"Haa… haa…!"
My breath tore at my throat. My legs screamed in pain, but I kept running.
The whole forest seemed to conspire against us. The trunks rose like black walls, the roots reached out to trip us. Every branch whipped my face, ripping my skin.
And behind us, always that roar.
A roar that made the earth tremble.
"Faster!" Mei shouted, her eyes gleaming in the dark. Her sweat-soaked hair snapped behind her.
"I… I can't!" Yao whimpered, his legs giving out beneath him. He almost collapsed, but I caught his arm, pulling him with all my strength.
"Hold on!"
The slick ground sucked at our steps. Each stride buried my feet in the mud as if the forest itself wanted to swallow us whole.
A crack rang out. A broken branch? No. An entire trunk, snapped like a twig.
The beast was closing in.
Damn it… How had it come to this?
We just wanted to gather spirit herbs near the ravine. Nothing but a novice's job. Simple, safe. But the herbs grew too close. We hadn't seen the tracks, the claw marks on the stones. We hadn't understood.
Then a roar had ripped through the air. And everything had turned upside down.
"Damn that cursed ravine!" Yao gasped, his voice ragged from effort. "If only we had known—"
"Shut up and run!" Mei screamed, without even looking back.
I risked a glance behind me. Bad idea.
The trees swayed, shaken by a massive body. Between the trunks, two crimson lights burned like embers.
My heart skipped a beat.
"She's catching up to us!" I cried.
"Keep going!" Mei shot back, her voice sharp as a blade.
My lungs burned. My vision blurred. Every step felt like it could be my last.
Suddenly, a shadow lunged to my left. A massive paw slammed into the ground, splattering mud. I screamed, but the beast vanished back into the trees, circling us again. It was playing with us.
Another roar crushed us. The ground quaked, my teeth rattled in my skull.
"Lin Hao!" Yao cried, his eyes brimming with tears. "We're going to die!"
"Shut up!" I snapped, but my voice shook as much as his.
And then I saw him.
Zhao Kun.
He had stopped.
His broad silhouette stood in the middle of the path, both hands gripping a chipped spear. His legs trembled, but his back remained straight.
"Go!" His voice rang like a command. "If we stay together, it'll devour us all!"
"No!" I shouted, my throat ready to burst.
He turned to me. His smile was too calm, too honest for a moment like this.
"Lin Hao. I was never made for running."
Mei froze. Her clenched fists trembled, her eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall.
"Idiot…" she whispered.
A roar drowned her words. The trunks groaned and split.
And then it appeared.
Dripping fangs. Eyes burning red like twin flames. Scaled muscles covered in scars. Every step crushed the earth like an iron hammer.
A spirit beast. But for us, weak novices with no real strength, it was death incarnate.
Zhao Kun breathed in. His breath echoed in the night like a final vow.
He raised his spear. It quivered, shaking, but stood tall like a challenge.
"Go!"
Then he charged, roaring back at it.
"ZHAO!!"
My throat tore in a scream. But he didn't turn around.
Already, his figure surged forward, swallowed by the beast's shadow.
An explosion rang out. The clash of spear against fangs. The roar of the creature rattled my bones. I was hurled forward by the shockwave, stumbling through the mud.
"RUN!" Mei screamed, yanking my arm. Her eyes were red, her teeth clenched.
I wanted to resist, but my legs moved on their own. As if instinct had seized control. As if my body already knew staying meant death.
We tore down the path, Yao stumbling, sobbing with every ragged breath. Behind us, the night blazed with roars and splintering wood.
I didn't dare look back.
I didn't dare imagine.
And yet…
On my back, I could almost feel his presence. Zhao. His cries of defiance. The sound of his spear striking again, again, again… then a sharper crack, harsher than the rest.
And silence.
I nearly collapsed. My breath shattered, but Mei forced me onward.
"Not now!" she roared. "Not while we're still alive!"
We leapt over a stream, slid between two trunks, nearly tumbled into a gully. The earth split under our steps, branches clawed at us, but nothing was worse than the void opening behind us.
