The rice wasn't just food; it was a surgical intervention.
As the last grain vanished, I felt a wave of "Order" ripple through my body. It started in my stomach — a warmth that didn't burn like the Curse of Greed, but instead hummed with a low, stabilizing frequency. The jagged edges of my mana circuits, which had been vibrating with the chaotic residue of the Yasha's essence, began to smooth out.
I sat in the absolute silence of the ruined shrine, watching the steam rise from the geothermal pool. My breathing, once a series of panicked staccatos, slowed into a rhythmic, measured cadence.
Biological Recalibration: 92% complete.
The [Semi-Immortal] trait was no longer fighting a losing battle. The stump of my left arm throbbed, but it was a dull, manageable ache now. I looked at it — the pink, translucent skin was hardening, shielding the raw nerves. It was a grotesque miracle of biotechnology, a forced evolution that Anko's body had accepted as the new norm.
"Order," I whispered, the word tasting like clean water. "I could get used to this."
But the silence was a lie. Outside, the world was still broken. The Asura was still coming. And I was still a one-armed ghost in a land of monsters.
I stood up, my joints popping like dry twigs. The first priority was identity. I couldn't keep wearing the scorched, blood-soaked rags of a Slave Knight. If I was going to survive the valley, I needed to look like I belonged to the mountain, not to the Divine Blood's leash.
I moved to the pile of offerings near the altar. They were old—layers of dust coating dark linen and reinforced silk. I picked a set of robes in deep indigo and charcoal grey. They were heavy, insulated for the high-altitude chill, and lacked any insignias. As I pulled the silk over my head, the texture was cold and smooth against my scarred skin.
I wasn't Kai the businessman anymore. I wasn't Anko the slave.
I was something unwritten.
II. The Grave of Tomorrow
While tightening the heavy leather belt around my waist, a scent caught my attention.
In a world of incense, rot, and ozone, this was an intruder. It was the smell of high-grade synthetic oil and spent chemical propellants. A smell from my world—or a world like it.
I turned toward the back of the inner sanctum. The wall behind the Guardian's original position was made of cedar planks, but the grain was slightly off. There was a structural dissonance. I pressed my right hand against the wood, feeling for a hollow resonance.
There.
I used the hilt of my broken jian to pry the boards loose. They didn't just break; they splintered with a dry, ancient groan. Behind them lay a crawlspace, a hidden pocket of the shrine that the light hadn't touched in centuries.
I crawled in, the indigo robes dragging in the dust.
What I found wasn't a religious cache. It was a burial.
Four bodies. Or what was left of them. They weren't dressed in saffron robes or lacquered armor. They wore tactical fatigues—Kevlar weaves fused with ceramic impact plates. Helmets with polarized visors lay cracked near their bleached skulls.
This was an anachronism. A collision of eras.
"What the hell were you doing here?" I murmured, my voice muffled by the narrow space.
I began the audit. I didn't feel pity; I felt the cold, calculating thrill of a scavenger finding a gold mine.
First, the weapons. Two carbines lay beside them. I picked one up—it was heavy, the metal pitted with a strange, violet oxidation. I pulled the charging handle. It was fused solid. The internal electronics had long since succumbed to mana-rot. Useless as firearms, but the structural integrity of the alloys was superior to anything I'd seen in this "Orient."
I moved to the third soldier. His hand was gripped around a white object.
I pried it loose. It looked like a bleached human femur, roughly thirty centimeters long, but the weight was all wrong. It was too dense, too balanced. I ran my thumb over the surface and found a recessed ignition stud and a miniature port for a power cell.
[Grace]: Analyzing Artifact... [Identity: Plasma Cutter (Model: Mark IV - Bone Pattern)] [Status: Dormant. Power Cell: 4%.] [Note: A weapon designed for orbital boarding actions. In this world? It's a miracle.]
A "Bone" saber. A light that didn't just burn; it sheared through matter at a molecular level. It was a Firekeeper's dream, even if it only had enough juice for a few seconds of glory.
I tucked it into the inner lining of my robes, right against my chest.
Next, I found a tantō—a short, straight blade—strapped to the lead soldier's thigh. It was made of high-carbon steel, untouched by rust, its edge still humming with a lethal sharpness. I swapped my broken jian for it, feeling the solid weight of the new blade at my hip.
Finally, a pressurized metal canteen. I shook it. Liquid sloshed inside. I cracked the seal and a hiss of sterile air escaped. I took a sip. It didn't taste like mountain water; it tasted like a laboratory—recycled, purified, and enriched with electrolytes.
It was the most delicious thing I'd had since the monk's rice.
