My name is Xiang Han, and the mountains have been my only constant companion for as long as I can remember.
When I first moved here, I wasn't looking for adventure, purpose, or some grand destiny. I simply wanted peace. A quiet life. A place where the world's noise couldn't reach me. The mountain town of Yunlai was small—tiny, really—resting between cliffs like a forgotten memory. But that was what drew me in.
I built my house with my own hands. Four walls, one roof, all from wood I chopped myself. It was crude, uneven, and always smelled faintly of sap, but when I sat on the porch and felt the mountain winds brushing against my face, I knew I had found a home.
Life settled into a rhythm. I hunted to sell meat at the market, saved my coins, and watched the seasons shift across the peaks. The air here was thin and sharp, and when it snowed, everything became so white and quiet it felt like standing inside a dream.
But the mountains had secrets—old ones, whispered about but never confirmed. Stories of spirits, cursed warriors, wandering souls who never left even in death. I always thought they were just tales to scare children into coming home before dark.
Until the day I saw him.
It was early morning when I entered the deeper part of the forest, hunting for a boar big enough to feed myself for days. The mist clung to the trees like they were trying to hide something. My bow rested lightly in my hand as I followed tracks through damp soil.
That was when I heard it.
Shhkt.
Shhkt.
A rhythmic slicing, like something sharp cutting through air.
I crept through a patch of thick brush, my heart thumping as the sound grew louder, clearer. When I stepped past the final tree, the sight froze me in place.
There, in the clearing, under the pale light of dawn… stood a man.
If he could even be called a man.
He was little more than skin stretched over bone, his body impossibly thin, ribs visible with each shallow breath. His hair hung long and unkempt, and his clothes—if they were clothes—were tattered strips barely clinging to him.
But what truly rooted me to the spot was the blade in his hand.
A katana, old and weathered, yet still reflecting the weak sunlight. And he… he was slashing the air. Again and again and again. Each movement was precise, practiced, and filled with a strange kind of despair. The blade cut through nothing, yet the force behind each swing made the very air tremble.
I watched for what felt like hours, though it was likely minutes. He never looked up. Never noticed me. He simply continued, as though trapped in a loop he could not escape.
When I finally found the courage to back away, I ran. I didn't stop until I reached my home, chest heaving, the memory burned into my mind.
That was the first time I saw The Ghost of the Mountain.
The villagers had a name for him, though none had seen him themselves. A cursed swordsman. A dead warrior who still fought battles long forgotten. After that day, I avoided the deep forest. I avoided that clearing. And I avoided thinking about the way his eyes—sunken and hollow—had stared at something I couldn't see.
Ten years passed.
I met a woman in the town. Quiet, kind, with a laugh that felt like sunlight. We married, built a life together. Two children came, filling our home with warmth I never imagined I'd have. My world expanded. The mountains were no longer a place of fear—they became the backdrop of a life worth living.
And yet, sometimes, when the wind blew a certain way, I remembered that figure in the clearing, slashing endlessly at the empty sky.
Another decade passed before I found myself climbing the mountains again. I was fifty by then. My son was grown, strong, and capable. My daughter had married and settled in a town down the valley. And I—old, content, expecting my first grandchild—felt the urge to walk the trails I once feared.
Maybe it was nostalgia. Maybe foolishness. But the mountains called to me again, and I answered.
The forest was quieter than I remembered. The trees older, leaning heavily over the paths. The air carried a strange stillness, like the mountain was holding its breath.
I walked deeper and deeper, past the familiar markers, past the river bend, until I reached the clearing.
And there he was.
The same man. Standing in the exact same spot. Only…
He wasn't moving.
His body was stiff, lifeless—dead. Skin cracked like old paper, eyes dry and hollow, but still open. He stood upright, held up only by a rigid tension in his posture. Both hands gripped his katana with such force his knuckles had turned bone-white.
He had died standing.
But what stole my breath wasn't the corpse.
It was the world in front of him.
The mountain—my mountain—was split in half.
A massive scar tore across the land, a deep gorge stretching farther than my eyes could follow. Trees were severed cleanly. Stone cliffs sliced smooth as glass. The earth itself had been cut apart by a single strike.
A strike from him.
From the man who had once been skin and bones, slashing at air.
I stood there trembling, unable to comprehend the scale of what I saw. The stories villagers whispered no longer felt like superstition. They were warnings, too late now to matter.
Because whatever he had been slashing at in the air…
It had not been nothing.
And whatever he had been fighting…
He had finally struck it.
The wind howled through the scarred canyon, carrying dust and echoes. I felt something then—something ancient, something heavy—pressing against my chest.
And in that moment, I knew every peaceful day I had lived… had been borrowed time.
---
Far away from mountains and villages, in a place untouched by wind, light, or sound, a body floated in the void.
Ray.
He did not breathe. Did not think. Did not even exist—until he did.
A pulse, faint as a whisper, rippled through the emptiness.
His fingers twitched.
Then his eyes snapped open.
His body drifted downward, though there was no ground. No sky. No direction. Yet he fell—swiftly, uncontrollably—until the void around him shattered like glass.
With a gasp, Ray found himself standing in a massive chamber made of black stone. Pillars taller than mountains rose on either side, stretching into a ceiling he could not see. The air was heavy, thick with pressure, making every breath feel like swallowing lead.
And in front of him…
Upon a throne carved from obsidian…
Sat a man.
Or perhaps a god.
He wore robes that moved like smoke, drifting even though there was no wind. His eyes glowed faintly, gold and ancient, like they carried the memory of ages long gone. His presence alone made Ray's knees weak.
Ray swallowed, his voice hoarse as he asked,
"Am I in hell?"
The figure on the throne leaned forward slightly.
"No," he said.
"Not yet."