Alright.
Below is Chapter One, written to set the tone for a 1200-chapter epic.
No shortcuts. No hype. No explanations handed to
The boy woke up because pain had learned patience.
It did not strike all at once. It arrived carefully, like fingers testing a wound to see how much suffering it could still extract. First came the burning in his ribs—sharp enough to demand attention, not sharp enough to grant mercy. Then the dull pressure behind his eyes, as if something heavy had been set there and forgotten. Only after that did his lungs remember how to hurt.
He tried to breathe.
His chest refused.
For a moment, the boy thought he was already dead and simply hadn't realized it yet. The thought did not frighten him. Fear required energy, and he had none left to spare.
A breath finally forced its way in, shallow and broken. It tasted of bitterness—herbs, ash, and something metallic. Blood, maybe. His own, he suspected. It was always his own.
He did not open his eyes.
Opening them felt unnecessary. Whatever world awaited him would still be there whether he looked at it or not.
Instead, he listened.
Wind moved somewhere nearby, passing through gaps in wood or stone. There was the creak of something old settling into itself. No voices. No footfalls. No animals. The absence of sound pressed in on him, heavier than the pain.
He remembered silence like this.
That was how he knew he wasn't safe.
A memory surfaced—not as an image, but as a sensation. Pressure on his chest. Fingers or a boot, he wasn't sure which. Someone leaning close enough that he could smell them. Burnt iron. Medicine. Clean hands that did not hesitate.
"This one won't matter."
The words had not been cruel. They had been efficient.
The boy exhaled, or tried to. His body shuddered instead.
So he had not died.
That was… inconvenient.
His fingers twitched against rough fabric. Not silk. Not clean cotton. Something reused too many times. He could feel the seams through his skin, could feel where the cloth pulled tight around his torso. Bandages. Crude ones.
Someone had wrapped him.
That realization took longer to settle than it should have.
He tried to move his legs.
Nothing happened.
A quiet sound escaped his throat—not a cry, not a plea. Just air passing through something damaged. The sound echoed strangely, as if the space around him were larger than he had expected.
Finally, he opened his eyes.
Light stabbed in immediately, forcing them shut again. He waited until the pain adjusted, then tried once more, slower this time.
Above him was a ceiling of cracked wood and smoke-darkened beams. The structure leaned, slightly but noticeably, like an old man who had forgotten how to stand straight. Dust hung in the air, caught in thin shafts of daylight filtering through gaps in the roof.
This was not a house.
This was something that had once been a house and had since been downgraded by time.
The boy turned his head a fraction to the left. The motion sent a hot line of pain through his neck, but he did not stop. Pain was information. He needed to know how broken he was.
To his left, a wall had collapsed inward. Through the gap, he could see the remains of a village courtyard. Burned beams lay half-buried in dirt. A well sat crooked in the center, its stone rim cracked, a dark symbol faintly visible on the inner wall before the shadow swallowed it.
He stared at the well longer than necessary.
Something about it felt wrong.
Not dangerous. Not threatening.
Familiar.
The feeling disturbed him more than the pain.
He looked away.
To his right was a low table, missing one leg and propped up with a stone. On it sat a bowl of dark liquid. Steam curled lazily upward, carrying the same bitter smell he had tasted earlier.
Medicine.
Someone had gone to the trouble of making medicine for him.
The boy frowned. It was a small expression, but it hurt anyway.
Why?
Before he could think further, footsteps approached.
They were light, but not cautious. Whoever was coming was not worried about being overheard.
A figure stepped into view through the broken doorway.
She was young.
Not a child, but not old enough to be called a woman with certainty. Her clothes were plain—too plain to belong to anyone important—but clean. Her hair was tied back simply, without ornament. Her eyes, when they fell on him, did not widen in surprise.
They narrowed.
"You're awake," she said.
Her voice was calm. Not gentle. Not harsh. As if his waking had been expected, and her only interest was whether it would cause inconvenience.
He tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
She watched him struggle for a moment, then reached for the bowl on the table. She did not help him sit up. She did not ask if he was in pain. She dipped a spoon into the liquid and brought it to his lips.
"Open," she said.
The boy hesitated.
Her eyes hardened by a fraction.
"Or don't," she added. "You survived this long. You can choose to stop."
He opened his mouth.
The medicine was worse than he expected. It burned going down, leaving a trail of heat that settled unpleasantly in his stomach. He gagged once, weakly. She did not pause. Spoon after spoon followed, precise, relentless.
When it was done, she set the bowl aside and wiped the spoon clean with a cloth.
"You were found three days ago," she said, as if discussing the weather. "Outside the village. Or what's left of it."
Three days.
He had lost three days.
"Your ribs are cracked," she continued. "At least four. One lung was close to collapsing. You lost a lot of blood. Your meridians—" She paused, eyes flicking to his chest, then away. "—are a mess."
