The woods grew stranger the farther he walked.
It wasn't the trees themselves—they still leaned like old monks, weather-worn and draped in lichen—but the quiet. There were no bird calls here. No rustling leaves, no insect wings. Even the wind moved differently. It came in long, slow pulls, as if some unseen creature were breathing in the trees' stead.
Li Yao adjusted his pack and pressed onward.
The path past the riverstones had long ceased to be a path. It was more memory than trail, spoken of in half-warnings and dismissive shrugs. A place old folks mentioned only when drunk or grieving. Something from before the war. Before the maps.
The shrine waited beyond it.
Or so Uncle Wei had said.
Li Yao didn't expect anything grand. He didn't expect offerings or gold-spun prayer scrolls. But even he was surprised when he found it—not by the sight, but by the feeling.
The air changed before the trees did.
One moment he was stepping through tangled brush, boots cracking dry twigs, and the next… nothing.
No sound. No wind. No scent of pine.
Just an empty hush that pressed against the skin like cloth soaked in oil.
The trees around the clearing had burned once. Blackened trunks jutted skyward like broken ribs, and the undergrowth had been reduced to ash years ago. But nothing had grown back. No moss. No grass. No weeds even. Just stone.
And at the center: the shrine.
If it had ever been a place of reverence, time had worn the memory thin. The roof had half-collapsed, and the red tiles were scattered like teeth in the dirt. A moss-covered statue—its face erased by weather or claws—knelt in the center, flanked by warped beams and crooked bells that no longer rang.
There was no door.
Just a gaping mouth where once offerings might have passed.
Li Yao stepped inside.
It smelled of soot and rust. Not blood, exactly—but close.
At first, he thought it was abandoned.
Then he heard the hammer.
Bang.
A single, echoing strike—metal on metal, drawn out like the note of a dying bell.
Bang.
Again. Measured. Rhythmic. Not from within the shrine itself, but below it.
He followed the sound.
Behind the collapsed altar was a stairwell, crude and winding, cut directly into the stone. No lanterns. No torches. Just flickering red light that pulsed from deep below, like a furnace half-awake.
The air grew hotter with each step.
And then, at the bottom: the blacksmith.
Or what was left of him.
He was a thin man, barefoot, wearing little more than rags that hung in blackened strips. His skin was grey with soot, and his eyes burned too bright in his weathered face—not like flame, but like something had hollowed them out and lit a candle behind the sockets.
He didn't stop hammering when Li Yao entered.
Didn't even glance up.
The forge glowed deep orange. The anvil was cracked in two places, held together with copper wire and something darker. And scattered across the walls were blades, hooks, nails, pliers, chains. Not all of them meant for battle. Some meant for… other things.
"Are you the blacksmith?" Li Yao asked quietly.
The hammer froze mid-air.
Then lowered.
"I'm what's left of him," the man rasped, voice like splintered bark.
Li Yao stood still, wary.
"I was told you forge weapons," he said after a moment.
"I forge memories," the blacksmith replied. "Sometimes they look like weapons. Sometimes they don't."
"I need a blade."
The blacksmith didn't laugh, but his smile was worse. Thin. Crooked. Too many teeth.
"So does everyone. But most don't know what they need it for."
Li Yao didn't respond. He felt no fear, not exactly—but his body was alert in the way a deer tenses before the snap of a twig.
"You're too young," the blacksmith said. "Too quiet. Most who come here beg. You didn't."
"I'm not begging."
The blacksmith leaned closer, inspecting him with cracked yellow nails and a blackened gaze.
"Ah. You're burning. Slowly, but it's there. Something under the skin. Something that wants to come out."
Li Yao remained still.
"I can make you something," the blacksmith muttered, already turning back to the forge. "But it won't be what you think. It won't be pretty. It won't gleam. It'll take your weight and give it teeth. You'll think it's just steel. That's how it starts."
He began sifting through a pile of scrap—long, rusted strips, some still sticky with something dark and old.
"What do I owe you?" Li Yao asked.
The blacksmith didn't look up.
"Bring me your first kill with it. Not beast. Not animal. Kill. Bring me the feeling."
Then he laughed, sharp and abrupt.
Li Yao said nothing.
There were worse prices.
He stayed for three days while the forge was prepared.
He slept near the broken statue upstairs, cooking dried roots in silence and watching the ash swirl at dawn. The blacksmith didn't speak unless spoken to. And when he forged, he sang—strange, hollow songs in a language Li Yao didn't know, soft and tuneless like breath escaping from a cracked jar.
On the third night, the blade was ready.
It didn't shine. It had no name. It was curved slightly, simple and lean, with no markings or etchings. Not beautiful, not fearsome. Just... there. Its weight balanced neatly in his palm, as if it had always known the shape of his grip.
He felt nothing when he held it.
No surge of power. No connection.
But the blacksmith watched him too closely as he gripped the hilt.
And if he'd been paying attention, he might have noticed how the blade hummed—just faintly—when his thoughts turned to the price he'd have to pay, emotions stirring like deep currents of a dark ocean as Li Yao thought of the word 'kill'.
But he didn't notice.
Not yet.