"When the moon bleeds red, even heaven averts its eyes."
The night sky trembled.
Not from thunder, but from something older hungrier.
Above the mountain village of Haeryun, the moon swelled crimson like an open wound in the heavens, spilling its scarlet light across rooftops and prayer stones. Wind chimes screamed in the storm's breath, and dogs whimpered before they vanished into silence.
In the distance, bells tolled, three times, the warning for a Night Feast.
Inside a narrow hut at the village's edge, Han Jaewon, a boy no older than ten, crouched behind the door with his mother. She clutched a dull talisman to her chest, whispering words that cracked like glass:
"Close your eyes, Jaewon. Don't breathe when they pass."
He didn't understand who they were.
But when the first scream came from the square, he understood why.
The sound wasn't human.
It was wet and sharp, followed by the hiss of blood scattering over stone.
Jaewon peeked through a slit in the wall and froze.
Figures in dark robes glided through the mist, their movements too fluid, too deliberate. Their eyes glowed like dying embers, and their fangs caught the moonlight. One bent over a villager, and with a single bite, the man's body sagged like an emptied skin. Blood painted the dirt.
Vampires!!!
Mother's grip tightened. "Don't move," she whispered, but her voice broke on the last word.
Then the door burst open.
A pale hand shot through the wood, claws tearing it apart. A tall figure stepped in, elegant and monstrous, eyes burning with lazy hunger. He sniffed once and smiled.
"Two heartbeats. A mother and her child."
His voice was smooth, almost kind. "How touching."
Mother threw the talisman.
It flared white, forming a seal in the air, Bang! — light surged, cutting the vampire's face. He screamed, retreating a step, and the blood moon above pulsed as if in answer.
"Run!" she shouted.
Jaewon ran.
He didn't look back not when the wind howled, not when the screams turned to silence. He ran until his legs gave way, tumbling down a slope into the forest below. The world spun in red and black. Then came a whisper a voice neither male nor female.
"Little child… run if you wish. The blood already knows your name."
When he woke, it was dawn.
The village of Haeryun was gone only smoke and ash remained. Crows circled lazily over charred beams, and in the ruins, the scent of blood lingered like incense.
Jaewon found his mother's talisman, blackened and cracked, but still faintly warm. He knelt, silent, eyes empty.
Then footsteps approached.
A man stood on the road above him tall, cloaked in gray, with a scar running across one blind eye. In his hand was a sheathed sword wrapped with crimson seals.
"You survived," the man said. His voice carried the weight of a thousand funerals. "Then fate chose you."
Jaewon looked up, too numb to speak.
The stranger pulled a small flask from his belt, pouring silver liquid over a burn on his hand. The wound hissed. "Vampires don't come this far into Murim without purpose. Your village wasn't random."
"Who… who are you?" Jaewon asked, voice hoarse.
The man's gaze sharpened. "A Yin Hunter."
He knelt, placing two fingers over Jaewon's chest. A faint red shimmer flickered under the skin a mark pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
The man's eyes widened slightly. "So that's it… your blood's been touched."
"Touched?"
"You carry a stain of the night," the hunter said grimly. "But that stain might also be your weapon if you survive long enough to master it."
He rose, offering his hand. "Come, boy. The dead don't need your tears. The living need your vengeance."
Jaewon looked once more at the ashes of his home, then took the hunter's hand.
Seven Years Later
The clang of metal and the scent of Qi burned through the training ground.
Han Jaewon now seventeen moved like shadow and flame. His fists struck the wooden dummies until splinters flew, his breath steady, his aura sharp. With each strike, his inner energy pulsed, black and red swirling around his body.
"Your Qi leaks again," said Master Gwan, the same man who saved him years ago. His voice carried across the courtyard like a blade drawn halfway. "You channel power but not discipline."
Jaewon wiped sweat from his brow. "It reacts to my emotions."
"Then master your emotions," Gwan snapped. "A Yin Hunter who lets the night stir his blood becomes what he hunts."
Jaewon bowed. "Yes, Master."
From the balcony above, rows of disciples trained with spears, talismans, and crossbows each bearing the black sigil of the Yin Lotus Sect, one of the seven divisions of the Hunter Order. Their creed was simple: "To hunt the night, one must walk its shadow."
But among them, Jaewon was different. His Qi carried whispers a strange hum that other cultivators avoided. He'd learned to suppress it, to pretend he was normal.
He wasn't.
That night, under the full moon, he sat alone at the edge of the sect's mountain cliff, staring at the world below. Fireflies drifted like lost souls, and the wind smelled of rain.
From the forest beyond, a faint howl echoed deep, mournful.
Then, suddenly a scream.
Jaewon stood, instincts flaring. From the east gate, flames rose. Disciples shouted, and bells clanged the Night Signal.
He rushed to the courtyard.
A vampire pale, graceful, eyes glowing like molten gold stood among the corpses of hunters. Blood glistened down his chin as he turned to Jaewon.
"Another Yin child," the creature murmured. "How many of you must die before the Order learns? We are the evolution you fear."
Jaewon drew his blade, Bloodvein, its crimson edge humming with trapped Qi.
"Not evolution," he said coldly. "Just vermin."
The vampire smiled, fangs flashing. "Let's test that."
He vanished.
Jaewon barely reacted in time steel met claw, sparks flying. The impact split the ground. The vampire was fast faster than anything human but Jaewon's Qi flared in response. Crimson lines crawled up his arm, and his blade burned brighter.
"Interesting," the vampire hissed. "You're one of us."
Jaewon's eyes flickered one gold, one red. "No. I'm the one who ends you."
He roared, channeling Qi into his fist — Moonpiercer Strike!
The blow landed squarely in the vampire's chest, sending him crashing into a wall with bone-shattering force.
The courtyard fell silent.
Then the vampire laughed brokebeautiful sound.
"Your blood," he whispered, licking his own wound. "It sings of the old one. Tell me, little hunter—do you even know whose son you are?"
Jaewon froze.
Before he could speak, the vampire dissolved into mist, vanishing into the moonlight leaving behind only one echoing word:
"Varos."
As the blood mist faded, Master Gwan appeared, eyes grim.
"You heard him," Jaewon said. "He knew me."
"I know," Gwan replied quietly. "That's what I feared."
He turned toward the horizon, where the red moon hung heavy once more.