The Records Hall had been sealed for days, yet nothing inside the Azure
Sun Sect felt contained.
Mu-Hyuk noticed it first in the way people walked. Disciples who once
strode across the courtyards with quiet arrogance now drifted like they
were afraid of stepping on the wrong stone. Conversations cut off when
someone unfamiliar drew near. Doors that had never been locked were now
barred from the inside.
He stood on the slanted roof of the scripture pavilion while dusk bled
into the sky, the city of jade and tiled eaves below him looking no
different than it had a week ago. Only the air had changed. It pressed
down on the chest, thick with uncertainty.
Yoo Seol-Ah joined him after evening bells. She had wrapped her hair
with a dull cloth, trying to look like one of the servants, but fear had
a way of erasing disguises.
"They made me sign a new roster today," she said. "Not for the
infirmary. For myself."
Mu-Hyuk glanced at her. "What did it say?"
She shook her head. "It didn't say anything. Just a blank line. Name.
Rank. Origin. Like I was starting my life over on paper."
For the first time since the system awakened, Mu-Hyuk felt something
stir that wasn't calculation.
The elders came out that night.
Not as a procession, but in scattered pairs, cloaks drawn tight around
stooping shoulders. They gathered in a lakeside hall usually reserved
for succession debates and declarations of war.
"We can't verify half the outer disciples," one voice said hoarsely.
"Then start over," another replied. "Invalidate everything and rebuild."
"And what about the ones who fall between versions?" a third asked.
No one answered.
By morning, the decree was posted across the sect.
All outer disciple records were suspended. Every individual was to
undergo re-registration. Those without proof of identity were confined
to quarters.
Yoo Seol-Ah read the notice three times. Around her, people reacted in
small broken ways. Someone laughed once and then stopped. Another tore
the paper down and stared at the wall as if the words might return.
That night, the first refusal happened.
A group of trainees locked themselves inside a dormitory after their
names were declared unverifiable. Guards broke the doors. The clash
ended quickly, leaving silence and blood on the stones.
Yoo Seol-Ah whispered, "They fought because they were afraid of
disappearing."
By dawn, the elders had not slept. Messengers ran with contradictory
orders. Clerks were locked into offices to reconstruct lifetimes from
memory.
Mu-Hyuk returned to the watchtower as the sun climbed.
"Mu-Hyuk," Yoo Seol-Ah said softly, "if they lose our names, what are we
then?"
"We become whatever they're too afraid to admit they've created," he
replied.
Outside, the bells rang again, uneven and uncertain.
It was the sound of a sect that no longer trusted itself to sleep.