Chapter 4: A Thorn Beneath the Skin
The Ironcloud Sect was a tree with many branches—and every branch fought to grow higher, strangling the others in secret.
The outer disciples, servants, alchemists, beast tamers, and smith apprentices… they were all pieces on a giant board. And those who could see the patterns? They survived. Sometimes, they rose.
Yun Mu didn't need to rise yet.
He needed to remain unseen—a root beneath the soil, absorbing blood until the time came to break through.
But fate was impatient.
---
It began with Chen Bo.
A senior servant. Thick-shouldered, with narrow eyes like a vulture and a tongue as poisonous as his hands. He ran the disposal squad for Mist Valley, had three junior overseers under him, and a direct tie to the outer disciple Lin Yu—son of a core elder.
And he hated anything that disrupted the pecking order.
Especially when that something was a silent servant boy that no one remembered hiring.
Whispers had reached him.
A black-haired brat who didn't flinch at blood. Who walked alone and never got whipped. Who killed a Vine Serpent, then just walked away.
It made him uneasy.
And when powerful men grew uneasy, they killed.
---
The next day, Yun Mu was assigned a new partner.
A quiet girl named Mei Qing—thin, soft-spoken, but with eyes like broken glass.
She lasted exactly one day before warning him.
"They want you dead," she said quietly as they cleaned a bloodstained arena. "Chen Bo's planning something. Tonight. After curfew."
Yun Mu looked at her.
"Why tell me?"
She shrugged. "Because I don't like rapists. And because I saw you kill that beast. That thing… It was clean."
That was all.
She left. Never came back.
---
That night, Yun Mu returned to his hidden well—but he didn't descend into it.
Instead, he waited in the branches of a twisted ash tree nearby, Hollow Qi suppressing his presence.
The clouds above churned.
And at midnight, three shadows crept into the clearing.
Chen Bo came last, walking confidently, whip coiled around his waist like a snake. His two lackeys carried a sack of powder—paralysis dust—and a blade etched with dull spirit runes.
"Brat thinks he's clever," Chen Bo muttered. "Probably in that damn hole like a rat."
He motioned.
One man dropped the powder into the well. The other drew the blade.
But Yun Mu had already moved.
Silent Cut.
The blade-wielder's head dropped before he could blink—expression frozen mid-yawn.
The other turned—but black tendrils wrapped around his throat, muffling the scream.
By the time Chen Bo looked up, Yun Mu was standing on the tree branch directly above him.
Expression blank.
Eyes hollow.
And in that moment, Chen Bo saw the truth.
This boy… wasn't a boy at all.
He was a knife without a sheath.
A blade sharpened by the dark.
---
Chen Bo struck first—unleashing a minor talisman, a burst of flame meant to burn the tree. Yun Mu didn't dodge.
He fell with it.
Used the collapse to close distance.
Landed in front of Chen Bo as the flame licked at his back.
And then he moved.
No dramatic technique. No elegant form.
Just a single black line, drawn from shoulder to hip.
Chen Bo's body staggered. He looked down.
Nothing had pierced him.
But then—
Blood erupted from his side. A spiraling hole, like something had chewed through his ribs from the inside.
He collapsed.
Eyes wide.
Mouth working soundlessly.
Yun Mu leaned close.
"Next time," he whispered, "send better bait."
Then he slit Chen Bo's throat.
---
He buried the bodies in the compost trenches behind the alchemy huts. Piled waste spores on top to accelerate decay.
The sect wouldn't notice. Not for weeks.
And by then?
He'd be stronger.
---
The next morning, a new overseer took over Mist Valley assignments.
Yun Mu returned to beast disposal duty like nothing had happened.
The whispers faded.
For now.
But something else began.
---
That night, the Hollow Seed in his core began to tremble.
The second blade merged into the first—forming a double-edged construct.
His dantian burned. His spirit sea roared.
The Hollow Qi howled like a windstorm.
> [Breakthrough Achieved]
Essence Refinement: Third Layer
Trait unlocked: Killing Impulse – Your spirit sharpens in combat. Reaction speed increases under lethal threat.
And in the dark, far beneath his awareness, a faint voice echoed within his Hollow Seed.
> You are beginning to understand…