Night fell heavy on the village. The wind carried a strange scent—smoke, sweat, and iron. Dogs barked frantically, then yelped into silence.
The raid began.
Bandits poured from the forest, their torches casting the fields in crimson light. Steel flashed. Screams tore the air. Villagers scattered in terror as thatched huts burned like dry tinder.
Jin Mu woke to chaos. His foster mother shook him hard, tears streaming.
"Run, Mu! Into the hills!"
But outside, he heard it—the desperate cry of a child. High, terrified. A boy too slow to flee had stumbled in the dirt, cornered by a snarling bandit.
Jin Mu's chest heaved. His body shook. Every part of him screamed to obey—to run, to hide, to survive. He was a cripple. He was nothing.
And yet… the boy's scream tore through him.
Before he knew it, he had seized a broken hoe and sprinted into the night. His legs were weak, stumbling, yet he threw himself between the bandit's blade and the child.
Steel met wood. The hoe shattered instantly. The bandit sneered, his blade carving across Jin Mu's side. Pain exploded. Blood soaked his rags.
He fell to his knees, vision blurring. The child wailed behind him.
The bandit laughed. "A cripple playing hero? You'll die first."
Something inside Jin Mu cracked—not bone, but deeper. A pressure he had never known surged within his chest, burning, tearing. His blood boiled, his veins screamed.
And then—
Qi erupted.
It tore through his sealed meridians like a flood bursting a dam. His body convulsed, light flooding his skin, his eyes blazing with golden sparks. The air vibrated with force as raw spiritual energy poured into him.
The bandit's smirk faltered. He stumbled back, eyes wide. "Impossible…"
Jin Mu staggered to his feet. His hands shook, but no longer from weakness. Power—real power—surged in his veins. The broken hoe's splintered shaft burned in his grip, glowing faintly as qi seeped into it.
The bandit lunged. Jin Mu roared.
The wood struck like iron, shattering the man's ribs with a single blow. The bandit crumpled, coughing blood, eyes frozen in disbelief.
Jin Mu stood panting, the child clutching his leg, torches still blazing across the village. His body burned as though it would tear apart, every meridian screaming—but he was standing.
For the first time in his life, he had fought back.
For the first time, he was not powerless.
The boy looked up at him with wide, tearful eyes. "You… you saved me."
Jin Mu's chest heaved, his own blood dripping to the ground. His gaze turned to the flames devouring his home, the bandits still rampaging, the villagers screaming.
He clenched his jaw. His voice, ragged but unbroken, whispered to himself:
"This… this is only the beginning."