Chapter 7 · free to read
The valley learned my name before it ever saw my face. Bounty-drums travel faster than fugitives.
Two hundred taels of silver for a cripple who eats broken steel. The Alliance had opened its purse before it ever opened an investigation.
They did not send disciples. They sent a professional who had buried eleven cultivators before me.
Spirit-jade, tempered nine times, never chipped. Nothing in it for the ash to take.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.