The stench of mold and iron was constant in the pit.
Days passed like rain slipping through fingers—measured only in hunger, wounds, and the chill of stone. But something had changed.
Muyeon had killed.
And survived.
Word spread fast. The quiet boy had drawn blood—three older boys dead or crippled. The gangs kept their distance now, eyeing him like a stray dog that had tasted meat.
Still, he didn't act proud. Didn't strut. Didn't talk.
He watched. He listened.
And then… he noticed the blind man.
---
He sat in the far eastern tunnel. Always in the same spot. Cross-legged, a tattered book in his lap, eyes milky and clouded with age.
Sometimes he muttered to himself. Sometimes he quoted lines from poems no one understood. Sometimes he corrected how Muyeon moved.
"Too heavy on the right heel," the man said once, as Muyeon passed.
Another time: "Shoulders like that will snap when you swing a sword."
Muyeon never asked for advice. The old man gave it anyway.
Eventually, curiosity won out.
He approached.
The old man didn't turn his head. Just smiled faintly.
"You walk like someone who used to be someone," he said.
Muyeon frowned. "You're blind."
"And yet I see," he replied. "The others step heavy. Dragged by fear. But you? You carry silence like armor."
Muyeon sat across from him.
"Who are you?"
The old man tilted his head.
"Yook Dowon," he said simply. "Once an imperial scholar. Now… just a cracked bowl waiting to be broken."
Muyeon looked at the tattered book.
"You can't read."
Dowon chuckled. "No. But I remember. The words are still inside."
He tapped his temple. "Buried beneath dust and blood."
Muyeon said nothing.
Dowon, however, tilted his head forward slightly and asked,
> "Your eyes see deeper than a boy's should. Who are you really?"
The question hung like incense smoke.
Muyeon met his blind gaze. For a moment, the scholar's presence reminded him of warm evenings long ago—his mother humming, the feel of a blanket, stories whispered in the dark.
Then the memory was gone.
"I don't know yet," Muyeon answered.
Dowon smiled.
"That is the wisest answer I've heard in years."
---
Elsewhere, deeper in the shadowed tunnels—where even the rats kept silent—a tall figure stood with arms crossed.
He had not spoken in days.
He had watched.
Every kill. Every movement. Every wordless calculation made by the bastard boy.
His hair, once black as night, was now touched with silver. His eyes, sharp and narrow like a drawn blade, did not blink as he studied the child below.
His name was So Geomryu.
Once, he had been the Jinmu Daegun—the High Swordmaster of the Eastern Court.
Feared. Honored. Betrayed.
Now, like the others, he rotted in the palace's forgotten hell.
Except he was not broken.
Not yet.
Dowon's voice echoed faintly down the corridor as he approached him later.
"You saw him, didn't you?"
"I did," Geomryu replied without turning.
"He's not like the others."
"He's dangerous."
"That's what I said," Dowon said, smiling slightly. "Cursed by history."
Geomryu finally turned, eyes narrowing.
"What do you mean?"
The old scholar's blind eyes gleamed faintly in the torchlight.
"I mean that something sleeps inside him. A spark we thought burned out long ago. He bleeds ambition, but it's buried under sorrow. If he survives…"
Dowon paused.
> "…the world will burn again."
---
Back in the pit, Muyeon was alone in the tunnel again.
He sat near the fire-vent, where warmth seeped through the cracks in the wall.
His hand gripped a jagged stone, not to kill this time—but to carve.
He picked a flat portion of the rock wall and began slowly, methodically scratching letters into it.
Over and over.
Lines. Curves. Memory made solid.
The name appeared after nearly an hour:
해인 (Haein).
His mother.
Her voice still echoed in his mind. Her lullabies. Her desperate screams as she was dragged away. Her final words.
> "My son… don't let them bury your name."
He traced the characters with his fingers.
A silent vow burned in his chest.
> "I will not bury you either," he whispered.
> "I will rewrite your fate."
The air around him seemed to grow still.
As if something ancient was listening.
---
> [Memory Triggered. Trait Enhanced: Unyielding Will → Burning Vow]
➤ Resolve now hardens in moments of despair.
➤ Mental resistance increased. Charisma +1.
[New Passive Detected: Embers of Destiny]
➤ Others begin to feel drawn to your cause, even without knowing why.
---
Dowon sat not far away, listening.
The boy had not cried. Had not begged.
But the way he carved her name... it was scripture.
Dowon folded his hands and murmured under his breath:
"May the heavens forgive me for what I'm about to do."
---
That night, the three of them met in the silence of the catacombs.
Dowon. Geomryu. And the boy.
They stood in a triangle—three shadows with blood on their hands.
"Why me?" Muyeon asked.
Dowon smiled.
"Because the world forgot your name. And yet, you remember theirs."
Geomryu stepped forward. For the first time, his voice was steel and fire.
"You want to survive?"
"Yes."
"You want vengeance?"
"Yes."
"You want to rule?"
Muyeon looked up.
"I want to decide who deserves to."
Silence.
Then, Geomryu unsheathed a wooden practice sword, weathered and cracked.
He offered it to Muyeon.
"You'll bleed under me. Break under me. You'll hate me."
Muyeon took it without hesitation.
"I already do."
Dowon burst into laughter.
Geomryu smirked.
And the first lesson began.
---