Chapter 15: Fox’s Fangs, Demon’s Path

Chapter 15: Fox's Fangs, Demon's Path

Mu-won's scream echoed through the dead forest.

His back slammed against the moss-covered stone wall for the third time, his breath ragged, body drenched in sweat and blood. Cuts laced his arms. His robes were torn to ribbons.

Yeom Ji didn't let up.

> "You're not moving like someone who wants to live!"

Her foot lashed out.

Mu-won blocked—barely—only to have her palm strike his side and send him tumbling through broken statues and dirt.

He groaned, coughing blood. "This… isn't teaching."

> "Wrong again," she said coldly. "This is teaching. You just haven't started learning."

---

For seven days, Yeom Ji broke him down.

No lectures. No books. Just relentless attacks, traps, and poisons that burned his skin or blurred his vision.

He ate once a day. Slept only when he passed out.

But every time Mu-won fell, he stood up a little faster. His muscles remembered the angles of her strikes. His feet moved a little quieter. His blood qi flowed more precisely—not wildly like before.

On the eighth night, Yeom Ji finally said:

> "Lesson one. A killer doesn't fight. He finishes."

She handed him a knife.

> "Lesson two. If they see you draw, you're already dead."

---

Mu-won sat beneath the cracked temple arch that night, clutching the knife and panting. The moon hung low, almost red, as if reflecting the qi building in his dantian.

> "Pain sharpens. Pain focuses," he whispered to himself.

He looked at the pendant in his palm.

It pulsed again—but tonight, something was different.

A vision flickered through his mind.

A battlefield. Burning skies. Blood raining like ink. And in the center, a cloaked figure standing tall, holding a sword that bled mist.

> "You again…" Mu-won whispered.

> "Who are you?"

The voice answered—not from the pendant, but from inside his soul.

> "You are me. The final echo of a forgotten bloodline."

> "And this world… stole what was ours."

Mu-won's eyes snapped open. He could feel it now.

The pendant wasn't just a key to power.

It was a seal.

And someone—or something—inside him was beginning to wake up.

---

Elsewhere — Near the Crimson Forest

A masked figure with twin daggers crouched in a clearing, staring at a bloodstained trail. His presence was muted. No qi leaked from his body.

He was a Whisper Fang, an elite bounty hunter trained by the Shadow Web Sect.

And he had found Mu-won's trail.

> "The fox is shielding him," he muttered. "But foxes die just like prey."

He vanished into the dark.

---

Back at the ruined temple

Yeom Ji leaned on her sword, eyes fixed on Mu-won.

> "You're adapting faster than I thought. What's pushing you?"

He didn't answer.

Not directly.

He simply looked up at the stars.

> "I wasn't reborn to live quietly. I came back to carve my name into the spine of this world."

She smirked.

> "Good. You'll need that fire when the Whisper Fang comes for you."

Mu-won's gaze turned sharp. "Let him."

> "This time, I won't be the one running."

---

To be continued...