A void where Zhao no longer was.
At last, the forest thinned. The beast's shadow no longer chased us. Maybe… maybe it had found its prey.
I collapsed in the mud, unable to breathe. Yao lay on the ground, wracked with sobs. Mei stood tall, fists clenched, her face streaked with sweat and tears she still refused to shed.
A heavy silence crushed our chests. The forest's noises had died, as if even the insects mourned with us.
I tried to speak, but no sound came. My lips trembled, my fingers dug into the wet earth. Yao pounded the ground with his fists, his muffled cries mixing with the wind.
At last, Mei knelt, her gaze lost in the darkness we had fled. Her lips moved soundlessly, as if in prayer… or in curse.
"…He's dead," Yao whispered, his voice broken. "Dead because of us… If we hadn't been there—"
"Shut up!" Mei snapped, her eyes flashing.
"But it's true!" Yao screamed, his voice cracked. "We're weak, useless! He had to sacrifice himself because we were nothing!"
"You think that would've made him proud?!" Mei shot back, her fists slamming into the ground beside him. "You think he wanted us to curl up like worms after his death?!"
Yao broke down in sobs, shaking violently.
"Then what?! We pretend?! We go on like nothing happened?!"
I watched them, unable to step in. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. I could still see Zhao's smile, too calm for that moment. His trembling spear. His voice screaming at me to run.
Why him, and not us?
I bit my lip until blood flowed. I would have traded places. But Zhao would never have accepted that. He chose. Because he believed in something.
Rage and shame mingled with my pain. I wanted to scream. To shatter the earth. To rip the sky apart.
Mei finally raised her head. Her shoulders trembled, but her gaze burned.
"We can't… just let him vanish like this."
I looked up, unable to understand.
"Zhao Kun," she said, his name nearly breaking on her teeth. "He had a dream. That we would have one just as great. That we would leave a mark."
Her words rang in the air like a vow. But Yao let out a bitter, broken laugh.
"A dream, huh?" His voice shook as much as his body. "And what are we? Just orphans. We couldn't even uphold the dream we shared with him…"
He lowered his head, his hands clenched in the mud.
"Poor, without resources… not even a place to stand."
His words cut deep, because he was right. We had nothing. No clan to shield us. No master to guide us. Only a handful of lost souls.
Mei clenched her fists until her nails pierced her skin.
"Exactly," she spat.
"We have nothing. So we'll build everything. Even if we start in the mud. Even if we bleed for a single stone of foundation."
My heart thundered. Between Yao's despair and Mei's fury, a new fire was born.
Zhao's dream wasn't dead. Not yet.
A crack rumbled through the ground.
I snapped my head up, heart leaping in my chest.
"…Wait."
A new roar split the night. Closer.
Mei paled. "No… it's not done."
Yao staggered upright, shaking from head to toe.
"It… it followed us?! But… Zhao… he…"
Another crash erupted in the forest, like a tree ripped from its roots. The trunks around us collided. Nocturnal birds scattered, screeching.
"We have no choice," I whispered, my throat dry. "We run. Now!"
"But where?!" Yao cried, panic wild in his eyes. "We have nowhere to go! We're lost!"
Mei seized his arm, shaking him hard.
"Shut up and move! Keep whining and it'll find us before we even start running!"
He sobbed, gritted his teeth, but stumbled into motion.
We fled again through the mud, branches whipping our faces. Behind us, the ground shook harder, faster.
"Zhao…" I whispered despite myself, tears blurring my sight.
Mei snarled without turning: "Don't say his name now! If you care about him, SURVIVE!"
"But… he died for us!" I choked. "And what do we do? Run again like cowards?!"
"Yes!" she spat. "Like cowards alive! Because if we stop, his sacrifice means nothing!"
Her words struck harder than the wind in my ears. But the roar behind us drowned it all.
The beast was closing in.
Yao stumbled, fell face-first into the mud. I spun back to drag him up. "Hold on!"
He sobbed, unable to rise. "I can't… just leave me!"
I shook him with all my strength. "Shut up! If you think Zhao fought so we'd die here, you're wrong!"
