The first time Ashen tasted blood not his own, it was bitter and warm like a truth too long denied.
It happened in the border village of Murmur Hollow, a quiet settlement hidden in the folds between Sky Drowning City and the Whispering Fens. Ashen had come there chasing rumors,rumors of strange fires, of children vanishing, of masked figures preaching "purification" in the dead of night.
He arrived at dusk.
The streets were eerily silent, the lanterns unlit. The wells were dry. Doors hung open. Ashen walked slowly, hand on the hilt of his bone-forged dagger, senses stretched thin.
Then he heard it.
A child's scream. Short. Choked.
He ran.
They had tied them up.
Six villagers, kneeling in the mud, hands bound with silver string. Their faces were bruised, horns broken, skin seared with holy brands. Behind them stood figures in white robes with golden sashes and masks carved from human bone. Their leader tall, serene, sword glowing with radiant qi spoke like a man reciting a prayer.
"These are corrupted beings," he intoned. "And we, the servants of the Celestial Doctrine, are the will of Heaven made flesh. In the name of the God Emperor, they are to be cleansed."
Ashen's blood turned to fire.
he was not strong enough.
Not yet.
He stayed hidden in the undergrowth, breath shallow, heart pounding like a war drum. His instincts told him to run. To watch. To wait. This was not his fight.
But then he saw her.
She stood defiant, though bound and bloodied. Her eyes were violet a rare color even among demons. Her hair flowed like ink, and one of her horns had been shattered at the base. She was barely older than him. And yet she looked the Hunters in the eye like they were nothing but dust.
"You fear us," she spat. "That's why you kill us in chains."
The leader approached her. His glowing blade hummed.
"And your name, witch?"
She smiled. "Call me whatever makes your soul sleep easier. It won't matter. Your God's hands will tremble before my ancestors."
He raised his sword.
Ashen moved.
He didn't remember crossing the field.
Only the moment his dagger sank into the back of the nearest robed figure between the ribs, where human cultivators hid their soul cores.
A cry. A fall. Chaos.
Ashen's power erupted in a swirl of black and silver qi. His body moved before thought. He dodged a blast of searing light, rolled beneath a holy spear, shattered it with a demon palm technique he had barely mastered the day before.
He fought like a storm with no direction. No rhythm. Just rage guided by desperation.
One by one, the Hunters fell.
Not all.
Just enough for the prisoners to flee.
Just enough to make the leader step back with a flicker of doubt in his perfect eyes.
"You…" he whispered, studying Ashen's face. "You are not demon. Not fully."
Ashen's breath was ragged. "I'm enough to stop you."
The leader frowned. Then vanished in a burst of golden mist cowardice masked as strategy.
The girl remained behind.
She walked toward him slowly, her limbs still trembling from pain and exhaustion. When she stopped before him, her eyes did not hold fear. They held something more dangerous.
Recognition.
"You're not one of the Hollow," she said softly. "And you're not with them."
"I'm neither," Ashen replied. "I'm just… trying to be human enough to save someone. And demon enough to scare those bastards away."
She smiled, blood drying on her lips. "Then you're something new."
She extended a hand. "I'm Kaelenna. Daughter of the Blood Weavers."
Ashen stared. Blood Weavers were a nearly extinct demon clan, once known for cultivating emotion as power. They had been hunted to near extinction.
"I thought your people were gone."
"So did I," she said. "Until today."
That night
Ashen sat with Kaelenna beneath the hollowed roots of an ironwood tree. They shared dried meat and silence. Occasionally, she would wince and touch her ribs. He offered her the Tear of the Nether Phoenix.
She stared at it. "That's too valuable."
He didn't speak just pushed it into her hand.
As the tear dissolved into her skin, her wounds closed. Her breathing eased.
For the first time in days, Ashen felt the silence not as a threat, but as a shared space.
"You didn't have to save us," she said quietly.
"I did," he replied. "Or I'd become like them."
Kaelenna turned to him, studying his face.
"You think like the old ones. Like those who remember what came before war. That's rare."
He met her gaze. "Maybe I'm just tired of pretending survival is the same as living."
They said nothing for a long time.
But in that silence, something took root.
Not yet love. Not yet devotion.
But recognition.
The kind only two orphans of war can feel.
Ashen left Murmur Hollow at dawn. Kaelenna walked beside him.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
He looked toward the horizon, where black smoke curled above the peaks.
"To learn. To grow. To find the power to stop men who call themselves gods."
Kaelenna smiled faintly. "Then I'm coming with you."
Thus, the hunter began to walk not alone, but with someone who carried her own fire.
The road ahead would be cruel. But for the first time, it would also be shared.