Chapter 2
The village of Wutai was the kind of place people came to disappear.
Buried between fog-thick forests and steep cliffs, it never appeared on maps. No traveler came twice. No guards patrolled. Only the scent of pine and damp earth marked its boundaries, like nature itself was protecting something—or hiding it.
For Shen Rui, it was a cage and a lifeline all at once.
Three days had passed since the stranger saved him. Her name, he eventually learned, was Yan Zhi. She spoke little, moved like a ghost, and sharpened her blades every morning before the sun rose. Her home—a hut built from blackwood and iron nails—was too quiet, too precise.
She wasn't a healer.
She was something else.
"You're not from here," Rui said on the fourth day, breaking the silence as she wrapped new gauze over his ribs.
"No," she replied without looking at him.
"You a rogue cultivator?"
"No."
"Then what are you?"
She pressed the bandage tighter than necessary. "Alive."
Rui hissed, leaning away. "That makes two of us."
Yan Zhi's eyes finally met his. "Barely."
Later, when she left to hunt, Rui limped outside for the first time.
Wutai was smaller than he imagined. Maybe thirty huts, a crooked shrine, and a well at the center. Children played barefoot in the mud, and old men whittled wood with faraway looks in their eyes. No one asked who he was. But he felt their stares linger like smoke.
A boy ran past him with a wooden sword, shouting, "I'm the Dragon Guardian! No evil sect dares to touch me!"
Rui's heart tightened. The words hit like a memory.
Once, he said the same thing.
He sat beneath a half-dead tree and closed his eyes, letting the wind rush over him. The dragon pulse still buzzed faintly in his chest—powerful but untamed. Dangerous.
He could feel it calling for release.
For war.
That night, dreams came.
But not his own.
He stood in the ruins of the Azure Dragon Sect. Ash rained from the sky like snow. Fires crackled in every direction. He walked barefoot through the courtyard where he once trained—and saw corpses.
Children.
Disciples.
Elders.
All burned.
All dead.
At the center of it stood a shadow cloaked in black flame. Its face was his—but older. Eyes gold and bleeding. A twisted smirk carved into its features.
"You unlocked me," the shadow said.
"I didn't mean to."
"You always meant to. You just needed pain as permission."
Rui backed away. "This isn't real."
The shadow tilted its head. "Not yet."
It reached forward—and touched his chest.
Rui screamed as the pulse flared.
He woke drenched in sweat, the sheets stuck to his skin, his fingers shaking uncontrollably. His breath came in sharp gasps.
Someone was outside.
He heard it. Not footsteps, not breathing—but something else.
Watching.
He grabbed the dagger Yan Zhi left on the windowsill and stepped silently outside.
The moon was high.
Fog curled across the village paths like lazy ghosts.
And standing on the far rooftop—barefoot, cloaked, unmoving—was a man.
No.
Not a man.
Its presence was wrong. Hollow. Like a body stretched around something that didn't belong.
The thing tilted its head slowly, impossibly, then vanished into smoke.
Rui stared for a long time.
Then turned and saw symbols carved into his doorframe.
Five sigils. Ancient. Bleeding black.
Blood Seeker Marks.
Yan Zhi returned just before dawn, dragging two boars behind her.
She dropped them without ceremony, then froze when she saw the markings.
"Where were you?" Rui asked.
"Hunting."
"You know what this is?" he pointed.
"Yes."
"And?"
She looked him dead in the eye. "It's a message."
"What kind of message?"
Yan Zhi walked past him, set her blade down, and said flatly, "You've been marked."
Rui felt his stomach sink. "Marked for what?"
"For death," she said. "Or recruitment."
"By who?"
Yan Zhi's expression didn't change. "By whatever's been feeding on rogue cultivators for the last ten years."
Later that day, Rui helped her butcher the boars in silence.
Blood soaked the chopping board. The iron scent reminded him of the altar.
He looked at her hands. Steady. Unbothered.
"How do you know so much?" he finally asked.
Yan Zhi didn't stop cutting. "Because they came for me once."
"And?"
"I killed them."
Rui watched her for a moment. "You're not a nobody."
"No," she said. "But I'm nobody's disciple."
That line hit harder than it should've.
As night fell, Rui sat alone outside the hut, dagger on his lap, staring at the horizon.
He thought of Hai Yunjin.
Of Jiang Fei.
Of every elder who turned their back on him.
Of every lie he swallowed like it was honor.
He gripped the dagger tighter.
And then—footsteps.
Someone was approaching.
Not from the path. Not from the village.
From the woods.
Rui stood, slow and tense.
Branches cracked.
And then a girl stumbled into the clearing, blood covering her face, her eyes wide with terror.
"They're coming," she gasped. "The monks. The ones with no mouths—"
Before she could finish, her body convulsed—and collapsed into ash.
Rui stared in horror.
From the trees, cloaked figures stepped forward. Silent. Featureless. Mouthless.
Their hands glowed with dark fire.
And they were looking straight at him.
Rui didn't run. He didn't beg. He raised the dagger, pulse roaring in his veins, and he said put loud
"If you're here for the last disciple… then be ready with what comes with it."