By morning, Duskwind Hollow was quiet under a white shroud, as if the entire valley had been swallowed by silence. Smoke curled from the lodges like breath from slumbering beasts, and ice clung to every leaf and rooftop.
Li Rong sat alone outside the family lodge, sharpening a dull hunting knife on a whetstone with slow, precise strokes. The blade was old—his father's, perhaps older—but it still held an edge when cared for properly. His breath steamed in the cold, each exhale slow and measured.
The rhythmic scrape of stone on steel was the only sound.
Behind him, the door creaked open. His father stepped out, arms crossed against the cold, gaze sweeping the empty trail beyond their yard.
"You're up early again," Li Wei said. "Didn't sleep?"
"I had enough," Li Rong replied, not looking up.
Li Wei watched his son for a moment. There was something colder about him lately. Less fire. More steel.
"Your mother left some bread on the hearth," he offered. "Eat before the blood goes cold in your hands."
Li Rong didn't answer.
Li Wei exhaled and turned back inside. The door shut with a soft thud.
The scraping continued.
The Spirit Awakening Ceremony was held every winter under the bones of the old wolf totem—an ancient wooden effigy standing tall at the center of the village courtyard. Smoke from burning herbs coiled in the air as clan elders gathered in a semicircle, their wolf spirits faintly glowing behind them in faint echoes of their prime.
Children stood in neat rows, quiet and shivering—not just from cold, but from anticipation. Today, their futures would be named.
"Next," Elder Li Gan called out, a gray-browed man with sharp eyes and robes embroidered with the Silver-Stripe Wolf insignia.
"Li Feng."
The crowd murmured in approval. The prodigy stepped forward, his back straight, a confident smirk playing on his lips. His spirit activated with practiced ease—the Bronze-Back Wolf, majestic and solid, outlined behind him with faint energy. The light surrounding him shimmered a steady soul power of 7.
Applause rang out. Elder Li Gan nodded in satisfaction. "The clan's next blade."
From the opposite end, Li Rong watched silently, unmoved. Beside him, his mother, Yan Xue, gently placed her hand on his arm. "Ignore them," she whispered.
He didn't need the words. He already had.
Elder Li Gan's voice rose again. "Next, Li Rong."
The whispers shifted. Eyes turned, curious and skeptical. Someone muttered, "That's Wei's boy, right? Shame his spirit might take after his mother…"
"…She's a good scholar, but no warrior. Her spirit was a White Moss Hare, wasn't it?"
"Let's hope he gets lucky."
Li Rong stepped forward into the circle. He moved like someone walking into battle—without fear, without hesitation. The elder standing by the awakening altar offered him the Spirit Stone.
"Place your hand here. Clear your mind."
Li Rong obeyed.
The stone glowed faintly at first—then flared.
A silver light surged up around him, rising like smoke caught in moonlight. The shadows twisted and pulsed, taking shape—feral and graceful. The form of a wolf, but leaner than the others. Sleek. Dangerous. Where other wolves had sturdy frames, this one shimmered with strange duality—part darkness, part glow.
Its eyes gleamed a soft moonlit silver. Its paws left faint trails of shadow where they hovered above the ground.
Gasps erupted.
"A mutation?"
"What spirit is that—?"
"Impossible…"
Elder Li Gan stepped forward, frowning. "That is no ordinary Duskwind Wolf."
"The color… it's absorbing the light."
"Quiet!" the elder beside the stone shouted. "The reading!"
The stone flared again.
Eight.
Silence.
"Repeat it," another elder demanded.
The attendant checked again, voice tight. "Soul power… eight."
There had never been an eight.
Not in the clan's history.
Even Li Feng turned, disbelief flickering in his eyes.
The elders stared, a strange tension hanging between them. A soul power of eight meant instant eligibility for Spirit Master cultivation… with no need for external help. A born genius.
Yan Xue put a hand to her mouth. Li Wei's fists clenched at his sides—not in anger, but pride.
Li Rong simply stood there. Still. Watching.
Elder Li Gan's eyes narrowed. "A soul power of eight… and a mutated spirit. You walk with strange blood, boy."
Li Rong's voice was calm, quiet. "I walk with the clan's blood."
"Time will tell," the old man murmured, and turned away.
That night, the clan gathered for celebratory feasts. But behind the laughter and toasted wine, shadows whispered. Elders from opposing factions drew close, muttering among themselves.
"Li Wei's line rises again."
"But the boy is strange. Cold. Too cold."
"And the spirit… unnatural."
"If the patriarch favors him—"
"He won't. Not with Feng already promised to Northpine Sect."
"They'll have to compete eventually."
At the outer edge of the firelight, Li Rong sat with his family. He said little, eating in silence, eyes never far from the elders' table. His mother spoke gently, proud but worried. His father sat like a wolf beside him—still and ready.
After a time, his grandfather joined them. Li Shen, the old warblade of the clan, still carried his spine like iron.
"You made enemies today," the old man said without preamble, lowering himself beside Li Rong.
"I know."
"Good." Li Shen's eyes gleamed like flint. "Better to face wolves than hide among sheep."
The stars above Duskwind Hollow were brighter that night, clearer through the frost-touched air. But for Li Rong, the cold only sharpened his thoughts.
He was no longer just a boy with a knife.
He was something more.
And the hunt was just beginning.