness kills us."
* * * * * * * * *
Qiao Han straightened, the firelight from their meager camp catching his pale features. He bowed once, not as a subordinate but as a fellow warrior.
"Leader," he said evenly, "you carried us further than any other would have. But the Blood Dao is solitude. Your path is yours alone. To follow it is to be consumed."
His voice did not waver. It was the calm of a man who had already made his decision.
Shen Yu chuckled, his head tilting at unnatural angles. He scratched a circle into the dirt with a broken branch, his muttering rising into words.
"The lone wolf devours the storm… and the storm devours the lone wolf. Hah! A circle, endless! We are wolves, not circles. We leave before the circle swallows us whole."
He tossed the branch into the stream, laughing at the ripples as though they confirmed his prophecy.
* * * * * * * * *
Xuan opened his eyes at last.
He saw Wei Lan's guarded softness, Qiao Han's steady resignation, Shen Yu's madness that somehow rang with truth.
He did not argue. Did not beg. Did not try to hold them with chains.
He only nodded once. "Go, then. Better you leave than die beside me."
Wei Lan's smirk returned for a heartbeat, though her eyes shone with something unspoken. She slipped her knives back into their sheaths and stood.
Qiao Han gave another bow, sharp as a blade, and turned away without hesitation.
Shen Yu danced off into the trees, singing a lullaby to no one.
And just like that, the pack was gone.
* * * * * * * * *
The fire crackled. The stream whispered. Xuan sat alone.
His chains stirred inside him, restless and heavy. They seemed to mourn more than he did, whispering with the storms he had devoured — poison, fire, silence, threads. But the voices of comrades were gone.
He touched his chest lightly, where once warmth had lingered. It was cold now.
So this is it, he thought. The Dao of Blood. The path of one. Even if I grow cold, I cannot erase the kindness of the boy I once was. And that kindness will haunt me, because it leaves me alone.
His lips curled faintly, a ghost of a smile. "Kindness… what a foolish chain."
He rose and walked.
* * * * * * * * *
For three days he wandered.
Through valleys where ash still clung to branches. Through ridges where wolves once howled but now only silence ruled. Through rivers where blood had once run, now diluted into brownish streams.
Each step felt heavier than battle. Each night was quieter than death.
But Xuan did not stop. He carried storms within him. To halt was to drown.
* * * * * * * * *
On the fourth evening, the sun dipped low, spilling gold across the river's surface. Xuan stumbled down a slope, his body ragged, his chains rattling faintly beneath his skin.
At the riverbank, he saw her.
* * * * * * * * *
She was kneeling by the water, robes pale as moonlight, sleeves trailing in the current as she filled a clay jar. Her hair spilled down her back like black silk, untouched by dust or ash. The breeze carried a faint fragrance around her, subtle but impossible to ignore.
To Xuan, she looked like a fragment torn from a dream — something this blood-soaked land should not have allowed to exist.
She looked up as he approached, and her eyes softened in surprise.
A smile touched her lips, warm and gentle.
"You look as though the world has left you behind," she said, her voice calm, musical. "Come — let me give you rest."
* * * * * * * * *
Xuan froze. His instincts screamed caution. His chains stirred violently beneath his skin, as though sensing something unfathomable about her. She carried no storm — no Lein, no echo of captain's power. And yet… she felt endless.
He narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
She tilted her head, amused by his suspicion. "A traveler. Nothing more. And you?"
Xuan's voice was flat. "…A man who lost his pack."
Her eyes flickered with quiet understanding. She rose gracefully, jar of water in her hands, and stepped closer. The chains beneath his skin writhed — but she didn't flinch.
"You don't have to tell me more," she said softly. "Come. You're hurt, aren't you? Rest under my roof. The storms can rage outside. For tonight, let me be your shelter."
* * * * * * * * *
Xuan stared at her for a long moment.
Then, exhausted, he nodded once.
She turned, leading him along the river path. He followed, silent, his chains rattling faintly, his mind torn between suspicion and a strange warmth he had thought long buried.
For the first time since the kennel, for the first time since blood consumed his world, Xuan walked not toward storms — but toward a roof.
* * * * * * * * *
The hut was small.
Wooden walls leaned slightly with age, roof patched with straw, herbs hanging from the rafters. Yet it breathed of quiet care — no dust, no decay, every surface kept clean by a hand that had lingered here long enough to tame time itself.
Xuan stood at the threshold, chains restless beneath his skin. His instincts screamed at him: no place is safe, no kindness is without price. But the woman simply set her clay jar down, her movements unhurried, serene.
"Sit," she said, gesturing to a low stool near the fire pit. "You've walked far."
