"If you're not up for it, it's fi—"
"N-No! I'll do it!"
She dropped onto the bench with the speed of a striking viper, her earlier flush lingering like embers in the fading light.
With a faint unease coiling in my gut, I arranged the eight tablets once more, steeling myself to draw on the heavens' veiled currents. I braced for the familiar rush—the subtle hum of records unfolding like an ancient scroll.
But what bloomed wasn't insight.
Crackle!
"Argh!"
A slender azure bolt lanced from the ether, kissing the tablets in a sharp, stinging arc. It spared my flesh direct fury, but the backlash bit deep, wrenching a yelp from my throat.
"A-Are you okay?!"
Before I could cradle my throbbing hand, Tang Ayeon's fingers enveloped mine—warm, steady, chasing the pain like mist before dawn.
"W-Wait, is this normal? Does this happen when it fails?"
"No… it doesn't usually happen even if it fails…"
Her touch worked swift balm, the ache ebbing under her gentle pressure. As clarity returned, the pieces slotted grim: a heavenly reprimand, mild as a cuff from an impatient elder, but unmistakable. Not the cataclysmic thunder of legends—no skies rent asunder—just the gods' petty swat for overreaching sight.
A fortune teller's fine: glimpses barred where they deem fit.
But what did I do…?
It wasn't my own shrouded path I'd probed—just Tang Ayeon's heart's quiet yearnings. Why the lash for that? The heavens' caprice swirled beyond mortal grasp, a storm without map or mercy.
"Uh… these look burned. Is that okay?"
"…Oh."
The eight tablets smoldered, edges curled black like autumn leaves scorched by frost. Not irreplaceable—mere wood and will—but the tedium of renewal soured my mood. I bit back a silent curse at the indifferent stars.
Trudge… trudge…
I couldn't remember anything.
Who I was.
Where I'd come from.
What I'd done.
It was like a slate wiped clean by some cruel hand—no echoes, no fragments clinging to the void.
"Hey, you there! Are you alright?"
A stranger's voice pierced the fog, warm with concern.
Before me loomed a kindly old man, his face creased like well-worn parchment, eyes kindled with worry.
"Hey, why are your clothes so covered in dirt…? Did you dig up a grave or something…?"
A grave…?
A resting place for the departed…?
Me, in such soil…
Crackle.
"Ugh!"
"H-Hey, you?!"
"I… I…"
Amid the maelstrom of blankness, a single edict rang crystalline, slicing through the haze.
"Crave blood. That is what will save you from the swamp of death."
"Blood… blood…"
"Blood?! Are you bleeding badly or something?!"
"Come now. Your master desires blood. Rise, young undead one. Rise and join in staining this world with blood."
"Blood…"
When I lifted my gaze anew, the old man had transfigured—no longer a figure of benevolence, but prey. Warm, pulsing quarry.
Crunch!
"Arghhh!! What are you doing?!!"
Gulp! Gulp!
Flesh held no savor, bones no purpose—that was kin's domain, the lesser feast.
We hungered solely for the crimson tide.
Gulp! Gulp!
The old one's life-essence—aged yet vital—surged into me, a river quenching parched earth.
"Guh… ugh…"
By the time shadows parted, the husk lay spent, not a drop spared. I needed more—endless rivers to slake the void. More prey. Enough to drown the world in red.
Around the time we neared the vampire's last glimpsed lair—
"Fortune teller, is it really not working out?"
"I'm almost done making them…"
Scrape scrape.
I hunched over the makeshift workbench, chisel biting into fresh wood with dogged precision. Qian, Dui, Li, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Gen, Kun—eight in total, each stroke a battle against splinter and grain. Tedious as mending a frayed net, but necessary.
Back in the mountains, Master made these in no time.
No divine ire had claimed those; mine fell to clumsy hands, shattering under fumbles. She'd conjure spares with effortless grace—though never without the ritual scold.
"You're learning divination, yet you're so careless with your tools. How are you ever going to leave the mountain like this?"
She'd chide, then bolt the gates tighter, her "lessons" a gilded cage. That's why I'd slipped the bonds at last—seizing her seclusion as my key.
Chisel.
Had she whisked me to the rivers once, just a taste of the world's clamor, I might've stayed. Gratitude lingered, yes—for shelter, for sight—but I'd shouldered the hearth's burdens: stews simmered, linens laundered, pots scoured. My ledger held tallies too.
"Being a fortune teller looks tough. No one can help, and you've got to make them yourself."
"You can't handle heavenly energy, Miss, so it can't be helped."
Infusing the wood demanded a channeler's touch—qi's subtle weave binding celestial threads. Master flowed it like breath; I? A novice wrestling floods, progress grudging as mountain stone. At least Tang Ayeon's hidden arts had honed my steadiness; once, I'd stockpiled sixteen spares for eight keepers.
Tap.
"Done with this one."
This round? A single shatter—progress, if meager.
Eight complete, rough-hewn but whole.
"They're pretty crooked, though—are they okay like this?"
"As long as they're recognizable, the heavens don't seem to mind."
Finer carvings might dazzle patrons, etching wonder in their stares, but the gods cared naught for polish—function over flourish. These sufficed as stopgaps; back in Shaanxi, I'd source true timber for worthy kin.
