**The boiling river** sent geysers of steam crashing through the ruins as Min-jun followed Xia through the crumbling streets. His brand pulsed in time with the unnatural heat, each throb sending strange echoes through his newly awakened meridians.
"Move faster," Xia snapped, leaping over a fissure that glowed with inner fire. "The Wound is opening."
Min-jun barely avoided the widening crack. "What wound?"
She didn't answer. The ruins shook as something massive breached the river's surface behind them—not the Warden this time, but something far worse. The water itself had turned black as ink, forming spiraling patterns that hurt to look at.
Xia skidded to a stop before a half-buried archway covered in the same strange script as his brand. "Here." She pressed both palms against the stone. "Help me open it."
Min-jun placed his hands beside hers. The moment his brand touched the carvings, the archway *screamed*—a sound like tearing metal. The stones liquefied, revealing a descending staircase that smelled of ozone and old blood.
Xia didn't hesitate. "Down. Now."
Behind them, the black water surged forward in a wave that defied gravity, forming grasping tendrils.
---
**The chamber below** was circular, its walls lined with hundreds of humanoid figures frozen in mid-scream—not carvings, but *actual people* encased in some translucent material. Their faces pressed against the membrane-like surface, mouths open in silent agony.
Min-jun's stomach turned. "What is this place?"
"The Shattered Sky Sect's last stand," Xia said, moving to the center where a stone pedestal held a single jade tablet. "They tried to weaponize Void energy. It... didn't end well."
She grabbed the tablet and threw it at Min-jun's feet. It shattered, releasing a cloud of shimmering dust that formed rotating characters in the air:
**"Heaven's Fist - Second Form: River Cuts Through Stone"**
The dust suddenly *lunged* into Min-jun's brand. Agony lit up every nerve ending as the knowledge burned itself into his bones—not just movements, but the *philosophy* behind them. Where the First Form was defense, this was relentless, inevitable *offense*.
Xia watched with grim satisfaction as he collapsed to his knees. "Good. Now you're ready to—"
The ceiling exploded.
---
**Golden Mask descended** on a platform of solidified black water, flanked by a dozen hunters. The missing eye's red stone pulsed in time with Min-jun's brand.
"Subject 117," it intoned. "You will submit."
Min-jun's brand *screamed* in recognition—this wasn't just a hunter. This was the source. The one who'd first marked him.
Xia spat on the ground. "Pathetic. Using children to do your dirty work." She fell into a stance Min-jun didn't recognize—something older and crueler than Heaven's Fist. "I'll enjoy peeling that mask from your flesh."
Golden Mask gestured. The hunters attacked.
Min-jun moved without thought.
The Second Form unfolded like a nightmare given motion—every strike flowing into the next with terrifying precision. The first hunter died mid-lunge, his own dagger buried in his throat. The second collapsed with a fist-sized hole where his heart should be.
But Golden Mask wasn't idle.
Black tendrils erupted from its robes, spearing toward Xia. She dodged four, but the fifth caught her through the shoulder, lifting her off the ground.
"Min-jun!" she screamed. "The eye!"
He understood instantly.
As Golden Mask turned toward him, Min-jun *reached* for the hunger in his brand—and *let it loose*.
The Second Form's final technique unfolded:
His fist *phased* through Golden Mask's defenses like water cutting stone.
Fingers closed around the pulsating red stone.
*Crunch.*
---
**The explosion** threw Min-jun across the chamber.
When his vision cleared, Golden Mask was writhing on the ground, its remaining eye leaking black smoke. The hunters collapsed like marionettes with cut strings.
Xia staggered to her feet, clutching her bleeding shoulder. "Finish it."
Min-jun approached the twitching figure. Up close, he realized the "mask" wasn't metal at all—it was *fused* to the flesh beneath.
A whisper escaped the ruin of its mouth:
"You... don't understand... what's coming..."
Min-jun's foot came down on its throat.
The crack echoed through the chamber.
---
**Silence fell.**
Xia limped to the wall of trapped figures, pressing her forehead against the membrane. "They sacrificed everything to stop the Void Lords." She turned to Min-jun, her black eyes gleaming. "Now it's our turn."
Outside, the river's boiling intensified. The water had risen to the archway's threshold, forming shapes that might have been faces.
Min-jun flexed his hand—the one that had crushed the red stone. Tiny black veins now spiderwebbed up his wrist where the energy had burned him.
Xia saw it and nodded. "The Third Form will purge that. But first..." She gestured to the collapsing ceiling. "We need to get to the surface before this whole place—"
The Warden's enraged roar cut her off.
Min-jun sighed. "Why does nothing ever go smoothly?"
Xia actually laughed as they ran for the back tunnels. "You wanted to learn Heaven's Fist. This *is* the training."
Behind them, the chamber collapsed, taking the frozen figures and Golden Mask's corpse into the depths. Ahead, the tunnels shook with approaching footsteps—too many to count.
Min-jun's brand pulsed eagerly.
He grinned.
**TO BE CONTINUED...**