Rumors spread faster than blood.
By dawn, Murim whispered.
They spoke in markets, in sect halls, in the shadows of mountain paths where cultivators sharpened their blades and pretended not to be afraid. An outpost burned to the ground. A messenger flayed open like an animal. Entire patrols erased without a sound.
And one detail crawled beneath their skin.
The killer was young.
Hyeon Mu—now Crimson—felt the shift before he understood it.
The road back to the mountain was wrong.
Too quiet. Birds silent. Wind hesitant, as if afraid to move. His instincts screamed long before the instructor raised a hand.
"Stop," the man whispered.
Crimson froze mid-step.
A thread tightened around his ankle.
He looked down.
Steel wire.
Too late.
The explosion ripped through the forest, throwing Crimson into a tree. Bark shattered. Pain detonated through his ribs as something snapped inside his chest. He hit the ground hard, air torn from his lungs.
Shadows moved.
Figures dropped from the trees, landing in a loose circle around him. Five cultivators. Their robes bore the sigil of the Azure Cloud Sect—hunters.
One of them laughed.
"So it's true," the man said. "Just a child."
Crimson tried to rise. His left arm refused to move. Blood filled his mouth.
The instructor was gone.
Abandoned.
This is another lesson, a voice whispered in his mind.
A cultivator stepped forward, drawing a long saber.
"You slaughtered our people," he said. "We'll make this slow."
They didn't kill him.
They broke him.
They bound Crimson to a post deep in the forest. The cultivators worked methodically, like craftsmen. Each cut precise. Each strike measured.
The saber carved shallow lines across his chest, avoiding vital points.
"Count," one ordered.
Crimson clenched his teeth.
The blade cut again.
"Count."
"…Two," Crimson rasped.
They smiled.
A cultivator crushed his broken ribs with a palm strike, forcing a scream from his throat. Another poured a bitter liquid into the open wounds. Fire erupted beneath his skin.
He lost track of the numbers.
They peeled skin from his arm in strips. Drove needles under his fingernails. Poured water down his throat until he choked, then stopped—only to start again.
"You assassins think you're monsters?" one whispered into his ear. "You're children playing at darkness."
Crimson's vision blurred.
He thought of the pit.
Of the child crying.
Of the blade rising and falling.
Something inside him hardened.
Endure.
Hours passed.
Or days.
When they finally stepped back, Crimson barely resembled a human being. His body was a ruin of blood and torn flesh, his breaths shallow and wet.
One cultivator crouched before him.
"Any last words, demon?"
Crimson lifted his head.
His mask lay broken on the ground nearby.
He smiled.
Blood ran from his teeth.
"Too close," he whispered.
The cultivator frowned.
A sound cut through the forest.
A whisper.
Then screaming.
A blade slid through the cultivator's neck from behind, spraying Crimson's face with fresh blood. The body collapsed.
The forest erupted.
Black shapes moved between the trees—silent, efficient. Crimson Vein assassins. The hunters didn't stand a chance.
Throats opened. Spines severed. Bodies dropped before screams could fully form.
The last cultivator tried to run.
A blade pinned him to a tree.
The instructor stepped into view, blood dripping from his hands.
"You failed the perimeter," he said calmly.
Crimson coughed weakly.
"You said… no witnesses…"
The instructor looked down at him.
"I lied."
They didn't heal him immediately.
They dragged him back to the mountain like meat.
For three days, Crimson drifted in and out of consciousness as healers worked just enough to keep him alive. Pain anchored him to reality, refusing to let him escape.
On the fourth day, the old man came.
He dismissed everyone else.
"You lived," the old man said, studying Crimson's ruined body. "Good."
Crimson tried to speak. Failed.
"They hunted you," the old man continued. "That means Murim is afraid."
He leaned closer.
"Fear is the beginning of obedience."
The old man produced a small box and opened it.
Inside lay a needle.
Black.
Thin.
Vibrating faintly.
"Do you know what this is?" the old man asked.
Crimson shook his head.
"A memory needle," the old man said. "It preserves pain."
Crimson's eyes widened.
"You will remember everything they did to you," the old man said softly. "Forever."
The needle plunged into Crimson's spine.
Agony unlike anything before consumed him.
Every scream, every cut, every broken bone replayed simultaneously inside his mind. His body convulsed violently as his brain burned with remembered suffering.
He screamed until his voice tore itself apart.
The old man watched without emotion.
"When you torture others," he said, "this will guide your hand."
The needle was removed.
Crimson collapsed, sobbing—not from sadness, but overload.
"Stand," the old man ordered.
Crimson forced himself upright, shaking.
"You were hunted," the old man said. "Now you will hunt back."
He gestured to the shadows.
Three prisoners were dragged forward—Azure Cloud disciples. Alive. Bound. Gagged.
Crimson stared at them.
His hands trembled.
The pain in his spine pulsed.
"Show me," the old man said, "what you learned."
Crimson picked up a blade.
He didn't rush.
He took his time.
He cut tendons first, listening to the muffled screams. He used the needle's memory, recreating his own suffering with precise cruelty. When he was done, the prisoners were barely recognizable.
Alive.
Barely.
Crimson stepped back, chest heaving.
The old man nodded.
"Good," he said. "Rumors will scream louder now."
That night, Murim learned a new truth.
If you hunted the Crimson Vein…
You did not die quickly.