He looked back at Kael, his gaze sharp.

It wasn’t the kind of look people gave when they wanted to intimidate. It was worse than that, clinical. Like Kael was a problem laid out on a table, and the Fist King was deciding whether he was worth the trouble to fix, or whether he was simply going to snap in half no matter what anyone did.

The air up here was thin enough that every breath felt like it had edges. Wind slid between the rocks in long, cold fingers, carrying dust and the faint mineral sting of broken stone.

"We call it ’demonic’ – Ma- because the path to achieving that control is brutal. It will break you before it remakes you. It will push your body past limits you didn’t even know existed. Most people would rather die than walk that path."

The wind tugged at his torn cape and didn’t move him an inch. Kael listened, jaw tight, and tried not to cough because he could already feel that familiar scratch building behind his sternum.

A faint smirk touched his lips.

"But you don’t have that luxury." The Fist King said.

Kael let out a slow breath, processing everything. The way the man said it wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t kind either. It was the way you talked to someone who was already falling and needed to decide whether they were going to flail or aim their body before they hit.

"So, my options are... die like a normal person, or become whatever that is?"

Even asking it made his chest pinch, like the sentence itself weighed too much. Kael’s eyes flicked down to the faint stains on the stone, his blood from earlier, darkening in little smeared crescents where he’d knelt. He hated that he was even here. He hated that "options" was a word people used when only one path didn’t end in a grave.

"Yes," the Fist King said simply. "A ’good’ corpse... or a ’demonic’ survivor who can punch through a fortress wall."

He turned slightly and pointed toward a massive jagged boulder a short distance away, its surface rough and weathered.

The thing looked like a piece of a mountain that had decided to detach itself and wait here out of spite. Its edges were chipped and scarred, pocked with old cracks like lightning strikes. Kael’s eyes traced it and his mind immediately did the usual, weight, density, angle, how hard it would be to break if you had time and tools. With fists? It sounded like comedy.

"From this point on, your treatment isn’t me saving you. It’s me teaching you how to stop killing yourself."

Kael followed his gaze, still breathing unevenly. There was something almost insulting about the phrasing. Stop killing yourself. Like Kael had sat down and chosen this. Like he’d asked for his insides to start boiling the moment he gained a new resource.

"The first step," the Fist King continued, "is learning how to contain what’s inside you. Right now, your energy runs wild because your body has no structure to guide it. Your meridians are weak. Your bones are fragile. Your muscles can’t handle the pressure."

He stepped toward the boulder.

Kael watched the distance between them shrink. Not far. Not even that dramatic.

"So, we fix that...", Kael frowned slightly. "By... punching rocks?"

The words came out before he could stop them. Snark, reflex. The same coping mechanism he used when the tower tried to shove him into a corner and call it a choice.

The Fist King glanced back at him, unimpressed.

"If you try to punch that rock right now, your arm will shatter before it does."

He tapped the stone with his knuckle lightly.

The sound wasn’t loud, but it was clean, dense, absolute. Kael felt it in his teeth more than his ears.

"The first step of the Demon God’s Fist isn’t striking. It’s forging."

"Sounding a lot like Andre..." Kael said.

He expected a laugh, maybe a scoff. Instead, the Fist King looked directly at him like that comparison mattered more than Kael intended.

"You will learn the Iron Marrow technique. You will take that raging Yang energy inside you and force it into your bones, again and again, until they stop being something that breaks... and start being something that endures." He clutched his fist and a ravenous amount of red fire like energy spun around it. It looked dangerous to touch, or even look at for too long.

Kael’s expression stiffened slightly.

The energy didn’t behave like the Ifrit’s flame. It wasn’t wild heat spilling everywhere. It had hunger, coiling tight, circling his knuckles like it wanted something to chew through. The air around his fist shimmered and warped, not from temperature alone but from pressure, like the space itself was being bullied into moving aside.

"And if I fail?"

He didn’t mean it dramatically. He meant it in the way a man asks whether the rope will snap if he leans on it. Practical. Immediate. Because Kael had already seen what failure looked like in this tower, usually with screaming.

The Fist King’s answer came without hesitation as he touched with his palm on the massive boulder. The sound of sizzling and the aura from it burnt a clear palm print into the rock.

The stone didn’t crack. It didn’t crumble. It just... yielded, in a perfect outline, fingers, palm lines, the heel of his hand, scorched into the boulder as if the rock had been soft enough to brand. The smell hit a breath later: hot minerals, burnt dust, something ancient and dry being forced to remember what heat was.

"Then the Nine Yang heat will melt your skeleton from the inside within the year."

Silence settled between them for a moment, broken only by the wind brushing across the mountain.

The wind moved quietly across the mountain, carrying with it a cold that bit deeper than before, but Kael barely felt it now. His attention remained fixed on the jagged boulder ahead, though his thoughts were no longer on the stone itself.

They were on the choice.

It wasn’t really a choice, not in the way people liked to pretend choices existed. One path led to a slow, inevitable death, burning from the inside until nothing remained. The other led to something far worse in the short term, something brutal, unknown... and very likely just as lethal if he failed.

But at least that path moved forward.

Kael let out a slow breath, the pain in his chest still present, but quieter now, contained, for the moment. Like his body was listening too, deciding whether to keep tearing itself apart or wait and see if this was the fix.

"...If I say yes," he said, his voice steadier than before, "this isn’t just you helping me out, is it?"

