The Imperial Court – Dawn of Chaos
The Golden Phoenix Hall was in turmoil.
Nobles clad in silk and steel clustered in frantic circles, their whispers hissing like a nest of vipers. The air smelled of sandalwood and sweat, thick with the tension of unspoken fears. At the center of it all, the Frostblade Throne sat empty—its jagged ice edges glinting under the lantern light, a silent reminder of the power that had once knelt before it.
Jin Mu-Ryong's heir had vanished in a flash of blasphemous light.
And the empire had no answers.
"I saw it with my own eyes!" roared General Lu, his fist slamming onto a lacquered table. Scrolls rattled, ink pots trembling. "The boy was on his knees, begging for mercy—then the air ripped open like a gutted stag! A circle of light—no, fire—swallowed him whole!"
Chancellor Wen Zhi stroked his beard, his voice a blade wrapped in silk. "And this 'circle'—you claim it bore no resemblance to any known formation? Not even the Celestial Sects' arrays?"
"It was no array," spat Lady Xue, her fingers tightening around her fan. "The runes were alive. They writhed like worms in the dirt."
A murmur swept through the court.
Then—
The doors burst open.
A bloodied scout collapsed onto the marble floor, his armor cracked, his eyes wild. "The Crimson Teeth—" he gasped. "Annihilated."
Silence.
The Emperor, a shadow beneath his jeweled crown, finally spoke. "Explain."
The scout trembled. "Their camp was found at the Frozen Maw Pass. No survivors. No bodies either—just… shadows."
"Shadows?"
"Burned into the ice," the scout whispered. "Perfect silhouettes of men mid-scream. And at the center…" He swallowed. "A black sun, carved into the stone."
The throne room erupted.
"Sorcery!"
"The Mu-Ryong brats—!"
"No mere child could wield such power!"
Grand Astrologer Yi, a skeletal man draped in star-chart robes, stepped forward. His voice was a dry rasp. "The Event Horizon."
The word hung like a hanged man.
The Emperor rose, his golden sleeves sweeping like wings of fire. Instantly, the court stilled.
"The Mu-Ryong line is extinct," he declared. "But the light that took the boy was not their doing. Something older stirs." His gaze cut to the nobles. "You will watch. You will report. And if that circle appears again—"
A brittle laugh interrupted him.
Prince Jian, the Emperor's dissolute youngest son, lounged against a pillar, swirling wine in his cup. "Oh, spare us the theatrics, Father. We all know what this is." His smirk was a razor. "The Frostborn Watcher has finally woken up."
The nobles recoiled. Even the Emperor stiffened.
Chancellor Wen hissed, "You speak of folktales—"
"Do I?" Jian's cup shattered on the floor. "Then why did Great-Grandfather seal the Frozen Mountain? Why did he drown an entire sect in black ice?" He leaned in. "The Mu-Ryong weren't just a clan. They were wardens."
The Emperor's voice dropped to a whisper. "Enough."
But the damage was done.
As the court dissolved into chaos, factions formed:
The Purists demanded the Emperor burn every Mu-Ryong scroll, erase their name from history.
The Celestial Sects' envoys argued the light was divine punishment—a "Heaven's Scourge."
The Shadow Ministry proposed capturing the remaining siblings alive… for study.
Only Prince Jian lingered by the throne, his voice a whisper.
"They're not dead, Father." He flicked a glance at the Frostblade Throne—its ice darker now, veins of black creeping through its core. "And when they return, they won't be children anymore."
Outside, the wind howled.
Somewhere beyond the capital, the black sun blinked.
The Wasteland's Embrace
The blizzard had teeth.
It gnawed at the siblings' faces as they staggered through the white void, their mother's last scream still ringing in their ears. Tae dragged Yun's limp body against his chest, the boy's breath shallow, his skin colder than the snow beneath them. Lian led the way, her ice mirage flickering weakly—a ghostly veil that blurred their tracks but could not hide their stench of fear.
They were no longer hunters. They were prey.
When the storm finally relented, they collapsed in the skeletal shadow of a dead oak. Lian pressed her forehead to the frozen earth, her shoulders trembling.
