The underworld did not exist on any map. It wasn't drawn with walls, streets, or borders. It lurked in the gap between two breaths, hidden in the dead pixels of networks, in hurried glances, in the silences that stretched too long between words.It was a place where shadow had substance, where secrets were woven like webs invisible to the eyes of the world.That was where Mó Wúqióng had gone.Not by instinct, but by necessity.He didn't know how to kill. Not yet. But he knew how to strike. To seize the moment. To wait for the opening.And above all, he knew how to observe.The two years spent on the mountain had sharpened within him a strange acuity. His senses had refined like the blade of a knife polished by cold.He didn't walk. He glided, light, almost absent, a whisper among stones.He didn't breathe. He faded.He didn't exist where others lived."I have become the shadow within shadows," he thought. "Invisible, elusive. A crack in the world, a silence too deep."He knew the underworld could never be conquered. It had to be understood, merged with."Here, the slightest misstep is a sentence. Here, survival is paid for in blood."Mó Wúqióng clenched his fists, feeling the old pain biting again in his tense muscles."I'm not made for this world. But I must enter it. Not to become a monster... but to free myself. To find the peace this tormented blood demands."The wind slipped through Lin'an's dark alleys. A silent promise that everything was about to shift.
It was in the coldest days of winter, when Lin'an's gutters vomited icy water onto the blackened cobblestones, that Mó Wúqióng committed his first murder.It wasn't premeditated.It wasn't clean.It wasn't even supposed to happen.A man, a brute, was beating a young girl in a narrow alley. Passersby looked away, as always. Mó could have done the same. He should have.But something inside him moved.Not anger. Not even pity.Just… a decision.He picked up a brick from the ground. Approached. Silently.And struck.The man collapsed. He struggled. Mó struck again. And again. Until the groans stopped. Until silence returned.The girl had fled. She didn't scream. She ran, as if escaping two monsters instead of one.That night, Mó didn't sleep.Not out of remorse.But because something inside him had been released. A dam. A boundary. He didn't feel relieved nor guilty.He felt… free.
The next day, he struck again. This time, it was a well-known loan shark in the neighborhood. The man had strangled three children over a ridiculous debt. No one dared accuse him. No one, except Mó.He wasn't paid. He wasn't even hired.He had no client, no name.He acted.Like a silent judge, a hand in the night.And soon, a rumor spread through the slums: a specter roamed the alleys. He didn't speak. He left no trace. But wherever he passed, evil vanished.At least, a certain kind of evil.Some saw him as a demon. Others, a black angel. But no one knew who he was. Or where he came from.He wore a black hood, hand-sewn. A simple red thread around his wrist. And in his eyes, a calm that chilled the blood.
Three more disappearances followed.Three powerful men, corrupted to the bone, erased in silence.It was then that the Black Assembly took notice of his trail.They didn't like lone wolves.But they recognized raw talent.They watched.Then laid their trap.
One night, they came.A voice rose behind him as he walked alone in a moon-split alley."You have no name, do you?" said a calm voice.Mó Wúqióng stopped. He didn't turn his head. Didn't answer. He waited.His heart beat a dull rhythm, echoing in his temples.He felt every breath of air on his skin, every icy caress of the night."You're not a stray dog. You're a lone wolf, hungry… but lucid. A killer with no cause, no master. That's what I saw," the man continued.A silhouette slid out of the shadows, as if the night itself took shape. The man was thin, clad in a long ash-colored coat, dark embroidery running across it like cracks. His eyes, of dull gold, were inhuman. Expressionless."You kill well. Too well for someone working alone. There's no tremble in your gestures. No screams in your silence. Each time you strike, the world exhales — and you inhale."Mó Wúqióng didn't respond. The other stepped closer.His footsteps were muffled, almost spectral."Blood is a language only the chosen understand. Most kill out of necessity. Out of fear. You do it like painting a canvas. With patience. With care."Silence."You could keep going like this. Killing alone, dragging your blade until the city swallows you. Or… you could learn to kill properly. To kill for something greater. Something truer.""Why me?" Mó Wúqióng asked, still unmoving.He felt a weight in his chest, a tension tightening his shoulders."Because you don't ask the wrong questions. You ask neither for justice nor meaning. You only seek a place where killing has purpose. We offer that," the man answered in a steady voice.He took another step, his boots brushing the wet stones."I'm one of the Seven. We are the Black Assembly. The heart of the underworld. We believe neither in good nor evil. We believe in the blade's power, in the blood pact. What you are… is no mistake. It is a higher state.""And if I refuse?" asked Mó Wúqióng, eyes fixed on the shadow at the end of the alley."Then you will continue to fade, slowly, until even death forgets you."A cold breath swept through the alley. The man held out his hand, palm open.No weapon. No threat. Just that voice — calm, sharp."You don't need us to kill. But you need us for your killing to have meaning. Join us. Keep your name. Keep your past. But give us your hands.""And if I'm not made for this?" Mó Wúqióng said.A heavy silence settled, laced with menace."Then blood will decide for you," the man replied.
A sound.A rush of air.Two shadows burst from the walls, rushing at him with the precision of an ancient trap. One from the left, blade low. The other from above, arm extended to slash his throat.It was fast. Perfectly coordinated. An ambush designed to kill before one even understood it.But Mó Wúqióng didn't move.He watched death come without flinching.Then his body moved with startling brutality, as if time itself had contracted around him.The metallic ring of blades grazing his sleeve, the sharp crack of a shattered elbow, the heavy impact of one body hurled into the other, the icy bite of a blade into flesh, the strangled cry dying in the night — all blended into a deadly dance of ferocious intensity.The attack lasted three seconds.Three seconds to obliterate two trained killers.Mó straightened, breathing slow, eyes blank.Not a drop of sweat. Not a word.
The man in the black coat hadn't moved. He watched.Not with admiration.With clinical, almost animal coldness."Here is the seed," he thought. "Not yet a man. Not quite. An embryo of a monster. A beast being born."
A barely-there smile touched his lips, without warmth or triumph. Just cold curiosity, like an entomologist before a rare specimen he's about to dissect."Look at him… He doesn't even think about killing. He just does it. Because it's natural. Because killing has become his breath, his instinct. He will be perfect."He rolled a black coin between his fingers, then tossed it to the ground."Pick it up. And come."Mó looked down. The metal chimed on the damp stones. Etched with a black crow with closed wings, the other side marked with a pupil-less eye.He picked it up without a word.When he looked up, the alley was empty. The man had vanished, swallowed by the night.Only the silence remained, heavy and precise. Like a verdict.And in the darkness, far off, a voice echoed — perhaps imagined, perhaps real:"Break, devour, submit. Or be destroyed. That is the trial."Mó Wúqióng felt a chill run down his spine."They don't want a man. They want a bloodthirsty demon. That's their truth. No place for mercy. No place for weakness."He clenched the coin in his palm, jaw tight."I'm no demon. But I'll become what they want. Until the last drop."