Mei screamed over the chaos: "Left! There's a ravine! We can jump—it'll buy us time!"
My heart froze. "A ravine?! That's suicide!"
"Better than being eaten alive!" she snapped, eyes blazing.
Another roar nearly brought us to our knees. The forest quaked. The beast was only steps away.
I screamed: "Then we jump!"
Mei dashed forward, leading the way. The ground sloped, mud slipping beneath our feet, trees falling away to reveal a gaping void. The sound of water below rumbled like distant thunder.
"Hurry!" she shouted.
Behind us, the beast roared, so close the air itself shook my lungs.
Yao stumbled again, almost crashing down. I caught his sleeve. "Hold on! You're jumping with us!"
"I… I can't! I'll die!" he screamed, eyes wild with terror.
"You'll die IF YOU STAY!" I roared, hauling him with all my strength.
We reached the edge. The abyss opened, black and endless. A roar exploded behind us.
Mei turned, her sweat-drenched hair plastered to her face. She screamed: "Now!"
Without hesitation, she hurled herself into the void.
I had no time to breathe. The beast's massive paw crashed behind us, earth splitting, stones flying. I clutched Yao to me and leapt.
The world flipped.
The wind howled in my ears.
Darkness swallowed us.
"AAAAAH—!"
An endless instant… then impact.
Freezing water punched my chest, stole my breath. My body sank, dragged down into the depths. Darkness engulfed me, my arms flailed desperately. Yao thrashed in my grip, panicked.
I kicked furiously, fighting to rise. My throat burned. Bubbles burst from my lips, every second stealing my air.
At last, I broke the surface with a strangled cry. Ice-cold water lashed my face, the current dragging me.
"Mei!" I shouted into the chaos.
A splash. Then a strangled voice: "Here!"
I saw her a few meters away, fighting the current, her arms thrashing the water.
Yao coughed, choking on water, clinging to my neck. His eyes wide, already shivering.
"Hold on!" I cried, but my voice vanished in the torrent.
We were swept away, far from the ravine, far from the edge. The trees above blurred shadows.
The roar echoed again, but this time further. The beast wasn't following.
We had survived… for now.
The current battered us, slamming us against rocks. Freezing water gnawed at my skin like a thousand needles. Each second was a battle not to let go.
At last, my feet struck the muddy bottom. I clutched a dangling root, gasping, dragging Yao out of the water. Mei clawed her way up nearby, her arms shaking.
We crawled onto the bank, coughing water, our bodies shivering violently. Silence pressed down, broken only by our ragged breaths and the torrent's distant rumble.
I rolled onto my back, staring at the night sky through branches. For the first time in hours, no roar tore the air.
Yao whimpered, voice trembling:
"We… we're alive?"
Mei, still sprawled in the mud, gritted her teeth. "Yes. Thanks to Zhao."
Her words fell like a stone. His name rang out, and silence returned.
I forced myself upright, my muscles screaming. "We can't stay here. If the beast comes down another side of the ravine, it'll find us."
Mei nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Yao tried to protest, but she seized his arm and pulled him up.
We staggered on through the thinning trees. Gradually, the forest opened. The trunks spread apart, revealing an unexpected horizon.
"Look…" I breathed.
Before us stretched a vast plain. Grass rippled under the moonlight, pale in the breeze. No monsters, no cries—only silence.
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to sense the qi around us. It was weak, almost negligible compared to the dense forests or ravines. But it was calm. Stable.
"The energy here…" I murmured. "It's faint."
Mei drew in a long breath, her gaze softening despite her exhaustion. "Faint… but safe."
Yao collapsed to his knees in the grass, tears rising again. "Then… we can rest? Just a little?"
I sank down beside him, letting the fresh earth cradle me. "Yes. Here, we're alive."
Mei remained standing a moment longer, studying the plain as if engraving every detail. Then, at last, she sat beside us.
The night wrapped around us. The beast's roar was nothing but a distant memory, drowned by the whisper of the wind.
And for the first time in hours, we closed our eyes.