Rrrrmm…
A low rumble threaded through the soil, a vibration so deep it passed straight into Qiren's bones.
His eyes snapped open.
Dirt slid off the right side of his half-buried body in a slow crumble, as if the earth itself had shivered. The shrub above him trembled, sprinkling dried leaves across his face.
RrrRRRMMM…
The rumble grew stronger.
Qiren pushed himself upright, brushing soil from his hair. For a heartbeat he wondered if the enormous vulture from earlier had returned—
—but then a sharp crack tore through the forest.
CRACK—WHUMP!
A tree toppled somewhere nearby. Not cut. Not clawed. Simply… falling over.
Qiren froze, senses sharpening.
Then he heard it.
A rising, desperate thunder of movement. Dozens—no, hundreds—of feet hammering the earth in a frantic, uneven rhythm.
THUD-thud-THUD-thud-THUD—
The forest was stampeding.
He crouched low, peering through the foliage. Leaves shook. Branches snapped. Shadows swelled and shifted as though the ground itself were flowing toward a single point.
Toward the amethyst mountain.
A demon hatchling burst between two trees, foam dripping from boar-like tusks. It didn't even look at Qiren—just barreled past, eyes glazed.
More followed: a long-limbed crawler, another scaled like a serpent, others shaped like traditional demons—horns, fangs, tails—but pale like him.
All running terrified.
All heading the same way.
Qiren's throat tightened.
"…Is today the day everything goes insane?"
The stampede grew louder, shaking loose the last bits of dirt he'd layered over himself.
A four-legged demon the size of a cupboard crashed through the bush five paces away, claws digging trenches into the soil. It didn't slow or sniff—just fled.
Another tree fell. Then a third. The canopy swayed as more tremors shook the earth, driving the demons faster toward the mountain like a living river.
Qiren forced himself to breathe through clenched teeth.
The rumble deepened.
A sound like distant thunder rolled across the sky.
No—not thunder.
The mountain.
The amethyst peak pulsed, bright enough to flash through the trees like violet lightning. The beasts shrieked and surged forward, panic ripping down the forest like a shockwave.
Qiren's heart hammered.
"…What in the hell is going on over there?"
Another tremor rippled beneath him. Loose stones danced. He grabbed his satchel and yanked his fruit free, stuffing them inside as more trees fell in the distance. Once packed, he burst from the shrub—
—straight into a flowing wall of demons.
Behind him, more poured in: demons of his age, but wildly mutated. Some fluttered with small wings, others bounded on lanky limbs, some had multiple eyes like him, others were animalistic.
In the flashing moonlight he saw colors—
A blue demon with short hair and pointed ears soared overhead.
Two more blue-skinned demons ran in the horde, and scattered throughout were red-skinned demons—massive, hulking twice the size of the others and impossible to miss.
How long was I out? He looked up at the sky and still saw that it was still nighttime.
Negative Karma: 1,075.9 ↑
Refinement Qi: 42.1 ↑
He closed his eyes trying to calculate the time from his karma.
Five minutes?
A shadow passed overhead—blotting out the moon.
A pack of hawks descended, wings slicing through the night, eyes glinting with cruel intent. Enormous, larger than the lesser vultures from before. They moved with coordinated precision—
—racing to claim souls.
Behind them, ravens and falcons swooped in.
Birds plucked demons from the stampede, talons sinking into backs and shoulders. Screams tore the forest as bodies were carried high, then hurled against trunks and rocks. Flesh and blood rained down.
Qiren's stomach twisted, but he stayed low, tracking both ground and sky.
Predators joined from below. Wolves howled as they lunged at stragglers, tearing apart the weak or slow. Muscle rippled beneath fur as jaws snapped, sending even fledglings scrambling.
The forest became a slaughterhouse. Small hatchlings were crushed under heavier demons; insect-swarms were swallowed whole; even the blue and red hulks faltered under the chaos.
Qiren's eyes shifted rapidly, front and back, reading every angle.
He clenched his fists. The stampede pushed toward the amethyst mountain, but the predators were carving through them.
A hawk dropped a blue-skinned hatchling into a hollow. It fell headfirst, screaming until it struck jagged roots. A wolf barreled in and crushed what remained before sprinting after the next target.
The air stank of blood, sweat, and fear-tainted souls.
Qiren inhaled slowly.
"…The mountain better be worth it."
He darted through the chaos, close enough to snatch souls, far enough to avoid predators. Every step measured. Every misfortune fruit a potential lifesaver.
The hawks circled, wolves howled, and the mountain pulsed—
—a silent violet heartbeat calling everything forward.
Qiren's heart raced—not with fear, but realization:
If everything was converging, and the predators were thinning them, yet demons still ran—
—then the peak might actually be worth dying for.
He tightened his satchel, adjusted his vision upward, and drew his blades.
"AHHHH!" he roared, lunging at a diving hawk.
KRRRHHH—!!!
His first strike crushed its spine. The second pierced shoulder and heart. He kicked off, rolled, stabbed through its skull, inhaled two souls, and ducked a swooping talon.
His dual vision cleared the battlefield. He sprinted, dove for another fallen corpse, and struck as its killer descended.
STAB!
Keratin tore through wing. The hawk cawed. Qiren leapt onto its back.
Its flapping went wild.
He plucked a strand of hair, hardened it, and drove it into its eye.