"They're all gone," she whispered. "The elders. The disciples. Mother…"
Tae said nothing. He cradled Yun's head in his lap, wiping blood from the boy's nostrils—black, viscous, wrong.
"We should have died with them," Lian spat, her voice cracking. "What's the point of—"
Tae's fist slammed into the ice, splitting his knuckles. "The point," he hissed, "is that we live. That we make them pay. Or do you think Father's ghost would smile seeing you wallow?"
Lian flinched. For a moment, the only sound was Yun's ragged breathing.
Then—
"It's watching us," Yun murmured, his eyes fluttering open.
The boy's Rimefire Eyes glowed faintly, like coals smothered in ash.
"The Watcher," he rasped. "It's… hungry."
Tae stiffened. "What did you see?"
Yun's fingers clawed at his own throat. "A city. Buried in the ice. And eyes—so many eyes—"
Memory Fragment:
Yun stands in a cavern of black glass, his reflection fractured into a thousand shards. Each version of him is older, twisted—some with horns, some with too many teeth. They whisper in unison: "We are the key. We are the door."
Lian gripped Yun's shoulders. "Look at me. That thing in your head—it's lying. You're still you."
But the snow around Yun's body had begun to crawl, forming tiny, intricate patterns—a language none could read.
They found the cave by accident.
Lian's foot plunged through a snowdrift, revealing a crevice hidden beneath. The air that wafted up was warmer. Staler.
"It reeks," Tae said, peering into the dark.
"It's shelter," Lian countered.
The descent was treacherous. The walls wept black sludge that clung to their clothes like tar. At the bottom, they found:
A cavern littered with shattered ice sculptures—faces contorted in agony.
Frozen corpses in Mu-Ryong robes, their hands fused to the walls.
A mural depicting a mountain split by a black sun, captioned in ancient script: "Here sleeps the Devourer of Dawn."
As they huddled around a stolen Crimson Teeth torch, Tae noticed it—a journal, wedged under a corpse's frozen hand. The pages crackled as he opened it.
Entry 1:
"Day 43. The Watcher speaks through the ice. It promises power. It lies."
Entry 17:
"Day 89. My brother Qiuyan opened the gate. Only his shadow returned. It crawls on the ceiling, whispering."
Final Entry:
"They're coming. The Emperor's hounds. Let them take the mountain. Let them wake the Devourer. We deserve this."
Lian snatched the journal. "Burn it."
"No," Yun said. "We need to know."
The torch flickered.
In the sudden dark, something scraped against the cavern wall.
Morning brought no relief.
Yun's eyes had worsened. The Rimefire now left charred streaks down his cheeks. He claimed the Watcher was "teaching" him—showing him how to bend the black ice.
To prove it, he pressed his palm to the cave wall.
The ice melted.
Not into water, but into a black liquid that pooled at their feet, reflecting not their faces—but things with too many limbs and eyes.
"Stop!" Tae yanked Yun back.
"Why?" The boy smiled, vacant. "It wants to help."
They discovered the truth at dusk.
Venturing out for firewood, Tae stumbled upon a shadow burned into a boulder—a man mid-scream, his outline perfect, his features erased. Nearby, more shadows: a hound, a scout, a woman clutching a dagger.
The annihilated Crimson Teeth patrol.
Lian knelt, her fingers brushing the stone. "This wasn't martial arts. This was… erasure."
Yun giggled.
"What's funny?" Tae snapped.
The boy pointed to the black sun carved above the shadows. "They're inside now. With the Watcher. Forever."
That night, Tae confronted Yun.
"You're using its power. You're becoming like it."
Yun's eyes flickered. "And you're not? That Frostblade shard—you feel it, don't you? The hunger."
Tae's left hand, half-consumed by black ice, twitched.
Lian stepped between them. "We stick together. No secrets. No lies."
But as the siblings clasped hands, the cave's murals shifted. The painted black sun now bore their faces.
In the Depths:
The Frostblade shard hummed against Tae's chest. "Feed me," it begged.
In the Shadows:
The corpses in the cave began to twitch, their frozen fingers cracking.
In Yun's Mind:
The Watcher laughed. "Almost time, little key."