Darkness enveloped him, cold and damp. The sounds of shouts and curses from the three cultivators faded, replaced by the roar of his own blood in his ears and the ever-strengthening song of the Spiritual Root below. Zhuo slid downward, not with grace, but with desperate panic, his body scraped and scored by sharp rocks in the narrow passage. The scent of the humans—their fear, anger, and greed—still burned his nostrils, driving him deeper.
"After it! Don't let it escape!" shouted Master Chen, his voice muffled by layers of stone. "It's a walking treasure!"
Zhuo didn't care about the words. What he understood was the intent—the intent to capture, kill, take. That intent was sharper than any Silver Talon's claw.
The passage plunged steeply, then suddenly opened into a larger subterranean chamber. The air here was so dense with Earth Qi it felt like swimming in honey. Zhuo gasped, his lungs burning. Every breath was a challenge, but every breath also flooded him with an almost intoxicating power. In the center of the room, the Pure Spiritual Root was no longer a hidden tendril, but a pulsating pillar from the earth to the cave ceiling, emitting a golden light that reflected off massive crystals embedded in the walls. This was the Heart of the Mountain, the source of all he had felt above.
Yet, its beauty was lethal. The waves of energy emanating from the root were so powerful they hammered against his new-found consciousness like a sledgehammer. Zhuo hissed in pain and slumped down, feeling his body wanted to tear itself apart. It was like licking the crystal a million times over. It was a vortex of energy that would devour him alive.
From the passage behind him, he heard another shout. "A large chamber! Be careful! The Qi concentration is insane here!"
They were still chasing him. There was no way out.
With burning desperation, Zhuo did the only thing left. Instead of trying to fight the energy current, he surrendered to it. He let himself fall to the cave floor, flattening his trembling body against the stone, just as he did when "Lying on the Pulse." But this time, he held nothing back. He opened his nascent soul, his primitive meridians, every pore, and let the unbearable wave of Earth Qi flow through him.
It was torture. It felt like his bones were grinding, his blood boiling, and his mind was being shredded by an endless sandstorm. He screamed again, but his voice was drowned in the roar of energy. His vision faded, filled with flashes of white light and chaotic images—the birth of volcanoes, the pressures that shaped continents, the slow death of ancient stars.
He was dying. He knew it.
But amidst the agony, a strange thing began to happen. His spirit fire, his newly ignited Ling Huo, vibrated at the same frequency as the root's pulse. Not fighting it, but resonating. Like two tuning forks set to the same pitch. The suffering did not lessen, but its purpose changed. It was no longer destructive; it was reformatting.
His body evolved at a terrifying rate. His pearlescent scales melted and recrystallized, becoming harder, denser, forming intricate, armor-like patterns. Their color changed from greenish-bronze to a deep, dull copper, with pulsating golden veins in sync with the Root. His claws elongated and curved into sickles capable of gouging solid rock. On his head, two small, hard, pointed bumps began to break through the skin—the seeds of what might one day become dragon horns.
He was no longer just absorbing energy; he was steeped in it, becoming one with the mountain's pulse.
THUD!
A fist-sized rock flew from the entrance passage, hitting the wall near him and shattering to pieces. The two disciples staggered into the cave, reeling under the Qi pressure, their eyes wide with awe and greed as they saw the Spiritual Root and the surrounding crystals.
Master Chen followed, his face red with effort and wonder. "Heavens... A Pure Earth Vein! Untouched!" His eyes then fell on Zhuo, lying motionless, shrouded in a swirling cloak of energy. "And the fiend... it's forming a core! Stop it! Now! If it finishes, we won't be able to defeat it!"
The shout broke Zhuo's concentration. His awareness, which had been diffused throughout the cave, was violently ripped back into his changing body. The agony returned, sharp and excruciating, but now mixed with a burning rage. They wouldn't even let him die in peace!
With a deep growl, unlike any reptilian sound, Zhuo pushed himself upright. His movements were stiff, like a puppet on strings, every muscle screaming in protest. But the power flowing through him now was the power of the mountain itself.
The Senior Brother swung his staff, sending a lethal burst of green energy. Instinctively, Zhuo raised a claw. Instead of trying to dodge, he pulled energy from the earth beneath him. A foot-thick wall of stone exploded from the cave floor, blocking the attack easily and crumbling into rubble.
The two disciples gasped. Even Master Chen looked shocked. "It can already manipulate earth?! So soon?!"
Zhuo gave them no time to recover. Rage, fear, and intoxicating new power merged into a roar—another exhalation of Earth Qi, but this time not a wave. It was a spray of sharp crystal shards and stone rubble shot forth with lethal speed, like a primitive shotgun blast.
The Senior Brother yelled and deflected the barrage with his staff, but the Junior Brother, still weak and trembling from the previous attack, wasn't fast enough. Sharp stone fragments rained on him, tearing his robe and scoring his skin. A larger shard, knife-sized, embedded itself in his thigh. He screamed and fell.
"You bastard!" roared the Senior Brother, ignoring his master and lunging forward, his staff spinning like a fan, sending a rapid burst of energy shots.
