Lanterns don't bleed.
That was the first thought Ji Haneul had as he stood before the shattered shrine in the valley north of Sanzhou Hill. It was supposed to be abandoned. The locals avoided it—spoke of curses, missing travelers, and night songs with no mouths.
But there it was.
A broken shrine of stone and cedar, its roof torn, its offerings rotted.
And in the center?
A lantern.
It swayed gently from a crooked beam. No wind blew, yet it moved. No wick burned, yet it glowed—dim red, like something still pulsing.
Bleeding.
Haneul stepped closer.
The scent of iron clung to the air. Not fresh blood, but old—soaked into the stone, lingering like a curse. He circled the lantern, hand near his sword.
Symbols were carved along the base.
Not of any sect.
Older.
Cruder.
One mark, however, stopped him.
It was the same insignia etched faintly into the spine of his ancestor's manual. A downward crescent crossed by three diagonal lines. He remembered it burned onto the forge wall where his master once worked.
"The forge remembers…"
He reached toward the lantern.
It didn't resist.
It opened.
Not physically—but spiritually. Like a door in the mind.
He closed his eyes—and saw.
A forge.
Ancient. Buried.
Hammers rang. Flames breathed. But no smith stood at the anvil.
Instead, twelve swords.
Suspended in the air, unmoving.
And in the center, one more—broken in half, yet pulsing with qi.
His sword.
Or what it once was.
The memory shattered.
He staggered back, breath sharp. The shrine was silent again.
But the lantern?
Still glowing.
Only now, it dripped.
One drop of glowing red, falling from its base onto the stone below.
The ground trembled.
Then split.
A narrow stair descended into darkness.
Haneul sheathed his blade.
And entered.
He walked for what felt like hours. The walls were lined with sigils, half-erased. Whispers bled from them—voices long dead, speaking not words but emotions.
Regret. Rage. Reverence.
Then—light.
A final chamber opened before him.
At its center stood a single anvil.
Black. Smooth. Untouched by time.
Around it, weapons hung like phantoms in the air.
And on the ground—
—bones.
Dozens.
All kneeling.
Each holding a different martial emblem.
Some of the Heavenly Accord.
Some of the Shadow Covenant.
Even one from the Order of the Shattered Soul.
But all dead.
And all facing the forge.
As if waiting for something.
Or someone.
Haneul stepped forward.
The air didn't stir.
The weapons didn't move.
But something inside him did.
A pull.
From his core.
From his blood.
The Heavenly Martial Body did not simply adapt.
It remembered.
He laid his hand on the anvil.
A voice spoke—not in his ear, but in his marrow.
"Split not the world to destroy it…
But to remind it of the silence before sound."
And then the weapons moved.
One by one, they floated toward him.
But none struck.
Instead, they burned.
Vanished into ash.
Until only one remained.
A shard.
Of a blade.
It hovered, then placed itself in his palm.
Cold.
But alive.
He gripped it.
And the forge blazed to life.