The morning began with distant tremors, faint at first, then building into rhythmic thuds that rattled rusted pipes and sent fine dust cascading from the tunnel ceiling. Lin Xuan's eyes opened before the others even stirred. His cultivation had sharpened his senses — each tremor a heartbeat, heavy and ponderous, traveling up through the earth.
"Beast tide," he murmured to himself.
The survivors roused sluggishly, rubbing bleary eyes, their expressions shifting from weariness to terror as they registered the sound. Muttered prayers and curses filled the air.
"Are they… coming for us?" a young woman whispered, her knuckles white around the grip of a scavenged crowbar.
Lin Xuan pushed himself smoothly to his feet. "They're sweeping the area. When a beast tide moves, nothing survives in its path — not buildings, not vehicles, not shelters." He turned his gaze toward the east, as if he could see through meters of concrete and steel. "We need to move. Now."
Fear rooted them in place. Lin Xuan's tone hardened, an edge of command that brooked no delay: "Now."
---
They moved quickly through the abandoned tunnels, guided by the faint threads of Primordial Qi that Lin Xuan traced like a hunter following scent. The deeper they went, the denser the energy became, filling his lungs with each breath, strengthening his limbs with each step. He could feel his cultivation inching forward, his mortal vessel tempering under the relentless flow of the Primordial Ascension Codex.
The tremors intensified. Loose gravel tumbled from the tunnel roof, and somewhere behind them, a metal support beam groaned and collapsed. Lin Xuan halted, raising a hand.
"They're too close," he said, voice calm but carrying an undertone of iron. "We won't outrun them."
Panic threatened to overtake the group. Lin Xuan scanned their surroundings, his gaze settling on a maintenance junction where several tunnels converged. "There," he said. "We hold them here."
A murmur of disbelief rippled through the survivors. "Hold them? Against… against that?" one man stammered, gesturing toward the deep, thunderous rumbling.
Lin Xuan met his gaze, expression unreadable. "You can run if you want. But you'll only die tired."
---
The first wave hit like an avalanche. Horned lizards poured into the tunnel in a tide of scaled flesh and snapping jaws, their roars deafening in the confined space. Lin Xuan moved like a phantom, slipping through their ranks with the fluid grace of a master swordsman.
A scavenged steel pipe whirled in his hands, each strike landing with bone-cracking precision. The first beast's skull shattered under a downward swing; the second collapsed as Lin Xuan drove the jagged end of the pipe through its eye socket and into its brain.
"Stay behind me!" he barked, his voice cutting through the chaos.
The survivors clustered together, makeshift weapons raised but unused, terror freezing them in place. Blood sprayed across the tunnel walls as Lin Xuan carved a path through the tide, his every movement guided by the invisible currents of Primordial Qi. The Codex's power coiled through his muscles, lending him speed and strength far beyond what this body should have possessed.
Yet for every beast that fell, two more surged forward. Their claws gouged deep furrows into the concrete, their collective mass threatening to overwhelm even Lin Xuan's enhanced reflexes.
---
"Enough," Lin Xuan whispered, eyes narrowing.
He drew a deep breath, cycling the Primordial Ascension Codex to its second circuit. Energy roared through his meridians, scouring them raw, but he ignored the pain. His right hand formed a mudra, fingers curling into a familiar seal, and the air around him shifted, pressure spiking like a sudden storm.
Primordial Arts — Heaven-Sundering Palm.
Lin Xuan struck.
The tunnel erupted with a thunderous crack as raw Primordial Qi surged from his palm, a sweeping shockwave that pulverized the first rank of beasts into a mist of gore. The wave carved a shallow trench through the tunnel floor, sending fragments of shattered concrete and beast remains spraying in all directions.
The survivors stared in stunned silence, ears ringing from the blast. Even Lin Xuan felt a flicker of satisfaction — the Codex was responding faster now, his body slowly adapting to its ancient, overwhelming power.
But the tide wasn't broken. Roars echoed from deeper in the tunnel, a sound heavier and more resonant than the others. Lin Xuan's expression sharpened.
"A pack alpha," he murmured.
---
It emerged from the darkness like a nightmare given flesh — a horned lizard nearly three times the size of the others, its jagged carapace glinting like black iron, scarlet eyes burning with primal fury. Its jaws opened, releasing a roar that shook the very walls.
Lin Xuan stepped forward, meeting its gaze without flinching. His grip tightened on the blood-slicked pipe, the makeshift weapon bending alarmingly under the force of his hold.
The alpha charged, claws gouging molten sparks from the concrete. Lin Xuan exhaled, his world narrowing to a single point. He moved, body blurring in a burst of speed fueled by the Codex's relentless flow. The pipe met the alpha's skull with an impact that reverberated up his arms, bending the weapon almost double before snapping entirely.
The beast reeled, bellowing in pain. Lin Xuan landed lightly, his hands already forming a second seal. Silver light flared around his palm, brighter this time, threads of condensed Primordial Qi coiling like miniature serpents.
"Die," he said simply.
The Heaven-Sundering Palm struck the alpha's chest, shattering its ribcage in an explosion of gore. The massive beast collapsed, its death throes shaking the tunnel.
---
Silence fell, broken only by the ragged breathing of the survivors. Lin Xuan straightened, letting the last vestiges of Primordial Qi fade from his limbs. His muscles throbbed with overuse, his meridians burning from the strain of channeling so much power through an untempered body.
He knelt briefly by the alpha's corpse, pressing his palm to its cooling flesh. Primordial Qi rushed into him, richer and denser than any he had drawn before. He absorbed it greedily, feeling his cultivation base expand, the Codex's runes blazing bright within his consciousness.
When he rose, his gaze swept the blood-slick tunnel. The survivors were still staring, expressions ranging from awe to terror. Lin Xuan ignored them, his attention already turned inward.
His power was growing — still a pale echo of his former self, but undeniable.
---
They cleared the tunnel of corpses, piling the carcasses in an abandoned maintenance chamber. The survivors fell into uneasy silence, none daring to meet Lin Xuan's eyes for long. Finally, a man with a soldier's bearing stepped forward, his voice hesitant.
"You… you saved us," he said. "But what are you? No one should be able to… do what you just did."
Lin Xuan met his gaze, expression unreadable. "In this world," he said quietly, "only strength matters. Remember that."
---
That night, Lin Xuan sat alone at the tunnel's edge, the city's distant fires painting his features in shifting hues of orange and red. He could feel the Codex's patterns thrumming within him, each circuit strengthening his body, widening his meridians, compressing the Primordial Qi in his dantian into a denser, purer form.
And beneath it all, deeper than even the Codex's reach, that slumbering heartbeat pulsed — slow, steady, and growing stronger.
Lin Xuan's lips curved into the faintest of smiles.
This world will temper me. And when it does, I will shatter its heavens as well.
---
End of Chapter 3.