When the doors of the Blackwind Archive groaned shut behind them, the silence fell like a shroud.
It was heavy enough to press against ribs.
Enough to make the air itself seem reluctant to move.
Every breath was visible in the dim lantern light, fogging out in shuddering streams.
The iron scent of blood clung to old stone walls.
Wax dripped from ancient fixtures, hardened in uneven stalactites.
The disciples spread out slowly, forced forward by fear and promise in equal measure.
Some clutched their arms around themselves, shivering at the cold that somehow felt alive.
Others glanced at shelves filled with cracked scrolls, fighting the urge to run.
Wei Lian watched them with blank eyes.
He stood still as stone, black hair falling across his face.
Snow melted on his shoulders, leaving wet marks that steamed in the dry cold.
The Archive seemed to watch them back.
Whispers slithered between shelves.
Symbols crawled over walls, pulsing red, then fading.
One boy reached too quickly for a scroll.
It flared in his hands like a dying star.
He screamed as symbols burned into his palms, clawing at his own flesh.
An assistant in black robes dragged him away, unmoved by his sobs.
Another disciple slumped against a tablet, eyes rolling back.
Blood trickled from her nose as the words wrote themselves on her brain.
Jin Xiu laughed as he wrested a thick scroll from a crumbling shelf.
He licked blood from his lips, teeth cracked and red.
"Mine," he growled.
"All mine."
Wei Lian turned away from them.
He let their screams fade.
He didn't care.
He walked deeper into the Archive, boots crunching frost that cracked like old bones.
The lanterns burned lower here, shadows crowding closer.
The smell of mold and rot was stronger.
He stopped at the far end where the frost was thickest.
Shelves sagged under the weight of secrets no one wanted.
Scrolls lay split open like dead things, their words dry and stiff.
There, buried beneath rubble and ice, he saw the book.
Black leather cracked and flaking.
A broken lock dangled, rusted, useless.
Runes crawled over the cover like dying embers.
One corner was blackened in the shape of a burned-in handprint.
It seemed to pulse with breath.
He crouched slowly, ignoring the cold that bit into his legs.
Fingers brushed frost aside, skin splitting against the ice.
He didn't care.
The book felt warm when he touched it.
Not the warmth of life.
But the dry heat of old blood.
He sat down cross-legged, the book heavy on his knees.
Around him, the Archive went silent.
Even the whispers seemed to hold their breath.
He opened it.
The leather creaked like an old joint.
Dust rose in thin, lazy clouds.
Inside, the pages were yellowed and brittle.
Ink had spread in places like rot, letters curling away.
But he forced them to still under his gaze.
Iron-Blood Tempering Sutra.
An art of cruelty, built for monsters.
To turn flesh into iron, blood into fuel.
Wei Lian let his eyes trace every hateful word.
He didn't blink.
Didn't flinch.
The pages explained it in brutal detail.
Seven levels, each worse than the last.
Each demanding sacrifice.
First Level: Skin-Hardening.
Bruises. Cuts. Welts.
Blood clots. Skin thickens.
You make your flesh your first armor.
He saw it in his mind.
Iron rods.
Open wounds.
Scabs split open to bleed again.
Second Level: Bone-Toughening.
Fractures reset.
Break and heal.
Force Qi into cracks to forge iron from bone.
He pictured limbs in splints.
Bones grinding as they knit.
Qi seeping into marrow like molten steel.
Third Level: Tendon-Strengthening.
Stretch until tearing.
Let agony braid them anew.
Speed and control born from pain.
He imagined tearing ligaments.
Binding them tight to force healing.
Every motion an act of violence.
Fourth Level: Organ-Refining.
Poison as teacher.
Smoke as air.
Strength through surviving what kills lesser men.
He read notes about swallowing toxins.
Breathing fires.
Coughing blood as the body adapted.
Fifth Level: Blood-Enrichment.
Drain it out. Replace it.
Harden the spirit by losing life.
Make blood the river of power.
Ritual bloodletting.
Buckets of red.
Steam rising in winter air.
Sixth Level: Marrow-Transmutation.
Ignite the furnace inside.
Let it burn you alive.
Marrow becomes the forge for Qi.
He traced the diagrams showing bones glowing from within.
Notes written in what looked like blood.
Warnings about screams that lasted days.
Seventh Level: Body-Ascension.
Accept all pain.
Embrace the end of weakness.
Become the blade.
It didn't promise safety.
Didn't lie about survival.
It only offered power.
He turned the page and found scribbled notes in cramped, mad handwriting.
Strike until bones crack.
Starve until the mind splits.
Breathe poison until lungs rebel.
Let every failure teach.
Bloodstains marked the margins.
Some looked smeared by trembling fingers.
He read it all.
Outside his circle of focus, the Archive seemed to close in.
The air thickened.
Shadows grew teeth.
Whispers slithered around him.
Leave it.
Drop it.
Break.
He ignored them.
He kept reading.
He kept memorizing.
He closed the book with slow finality.
The leather creaked like a dying thing.
Runes flared and died.
He sat in silence, letting it settle in his bones.
No fear.
No regret.
Only understanding.
He would do it all.
Because he had no other path.
When he stood, the book weighed heavier in his hands.
It felt like holding a curse.
A promise.
He turned and walked through the wreckage of other dreams.
Disciples whimpered.
Some fought over scraps.
Jin Xiu watched him pass, eyes narrow, teeth bared.
He clutched his own scroll like a dagger.
Wei Lian didn't even blink.
Assistants gestured for them to leave.
One by one they filed out into the cold.
Iron doors screamed as they opened.
Wind howled in, freezing wet hair to skulls.
Snow blew across the threshold in brittle sheets.
Light outside seemed dull and gray.
Mu waited with arms crossed.
Snow gathered on his scalp, unmelted.
He didn't greet them.
His eyes moved over them like a knife.
Measuring.
Weighing.
"You all chose."
"Good."
"That's all you did."
He let silence fill the space.
Snow fell thicker, covering bloodstains.
The wind went quiet.
"You'll get rations."
"Bandages."
"Straw mats to die on."
"Be grateful."
He turned his back on them.
Boots cracked over frozen mud.
He didn't look back once.
Assistants herded them forward.
Some limped.
Others sobbed.
Wei Lian fell in line.
The old book pressed against his ribs.
He could still feel its heat.
He lowered his head just enough to hide the curve of his lips.
Not a smile.
A promise.
He would carve every line into himself.
He would make them regret leaving him alive.
Even if it killed everything human in him.