The morning in Stone-Breath Village arrived not with a sunrise, but with a thinning of the oppressive grey fog. It was a place where the air always tasted of wet soot and old charcoal, tucked into the jagged, suffocating embrace of the Iron-Grip Mountains.
Wei Wuque stood by the village's central well, his indigo eyes fixed on the rhythmic ripple of the dark water below. Around him, the village stirred with a hollow, mechanical energy—the sound of people who had long since accepted that they were the bottom of the world's hierarchy.
"Move it, Void-Trash. You're blocking the path."
The voice belonged to Old Man Geng, the village tanner. Geng was a Level 1 cultivator, his soul barely Anchored to the Dao of Tough Hide. To the Sovereigns in the high heavens, Geng was a speck of dust, but in this mud-choked village, his ability to make his skin as hard as sun-dried leather made him a tyrant.
He shoved Wuque aside. His rough palm left a faint, stinging heat on Wuque's shoulder—a deliberate display of his meager Qi.
Wuque didn't flinch. He didn't even turn his head. To him, Geng wasn't a man; he was just a clumsy vibration in a world that was supposed to be silent.
"Why do you even bother drawing water, boy?" a woman sneered as she filled her jar, avoiding Wuque's gaze as if his 'Nothingness' were a plague. "Your father works himself to a second death just to feed a mouth that will never hold a Dao. You're a leak in this village's luck. A hollow vessel."
This was the daily liturgy of Stone-Breath. In a world where your worth was dictated by your connection to the Divine Script, a boy without an Anchor was less than a dog. Dogs, at least, followed the laws of nature. Wuque followed nothing.
The Blacksmith's Burden
Inside the leaning shack of the forge, the rhythmic Clang-Clang-Clang had been ringing since before dawn.
Wei Chang was a mountain of a man, though a mountain that had suffered a catastrophic landslide. Sweat rolled down his soot-stained back, mapping the network of jagged scars that spoke of a past he never shared. His left leg, a crude prosthetic of blackened oak, creaked precariously with every swing of his heavy hammer.
"The well was crowded?" Wei Chang asked without looking up. He was currently hammering a set of heavy iron shackles—orders for the Lu Clan's local dungeon.
"The usual," Wuque replied, picking up a sharpening stone. "They think my presence spoils the water."
Wei Chang let out a dry, hacking laugh that ended in a cough. "Let them think that, Wuque. Fear is a better shield than a sword. But remember... when people fear what they cannot define, they eventually try to erase it."
He sat down heavily, his breath coming in ragged bursts. He rubbed the stump where the wood met his flesh. "I have enough coal for three more days. After that, the Lu Clan comes for their tribute. They want ten blades of Resonant Grade."
Wuque's indigo eyes darkened. Resonant Grade steel required the smith to bleed their own Qi into the white-hot metal to align its molecular structure. But Wei Chang's meridians were a shattered wreck—burnt out by some ancient, catastrophic battle. Every time he forged such a blade, he wasn't just using coal; he was using his remaining years as fuel.
"You are killing yourself for people who would let you rot in the mud," Wuque said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm whisper.
"I am buying time," Wei Chang corrected, his voice firm. "Time for you to find a way to exist in a world that has no place for you."
The Shadow of the Flame
The peace of the forge was shattered by a sharp, whistling crack. A whip, braided with Fire-Resistant silk and wreathed in orange flames, lashed out and struck the wooden sign above the forge door, incinerating it instantly.
Lu Feng rode into the clearing on a white stallion, his silk robes a blinding, insulting white against the filth of the street. He was followed by four guards, their hands resting on the hilts of their Dao-bound swords. At eighteen, Lu Feng was a Level 2 Fire Anchor. To the Great Yan Kingdom, he was a minor spark; to Stone-Breath, he was a wildfire.
"Wei Chang!" Lu Feng shouted, his voice dripping with the effortless cruelty of the high-born. "My father is impatient. The border patrol moves out in forty-eight hours. Where is my steel?"
Wei Chang limped out of the forge, his head bowed in the practiced humility of a man who had survived by becoming invisible. "Young Master... the ore delivery was late. I am working as fast as my old bones allow."
"Old bones?" Lu Feng sneered. He flicked his whip again, the Fire Qi singeing the air with the smell of ozone. "Maybe you need a little 'heat' to lubricate those joints."
He didn't aim for Wei Chang's back. With a spiteful flick of his wrist, the flaming lash wrapped around Wei Chang's wooden leg and pulled with the strength of a Level 2 cultivator.
CRACK.
The prosthetic splintered. Wei Chang hit the mud with a sickening thud, his heavy body splashing the cold filth onto the onlookers. The villagers gathered around, watching in a silence born of cowardice. Some even allowed a faint, twisted smile to touch their lips—gratified to see the legendary blacksmith reduced to a crawling beggar.
"Look at you," Lu Feng laughed, looking down from his saddle. "A master smith face-down in the muck. And where is that freak son of yours? The one with the ghost eyes?"
Wuque stepped out of the shadows of the forge. He didn't look at the horse, the guards, or the crowd. He looked at his father, clutching the splintered remains of his leg in the mud.
In that moment, the "Silence" inside Wuque didn't just expand—it solidified. He didn't feel the heat of rage; rage was a vibration, a movement of the soul. Wuque felt only a profound, cold sense of Correction. The world was out of balance. The "Order" of the Lu Clan was a loud, ugly noise that needed to be muted.
"Pick up your father, trash," Lu Feng commanded, pointing his glowing whip at Wuque's chest. "And tell him if the blades aren't ready by tomorrow, I'll take your indigo eyes as interest."
Wuque walked toward his father. He helped Wei Chang up, but his gaze remained fixed on the flaming whip.
"Father," Wuque said softly, his voice echoing in the sudden, unnatural stillness of the square. "The coal is finished. We don't need to forge for them anymore."
"Wuque, stop..." Wei Chang whispered, his eyes wide with a sudden, dawning terror. He knew that look. It was the look of a void about to open.
But it was too late. Wuque turned to face Lu Feng. His eyes weren't just indigo now; they were two points of absolute, light-drinking black.
"Your 'Order' ends here," Wuque said.