The air on the mountain bridge had turned heavy—unnaturally still, as if the world itself held its breath in anticipation of violence. The fog thickened with mourning purpose, as if lamenting the corpse left behind like a discarded offering, and the river far below sounded more distant than geography could explain.
Lingque stood in the bridge's exact center, her body stiff with wrongness, too still to be anything natural or living. When she turned to face them, her irises were pitch-black—not merely dark, but void of all light, all humanity. No whites. No emotion. Only abyss gazing out through stolen eyes.
"Lingque?" Chen Xinyu stepped forward with hesitant hope dying in his throat.
She smiled.
It wasn't her smile. It had never been her smile.
The corners of her lips pulled wide with unnaturally slow precision, like something half-remembering how to mimic human expression from ancient observations. "So noisy," she said, her voice layered like poisoned silk—her own sweet lilt overlapping with a deeper, alien rasp that hurt to hear.
Qingze's face drained of all color like water through cupped hands. "She's been taken. That thing has nested inside her."
Lan Xueyao's grip tightened on her sword. "Everyone exercise extreme caution."
"What did you do to her?" Xinyu's voice cracked with equal parts anger and panic, heart thundering against his ribs.
The thing tilted Lingque's head to the side with mechanical curiosity, like a doll operated by invisible strings. "She had cracks in her heart. She opened it willingly... to you. We simply slipped in through those beautiful fractures."
Shen Yao muttered under his breath and moved protectively in front of Xinyu like a shield made flesh. "Is that supposed to make any sense?"
"I felt him on her," the voice hissed with possessive hunger, turning its stolen gaze toward Mochen. "A bite. A bond. He reeks of forbidden connection."
Rourou and Lan Xueyao both looked at Mochen with sudden confusion painting their features.
Mochen's expression darkened instantly like stormclouds gathering. His hand twitched toward his sword hilt with barely restrained violence. "Let. Her. Go."
The thing laughed—a dissonant sound, both high and guttural, like two voices screaming in harmony. "Why should I? She's strong. A lovely shell to wear. She is—what do you humans say?—a 'rare one.' She glows inside like captured starlight."
Suddenly, impossibly, Lingque's body moved—far too fast for mortal eyes to track. One moment she stood ten steps away, the next she materialized before Xinyu, her hand gripping his wrist with bruising intensity.
"Soft," she whispered with terrible intimacy. "I see why she clings to you so desperately. But I don't tolerate competition."
Before her nails could pierce skin and draw blood, a streak of white light slashed the air like divine judgment.
Hua Ling's sword flashed as he stepped between them with fluid grace. The blow forced the creature back several paces. Lingque's body was thrown toward the bridge's railing, where she landed crouched—like a hunting beast ready to spring.
"I told you," it hissed through clenched teeth, still wearing Lingque's stolen face. "She listens to you. She trusted you absolutely. That's precisely why we could infiltrate."
Mochen took a deliberate step forward, his gaze hard as winter iron. "That's quite enough."
"She wouldn't allow herself to be taken," Xinyu snapped with desperate conviction. "She's strong. She's—!"
But the thing inside her cackled with malicious glee. "She's yours, isn't she?"
Everyone froze as if turned to stone.
"What?" Yan Zheng asked sharply, confusion painting his noble features.
The shadow entity crouched lower, grinning with too many teeth. "Spiritual beast. Bound. Contracted. Yours completely. You all didn't know this delicious secret?"
All eyes turned to Xinyu in perfect unison.
"...You what?" Shen Yao squawked with scandalized shock. "You—you possess a spiritual beast contract?! With her?!"
Lan Xueyao's grip tightened on her sword, thinking bitterly to herself, Wonderful. Even he acquired a spiritual beast before me.
Xinyu opened his mouth. Closed it helplessly. "I—I didn't think it mattered significantly—"
"You never mentioned this crucial detail!" Shen Yao yelled with indignant betrayal.
"She commanded me not to!" Xinyu yelped defensively. "She said it was embarrassing!"
Lingque—no, the thing puppeteering her flesh—let out a shrieking laugh that echoed against stone. "And now she's yours, heart and soul and body, a perfect little vessel—"
Before it could finish its gloating, Hua Ling charged forward like winter wind given form. His blade sliced again—not to kill, but to disrupt the possession's hold.