He didn’t look away when he asked it. Kael wasn’t about to get chained to someone and pretend he hadn’t noticed the collar. Help in the tower always came with a hook. The only difference was whether you saw it before it sank in.

The Fist King didn’t answer immediately. He simply looked at him, as if weighing whether the question even needed one.

"No," he said at last. "This is a contract."

Kael’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"In Murim, taking a disciple isn’t casual. Once I teach you, you carry my path. My enemies can become yours. My name will be tied to yours. And you... will answer to me until you’re strong enough to stand without needing it."

Kael exhaled softly through his nose. There it was. Not hidden. Not dressed up. A weight you either accepted or dropped on your own foot.

"Sounds restrictive."

"It is," the Fist King said plainly. "Strength always is... but it goes both ways. Even if the heavens were to fall on you, your master will carry them for you. A master and disciple relation are not forged by the heavens, that is why you have parents. Man chooses, and heaven wills."

"I see... sounds very mystical."

"Do not joke about this, Kael."

The words were harsh, but seemed to convey that he was very serious about this.

Kael swallowed the next cough before it could rise, teeth grinding behind the mask. He wanted to scoff. He wanted to call it old-man theatrics. But the blood he’d spit earlier, and the way his chest still felt like it was packed with hot gravel, didn’t let him pretend.

"So... how does this contract... master disciple thing, do I have to sign anything?" Kael asked.

"No, paper is fleeting, you must prove your discipleship and my mentorship to the heavens. Prostrate nine times. Three to the heavens that have given you your will, three to your parents who have given you your life, and three to me who shall lead you from now on."

Kael blinked, slow. Nine times. On stone. With lungs that already wanted to quit.

"Sounds very... archaic."

"It is the way, since forever, I have done it toward my master, and so did my master toward his. Do know however, once you give the nine bows... you are not allowed to bow to no man. We have a saying, there is gold under a man’s knees, do not bow ever, even if it meant your life." The fist King said.

"Not that I’m planning on doing this to everyone, but what if I’m cornered... like..."

"Haven’t I told you, your master, shall carry the heavens if need be for you. If you ever find yourself in a position where you have to bow... then I shall show you the meaning of a master."

Silence settled again, heavier this time.

Kael looked down at the ground beneath him, at the faint stains of his own blood still marking the stone. His jaw tightened slightly, not from fear, but from something closer to irritation.

He didn’t like being cornered.

He didn’t like owing people.

And he especially didn’t like the idea of tying himself to someone else’s path.

But he liked the idea of dying even less.

"...Tch," he clicked his tongue quietly.

Without another word, Kael shifted his stance.

It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t practiced. But there was intent behind it. The movement alone made his chest pinch, his body protesting like a dog that knew the leash was tightening, yet he forced it anyway.

He lowered himself slowly, his knees touching the cold stone as he steadied his breathing. The chill seeped through fabric immediately, biting the joints. For a brief second, he hesitated, not out of doubt, but unfamiliarity. This wasn’t something he had ever done before. Not like this.

Then he bent forward.

His forehead touched the ground.

The first bow was awkward, rough around the edges, but real. The stone was colder than he expected, and the contact sent a sharp little sting through his skull like the mountain was mocking him for thinking this would be comfortable.

He rose, then lowered himself again.

The second came smoother. His hands found their place. His breath found a rhythm between pain and control. His shoulders loosened just enough to stop fighting the motion.

By the third, the hesitation was gone. Not because it became easy, nothing was easy, but because Kael’s mind had already made its decision and his body was just catching up.

Each bow pressed deeper than the last, not just physically, but in meaning. With every motion, something unspoken settled into place. Not submission, not blind loyalty, but acknowledgment.

Of the path.

Of the necessity.

Of the man standing before him.

The middle bows blurred together in a haze of controlled breathing and stubbornness. Kael’s lungs tried to flare hot again, warning him with that familiar itch, but he kept his mouth shut and his movements steady. He wasn’t going to cough halfway through and bleed on the contract like some melodramatic idiot.

By the time he reached the ninth, Kael’s breathing had grown heavier again, his body protesting the strain, but he didn’t stop halfway. He completed it fully, pressing his forehead to the stone one last time before slowly straightening his back.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t look up immediately.

But the intent was clear.

For a brief moment, the mountain was silent.

Then,

"Good."

The single word landed with weight. Not praise. Not kindness. Confirmation.

The Fist King’s voice carried something different this time. Not warmth, not quite approval... but acceptance.

"From this moment on," he said, "you are my disciple. And I am your master. I shall never betray you, and I expect the same."

Kael finally lifted his gaze.

And a notification appeared in front of him.

[You have earned the title, The Last Disciple]

The words hovered in the air like a brand. Kael stared at them for a heartbeat longer than he should have, feeling the absurdity of it sink in. Titles in the tower always came with weight, sometimes power, sometimes curse, sometimes both. Last Disciple. It didn’t sound like a reward. It sounded like a warning.

His throat tightened, and this time it wasn’t from blood. It was from the realization that whatever came next wasn’t "getting better." It was getting real.

The Fist King studied him for a second longer, then turned his head slightly toward the boulder in the distance.

"Get up. Time to get some work done." The Fist King said.

Kael’s hands flexed at his sides as he pushed himself to his feet, legs unsteady for a moment, lungs still unhappy, but his eyes locked forward.

Rocks didn’t look so funny anymore.