Xuan did not move. His eyes narrowed, scanning every corner, every shadow.
The woman chuckled lightly. "Suspicious even when you can barely stand? You must have lived in storms too long."
Her words cut sharper than she knew. He had lived in storms, consumed by them, and now carried them bound in his blood. Yet here she was, teasing him as though he were a sulking child.
Finally, he stepped inside.
* * * * * * * * *
She busied herself with simple tasks — laying herbs in boiling water, breaking dried roots into broth, tearing flatbread into bowls. Xuan watched her hands, noting their grace. No scars. No calluses. They were not the hands of a fighter.
And yet…
When she moved, the air itself seemed to bend subtly. Not storm, not Lein, but something deeper. A stillness that was not silence but eternity. His chains trembled faintly, recognizing what his mind could not.
* * * * * * * * *
She placed the bowl before him.
"Eat."
Xuan looked down at the broth — bitter herbs, but warm. His body screamed for sustenance, yet his pride resisted.
The woman tilted her head. "You look at soup like it's poison."
He raised an eyebrow. "How do you know it isn't?"
"Because," she said, her smile widening just slightly, "if I wanted you dead, you'd already be ash."
The casual certainty in her voice chilled him more than any threat. Yet it was not arrogance — it was simply truth, spoken gently.
Xuan lowered his gaze and drank.
* * * * * * * * *
For the first time in years — perhaps lifetimes — food warmed him. Not stolen rations, not blood, not scraps torn from enemies, but something made with quiet care.
The woman sat across from him, sipping her own bowl. She did not interrogate him. Did not ask his name, his past, his scars.
She only spoke of the river.
"The waters here are strange. Sometimes they run swift, sometimes they seem to freeze though no frost touches them. Once, I saw fish leap as though fleeing something unseen. Do you believe rivers can have moods?"
Xuan stared at her, caught between suspicion and bewilderment. No one in Murim spoke like this. No captain, no wolf. Only poets and madmen.
"…Rivers drown," he said flatly.
She laughed, soft and melodic. "Then perhaps this one is kind. It has carried me long and never drowned me."
Her smile was disarming, dangerously so.
Xuan looked away, muttering, "You speak as though storms don't exist."
"Do they?" she asked. "Or do men call them into being?"
He did not answer.
* * * * * * * * *
Night fell.
She laid a mat for him by the hearth. He sat in meditation instead of sleep, chains coiling inside him, storms whispering with poison, fire, silence, and threads. Yet the air of the hut pressed against them, stilling them faintly. His blood did not seethe as violently.
For the first time since the kennel, he closed his eyes without hearing screams.
When he woke at dawn, she was already outside, tending to herbs by the river.
* * * * * * * * *
Days passed in strange peace.
Xuan repaired the hut's roof, gathered firewood, fetched water. She cooked, brewed medicines, spoke little but always with warmth. To outsiders, it would seem like an ordinary companionship — a traveler and a hermit sharing shelter.
But to Xuan, it was unbearable.
Not because of discomfort — but because of how easy it felt. He had lived too long in storms. To be treated simply as a man unsettled him more than blades at his throat.
* * * * * * * * *
On the fifth day, intruders came.
A band of rough men in wolf-embroidered garb — remnants of a lesser sect, perhaps scavengers hunting survivors of the kennel. Their footsteps crushed the grass as they approached the hut, blades glinting.
Xuan's chains rattled beneath his skin, hungry. He rose silently, prepared to strike.
But the woman stepped out before him.
* * * * * * * * *
The bandits sneered at her. "Move aside, girl. We've heard rumors of a survivor hiding in these woods. Hand him over, or—"
She raised her hand.
No storm flared. No Lein manifested.
The men froze mid-step. Their eyes widened — then dulled. One by one, they collapsed soundlessly into the grass, unconscious.
The woman brushed her sleeve, as if shooing away dust. She turned back to Xuan, smiling gently.
"They'll wake in a day. I suggest we move deeper into the forest before then."
* * * * * * * * *
Xuan stared at her, chains writhing violently inside his blood. What he had seen was not storm, not any power of Murim. It was something beyond — effortless, infinite, and terrifying.
Yet her eyes were calm.
She saw him not as a wolf, not as a cultivator, not as a devourer of storms. Only as a man standing silently in her doorway.
"Rest," she said softly. "The world is full of storms. For a time, let me be your roof."
* * * * * * * * *
Xuan lowered his gaze.
He did not trust her. Could not. And yet, something in his chest loosened — a knot he had thought eternal.
For the first time since solitude became his Dao, he allowed himself to sit beneath another's shelter.