The possessed Lingque leapt backward once more with inhuman grace, perching unnaturally on the bridge's precarious edge, crouched with the same eerie balance as a hunting bird studying prey.
Around them, the fog began to move again with deliberate purpose. Not drifting—but crawling with malicious intent. Dark, slinking silhouettes formed within it—figures bent and twisted, some vaguely human, others far too wrong to comprehend. Claws. Teeth. Empty eyes that reflected nothing.
"We're surrounded," Qingze said grimly, voice heavy with dread. "They're illusions. Or something far worse."
"No," Mochen murmured with dark recognition. "They're parasites. Pieces of the same corrupted entity. They feed on weakness, take root in emotion like poisonous seeds."
Shen Yao cursed with creative eloquence. "Excellent. Then we're standing on a dinner plate waiting to be devoured."
The figures lunged with synchronized hunger.
Yan Zheng and Qingze immediately broke formation, stepping forward to flank the group with protective determination. Shen Yao threw talismans that flashed with righteous light before the fog swallowed them whole like hungry mouths.
Mochen swung his sword in a clean arc, slicing through a leaping shadow. It collapsed, revealing it was not truly solid—its insides were crawling smoke and stolen screams.
"Xinyu!" Shen Yao shouted over the chaos. "Use light! Call your beast properly!"
"I—I don't know how—!"
"You're contracted to a peacock spirit!" Shen Yao cried with desperate urgency. "They're literally made for burning this corruption!"
"I—she never taught me the proper method!" Xinyu yelled back, dodging as a fog-creature lunged past him with grasping claws.
"Then just scream or something!"
Xinyu staggered toward the bridge's center where Lingque crouched, shuddering as her body waged internal war against the thing inside it.
"Lingque," he said quietly, voice carrying despite the chaos. "Please. I know you're still fighting in there. I'm sorry for ignoring you. I'm sorry for failing to protect you. But I'm here now. So come back to me."
A pause stretched like eternity.
Her fingers twitched.
Then she let out a piercing cry—not human. Not the possessed voice. But a raw, agonized call that rang with something ancient and divine.
It echoed like a peacock's scream across heaven itself.
From her chest, a burst of golden light exploded outward like a small sun born. The fog reeled back as if burned.
Qingze gasped with awe. "That aura—! That's not human energy!"
"She's awakening," Mochen said, catching her as she fell forward with consciousness fleeing.
Even unconscious, golden light shimmered faintly at her temples and hands—ethereal feathers flickering across her skin like trapped flames.
"She's a peacock?" Rourou whispered in absolute awe. "That's so beautiful..."
"She's a Class Three spiritual beast," Qingze muttered with scholarly recognition. "No wonder she's so attached to Xinyu... she imprinted on him."
"Wait, Class Three?" Shen Yao said with dawning horror. "Isn't that technically illegal?"
"She was lonely!" Xinyu protested weakly.
Behind them, the shadows writhed with renewed purpose, recoiling from the golden light—but something bigger moved within them now. A darker silhouette—massive, coiled like a centipede whose body stretched beyond sight, its many legs clawing along the fog's edge. It didn't flinch at the golden light.
It watched with patience eternal.
It waited with hunger infinite.
Xinyu turned just in time to see it slither partially into view—its head crowned with living mist, hollow sockets locked onto him with terrible focus.
Lingque couldn't speak through her mental turmoil.
But they all felt it pressing against their souls.
A presence. Ancient. Hungry. Inevitable.
Lingque stirred weakly. "Not... done," she whispered through trembling lips. "That... is its heart..."
Then the fog surged again—darker, heavier, suffocating.
And the true battle had only just begun.
---
Lingque's head snapped toward the group with mechanical precision, her normally bright eyes now an unnatural black, like ink spilled across precious porcelain. Her peacock form had stiffened unnaturally, feathers trembling not with cold but with something darker, far more ancient than mortal comprehension.
"Xinyu..." she said, her voice low and distorted, almost echoing with another tongue layered beneath like a second shadow. "You... shouldn't have come to this place."
Everyone froze in collective horror.
