Chapter 6: The Crippled Wolf

The pre-dawn cold in Kashrûn’s lower courtyard was merciless, but for Tair, physical discomfort had become a secondary metric.Pain was no longer an obstacle.It was merely sensory data—a constant, rhythmic feedback loop reminding him that his body was paying interest on borrowed time.He stood near the edge of the training grounds, placing most of his weight on his left side.His right leg felt less like flesh and bone and more like a dead limb forged from cold iron, dragging half a beat behind his intentions.His right shoulder had collapsed, and whenever he drew air into his lungs, a dry, scraping rasp escaped his throat.70 Hours, 15 Minutes.Tair closed his eyes and turned his awareness inward, diving into his own mind to examine the internal structure of the System.[CHRONO-ANCHOR // SELF-RECURSIVE CHRONO-ANCHOR — SYSTEM RULES & DIAGNOSTICS]Current Loop: 2Temporal Anchor Stability: 88%[ASTRA // CORE MECHANICS & RESTRICTIONS]• Structural Cost (Irreversible): Initiating each loop requires permanent physical deterioration. The timeline resets; the physical cost accumulates.• Chrono-Resonance Interference: Standard Essence channels are permanently sealed. You cannot accumulate or refine ambient Essence through conventional cultivation/progression.• Information Retention: Memories, spatial awareness, and enemy combat patterns are preserved across all resets.• Lethal Threshold: If physical deterioration reaches 100%, or if the Temporal Anchor fractures under neural overload, resurrection ends. Death becomes absolute.Tair opened his eyes.The mechanics were brutal, but logical.The world was governed by a rigid hierarchy in which the Noble Essence was inherited through bloodlines—a cosmic order administered by the Central Great Dao Network.His System was not a gift from that network.It was an ancient, unclassified anomaly—a System Glitch that violated the System’s own rules by replacing bloodline purity with physical sacrifice.He did not need to accumulate Essence.He was turning his own decaying biology into a weapon against a rigged world.“Tair.”A voice interrupted his internal analysis.It was Orren.The old servant approached slowly, carrying two wooden training swords.Dark circles surrounded Orren’s eyes, and his posture lacked its usual military rigidity.In the previous loop, Tair had seen Orren as nothing more than a loyal guard who died in the first wave.But now, looking at him—with the heightened perception of his second life—Tair noticed subtle details he had previously overlooked.The cuffs of Orren’s leather tunic were worn and carefully patched with mismatched thread.His hands were calloused not merely from years of gripping weapon hilts, but from decades of manual labor.He had served the Kharvayn clan for thirty years and believed in its honor, completely unaware that Veyran Kharvayn saw him as nothing more than expendable livestock to be sold to the Iron Vanguard.Orren stopped several steps away and looked at Tair’s twisted posture with a mixture of pity and quiet disappointment.“You look like the dead, boy,” Orren said softly, without his usual booming voice.“Your throat... the apothecary said your windpipe was burned. What happened to you last night?”Tair opened his mouth.He tried to form the words, but only a dry, breathless rasp came out.“...Fine... Orren...”Orren sighed and rubbed his weathered face with a calloused hand.“Don’t force it.“Listen to me, Tair.“I knew your father.“He was a simple scout, but he died facing the enemy.“You have no Noble Essence.“You never did.“And now... with your leg and throat like this...”He hesitated, staring into the distance toward the rising sun.“I spoke with the quartermaster this morning.“I can have you assigned to the grain stores in the rear valley.“A quiet job.“Far from training.“Far from Beyran and the Elders.”Tair watched the old man closely.Orren was not being cruel.He was trying to save Tair’s life in the only way an unranked veteran knew how—by hiding him from the slaughter.Orren genuinely cared.But his mercy was born from ignorance.He did not know that when the Iron Vanguard crossed the border, the first place they would burn would be the grain stores in the rear valley.Tair slowly shook his head.He reached out with his left hand and took one of the wooden training swords from Orren’s grip.“...No...” Tair rasped, his cold, dark eyes fixed on the old servant.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.