"Thanks for the gear, boys," I said to the skeletons. "I'll make better use of it than you did."
III. The Architecture of Despair
I stepped out of the shrine's entrance, and the world tried to blind me.
The storm had vanished, replaced by a sky of piercing, crystalline indigo. The sun was a cold diamond in the distance, casting long, harsh shadows across the snow. The silence was absolute, broken only by the occasional crack of ice shifting on the peaks.
The path down the mountain wasn't a road; it was a test of verticality.
Ancient stone bridges, barely a meter wide, spanned the gaps between the mountain's jagged fingers. They were suspended over a grey abyss so deep that the clouds looked like distant smoke below.
I took the first step onto the stone.
Walking a narrow bridge with one arm is a lesson in the cruelty of physics. My center of gravity was perpetually skewed to the right. Every gust of wind wasn't just a breeze; it was a hand trying to spin me off the edge.
I had to lean into the mountain, my right hand constantly brushing the frozen stone for balance, while the stump of my left arm twitched with phantom sensations, trying to grab a railing that didn't exist.
Step. Breathe. Recalibrate.
The Legacy in my mind provided the coordination, but this body—starved and battered—provided the fatigue. By the time I reached the middle of the second bridge, my legs were shaking with a rhythmic tremor.
Then the bridge ended.
A collapse. A fifty-meter gap where the stone had surrendered to time. The only way forward was a series of rusted iron rungs driven into the vertical cliff face.
"I really, really hate this game," I spat, the wind whipping the words from my mouth.
I used the braided rope I'd made earlier, looping it through the rungs and my belt. It was a slow, agonizing process. Each pull was a battle against gravity. My right shoulder screamed as it bore my entire weight. My mind flashed back to the Academy—to the clean, safe halls, to the synthetic food, to the lie of graduation.
That life was a dream. This—the cold, the pain, the smell of my own sweat freezing—this was reality.
I reached the top of the ledge, rolling onto the flat stone and gasping for air. My lungs felt like they were full of needles. The [Semi-Immortal] trait was working overtime, forcing oxygen into my blood, keeping me moving when my mind wanted to quit.
I lay there for a moment, staring at the indigo sky.
"You're late, Firekeeper."
The voice was like grinding gravel.
IV. The Path of Weeping Stones
I rolled onto my side, my hand instinctively flying to the new tantō.
A few meters away, huddled under a rocky overhang, sat an old man. He wasn't a giant like the monk. He was regular human old—withered, skin like parchment, wearing layers of heavy furs that smelled of damp fox. He was sharpening a skinning knife on a whetstone, the rhythmic rasp-rasp-rasp the only sound in the thin air.
He didn't look up. His eyes were milky with cataracts, yet he seemed to be staring directly at the golden cubes pulsing beneath my robes.
"Everyone keeps saying that," I said, my voice raspy. "I didn't realize there was a schedule."
"The mountain has its own time," the old man replied, his hands never stopping their work. "The Asura moves with the sun. The Divine Blood moves with the scent of fear. And you... you move with the weight of that curse in your gut."
I stood up slowly, keeping my distance. "Who are you?"
"A witness. Nothing more. I've seen many like you come through these peaks. Most end up as frozen statues for the monkeys to mock."
He pointed a gnarled, bone-thin finger toward a narrow pass to the south.
"The path of the Weeping Stones. Follow the ice that bleeds. It will lead you to the valley floor, to the gates of the Ashen Temple."
"And the hunters?"
The old man stopped sharpening. He looked at me, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "They are already in the valley. They have the scent of your greed, Firekeeper. They won't wait for you to reach the gates. They'll meet you in the throat of the pass."
I looked toward the south. The mountain seemed to groan, a deep, subterranean sound that vibrated through the soles of my boots.
"Why help me?" I asked.
The old man went back to his knife. "I'm not helping you. I'm just curious to see if the fire stays lit once the blood starts pouring. Now move. The sun doesn't wait for the slow, and the dead don't wait for anyone."
I didn't thank him. Gratitude was a currency I had run out of long ago.
I checked the seal on my water flask, felt the hidden weight of the "Bone" saber against my chest, and stepped back into the blinding white.
[Grace]: Objective Updated: Navigate the Weeping Pass. [Distance to Ashen Temple: 18 Kilometers.] [Warning: Local mana density is increasing. Atmospheric corruption: 12%.] [The 'Hunters' are closing in, Light. They are Level 10-12.] [You are Level 15 (Capped). Don't make me regret choosing you.]
I smirked, the familiar, cynical fire reigniting in my eyes.
"Regret? Grace, I'm about to give them a masterclass in survival."
I turned my back on the old man and headed into the throat of the mountain.