"She can speak?" Lan Xueyao gasped, taking an instinctive step backward.
"She's a spiritual beast?" Shen Yao blinked repeatedly, utterly stunned.
"Wait, that's your peacock?!" Rourou cried, clutching at Xinyu's arm desperately. "The one that always talks back and bites everything?!"
"I—yes, she's mine," Xinyu admitted, alarm racing through his voice like wildfire. "But she's not like this! Lingque!"
The peacock's magnificent tail spread wide, feathers glowing faintly with a sickly violet hue like diseased twilight. A gust of wind swept down the fog-covered bridge, ruffling cloaks and hair as the possessed beast hovered just off the wooden planks, wings outstretched in terrible glory.
Qingze narrowed his eyes with warrior's instinct. "Something's nested inside her."
Mochen stepped forward with talisman already burning between his fingers like trapped lightning. "That same parasite... it hasn't finished with us yet."
Lingque's body jerked violently as if electrocuted. She let out a shriek—part peacock cry, part human wail of absolute agony. Her wings flapped once with devastating force, blasting them with wind and shadow. The fog churned violently, like something massive breathing just beneath its surface.
"Xinyu," Yan Zheng said urgently, drawing his sword with ringing clarity. "We'll attempt to force it out. Can you reach her?"
"I'll try!" Xinyu shouted over the howling wind. "Lingque—come back! It's me, it's Xinyu! Don't let it consume you!"
Lingque's head turned toward him again with predatory focus. For one precious moment, her eyes flickered—black fading into familiar golden brown—but then she hissed with inhuman fury and surged upward, vanishing into the fog's hungry embrace.
A heartbeat later, she dived back down, faster than mortal eyes could track.
"Scatter!" Hua Ling barked with commanding authority.
They leapt apart just as Lingque's claws raked the ground where Mochen had stood moments before. She spun with inhuman grace, flapping furiously. Her feathers gleamed and began to shed—not naturally, but like darts, sharp and edged with poison. They embedded themselves into the wooden planks with violent force, hissing as the wood blackened around each one like spreading corruption.
"She's attacking with her spirit energy!" Shen Yao called out, shielding Rourou with his body.
"She never does that unless she's cornered," Xinyu said, heart pounding like war drums. "She's fighting it from the inside!"
Mochen threw a talisman upward with desperate precision. It erupted in a burst of white flame, striking Lingque mid-air. She shrieked again—not in pain, but as though resisting with every fiber of her being.
"Didn't work," Mochen muttered through clenched jaw. "Whatever's possessing her is stronger than before."
Hua Ling stepped forward at last, calm but cold as death itself. "We cannot harm her. But we can trap her temporarily."
He raised one elegant hand and muttered under his breath in ancient tongue. A shimmer of silver light coalesced around his fingers like captured moonlight. As he pressed them together, it expanded into a barrier—a hexagonal net of glowing sigils—spinning in the air with mesmerizing beauty.
With a single flick, he cast it toward Lingque.
She screeched with primal fury and tried to dodge, but the barrier curved mid-flight, encasing her in a tight sphere. She thrashed violently, wings beating against the magical walls with desperate strength, but Hua Ling's spell held firm.
"She's not breaking through it," Qingze said in genuine surprise. "That's not an ordinary containment spell."
Hua Ling ignored the comment, eyes fixed on the struggling beast with laser focus. "Xinyu. Talk to her. Before the barrier shatters."
Xinyu stepped toward the glowing cage with trembling determination. "Lingque... it's me. Please listen. You're not alone in this fight."
The peacock's body jerked again with violent spasms. Her beak opened, a strange rattling voice echoing from her throat like stones scraping together.
"You... cannot... stay. The cave sleeps. The cave watches. The cave HUNGERS."
Everyone tensed as if struck. Mochen's expression darkened like eclipse consuming sun. "That voice again..."
"Is it using her to speak to us?" Shen Yao asked with dawning horror. "The shadow spirit?"
Xinyu placed a hand to the barrier's shimmering surface. "You said something like this before. In the forest. Lingque, fight it! You're stronger than this parasitic thing!"
For a moment that stretched like eternity, nothing happened.
Then, slowly, Lingque's wings fell limp.