"KREEEEE—!"
He seized its beak, hair binding around it, and twisted—
CRACK!
Neck broken.
He didn't wait for the soul to drift. He caught it mid-air and devoured it.
Adrenaline flooded him.
Qiren ran on—swift, precise, weaving through blood-soaked chaos. Every fallen demon became sustenance. Souls filled him, sharpening senses, hardening resolve.
Hawks tore into the stampede, but mistakes happened. One collided midair with a leaping wolf—feathers and fur exploding. Another predator crashed into it. Chaos swirled.
Qiren ducked under a log as a blue-skinned demon rushed past. A hawk latched onto it; a wolf lunged too. Both were knocked aside by a new flock of birds.
The demon kept running.
Qiren slipped between predators, timing every soul snatch to perfection.
A hawk dropped a crimson hatchling. A wolf caught it mid-fall. They tumbled together.
Qiren extended a tendril of hair, hooked the drifting soul, and devoured it.
Chaos made perfect cover.
He ran dozens of paces, eyes tracking predators above and below.
Two massive hawks slammed midair. Wolves crashed together. Everything tore at everything.
Qiren leapt onto a sweeping wing. Crimson haze lit his arm as he slammed his palm into its joint.
"PAIN!!!"
He released everything.
KRAAAAA—!!!
Pain: 0 ↓
Fear: 0 ↓
The hawk's wing convulsed violently.
A reven dove and tore into it. The hawk lurched upward, struggling to flee.
It twisted midair—feeling something clinging to its back.
"SKEEE—!"
Qiren's hair bound around its throat.
"PAIN!!"
He struck again—
Nothing. Empty.
…It didn't work?!
The hawk stopped midair—flinging him forward.
"KREE!" it screeched, lunging to bite his face.
Qiren hurled two berries down its throat.
CRUNCH!
Instinct made it bite down.
His hair snapped tight, pulling him onto its spine.
He grabbed feathers, plucked a hair needle, coated it with Qi, and stabbed into the pressure point along the upper wing.
The hawk froze—wings numb.
"AAAAAAA—!" Qiren yelled as they plunged.
He yanked the needle free.
KRAK-KRAK!
The hawk fought to recover.
Qiren braced, anchoring with his hair, and chanted:
"Spirit of bad luck, latched to shards of despair…I call for your form to change once more."
The hawk thrashed, but he held.
"I offer this vessel's soul as sacrifice—marked by pain, soaked in fear, struck by my hand and pierced by my flesh!"
He pulled four curse-berries free, caterpillars wriggling at the ends—
—and placed them around the hawk's neck like a collar.
They bit into its feathers—latching on tight.
He formed a mudra and envisioned three circles around them.
His Qi plummeted.
Refinement Qi: 0.2 ↓
The hawk struggled—
Negative Karma: 1,054.3 ↓
Negative Karma: 1,027.6 ↓
Negative Karma: 781.0 ↑↓
Its heart thundered. Dark miasma curled through its organs.
Kreek… kraa… kee—
A tearing sound split the air.
"Be gone, hawk of malevolence. Welcome in the evil of misfortune… you are no longer welcome to live freely.
Be gone, hawk of malevolence, for I do not welcome your spirit in this vessel.
Be gone, hawk of malevolence, for I do not need your twisted soul."
Qiren chanted as his own head lifted from his shoulders, blood sliding down his skin.
The wind turned vicious—razor-cold, biting into the fresh stump of his neck as instinct and tactical thought overlapped into something singular.
His skull rose and flipped in the air. Black hair snapped tight around the hawk as a bamboo hilt sprouted—his severed head and strands fusing into a demonic brush.
His body sat below, arms still locked in mudra.
Crackle—
Thunder in the distance.
The hawk tried to fly, slammed into an invisible barrier. Its wings darkened. A bush sprouted on its back; small blue berries formed.
Inside, miasma thickened. It burned through the veil between body and soul, reaching a ball of ectoplasma. It didn't consume—
—it tainted it.
The orb reshaped into a blueberry with red-ringed circles.
Negative Karma: 0 ↓
When the orb completed, Qiren floated in a miasma-filled realm.
Not physically—his soul anchored inside. The place felt strangely familiar, like his inner sea where his scroll manifested.
He reached toward the fruit.
Swish—
A silver-laced scroll unfurled past him—
—and the vision shattered.
His eyes opened.
The slaughter returned—wolves, demons, birds ripping each other apart.
Growl!!
A gray wolf charged him.
On instinct, he jumped.
Wush! Wush!
His arms spread—then came down. Reflexive flapping lifted him meters into the air. Something slipped from him. His neck felt… lighter.
"!?"
He looked down—
—and saw his own head falling.
Through its eyes he saw a three-eyed hawk staring up.
His body perched in the vines along the hawk's rear.
!!!
The wolf leapt for the falling head.
Qiren snapped his talons out, caught his head mid-air, and shot upward, beating his new wings with all his strength.
From above he gained perspective. The land looked… skewed. He flew higher, but focused through the head facing the stampede.
Negative Karma: 0.7 ↑↓
His karma spiked as he saw something nearly impossible.
The island…
…was leaning.
Trees toppled. Rocks rolled downslope.
And suddenly he understood.
The hatchlings were not racing toward treasure.
They were racing uphill—
Because the world itself was tipping.