Chapter 1: The Ghost in the Snow

The wind howled through Frostpeak Hollow like a mourning spirit, tearing at the patched fur cloak tightly wrapped around Li Chen's shoulders. He gritted his teeth against the cold, his fingers numb around the notched hunting knife in his hand. The trap he'd set three days ago lay mangled ahead, its iron jaws warped and smeared with blackened blood.

Not a wolf. Maybe a snow leopard?

But leopards didn't leave tracks that glistened faintly blue in the moonlight.

"Uncle Heng's going to box my ears if I come back empty again," Li Chen muttered, breath clouding as he crouched to inspect the claw marks raked across the frost-laden pine. At sixteen winters, he was the youngest hunter in the Hollow—a fact the village elders never let him forget, even if his traps kept their children fed through the worst blizzards.

The wind shifted.

A low, wet growl rumbled through the woods—a sound that made the marrow in his bones curdle.

His blade was halfway drawn when the thing lunged.

Moonlight caught jagged horns spiraling from a skull half-flesh, half-exposed bone. Six jointed legs ended in spiked talons that sank deep into the snow. Li Chen threw himself sideways, but one claw caught his shoulder, shredding fur and skin. His scream merged with the creature's shriek as they crashed into a drift.

"Move, you idiot!" he hissed at his own body, scrambling backward.

The beast's nostrils flared, leaking oily smoke. It reared, preparing to strike—

—and froze.

No, not froze. Trembled.

Its milky eyes fixed on something behind Li Chen. The creature let out a whimper eerily human, then fled, blue-black blood splattering the snow.

Slowly, heart hammering, Li Chen turned.

There, lodged between two ancient boulders crusted with icicles, hung a sword so caked in rust it seemed more corpse than blade. Yet the air around it wavered, snowflakes evaporating inches from the hilt. When he squinted, he could almost see… moonlight pooling around it, as though the very night bent toward the sword.

"Grandmother's ghost," he breathed, torn between awe and primal unease. The elders' warnings rang in his ears: Never touch what the mountains give freely.

But another voice whispered, silken and alien, from the depths of his mind:

You've dreamed of me, Li Chen of the Azure Blood.

His feet moved before he'd made a choice.

The hilt fit his palm as though molded for it. Rust flaked away beneath his touch, revealing silversteel etched with constellations. Pain lanced up his arm—blistering, glorious—and for a heartbeat, the world flickered.

He stood atop a ziggurat of black jade, seven swords impaled around him like a crown. A woman in armor shattered from obsidian knelt at his feet, weeping liquid starlight: "Forgive us, your empire fell because we—"

The vision shattered.

Li Chen found himself on his knees, the sword now gleaming faintly in his grip. Where its edge met the snow, steam rose in ghostly tendrils. Distantly, he realized his torn shoulder had stopped bleeding.

The howl came again—but multiplied. Dozens. Hundreds.

He ran.

————————

Three Hours Earlier

Elder Wu adjusted his bamboo hat as he crested the ridge overlooking Frostpeak Hollow. The wards he'd placed here three centuries ago still held; to mortal eyes, the valley appeared as it always had—smoke curling from thatched roofs, children chasing scrawny chickens through the snow.

But to his cultivated sight, the truth blazed.

A maelstrom of energy centered on the village, invisible threads of fate knotting tighter by the hour. The final gambit of the Azure Sword Dynasty was nearing its endgame, and Wu Tianming was two breaths away from cursing his ancestors for binding his soul to their doomed legacy.

"Show yourself, Bloodmoon pup," he said flatly, not turning.

The wolf that melted from the shadows had eyes like smoldering coals and a pelt streaked with ritual scars. Its jaws parted in a mockery of speech: "Lord Xue sends regards. He grows impatient, old man. Give us the boy, and the Heavenly Sword Sect will grant you merciful oblivion."

Wu unsheathed the bamboo flute at his belt.

"Your master mistakes desperation for ambition," he said. "The Verdigris Lotus may be scattered, but we remember how to prune weeds."

The demon wolf lunged—and exploded into cinders as Wu flicked a single note. The charred stench of burnt fur lingered as the cultivator descended toward the village, his lips pressed thin.

Too close. The seals on Li Chen's bloodline are failing.

He paused. A tremor passed through the earth, subtle as a spider's footfall.

But Wu Tianming, last disciple of the Verdant Lotus Sect, heard it clear as a death bell.

