**
The inspiration about the ecological disruption and it's impact on the environment are from a real world case that happened in the Yellowstone Natural park, when they hunted the wolves to extinction, which led to disastrous outcomes. If you're curious about it, you can google 'Yellowstone wolves' to find out more."
**
Feiyin stood before the sealed alchemic hall, its obsidian doors etched with deep crimson sigils. The formation lines glowed faintly, pulses of heat emanating in gentle waves. Alone, he adjusted the shroud of essence qi surrounding him and shaped it into a protective veil to shield against any airborne impurities. This was one of the advantages he discovered after opening all 361 of his acupoints, which allowed him to cover his entire body in his essence qi. However, at this point, to make the best use of its effect, he could only channel one elemental attribute at a time through all points- and for this mission, he chose water, using it to counteract the searing heat of the fire essence vein. As a precaution, he also carried a small pouch with healing and detoxification pills.
The air was thick even outside the seal.
He exhaled slowly. "Time to see what you're hiding."
Channeling his spiritual sense through the formation, he began to unbind the seal layer by layer. Each layer held not just defensive protections but also elemental stabilizers meant to keep the fire essence below dormant. He removed them with care. Finally, the inner mechanism clicked.
The door opened.
A wave of heat struck him immediately, pressing against his barrier. Feiyin stepped into the dark chamber beyond. The room was vast, hewn into the volcanic stone, with spiraling conduits leading down toward the essence vein chamber. Emberlight flickered along the walls.
He walked slowly.
The further down he went, the more the temperature rose. His barrier shimmered from the effort of resisting the scorching air, but he pressed forward. At the base, a circular chamber pulsed with intense, reddish light, the heart of the fire essence vein.
Kneeling at its edge, he placed a hand on the stone and focused his oscillation sense.
Nothing.
Just the deep, fiery rhythm of elemental fire. The fire essence was as it should be, intense and blazing, reminding him of a hot summer day. Which was strange, as nothing wrong stood out to him.
He tried again. And again. Hours passed. He rotated his senses across all elemental pulses, probing through frequencies, even using a minor detection talisman to try and detect something he might have missed.
Still nothing.
Finally, he stood with a faint frown and resealed the chamber behind him. The fire was bright and healthy, yet the red demons alchemists were not.
He returned to the chief that evening.
"I searched the fire vein chamber. Three times," Feiyin said. "Whatever is causing this, it isn't directly in the vein. Are you absolutely certain nothing changed recently? No accidents? No intrusions?"
The chief, seated on a stone dais, shook his head firmly. "We maintain sacred watch over our alchemic rooms. None can enter without clearance."
"Then something subtler is at work. For now, I'll observe."
So he watched.
For the next few days, Feiyin remained within the tribe. He wandered the refining districts, joined meals in the evenings by the campfire, even sparred lightly with the younger warriors. During these sessions, one of the more outspoken youths- Baqir, a lean, fierce-eyed warrior and apprentice alchemist- often challenged him more fiercely than the others. Baqir was also the grandson of the tribe's elder shaman, a man steeped in the ancient beliefs of the Red Demon Tribe. According to their traditions, when a tribe member died, their body was burned so that their spirit might return and become one with the fire essence of the world. This belief formed the cornerstone of many of their rites- especially when calamities struck. The shaman was convinced that the recent afflictions were a result of unrest among their ancestors, and he advocated for a fire sacrifice to appease them and restore balance.
Tensions within the tribe were subtle, but present. The elder shaman had been vocal about resuming these ancestral rites, insisting that their spiritual neglect had caused the current ailment. But the village chief, a pragmatic man with a forward-thinking mindset, started to resist after countless ressources and preys were used as sacrifices. He wanted answers rooted in reason, not superstition. The resulting division had made Baqir bristle at Feiyin's presence, treating him like an outsider interfering with sacred matters.
"You're not needed here," Baqir muttered during one sparring match, his blade following Feiyin's shadow. "My grandfather knows the path. You outsiders just complicate it."
Feiyin merely smiled and countered the strike, calm and unwavering. "I believe that soon enough, my path will prove that we want the same outcome."
