The early morning mist wrapped around the foothills like a shroud, heavy and unmoving. Sehwa Village lay blanketed in that gray silence, but Lee Haneul was already at the edge of the eastern ridge—eyes closed, posture steady, as if rooted to the stone beneath his feet.
He wasn't meditating this time.
He was listening.
The world spoke in subtle rhythms—shifting wind, bending grass, the pulse of spiritual energy beneath the soil. Something out there had disturbed it. Something cursed.
"Senior Lee!"
A voice broke the silence. A disciple—young, breathing hard, robes torn and stained with dirt—came rushing up the ridge.
"They found another one," he panted. "A cursed cultivator. North path. Barely recognizable."
Haneul's gaze didn't waver. "Still breathing?"
The disciple hesitated. "Yes. But… he's not speaking. Just… sobbing."
Without another word, Haneul moved.
The body lay slumped against a pine tree, blood trailing from his mouth like ink on parchment. His robes, once marked with the crest of the Jade Stream Sect, were shredded. His right arm was twisted at an impossible angle, bone pushing through the skin. But his eyes—those haunted, hollow eyes—were fixed on nothing.
He didn't even flinch as Haneul knelt before him.
"What happened?" Haneul asked gently.
No response. Just a slow shaking of the head. Tears streamed silently down his face.
Haneul placed two fingers on the man's forehead and focused. Through spiritual contact, a fractured image passed into his mind: a failed breakthrough attempt, an overwhelming pressure, and then—madness. Screams. Fire. Blades of thought cutting through memory.
Then silence.
The cultivator hadn't been cursed by a demon.
He'd been consumed by himself.
Back at the sect's inner courtyard, Elder Jang stood over a hand-drawn map of the region, circles marking every known cursed sighting.
"They're closing in," he murmured. "Three more incidents near Jade Stream, two near Iron Vale."
Haneul looked over the map. "None near the Murim Alliance headquarters?"
"No. Not yet. But I fear that's intentional."
A long pause followed before Elder Jang continued.
"The cursed cultivators aren't just wandering. They're being… positioned. Someone is letting them spread around the perimeter. It's a distraction."
"A veil," Haneul said. "To hide a deeper move."
Jang nodded grimly. "An assassination plot against the Murim Alliance leader would require chaos. And cursed cultivators provide the perfect smokescreen."
That evening, as the sun sank below the misty peaks, Haneul trained alone beneath the ginkgo tree. Each movement was smooth, surgical, his spiritual energy cycling through all three Dantians with fluid precision.
Upper Dantian: Clear, balanced.
Middle Dantian: Harmonized.
Lower Dantian: Burning strong.
He was nearing the peak of his current realm, and he felt it. The boundary—thin as silk—between stability and evolution.
But he did not rush it.
He remembered what came to those who did.
He paused mid-form, sensing another presence.
"Watching again, Areum?" he asked without turning.
From the treetop above, a soft laugh echoed. A girl in plain gray robes dropped silently to the ground beside him. Her eyes gleamed with intelligence, and despite her young age, she held herself with poise rare for a disciple.
"You knew I was there?"
"You breathe too shallow when you're curious," Haneul said, smirking just a little.
She rolled her eyes. "Then maybe stop being so interesting."
Areum stepped forward, gaze serious now. "The others are scared. They've heard whispers about what happens when people fail their breakthroughs."
"They should be scared," Haneul replied. "But fear isn't the enemy. It's a warning bell."
"Do you think… you'll ever fail?"
He looked at her, deadpan. "Not allowed to."
Later that night, while the sect slept, Haneul knelt in front of the old scroll again. The fragments of the Origin Manual he'd collected from old ruins and forgotten tomes still didn't make sense.
But a symbol kept appearing.
An eye. Closed. Surrounded by three intersecting circles.
And the more he looked at it, the more it felt… familiar.
Far beyond Sehwa, in a realm not mapped by any known sect, a blade shimmered beneath a waterfall of starlight.
And beneath that waterfall stood a boy in obsidian robes.
Lee Haeun opened his eyes.
Cold. Perfect. Unshaken.
He whispered to the night:
"Soon."