The fog came at dawn, thick and clinging, swallowing the narrow path ahead like a slow-moving tide.
Wuyin didn't like it.
She walked ahead of the carriage they'd acquired three days prior — a simple one, modest and easy to overlook. Yujin rode inside, wrapped in layers of fur and silk, her posture calm despite the cold morning air. She peeked through the window, watching Wuyin's silhouette cut through the mist with each quiet step.
Wuyin had stopped speaking since last night. But Yujin didn't mind. The silence was never empty between them now.
"Something's wrong," Wuyin said suddenly.
Yujin pushed open the carriage door without hesitation. "How many?"
Wuyin's eyes swept the landscape, listening.
"Too many for bandits. Not enough for a sect's war party. They're hiding their steps."
She knelt and pressed two fingers to the damp earth. A ripple of qi spread, faint as a breath — then snapped back like a thread being severed.
"They're using Fog-Walking techniques," she muttered. "Ghost Needle style. But mixed with… something else."
Yujin's expression darkened. "The coalition Iron Crow spoke of."
Wuyin didn't reply. She rose smoothly, unsheathing her blade — not fast, but with quiet certainty.
A sharp whistle broke the stillness.
Figures emerged from the fog like phantoms — seven, no, nine in total — dressed in a patchwork of sect uniforms, their faces hidden behind black cloth. One wore a torn Azure Blade sash, another bore the woven red emblem of the Flame Serpent Cult. But none carried the pride or posture of true disciples.
These were imitators. Pretenders. And they were deadly.
Wuyin stepped forward before they could speak.
"You've already made one mistake," she said.
The lead figure chuckled. "Oh?"
"You brought nine blades," Wuyin said. "And not one of them knows what they're fighting."
Yujin slipped from the carriage behind her, her hand on the hidden fan beneath her sleeve.
The fog thickened again — a veil drawn over an execution ground.
The first attacker struck with a crescent blade, the curve glinting like silver in the haze. Wuyin moved under it, her body folding like flowing silk, and her counterattack was a single, sharp flick — not aimed at the blade, but at the man's ankle.
He collapsed mid-stride, screaming. The fog swallowed him.
A second came from behind. Wuyin didn't turn. She stepped back, letting his sword whistle past her ear — then thrust her elbow into his throat. The man folded.
Yujin watched with sharp eyes, memorizing. There was artistry in the way Wuyin moved — not just skill, but memory, rhythm, brutality wrapped in grace.
The remaining seven hesitated.
"She's alone!" one shouted. "Just one girl—!"
The wind shifted.
No, Yujin thought. She's never been alone.
Before the third man could lunge, Yujin stepped forward, her fan unfolding with a whisper. Threads of golden qi flowed out in a net of light, blinding and precise. It was not a weapon meant to kill — it was meant to separate, disarm, and divide.
The attackers reeled. In the confusion, Wuyin descended.
Her blade swept through the fog like it belonged to it. Limbs fell. Screams echoed. By the time silence returned, only one man remained, kneeling in the mud, his robes soaked in blood — his own and his comrades'.
Wuyin stood before him, blade dripping.
"Who sent you?" she asked.
The man coughed, spitting red. "You don't get it… none of you do. This isn't about a sect. It's about what the world forgot. About what lies beneath the old temples, what sleeps in the bones of your inheritance—"
Wuyin's eyes narrowed.
"You're all chasing ghosts," he rasped. "But one of us found something real. She said… she said the monarch chose wrongly. That you were a mistake."
Wuyin said nothing. But her silence burned.
Yujin stepped forward. "Who is she?"
The man chuckled. "She wears a crown of ashes… and walks with a crow. She said you would come — that the youngest would return, wearing another's life like silk."
Then he bit down.
Poison.
Wuyin's blade was in his neck a heartbeat later, but it was already too late. He died with a smile, eyes glassy with madness.
Yujin exhaled, fingers tightening around her fan.
"A crown of ashes," she repeated.
Wuyin turned to her, eyes cold. "He wasn't lying. There's someone else. A contender."
Yujin met her gaze, steady. "Then we find her before she finds you."
The fog slowly began to lift.
Wuyin looked toward the east, where the path wound toward the looming peaks of the Vermilion Cloud Range.
"There's a place," she said. "An old ruin beneath the cliffs. Where the Silent Monarch once tested his final disciples. I left it untouched when I first escaped. I wasn't ready then."
Yujin stepped beside her.
"And now?"
Wuyin's jaw clenched.
"Now I am."
They didn't need to say more. The horses turned. The cart wheels creaked. And in the rising dawn, the mist gave way to the shadow of a mountain — where secrets slept beneath ancient stone, and blood once anointed the path of kings.