The boy swallowed. His throat burned.
Meridians.
He knew that word.
That knowledge surfaced slowly, like something dragged up from deep water. Cultivation. Internal pathways. Breath and circulation. He did not remember learning about them, but the concept felt old, worn into him.
"Shouldn't matter," she added lightly. "You weren't using them properly anyway."
That stung more than it should have.
He tried again to speak. This time, a sound emerged—rough, broken, but real.
"Why…?" The word scraped its way out.
She tilted her head.
"Why did we save you?" she asked.
He nodded, just barely.
She considered him for a long moment. Then she smiled.
It was not a kind smile.
"Because you didn't die."
That was not an answer.
She seemed aware of that and did not care.
"Rest," she said, turning away. "If you live, you'll be useful. If you don't, we'll stop wasting herbs."
She left without another word.
The boy lay there, staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to her footsteps fade.
Useful.
The word echoed in his mind.
Not safe. Not protected. Not rescued.
Useful.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep did not come easily. Pain dragged him back each time he drifted too far. When he did sleep, it was shallow and crowded with fragments—fire without heat, hands without faces, a voice repeating the same sentence in different tones.
This one won't matter.
When he woke again, the light had shifted. Someone else was in the room.
This one was a man.
Older. Broad-shouldered. Scarred.
He stood near the doorway, arms crossed, studying the boy with an expression that suggested neither pity nor curiosity. When their eyes met, the man nodded once.
"You're alive," he said.
It sounded less like an observation and more like a verdict.
The boy did not answer. He was learning.
"That's good," the man continued. "Means the work won't go to waste."
Work.
There it was again.
The man stepped closer and crouched, bringing himself level with the boy's eyes. Up close, the scars were more visible—old cuts, poorly healed breaks, marks left by weapons used without ceremony.
"You don't remember what happened to you," the man said.
It was not a question.
The boy hesitated, then shook his head slightly.
"Good," the man said. "Memory gets in the way."
He stood and turned toward the doorway. "When you can walk, you'll help around the place. Cleaning. Carrying. Fetching water. You eat if you work. You rest if you're too broken to move. If you stop being useful, you leave."
"Leave where?" the boy rasped.
The man paused.
"Doesn't matter," he replied. "That's a later problem."
He left.
The boy lay still, the weight of exhaustion pressing down on him. Somewhere outside, he could hear movement now—wood being chopped, metal striking stone, the quiet rhythm of people who had things to do and no interest in him beyond his ability to contribute.
He was not a guest.
He was not a disciple.
He was something found on the road and brought inside because it had not finished dying yet.
For reasons he could not explain, that knowledge steadied him.
Days passed.
The pain receded slowly, grudgingly. He learned how much he could move without reopening wounds, how to breathe shallow enough to avoid coughing, how to shift his weight without screaming. When he could finally sit up on his own, the girl returned.
She handed him a cloth.
"Clean," she said, pointing to the floor.
The floor was filthy.
He cleaned it.
When he finished, she pointed to the doorway.
"Water."
The well was farther than it looked. Each step sent small shocks through his body. He fell once, skinning his palms on stone. No one helped him up. He did not ask.
He learned the layout of the place through labor. Three ruined houses connected by makeshift walkways. A shed filled with herbs and strange tools. Marks carved into posts and stones—not decorations, but instructions. He did not understand them, but his eyes lingered anyway.
At night, he slept on the same pallet.
Sometimes, he dreamed of thread.
Not cloth. Not rope.
Something thinner. Stronger.
It moved when he breathed.
On the seventh day, as he struggled back from the well, water sloshing dangerously in the bucket, the girl watched him from the doorway.
"You know," she said casually, "most people who end up like you don't survive the first week."
He said nothing.
She smiled faintly. "You're inefficient."
He frowned.
"You heal slowly," she continued. "You adapt slowly. You move like your body is arguing with itself."
The boy tightened his grip on the bucket.
"That's usually a weakness," she said. "Sometimes, it isn't."
She stepped aside, letting him pass.
That night, she returned with a book.
Not a manual. Not a scripture.
A ledger.
"Read," she said, placing it in his hands.
The pages were filled with names. Villages. Locations. All crossed out.
He turned a page.
One entry caught his eye.
It was smudged. Old.
The name of a village he did not recognize.
But his chest tightened anyway.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked.
He shook his head.
She leaned close enough that he could smell burnt iron on her clothes.
"This," she said softly, "is what remains when efficiency decides something no longer matters."
She straightened.
"Sleep," she added. "Tomorrow, we start seeing what you're good for."
The boy lay back, the ledger resting on his chest.
Outside, the wind moved through broken wood.
He stared at the ceiling and thought—not of revenge, not of answers, not of the future.
Only of one quiet certainty, settling into him like a scar:
Whatever had broken him before had not finished the job.
And the world, for reasons he did not yet understand, was going to regret that.