Somewhere below, a sword older than nations had stirred from its long sleep.

Li Chen didn't remember the path home. Branches lashed his face as he sprinted, the sword's hilt burning cold against his palm. Behind him, the forest erupted with shrieks—things that howled like wolves but smelled like rotting lotus blooms.

His lungs screamed. The Hollow's wooden palisade rose ahead, torchlight dancing along its spikes. Young Lanhua was on watch duty, her bow clutched in white-knuckled hands.

"Chen! Where in the ten hells have you—spirits preserve us!"

The first beast cleared the trees. Lanhua's arrow took it through the eye, but three more surged over their fallen packmate.

"OPEN THE GATE!" Li Chen bellowed. The sword flared in his grip, and for a single absurd moment, he thought of the old tale Auntie Hong told—the General Who Split the Sea, his blade cutting mountains asunder.

He swung.

A crescent of silver light tore through the air.

The lead beast disintegrated mid-leap, its brethren sheared into smoking halves. The blast flung Li Chen backward into the palisade wall, his vision swimming. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard screams—both human and not.

When his sight cleared, he wished it hadn't.

Half the gate was gone, reduced to splinters. Of the creatures, only blackened smears remained. Lanhua stared at him from the watchtower, her face bloodless.

"Chen… your… your eyes…"

He lifted the sword, now gleaming like quicksilver. In its reflection, twin crescents burned where his pupils should be.

A dry voice cut through the chaos: "Drop the blade, boy. Unless you wish to cook your soul rare."

An old man in faded green robes stood amidst the carnage, untouched by snow or blood. His bamboo flute hovered at his side, etched with characters that squirmed when Li Chen blinked.

The sword's voice purred in his mind: Kill the interloper. He reeks of faded power.

Li Chen tightened his grip. "Who are you?"

The stranger flicked his fingers.

Agony.

It felt as though every vein had been set aflame. Li Chen collapsed, fingers spasming open. The sword clattered to the ground, its glow dying instantly.

"I," said the man, scooping up the blade with a strip of cursed silk, "am your least-worst option. Up. The Bloodmoon Pack's alpha will be here before moon zenith."

Lanhua's arrowhead glinted at the man's throat. "You'll do no such thing, bandit."

To his credit, the old man didn't flinch. "Child, if I wanted him dead, he'd be ash. Now, unless you've cultivated to Core Formation in this manure-stained backwater, lower that—down!"

He yanked Lanhua aside as a boulder-sized mass of claws and fangs crashed through the remnants of the gate. This beast wore collars of human fingerbones, its six eyes burning with malevolent intelligence.

"MINE," it gargled, gaze locked on the sword in the elder's hand. "GIVE... OR CRACK... BONES TO SUCK."

Li Chen tried to stand, but his legs buckled. The old man sighed.

"Verdant Lotus," he murmured, twirling the flute. "Once bloomed where heaven's tears fell."

The first note lifted Li Chen's hair. The second made the snowflakes freeze mid-fall.

The third split the world green.

Vines thicker than temple pillars erupted from the earth, impaling the demon. They bloomed with flowers as red as arterial blood, petals slithering into the beast's mouth and eyes until its body bulged grotesquely. With a wet pop, it burst, drenching the courtyard in gore.

Elder Wu wiped a fleck of ichor from his cheek. "The boy comes with me. Inform your elders the Azure Oath is fulfilled."

Lanhua looked at Li Chen. At the sword. At the carnage.

"Take him," she whispered.

————————

The villagers didn't stop them. Some crossed themselves; others spat. Uncle Heng stood silent in the tavern doorway, his hunting ax glinting—but let them pass.

As they climbed into the Bloodbone Peaks, Li Chen finally found his voice:

"What did you mean, I have Azure Blood?"

Elder Wu's laughter held no mirth.

"Boy, how do you think a half-starved waif swung a divine blade hard enough to maim a pack of Bloodmoon ghouls? That sword didn't choose you. It answered you."

Shadows pooled at their feet, shaped like grasping hands. Somewhere in the passes above, a lonely howl rose.

Li Chen clenched his still-tingling palms. "And you? Who do you serve?"

The cultivator glanced back, moonlight catching the green lotus sigil glowing faintly on his forehead.

"The gravekeepers of a fallen age. Now walk faster. Your lessons begin at dawn—assuming we live until sunrise."