A month passed.
The mountains changed. What was once light snow had now grown into storms that buried trees, rocks, and even beasts alive. The air was sharp enough to cut skin, and the wind screamed like broken horns.
Inside his hut, Jiyul sat still. His body was harder, his frame sharper, his scars darker. The blood ember and the flower of Askaroth did not rest; they clashed inside him each day, forcing him to tame them again and again.
He opened his hand. The air bent. Snowflakes hanging in the hut melted in his palm, forming into a small sphere of water.
He stared at it coldly.
"Power bends when I tell it to. That's how it should be."
The hare sat near the fire, ears twitching.
Jiyul glanced at it.
"You've been here a month. You eat my food. You watch me bleed. You're still not afraid."
He flicked the sphere of water at it. The hare shook its fur, annoyed.
Jiyul smirked faintly.
"Good. At least one thing here isn't useless."
Outside, the world bent to him. Jiyul trained in the snow, bare chested, his body steaming against the storm. He lifted boulders that once weighed tons, throwing them into the air and slicing them apart with air slashes before they landed.
When he punched trees, their trunks split, collapsing into the snow. When he breathed, mist formed into faint ripples, bending the storm around him.
He stood in the center of the mountain storm and whispered
"I am not living here. The mountain is living around me."
That night, Jiyul roasted wild meat on the fire. The hare sat across from him, nose twitching.
He tore off a piece and dropped it in front of it.
"Eat. Or starve. Choice is yours."
The hare ate.
Jiyul leaned back, chewing slowly, eyes on the flames.
"Funny. I once swore I'd never feed anyone. Yet here I am, feeding a creature weaker than my sword's shadow."
He chuckled once.
"…Maybe hell froze before the mountain."
The hare sneezed again.
Jiyul tilted his head, staring coldly.
"You mock me?"
The hare hopped closer, standing near his knee.
He placed his palm on its back.
"If you were human, I'd have killed you for this. But since you're not… live a little longer."
Another week passed. Jiyul stood outside, shirtless again, training under the storm. His fists struck the ground, each blow shaking snow off nearby trees. He leapt across frozen cliffs like a shadow, his body no longer bound by weight.
The hare followed at a distance, leaving its tiny prints across the snow.
Jiyul looked back once, his eyes cold.
"…If you keep following me, you'll learn how monsters live. And if you learn that, you won't escape it."
The hare twitched its nose.
Jiyul raised his sword and cut through the air. The clouds above split for a moment, letting a single beam of sunlight pierce the storm.
He whispered to himself:
"One month. And still not enough. But enough to crush anyone who dares stand before me."
The wind carried his words into silence.
And so Han Jiyul continued one man, one sword, one hare while the mountain bent, broke, and bled around him.