The forest air reeked of blood.
Luo Tian stood with shoulders hunched, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his battered frame. His hands shook, threads flickering faintly in the night — the silver strand of Resilience wavered like a cracked shield, the green strand of Life sputtered as though gasping for breath.
One corpse lay at his feet, the hunter he had strangled with his fused threads. The others, stunned into silence, tightened their grips on their weapons. Their gazes no longer carried mockery, no longer dismissed him as a cripple crawling from the Loom. They looked at him now as they would a wild beast — cornered, wounded, yet terrifyingly willing to bite back.
The scarred leader's face twisted into a mask of fury. "You dare kill one of my men? Trash like you should've rotted in the Loom's maw!" He raised his sword high, its edge glowing faintly as thread-light wrapped around it. "Tonight, I'll cut you into pieces."
Luo Tian spat blood into the dirt. His lips curled into a grim smile. "Try."
The other two hunters surged forward, blades flashing.
Luo Tian moved instinctively. His Life-thread lashed into the soil, sprouting jagged vines that whipped upward to snare ankles. One hunter stumbled, his momentum breaking. The other slashed downward in a brutal arc.
The silver of Resilience shuddered into form along Luo Tian's forearm. The blade struck with a shriek of metal on glass. The shield fractured instantly, shards of light scattering like broken stars. The impact hurled Luo Tian back into a tree. His spine screamed, ribs grinding together.
"You can't keep this up!" Ling Xi cried within his soul, her voice sharp with fear. "Every clash tears at your body and soul. You'll rip yourself apart!"
Luo Tian coughed, crimson spilling from his lips. His knees threatened to buckle, but he forced himself upright. "Better torn apart fighting," he rasped, "than living on my knees."
The words steadied him.
He snapped his Life-thread across the ground, pulling a fallen branch into the path of an oncoming strike. The blade split the wood, but the distraction let Luo Tian dart sideways, his Resilience-thread hardening briefly around his chest to absorb a grazing slash.
He weaved between strikes, weaving his crude defenses not like a master, but like a man clinging to the edge of death. His movements lacked polish, but they carried a raw ferocity the hunters had never faced.
One hunter overreached, slashing downward with reckless force. Luo Tian's eyes blazed. His threads shot forward, Life and Resilience intertwining, wrapping around the man's wrist.
With a savage yank, Luo Tian pulled him off balance, dragging his head against a tree trunk. Bone cracked with a sickening crunch. The man screamed, blood gurgling from his lips. Luo Tian didn't hesitate. He wrenched the threads tighter, slamming the hunter's skull again and again until silence fell.
Another body collapsed at his feet.
The forest grew colder.
The last two froze, eyes wide. One of them swallowed hard. The prey they'd been ordered to kill had just butchered two of their number with nothing but half-formed threads and sheer brutality.
Luo Tian's chest heaved, his vision swimming. Yet his voice was steady when he spoke. "Two down. Do you still think I'm just a cripple?"
The scarred leader's fury boiled over. His aura surged, thread-light bursting around his sword. Unlike Luo Tian's crude strands, the man's weapon gleamed with years of refinement, his blade itself a conduit of his cultivated thread.
"You think killing outer-court scraps makes you a cultivator?" he snarled. "Let me show you the difference between a beggar and a warrior."
He blurred forward, sword arcing. Luo Tian raised his Resilience shield. The strike cleaved through it like paper, slicing deep into his shoulder. Flesh split, blood spraying. Luo Tian staggered back with a strangled cry.
The leader pressed on, each strike sharper, faster. His mastery of thread made his blade hum with lethal rhythm. Every clash tore new wounds into Luo Tian's body. Cuts blossomed across his arms, his chest, his legs.
The last hunter joined in, stabbing from the side. Luo Tian twisted desperately, using Life-thread to trip the man, but the scarred leader's sword grazed his ribs, nearly spilling his guts.
Luo Tian fell to one knee. His breath came ragged, his threads flickering dimly, as if about to extinguish.
"It's over," Ling Xi whispered, sorrow in her tone. "You've pushed too far."
"No." Luo Tian's eyes burned, blood dripping down his chin. "It's not over until I'm dead."
He forced his two threads together again. Life and Resilience clashed, their resonance tearing at his soul. Pain lanced through his veins, every nerve screaming. His vision blurred red.
The scarred leader sneered. "Pathetic. Even your threads are broken."
But then the fusion snapped into place.
A single strand emerged — crude, unstable, but blazing with raw power.
Luo Tian roared, hurling it forward. The fused thread coiled around the leader's sword arm, binding it mid-strike. For a heartbeat, the man's strength faltered.
It was enough.
Luo Tian lunged, his other hand gripping a shard of broken branch. He rammed it forward with all the force left in his battered body. The shard drove into the leader's throat.
The man's eyes bulged. He choked, blood spilling from his mouth, his sword falling uselessly to the ground. With a gurgling snarl, he collapsed.
The forest went silent.
The final hunter froze, terror etched across his face. His leader lay twitching on the ground, blood pooling beneath him.
"You… monster," the man whispered, backing away. "You're not human…"
Then he turned and ran, crashing into the forest, fleeing into the night.
Luo Tian didn't chase. His legs gave out, and he fell to his knees, chest heaving. Blood dripped freely from his wounds, his threads dissipating like smoke.
He stared at his trembling hands. Red covered them. The weight of it pressed down on his chest, yet deep inside, he felt only grim calm.
Inside, Ling Xi's voice was hushed, almost reverent. "You've crossed a line tonight. Once you kill men, you can never return to who you were."
Luo Tian's gaze hardened. His voice was hoarse, yet steady. "Then I'll keep walking forward. There's no turning back for me."
The Loom's golden brand pulsed faintly in his chest, as though acknowledging his resolve.
Dawn painted the horizon pale. Luo Tian dragged himself to his feet, each movement agony. He gathered the corpses and buried them shallowly beneath the soil. Not out of mercy — but because he refused to leave them as trophies for the sect.
By the time he finished, his body was shaking, vision swimming.
Yet as he leaned against a tree, catching his breath, he felt it — eyes, cold and watching, somewhere deeper in the forest.
Another predator lurked in the shadows.
Luo Tian straightened slowly, threads flickering weakly around him. His lips curled into a grim smile. "Then come. I'll keep walking… until even the heavens fall."
The wind carried the scent of blood into the dawn.
And the forest whispered of a cripple who had become a hunter.