Heavy.
"Hm."
The weight sat off, unbalanced as a flawed blade, but need overrode perfection. We pressed on.
"Let's see… the vampire's current location."
I unrolled the map across my knees, thumb anchoring our rough position amid the inked trails, then arrayed the tablets in solemn grid. Proximity to the haunt should've demanded hourly probes, but that celestial snag had stalled me, time slipping like sand.
Rustle.
Urgency clipped the rites—no chants, no flourishes—just raw conduit, heavenly essence pouring direct into the wood. The surge hummed familiar, a tide cresting toward revelation: records unfurling, location crystallizing against the parchment's weave.
A locus bloomed clear in my mind's eye.
"…Right her—"
"Danger!!"
Crash!
The men's shouts shattered the hush as stone pulverized the carriage wall—right where my skull had hovered a breath prior.
"Are you okay?! You didn't get hit, right?!"
"T-Thanks to you."
Tang Ayeon had snagged my hood in a blur, yanking me from harm's cusp. I jammed it low to staunch the slip, meeting her gaze—pale, etched with a gravity I'd never glimpsed, her playfulness forged to steel.
"I'll handle it quick and be back. Stay with Changsu."
She deposited me like fragile porcelain and dissolved into motion—a specter vanished.
Tremble tremble tremble.
"…Changsu?"
"That's me."
For the record, Changsu was the one who'd drawn the bleak thread in my earlier weave.
As speechlessness gripped me, he exhaled a ragged sigh.
"It's nothing to me, so don't worry—just stay behind me. Get out of the carriage quick."
"Wouldn't… staying inside be safer?"
"If it flips over with us in it, that's a bigger mess." His voice steadied, edged with resolve. "Word is this vampire's got crazy strength, so hurry."
Tremble.
Death's brush still quaked my limbs, but I willed them forward—stumbling from the splintered wreck into the fray's raw maw.
The tableau struck like a thunderclap, etching the truth: this was a martial world, alive with peril's poetry.
Clang! Clang!
"This guy's external martial arts are unreal!"
"Our swords can't even pierce him…"
"Grrr…"
Two figures danced death with a hulking shadow—crimson eyes aglow, frame crusted in earth and gore. Their blades plunged deep, only to rebound like struck anvils; his retaliatory sweeps birthed gales that lashed even here, uprooting grit.
I'd puzzled Tang Ayeon's absence when—
Thwack!
"Gurk!"
A needle-thin dagger whistled from nowhere, burying in the vampire's left deltoid.
"She must've aimed to kill in one shot—targeted the neck perfectly."
"…So he dodged it?"
"Probably."
A strike honed for the throat's kiss, launched from veiled perch—or evaded in a heartbeat. Neither feat graced Earth's dusty annals.
"No surprise, though. At peak first-rate level, even tough external arts get pierced. Those two are second-rate."
"Does one rank make that big a difference?"
"Not all second-rates or first-rates are equal," Changsu explained, eyes never straying from the melee. "We're mid-tier second-rate, but that monster and the miss are near the pinnacle of first-rate. No contest."
"Ah…"
As his words unpicked the tiers, the clash raged undimmed. The pair barely parried the vampire's onslaughts, pinning him in tandem while Tang Ayeon exploited the breaths—daggers blooming like lethal flowers on his hide. Wounds multiplied, visible even to my untrained eye.
"Is it over like this?"
"This so-called vampire's got brute external strength but no real wits. Probably just some freak obsessed with evil arts."
"RAAAAGH!!!!"
His bellow thrummed the air, raw murder in its veins, but the trio's rhythm—seamless, unyielding—chipped at my dread, fear ebbing like tide from shore.
Guess the moniker "vampire" rang hollow now. No mythic thirst sated before us—just a berserk husk, lost to forbidden flows.
Thought there might be a real one or something.
The label felt mismatched. No harm to our band yet, no crimson ritual witnessed.
Thwack!
Tang Ayeon's next quill pierced true—the heart's guarded vault.
"Guh…"
He'd thrashed through barrages before, a storm unbroken—but now the frenzy faltered, her arsenal finding deeper purchase, riddling him relentless.
"Grrr…"
A porcupine of poisoned steel, the vampire sagged.
"RAAAAGH!!!!"
He lunged at the duo, claws raking wide.
"Haha! I've read all your moves now!"
One parried the blow with his flat, yielding ground in a controlled skid—but—
Thwack!
"Gack…"
Elongated talons snaked past the guard, impaling flesh with wet finality.
"…!"
"Gasp…!"
Shock rooted me, breath stolen; beside me, Changsu inhaled sharp, horror etching his face.
"You okay?! Stay with me!!"
The survivor cleaved at the beast, blade whistling—but—
Slash!
Claws sheared the steel like silken veil, parting metal with contemptuous ease.
The warrior gaped, transfixed in the instant before doom's arc.
Thud!
Changsu surged forward, a blur of desperate valor.
But the vampire defied the script.
Thwack!
Spurning the disarmed foe with a casual boot, he wrenched talons free from the fallen—then bent low, maw sealing to the rent.
Gulp… gulp…
"Urk…!"
Horror unfolded, visceral and unchained.
He was vampire incarnate—a fiend of the vein, devouring life in gulps of profane red.