“...I have to fight...”Orren stared at him, startled by the sheer, unyielding intensity in the boy’s eyes.There was no fear.No self-pity.No helplessness.Only a frightening, icy clarity completely alien to a seventeen-year-old novice.“You stubborn fool,” Orren muttered, tightening his grip on his own training sword.“Fine.“Show me how you plan to hold a sword with a ruined shoulder.”Tair took a stance.He did not use the standard Kharvayn clan guard.Those forms relied on strong footwork and explosive Essence thrusts from the right hip—movements his ruined body could no longer perform.Instead, Tair shifted his center of gravity entirely onto his left leg and turned his torso sideways, presenting the smallest possible target profile.He held the wooden sword low, close to his left hip, while allowing his crippled right arm to hang loosely like bait.Orren frowned and stepped forward with a standard, cautious overhead strike.Tair did not move until the wooden blade was only a few inches from his shoulder.Temporal Analysis—Activate.The world froze.The morning wind died.Falling leaves hung suspended in the air like amber droplets.Orren’s wooden sword descended in painful micro-frames.Tair analyzed the trajectory.Orren was holding back.To avoid injuring Tair’s wounded arm, he had left his right flank exposed.Tair did not attack the opening.Instead, he stepped into the strike using his left axis and placed the blunt edge of his wooden sword directly against the exposed nerve cluster beneath Orren’s left elbow.Disable.CRACK.Time returned to full speed.A sharp, numbing shock shot up Orren’s arm as he gasped and dropped his training sword into the dirt.Orren froze.He stared at his numb hand, then at Tair in complete disbelief.“What... what was that stance?“That wasn’t Kharvayn footwork.”Tair lowered his sword.His chest rose and fell like a bellows as he swallowed the burning sensation in his lungs.Using Temporal Analysis for even two seconds had sent a neurological shock of pain through his temples.But the result was undeniable.He had not defeated Orren with strength or Essence.He had used Orren’s own compassion and mechanical habits against him.Before Orren could say anything else, a shadow fell across the ground.Beyran stood at the edge of the ring, accompanied by his usual entourage.But the arrogant grin that normally defined Beyran’s face was gone.In its place was a tense, twitching paranoia.He looked pale.His eyes were bloodshot.Dark circles had settled beneath them.Tair’s brief warning from yesterday—“71 hours... Make sure you get your money’s worth.”—had gnawed at Beyran’s mind throughout the night.“Orren,” Beyran called, his voice sharp and tense.“Leave the cripple alone.“The Senior Heir wants all unranked novices in the lower armory immediately to carry the iron chests.”Orren rubbed his numb elbow, looking back and forth between Beyran and Tair.“The lower armory?“That work is normally handled by the supply guards.”“The Senior Heir ordered it!” Beyran snapped, adjusting his belt as his hand trembled slightly.His eyes nervously flicked toward Tair, refusing to make direct eye contact.“Move, all of you!”Tair dragged his right leg past Beyran.When their paths crossed, Tair did not say a single word.He simply looked at Beyran’s right hand.Beyran was wearing a new, heavy brass ring—an exact match for the seal rings used by Iron Vanguard quartermasters to track black-market weapons shipments.Beyran was not merely an envoy.He was actively helping the Senior Heir remove the Kharvayn clan’s stolen weapons from the lower armory before the attack even began.A thin, cold realization settled into Tair’s mind.The plan has already begun, Tair thought as he limped down the stone corridor toward the dark armory cellars.In three days, they are not merely going to open the gate.They are disarming the novices beforehand so there will be no resistance.The central mystery of his System flashed through his mind again:Why did the Chrono-Anchor activate for someone without a Noble bloodline?Was it truly an accident...Or was the Great Dao Network itself rotting from within, forcing an anomaly to emerge and cleanse the realm?Tair tightened his grip around the hilt of the iron knife he had hidden.He had no Essence.No voice.No army.All he had was a ruined body, three days of foresight, and a mind that had already died twice.And that would be more than enough to tear this clan apart.