The wind in the Shanxi pass did not blow; it howled, a predatory scream that tore through the pine needles and whipped the falling snow into a blinding white shroud.
Yul staggered through the drift.
His left shoulder was a raw, burning void where Min’s sword had torn the flesh. His right hand was tucked tightly into his chest, his fractured fingers swollen, purple, and locked in a rigid, agonizing claw. Every step was an exercise in pure survival.
‘Body temperature dropping,’ Yul thought, his mind sluggishly processing the data. ‘Blood loss... moderate but continuous. Left lung... restricted. Rib bruised from the fall.’
He had escaped the Ma Clan estate, but the mountain pass was a different kind of executioner. His seven-year-old body, stunted by years of malnutrition and the lingering rot of the Red-Thread Venom, was rapidly shutting down. The freezing cold, which had once been his shield, was now a weight pressing him into the earth.
He didn't have months to heal. He didn't even have hours. If he stopped moving, the frost would claim him before dawn.
Up ahead, the narrow trail dipped into a shallow ravine. Through the swirling white curtain, a flicker of orange light danced against the stone face of the cliff.
A campfire.
Yul slowed his pace, his boots sinking deep into the powder. He pressed his back against a cold rock face, forcing his breathing to slow, trying to suppress the ragged, wet gasp in his throat.
‘Who?’
He knew Ma Min was an observer. Min didn't do things rashly. If Min had planned to corner Yul at the western gate, he wouldn't have relied entirely on his own sword. He was the type to keep a safety net.
Yul peeked around the stone.
Three men huddled around a small fire built beneath a rocky overhang. They wore heavy, grease-stained leather coats over iron-plated brigandine armor. Beside them lay thick, broad-headed sabers and heavy crossbows.
These were not Ma Clan disciples. Their posture was loose, their faces scarred, and their breath smelled of cheap millet wine and roasted salt-meat.
"The storm is getting worse," one of the men grunted, his voice thick with a northern dialect. "Are you sure the Fourth Young Master said the brat would come this way? A kid wouldn't survive three miles in this without freezing to death."
"Min pays well," the second man, a scarred mercenary with a lazy eye, replied. He spat into the fire. "He said if the brat escapes the estate, he'll use the western pass. We bring the head, we get the rest of the silver. Simple."
"What if the kid is already dead in a drift?" the third asked.
"Then we find the corpse and cut the head off anyway."
Yul’s chest tightened.
Ma Min’s backup plan. Mercenaries from the outer districts. They weren't martial masters, but they were grown men, hardened by mountain life, fully armed, and warm.
Yul looked down at his broken right hand. He couldn't hold his rusted dagger with it. His left arm was stiff from the deep shoulder wound, the blood already freezing his sleeve to his skin.
‘Three targets. Two crossbows. One fire.’
His mind automatically began to construct a strategy.
‘They expect a frightened child. Or a corpse. They do not expect an assassin.’
But as Yul tried to map out a swift, three-step execution—a dash to the first, a throat-slit to the second, a throw to the third—his body revolted. A violent fit of coughing bubbled up in his chest. He barely managed to swallow the blood that rose in his throat, his knees buckling.
Too weak.
He couldn't fight them physically. Even a single strike from their heavy sabers would split his small, fragile frame in half. His muscles were torn, his stamina depleted. He had to make them defeat themselves.
Yul closed his eyes. He reached into his memory for the fundamental principles of the Breath of the Frozen Void scripture he had memorized.
The scripture spoke of Qi Dispersion—using the body’s meridians to project the cold nature of one's energy into the surrounding air to mask one's presence. But Yul’s meridians were already damaged, raw and inflamed from the strain of his fight with Min.
‘If I force the qi out... the meridians will tear further. A permanent bottleneck.’
It was a terrible price. But the alternative was a crossbow bolt through his skull.
Yul took a slow, agonizing breath. He gathered the remaining black qi in his dantian and violently forced it upward.
Ah—!
A silent scream caught in his throat. The sensation was like liquid fire pouring through dry, brittle paper. His meridians creaked, tiny micro-tears opening along his chest and arms. But the cold qi surged outward, wrapping around him, blending his body’s heat entirely into the freezing mountain gale.
He became a shadow.
Stolen novel; please report.
Yul stepped out into the open, moving with the wind. He didn't approach the men. Instead, he went for their gear.
The mercenaries had piled their heavy rucksacks and spare crossbow bolts near the edge of the rocky overhang, just outside the immediate circle of firelight.
With his left hand, Yul reached down. His fingers were stiff, nearly numb, but he managed to grasp the wooden stock of one of the unloaded crossbows. He didn't try to lift it. Instead, he jammed his rusted iron dagger deep into the trigger mechanism, snapping the delicate bone lever inside.
Snap.
The sound was tiny, muffled by the howling wind, but the scarred mercenary’s ears twitched.
"What was that?" the scarred one muttered, reaching for his saber.
"Just the ice cracking on the cliff," the third mercenary said, shivering. "Go check if it makes you feel better."
The scarred man stood up, drawing his blade. He walked toward the edge of the overhang, his boots crunching in the snow.
Yul didn't hide. He stood perfectly still in the shadow of the rucksacks, his body temperature so low that the mercenary’s eyes, adjusted to the bright orange glow of the fire, slid right past him.