He said no more of it, only smiling in face of the youth's resentment. He could not control how others would react to his presence, and could only show that he meant well. Trust was something to be built, not demanded, and his goal of completing alliances required patience.
Still, despite his careful observations and interactions, nothing suspicious revealed itself. The tribe's practices, from their alchemical traditions to their fire dances, were stable and steeped in ritual. Even their tools and furnaces bore no unusual traits.
On the fourth day, after another fruitless round of inspection near the sealed chamber, Feiyin decided to shift his approach. Instead of remaining in the heart of the tribe, he would venture outward.
It was as he was about to leave the village outskirts when he saw a group of red demon hunters returning from the forest, dragging with them several deer carcasses. The haul was surprisingly abundant.
Feiyin raised a brow and approached, giving a polite nod. "That's a good hunt. Is it a bountiful season for deer?"
An older hunter, his horns ridged with age, chuckled while hoisting a carcass over his shoulder. "Indeed it is, young alchemist. We've not lacked meat for the past year. The herds are swelling."
"Why the sudden increase?"
"Simple. The wolves that used to roam near our forest are gone. We hunted them down last winter."
Feiyin's eyes narrowed slightly. "All of them?"
"Aye. They kept harassing our border outposts and even attacked a caravan once. We couldn't allow that."
Feiyin offered a neutral smile, thanked them, and turned toward the forest.
With a soft hum, he activated a concealment talisman and slipped into the thick undergrowth.
The air grew more humid the deeper he went. Tropical vines looped between the dark-barked trees, while the surroundings were a strange, harmonious mix of both jungle and forest. He saw them soon after; herds of deer moving lazily through the foliage, unafraid, thriving.
But something was off.
There were no birds. Not even insects buzzed in the heavy air. And deeper still, the lush forest began to thin. Trees had withering roots, some gnawed down to pale splinters. The underbrush was scraped bare in patches. Feiyin crouched by a juvenile rotting tree trunk and examined it- deer bite marks around the remaining roots, recent and numerous.
Following the subtle change in the rhythm of the forest, he moved closer to the river. There, along the rich, loamy banks, dozens of deer gathered, drinking and grazing where vegetation was nearly stripped bare. Hooves churned the soil into sludge, and the muddy water carried their waste downstream.
He stood still, listening.
The river's flow was irregular. Rainwater fell through breaks in the canopy, splashing unchecked into bare soil. The lack of plants to hold the earth meant runoff, erosion. The mud-laden water coursed downward, unchecked, deeper into the mountains.
With mounting certainty, Feiyin followed the waterline. Hours passed. He moved like a shadow through the trees, watching the current change color and flow with heavier sediment.
Finally, at the edge of the mountain range, he reached a narrow crevasse where the river disappeared into a sharp gorge. The walls were volcanic stone, slick and warm.
Feiyin crouched and felt the water.
His eyes widened.
The underground water, now muddied and thick with sediment from the trampled riverbanks and uprooted soil, had begun rushing downward with unusual force. The flow wasn't just continuous- it was turbulent, heavy, and unfiltered, sweeping debris and earth through crevices in the stone. These fast, erratic currents carried sediment-laden water into the deeper geological layers, likely infiltrating the outer edges of the fire essence vein. Feiyin watched it for a moment, his senses drawn to the dissonance in the rhythm of the flow- too chaotic, too heavy. A hypothesis began to form in his mind.
"So that's it," he murmured. "You removed the predators, and nature lost its balance. The deer overpopulated, destroyed the plants, disrupted the riverbanks… and burdened the underground flow."
He closed his eyes briefly, then extended his oscillation and spiritual senses deeper into the narrow gorge. He traced the path the water took, mapping its descent through the stone veins until he reached a cavernous pocket below. There, he felt it; large enough to enter, with no sign of life.
"It's stable enough."
With that, Feiyin encased himself in a Earth-reinforced shroud of essence qi, drawing tighter the layers around his skin to withstand impact and pressure. Then, without hesitation, he stepped off the ledge and plunged into the cascade of falling water.