"Eighty-one miles from Crimson Veil town lies the village of Mist," the scout reported, standing at attention before the captain. "From there, head east along the old Keshari Trail. After twelve miles, take the left fork. Four more miles in, you'll reach a lone hill—on its left slope, there's a Desert Palm tree. Within a radius of thirty-five feet around that tree, buried beneath the sand… lies the Crimson Oathstone. Or so the old master said, sir."
The captain's eyes didn't flinch. "Assemble an excavation team. You will move tonight. Dig it up, bring it back—no matter what it takes."
The scout blinked. "S-Sir… are you serious? In three days, it's my wedding. We're risking this on something the Jegal kid said?"
The captain turned slowly, his voice low and hard. "That kid is the Young Master of the Jegal Clan. When he says dig, you don't ask why. You dig."
"…Sir." The scout swallowed whatever objections he had left and ran off to prepare.
Inside the former patriarch's chambers
BAM!
The doors burst open and Sae-Jin dragged in stacks of parchment, scrolls tied with red thread and crumbling from age.
"Here, Grandpa! These are the historical records—written by royal scholars between the years 960 to 990. I had the servants bring every piece they could find. But in all these pages…" Sae-Jin slammed the scrolls onto the table. "There's not a single mention. Not a word. Nothing about the Jinwu Clan!"
The old man's fingers twitched.
"That's fine," Kang muttered. "Leave the papers… leave the book. What matters now… is the truth."
Sae-Jin leaned forward, voice sharp. "Tell us. From your mouth. Who was he? A hero… or a devil? What is that cursed land? What happened in that cursed land?"
Hwa-Yun's eyes clouded with memory.
"The Spirit Stones found in Crimson Veil Clan… they were not mere treasures. Behind those glowing fragments of power, behind the hands that plucked them from the earth, lies a story soaked in blood."
He paused. The room felt heavier.
"In this world, Spirit Stones are never truly found—they reveal themselves by fate. In the year 951, eighty-one miles from the gates of Ten Thousand Peaks… farmers digging a well stumbled on something strange. A stone humming with spiritual power. The government dispatched scholars… and among them was Rai Muhan, the leader of Rai Tribe."
That night… two miracles occurred. The land revealed its buried secret… and he was born.
Somewhere in a remote village…
Rain pounded the earth with fury as thunder split the skies like a war drum. The night groaned under the weight of something divine—or cursed. Inside a crumbling mud-walled hut, the flicker of a dying lantern cast long, trembling shadows on the cracked floor.
"AAAHHHH! GOD!!" the woman screamed, her voice tearing through the storm, raw with pain and fire.
Three elder women hovered around her, drenched in sweat and prayer. One held her hand tightly, muttering blessings under her breath in a tongue older than time. Another wiped the woman's soaked brow with a trembling cloth, while the third kept her eyes locked on the opening between her legs.
Outside, the wind howled—not like a breeze, but like a spirit mourning something that hadn't happened yet.
Inside, the storm of screams reached its peak.
And then… silence.
For a moment, the world stopped.
And then came the cry.
A shrill, piercing wail that cut through the darkness like a sword. Fierce. Defiant. Alive.
The old midwife's hands trembled as she raised the newborn towards the flickering light. His skin shimmered faintly, as if something celestial pulsed beneath it. His fists were clenched, his eyes shut like a warrior in meditation.
The wind outside died.
The rain slowed.
"You…" the old midwife whispered, eyes wide in disbelief, "have given birth to a son like an emperor."
She gently placed the boy in the arms of the exhausted mother.
Tears streamed down the woman's cheeks as she smiled, weak but filled with a radiant joy. "My son… my dearest son…" She held him close, whispering promises meant only for gods and children of fate.
Meanwhile… somewhere near the Ten Thousand Peaks
The land was dry, cracked, and soaked in moonlight. Under a jagged cliff, a dozen men stood in silence, watching Rai Muhan—the warlord of the Rai Tribe—inspect a glimmering black stone the size of a man's fist. Spirit energy danced over its surface like lightning caught in a cage.
Rai Muhan clenched the stone in his hand, veins bulging with fury and greed.
"Kill everyone who saw these stones," he growled, his voice colder than the winds of Mount Hwa. "I don't care who they are. Scholars. Servants. Guards. I want no witnesses. I want silence. Erase them."
He turned slowly, eyes gleaming with madness. "Not one soul lives."
The desert wind moaned through jagged rocks as torches flickered against the cliff walls. The earth still smelled of upheaval—like something ancient had been unearthed that should've remained buried.
Rai Muhan stood alone, clutching the glowing spirit stone, his eyes drunk with power.
Behind him, six scholars from the Imperial Registry knelt on the dirt—hands bound, faces bruised, scrolls scattered around them like torn fragments of truth.
"You... you'll never get away with this," a scholar stammered. "The Bureau will investigate. The Alliance will—"
Rai Muhan laughed. A low, dangerous sound that silenced even the wind."Who? The Murim Alliance? The Royal Bureau? They won't even send a damn crow here." He stood tall, gesturing to his assassins."You think they'd send their troops to investigate the murder of mere scholars?Even if they did what if we made them believe you never reached the site and were attacked by beasts? You know there are a lot of beasts in the ten thousand peaks."
He leaned in again, lips curled in a snarl."They will believe what I tell them to."
The younger scholar, trembling, whispered, "Please... we're just recorders... we don't even hold weapons…"
"That's why you die easy," Rai Muhan said.
He raised his hand.
SHING!
The assassins moved like shadows made of steel. One grabbed a scholar by the hair and dragged his head across a sharp stone—skin peeled, teeth shattered. Another drove a dagger into the chest of a young man begging for mercy, twisting it slowly as the scholar shrieked.
"I have a son—! PLEASE—!"
His voice ended in a wet gurgle as his throat was opened like a letter.
Two tried to crawl away—one was yanked back by his ankles, the other had his knee shattered with a blunt axe before his jaw was smashed in by a spiked boot.
Blood soaked the ground, forming rivers around the ancient stone. Screams rang, then slowly faded, replaced by the growling of caged beasts being dragged forth.
Rai Muhan stood over the carnage, breathing in the iron scent of silence.
"Feed them to the wild," he said. "Let the wolves bury the truth."
The cages were flung open.
Starved mountain beasts lunged at the corpses—tearing limbs, crunching bone, feasting as if the gods had offered them a banquet.
One of the assassins wiped his blade clean, watching the slaughter.
"Sir... what if one of us opens their mouth?"
Rai Muhan didn't even look back.
"Then we'll paint the desert red until silence returns."
Rai Muhan stood atop the ridge, watching the slaughter unfold, his hand still wrapped around the spirit stone.
"History will not remember them," he whispered. "Only the power that remains."