Zhuo, driven by instincts now enhanced by his new awareness, didn't try to face it head-on. He darted sideways, moving with impossible speed for a creature his size, using crystals and rock formations for cover. Every step felt like roots spreading into the stone, giving him unnatural stability and traction. He was no longer fighting in the cave; he was fighting with the cave.
Master Chen, seeing one disciple wounded and the other barely able to touch the fast-moving fiend, finally acted. He drew his silver rope and tossed it into the air. It gleamed with silvery light and shot forth like a living serpent, ignoring cover and homing in on its target—Zhuo.
Zhuo felt the thing coming, its restraining aura making him nauseous. He tried to dodge, but the rope changed direction, following him. With rising panic, he dove behind a large crystal pillar. The rope wrapped around the pillar, and at that moment, Master Chen uttered an incantation. The rope tightened, and with a terrible cracking sound, the ten-foot crystal pillar shattered in two, the top half crashing down with a roar.
The impact shook the cave, sending a shower of stone and dust from the ceiling. Zhuo, caught in the debris, stumbled out from his cover, disoriented and terrified. His power was great, but its use was still primitive. His enemies were skilled and had tools.
The silver rope, now free, shot toward him again. This time, it wrapped around one of his hind legs. A terrible sensation spread—a freezing cold that severed his connection to the earth's Qi! He felt his power fading, his clarity of mind blurring. He screamed, more from the terror of loss than from pain.
Master Chen smiled thinly. "Enough of this, fiend." He stepped closer, his staff now glowing with energy ready to strike.
Trapped, cut off from his source of power, Zhuo felt panic so profound. His eyes darted wildly, looking around the cave, seeing the wounded Junior Brother moaning in pain, seeing the Senior Brother approaching cautiously, seeing the smug Master Chen.
Then, his gaze fell on the Spiritual Root, still pulsating calmly, undisturbed by their petty battle.
With the last of his strength, with burning desperation, Zhuo did the crazy thing. Instead of drawing energy from the earth, he pushed his consciousness into the earth, through his unbound foot, toward the very heart of the Root itself. It was a call, a prayer, a desperate cry for help to the ancient power that was trying to digest him.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the Spiritual Root pulsed once, violently.
The entire cave shook. Harder than before. From the ceiling, large chunks of rock began to fall. The floor cracked, and from the fissures, jets of toxic gas and superheated steam erupted.
Master Chen's face changed. "It's awakened the vein's guardian! Madness! It will kill us all!"
His silver rope faltered, his concentration split to avoid falling rocks. It was all Zhuo needed. With strength born of pure fear, he ripped his leg free, leaving several copper scales and a bit of blood on the rope, but he was free.
Absolute chaos ensued. The Senior Brother pulled Master Chen back from a falling boulder. The Junior Brother tried to crawl, screaming in terror.
Zhuo, still connected to the earth's anger, knew this was his chance. He couldn't fight them. Not anymore. But he wouldn't let them have this.
He darted, not toward the exit passage—they would expect that—but deeper into the cave, toward the Root itself. He scrambled up the pulsating pillar, his new claws finding purchase on its hard surface. Near its top, where the energy was most dense, was a small, slowly spinning crystal formation, glowing brighter than the others—the Core of the Earth Vein.
With one desperate claw, he pried it loose.
The entire cave howled. The light from the Root died for a split second before flaring back with blinding fury. An invisible shockwave hit Zhuo, throwing him from the root and across the cave. He landed hard, blacking out for a moment.
When he came to, he saw chaos. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, blocking the entrance passage. Master Chen and the Senior Brother were struggling to avoid jets of steam and falling rock, unable to reach him. The Junior Brother was half-buried by debris, not moving.
In his claw, Zhuo still clutched the small Vein Core, a yellowish crystal stone pulsating with unimaginable power. It burned to hold, but he didn't let go.
Master Chen stared at him from across the cave, his eyes filled with incandescent rage and greed. "That is mine, fiend!" he raged, but a large fissure opened between them, spewing deadly steam, forcing him to retreat.
Zhuo knew he had no time. With the Core searing into his claw, he turned and plunged into a narrow fissure in the cave wall he hadn't noticed before, a crack too small for a human to follow. He crawled, scraped and bleeding, driven only by the will to live.
He finally emerged into open air, far on the other side of Dry Bone Mountain, on a steep cliff overlooking an unfamiliar primordial forest. The rising sun hit his face, but he felt no warmth. He only shivered, his body shattered, his soul shaken, holding the core of his shattered home in his claw.
He had survived. But at a cost. He had killed, perhaps more than one. He had destroyed his home. He had severed himself from his earliest source of power.
He looked down into the unfamiliar forest. It was full of new dangers. But it was also freedom.
With a groan of pain, he began to climb down, leaving his shattered past behind him. The journey from a lizard had reached a bitter, bloody end. The journey of the Yao Jing—the Demon Spirit—had begun. And in his claw, he carried the seed of his next power, and the curse of the earth's wrath.