The man reached the gear, looked down, and frowned. He saw his spare crossbow lying slightly askew.
"Hey," the scarred man called out, turning back toward the fire. "Did you leave the—"
Yul didn't strike the man. He struck the fire.
With a desperate kick from his good leg, Yul sent a heavy, snow-covered rock crashing directly into the center of the small campfire.
Sssss!
The fire exploded in a violent hiss of steam, ash, and sudden, absolute darkness.
"What the hell—!"
"My eyes! The ash!"
In the sudden pitch black, the mercenaries’ night vision was completely ruined. They scrambled, their boots slipping on the icy stone.
"Jin! Where are you?"
"I'm here! Grab the bows!"
Yul moved. He didn't use the Ghost-Step—he didn't have the stamina left. He simply used the darkness.
He lunged at the third mercenary, who was scrambling on his knees toward the weapon pile. Yul didn't try to stab him. Instead, using his good left hand, Yul grabbed the man's heavy wool scarf and pulled it backward with all his weight, twisting it tightly around the man's windpipe.
"Ack—!"
The man thrashed, his heavy limbs flailing. Yul was dragged across the stone, his bruised ribs screaming in protest as they slammed against the ground. He held on, his jaw clenched, his teeth grinding until they bled.
"Over there!" the scarred mercenary shouted, hearing the struggle. He swung his saber blindly through the dark.
The blade cut through the air, missing Yul’s head by inches, but the sheer force of the wind slice knocked Yul off balance. He lost his grip on the scarf.
The choked mercenary rolled away, gasping for air.
"Kill him!"
The scarred man lunged toward the sound of Yul’s heavy breathing.
Yul tried to dodge, but his right leg—still cramped and stiff—gave out entirely. He fell to one knee.
‘Mistake,’ Yul thought, his vision darkening at the edges. ‘I miscalculated their recovery time in the dark.’
The saber descended.
Yul didn't try to block it. He couldn't.
Instead, he threw his body forward, taking the hit on his already ruined right shoulder. The heavy blade bit deep into his collarbone, the sheer impact throwing him backward. The bone didn't break, but the muscle tore completely.
But Yul had used the momentum of the fall to slide beneath the scarred man's guard.
With his left hand, Yul snatched a handful of the hot, wet ash from the ruined campfire and shoved it directly into the scarred man’s open, shouting mouth and eyes.
"ARGH!"
The man stumbled backward, clawing at his burning face, his saber slipping from his grip.
Yul didn't waste a second. He scrambled on his stomach, grabbed the fallen saber with his left hand—the weight of it nearly tearing his injured shoulder apart—and thrust it forward with a desperate, clumsy shove.
The heavy blade found the scarred man’s stomach, sinking deep through the leather coat.
The man froze, his gasps turning wet. He collapsed sideways, dragging the sword from Yul’s weak grip.
The remaining two mercenaries were in chaos. One was still gasping from the strangulation, and the other was frantically trying to string his crossbow in the dark.
"Monster..." the choked one whispered, his voice trembling as he looked at the silhouette of the small child standing in the dark, covered in ash and blood. "What are you?"
Yul didn't answer. He couldn't.
His vision was swimming. The world was spinning. He had used too much qi; his meridians felt like they were filled with crushed glass. He couldn't take another step.
‘I am going to die here,’ he realized, his mind remarkably calm even as his heart fluttered weakly. ‘A simple math error. I didn't account for the weight of their armor.’
Suddenly, the howling wind seemed to quiet.
From the dark trail leading further up the pass, the sound of slow, rhythmic footsteps crunched in the snow.
The two remaining mercenaries froze, their heads snapping toward the sound.
A figure stepped into the dim light of the dying embers.
He wore a simple, patched grey robe that seemed entirely untouched by the wind or snow. A wooden bamboo hat covered his face, and at his hip hung a sheath made of cheap, cracked willow wood. He looked like a wandering beggar, yet the snow beneath his straw sandals did not sink.
The third mercenary, terrified and desperate, pointed his crossbow at the newcomer. "Who's there? Stay back or—"
The man in the grey robe didn't raise a hand. He merely tilted his hat slightly.
"A child," the man murmured, his voice deep, slow, and carrying a strange, heavy resonance that seemed to vibrate in Yul’s chest. "A child with ruined meridians, fighting like a cornered wolf in the dirt. How curious."
"Kill him!" the choked mercenary screamed, lunging at the beggar with his dagger.
The man in the grey robe didn't draw his sword. He simply took a single, flowing step forward.
Whoosh.
A faint, clean gust of wind swept through the ravine.
The two remaining mercenaries froze mid-stride. A thin, red line appeared across both of their throats, and then, without a sound, they collapsed into the snow.
Yul stared at the man. His analytical mind tried to calculate the speed of the strike, but there was no data. It was too fast. It defied the physical limits Yul had observed in the Ma Clan.
‘This is... the real Murim,’ Yul thought, his knees finally giving out.
He hit the cold stone, his cheek resting in the bloody snow. His breathing was shallow, his heart rate dropping dangerously low.
The man in the grey robe walked over, standing over Yul’s small, broken body. He looked down at Yul's fractured right hand, then at the deep gash on his shoulder.
"A broken cup," the man said softly. "But the water inside... is dark. Very dark."
Yul tried to speak, to ask who he was, but his throat was dry, filled with the taste of copper and ash.