Riven knelt beside the corpse, fingers brushing the torn sleeve of the disciple's robe.
No slashes. No clean slices.
Not a mantis kill.
Riven's eyes narrowed.
The wounds looked blunt — like they had been struck with a club or hammer. Maybe the hilt of a weapon. He peeled the robe back slightly. More bruising along the ribs. No sign of slashes.
Someone had done this.
Someone that wasn't a mantis.
He scanned the forest. The air was still. No rustling leaves. No twitching webs. Just spiders, perched in silence among the branches. Watching.
A chill crept along his spine, but he didn't linger. He stood, slipping between the trees with deliberate care now — quieter, more alert.
The forest around him pressed close. Branches clawed at his sleeves, thick silk trailed from boughs like banners in slow motion. The shadows had weight here — old and still.
He didn't stop.
Now and then, a rustle. A flicker of green. Another Sharpclaw emerged from the gloom — semi-feral, smaller than the one he'd fought before. But this time, Riven didn't drop his glowstone or try to distract it. He didn't need to.
He baited it with a kick feint.
Then his blade-limb weapon blurred.
One clean strike through the neck.
The mantis fell twitching, legs spasming in the moss. He stepped over it without pause.
He came across another body not long after.
A human one.
This one was slumped between two roots, half-covered by a thicket of silk and rot. Male. Young. The back of the head bashed in so hard the skull had cracked. The smell was worse here.
Same wounds.
Same pattern.
He moved on — faster now.
The forest was still alive with spiders. More than before. But by now he barely noticed them anymore. They shifted when he passed, parting ways, watching silently from above. Like they knew something he didn't. Like they were waiting.
The next Sharpclaw that came for him barely had time to react. Riven dropped low, let it lunge over him, then turned and kicked hard — a clean blow to the thorax. It crashed into a trunk, and the blade followed. Another kill.
He barely slowed his pace.
Then another human corpse. Then another.
One propped up against a tree, head slumped forward. One hidden under a bush, legs sticking out like snapped twigs. All fresh. All the same kind of wounds. All human.
Not a single beast sign in sight.
Riven's jaw clenched.
Who? Why?
He didn't know.
But he could feel the tension rising. Like the forest itself knew what was happening. The silence felt deeper. The shadows thicker. Every step dragged him further into a place that felt… wrong.
And then he saw it.
A shimmer through the trees. A soft flicker of pink-silver between the brush.
He slowed, breath catching slightly.
Then he sped up.
Gone was the caution from the last few hours.
In a blur he arrived in front of the glow's origin.
It was a flower.
Nestled in a small glade, surrounded by a dense ring of spiders — perched on rocks, in trees, threading fine lines of silk between every branch. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.
Riven stepped forward slowly. The light from his chest glowed faintly through the fabric of his robe, casting the glade in soft blue. The flower glowed too — not with qi, but with memory.
Something twisted in his chest.
His feet moved before his thoughts could form. Toward the flower. Toward the memory that hovered just out of reach.
He stepped past the webbing. The spiders didn't move.
Didn't scatter.
They parted.
Just slightly — a quiet ripple through the silk, as if acknowledging him. Allowing him through.
Riven approached the flower in the center.
Pink-silver petals curled inward like clasped fingers. The stem was slender, rising from the mossy earth like it didn't belong here — too delicate for this place, too gentle for a forest full of blades.
He crouched down. Reached out. His fingers hesitated.
He knew this flower.
Didn't know the name.
But he knew it.
A voice tugged at his thoughts.
A laugh. High-pitched. Innocent.
He touched the petals.
Soft. Damp with dew. A memory danced at the edge of his mind — his younger sister, sitting near a lake, braiding stems into small garlands.
"Here. For you."
He blinked and realized his hand had drifted up to his chest.
His fingers brushed against the rough thread of the necklace tucked beneath his robe — handmade, uneven, a few small beads bound by worn string.
Did she use this flower too, back then?
He couldn't tell. The necklace had long lost its colour.
He stayed crouched like that for a long second. Letting the quiet hold him.
Then, finally, he reached out, plucked the flower at its base, and slipped it carefully into the inside of his robe — just beside the glowstone.
He couldn't do anything with it. But he wanted to take it with him anyway.
It gave him warmth.
Somehow.
>>>
Meanwhile, a short distance away—
Another disciple crept quietly between the trees. Mid-stage, from the look of his qi. One hand rested lightly against the bark of a wide-rooted trunk as he leaned forward, peering through the underbrush.
He'd seen movement — the back of a figure slipping between strands of silver silk. Thought maybe he could follow. Maybe steal a kill.
He moved carefully, avoiding dry twigs. His gaze locked onto the silhouette ahead — someone crouching near a strange, softly glowing flower.
A flower?
He narrowed his eyes.
Could be a cultivation resource. Maybe something rare.
His gaze swept towards the silhouette.
Unguarded. An idiot.
Whatever the flower did, it had to be valuable. No one stared at a weed like that.
This was a chance.
He crept closer. Just a few more steps and—
The spiders moved.
At first, it was subtle. A slight ripple in the branches. Threads tightening in the corners of his vision.
Then more appeared.
Small ones first. Then larger. Descending from the trees, crawling from beneath roots, weaving together lines of silk — not attacking, not lunging, but forming a wall.
Deliberate. Intentional.
He paused.
Shifted left.
The spiders followed.
He moved right.
They followed again. Perfectly synchronized. Dozens of tiny eyes reflecting the faint light like stars in a net.
A cold prickle ran down his neck.
"What the hell…" he muttered under his breath.
The figure ahead hadn't moved at all.
After a long, uncertain pause, the disciple cursed softly and backed away.
This was too freaky.
>>>
Riven stood.
Unaware of the presence that had tried — and failed — to follow him.
He looked down one last time at the empty patch where the flower had been, then turned back toward the trees.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen a glowing herb or rare-looking flower out here.
But he hadn't picked any up before. He didn't know what they did. Didn't have time to guess.
But this one was special.
His fingers brushed the inside of his robe — where the soft petals rested, just beside the faintly glowing stone.
A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips, before determination took its place.
He had to rank high.
He had to make it to the city.
He had to find her.
Then —
"!?"
A voice. Close by.
Quiet. But clear.
It wasn't speaking to him.
But he could hear it.
Words sharp enough to cut through the quiet.
And the moment he heard them —
He went still.