The abyss was a blood-drenched nightmare. Broken bamboo lay scattered like raindrops, stone cracked like an eggshell, disciples were thrown out of their ranks in haphazard circles. Mutant wolves crept about their midst, eyes like coals smoldering in the fog. The Abyss Serpent slithers, trampling everything beneath its massive body as it hunts without rest. And so, thereupon from the newly torn fissure, three shapes emerged.
One was a hulking boar, its tusks and eye sockets like jagged bronze, cloaked in a maddened mist. Another was a deer so deformed that even the natural was twisted, longan tree-sized antlers burning with the color of pale gold runes which shone bright instead of glowing yellows in high noon light. The third of the six legs crawled in shadow, a change and panther whose skin teetered on form in and out a writhing whiff.
[System Alert: Primordially taint beasts detected]
[Boar: Qi Condensation Peak. Stag: Early Foundation Establishment. Panther: Foundation Establishment, Early Stage]
Lin Xuan clenched his jaw. Three new Foundation-level abominations, when even one would have culled a sect's worth of outer disciples. The gully cascades in laughter, its heartbeat coming from all directions at once.
"For heaven's sake, the line!" a disciple wailed. His voice broke as the tusks of the boar gouged through another brother in his mix. Blood spattered stones. "The elders have been lying to us!" another shouted, wildly throwing across a sprawling sword slag before a paw of shadow crushed him. "This is madness!" Despair roiled into confusion. Lines broke, disciples scattered and screamed were dragged into the mist by wolves.
Lin Xuan stood in the middle of it, watching. His eyes were calm, his breath still. Trouble too soon, and I'm no good. Too late, death it all.
The serpent hissed, curling its tail. Three disciples were just about to be squashed—
Lin Xuan moved.
His body cut through the mist like flowing water. Spear thrust down, in a weak joint of the snake tail. Bone cracked. Two mistake-serpents leered at him lazily from the ravine floor. The strike wasn't strong enough to paralyze it, but the groove it left was pretty profound. That was enough. Paunch smashed into hard stone instead of soft flesh; three student lives were saved. They gasped. Wide-eyed, they stared at Lin Xuan. But before they could speak, he was already gone, gliding back into the fog like a ghost. Yet even though he had gone, flowing from their mouths came the whispered words.
"Who was that?"
"…Lin Xuan? The cripple from Stone Creek?"
"But where could a cripple fight that way?"
Paws oily with pearlescent light, the boar charged a crowd of terrified juniors. His instincts changed. Predator Flow raced in his blood, trembling the wolf's rhythm. A leap to the side, the spear whirled. The stalk struck the orbit of the boar's eyebrow, diverting its stare just in time to avoid crushing into two disciples. Screaming juniors scurried away, without ever knowing whose hands had spared them.
[Omniscient Skill Notification: Predator Flow upgraded. Effectiveness increased.]
Evasion retreated, foot soft, look inscrutable. He would never ask for their thanks.
The way things worked out was a string of crises.
—The disciples falling, a wolf leaping down to meet them; a flick of Lin Xuan's spear intercepting the blow, saving that boy from losing his gullet.
—A deer lowers its antlers, cold fire condensing; Lin Xuan smashes a stone so that flashes fly and scatter the energy before it strikes a group of girls.
—From a shadow toward a hurt boy, a panther slips; all lit up for just a moment by Lin Xuan's Qi, allowing the boy to roll out of the way.
Each movement was tiny, precise, buried in chaos. He never led them, never commented. He simply stayed there, always wherever the line would break.
To those he had saved, the arrangements of fate seemed no more than amazing coincidences. Nevertheless, numberless "Rawr"s broke out a few at a time.
"It's him again!"
"Lin Xuan?"
"Impossible. Didn't this guy say he was trash and ungrateful to his family?"
High overhead, jade lights flickered. Elders leaned back, their expressions changing.
"That boy again. Always there at the killing stroke."
"He deliberately hides his light. Intriguing."
"A person like that... left to run on his own, he'll be both an asset and a hazard."
The old man's eyes narrowed. "He's got the feel of someone who's touched the fundamentals of things. Watch him. Closely."
The Abyss Serpent bellowed, its shriek shaking the canyon. Venom sprayed in all directions, a corrosive mist that devoured even rock. Disciples collapsed screaming, their skin bubbling. Lin Xuan's spear spun, weaving Distant Predator and Venom Cloud together --- his body wriggling through gray threads of death poison like a ghost. Reaching a disciple who had fallen, he pulled the person away, then vanished again. The boy coughed blood, looking up at him.
"Why... why save me?"
Lin Xuan's voice was cool and distant. "Because if you die now, they all lose hope." Then he was gone, as if he had never been there at all.
Against the poison mist that lay heavy as mire over the gorge, rumors spread faster than venom.
"Lin Xuan... Lin Xuan saved me."
"He doesn't fight like anybody else."
"Not even top core seeds could move as fast as that."
For each life which he rescued, so his name drew another circle. Even those whom he had not saved now began to look for him, their eyes tracking his shadow as though that were a lifeline. Lin Xuan felt it compounding, the weight of scrutiny. His jaw clenched. That's the danger in taking action; however, if I don't... the canyon would already be a graveyard.
The three new monsters slowly circled, the roars of their open throats blending with the hiss of the snake. Common Soul stage pressure bore down like a metal chain. The surviving disciples shivered, their hands tapping the blades.
Lin Xuan exhaled and crouched down.
The boar charged, burning the antlers of a stag. The panther vanished into shadow. Lin Xuan became a whirlwind with his spear. He did not drive the beasts back alone, these blows merely bought time — limping formations were allowed to reform by a few moments, and wounded bodies were dragged away. The panic just about subsided enough for survival's sake. Blood streaked his robes, some of it not his own. His breath deepened, but his eyes never wavered.
When the beasts had finally snarled and retreated once more toward the cracks, silence fell. In the end, it was nothing but the survivors staring at each other in disbelief, their breathing ragged.
Someone spoke first. "Lin Xuan saved us..."
Another added. "He is the reason we are alive."
Soon murmurs were running through camp like wildfire. Lin Xuan could sit on the edge, a spear resting across his knees, expressionless. He neither confirmed nor denied, only gazed out into the mist as though the gorge itself required more attention than any thanks. But inside him, in silence, he knew. No matter how quietly I move, fate keeps pushing my name forward. And that... is dangerous.
The gorge shook again, deeper, darker. The sound of the heart was less muffled, loud as war drums. This was not over.
Lin Xuan's grip tightened on his spear handle. So be it. If I cannot keep my shadow concealed, then let there be only a faint outline. Let none see the whole thing.