I broke camp before dawn, with my animus and intent freshly refined and my beast crystal pulsing with power, I moved like a streak of lightening my scales flashing against the rising sun across the open continent—a living conduit of fire and lightning. I crossed river valleys, wove through twisted woodlands, and finally reached a narrow ravine—a natural choke point carved between two great stone ridges.
The air here felt wrong. I slowed. Then—movement.
Figures emerged from the fog ahead and above, leaping down from the cliff ledges! Six of them in all, armored in mismatched leathers and fractured plating, each one carrying crude beast forged weapons. Grey furred pelts hung from their belts—the hides of fallen genome beasts… or hunters. "That's far enough, boy," a gravel-voiced man growled, stepping forward.
He was taller than the rest and scarred, with spider web tattoos of beast veins along his neck and eyes that glimmered with unstable qi. A twisted beast crystal pulsed on a chain around his neck. "You're walking around with a fire lightening wind signature; one I haven't seen before. That's... interesting."
My eyes narrowed. "And just who are you guys, the six of you look like scavengers to me. Ehh? Is that true? are you rogue trash?"
One of them chuckled, another licked his blade. "We prefer 'Beast Recovery Specialists,'" the leader sneered. "You give us that serpent core, we let you walk. Maybe."
I took a half step forward, lightening crackling through my aura. "You can try" I said smiling, " But I'll disrupt the qi in your veins before your heart even realizes it's dead."
The air snapped with electric tension. The Grey Claws began to circle, one of them brandishing a siphon-brand gauntlet, clearly designed to tear bonded chi from a user by force.
I already knew their tactics: Three siphon flankers would aim to destabilize my beast crystal and qi. The lead killer had likely fused with stolen qi from multiple cultivators.
Two others had likely trained in suppression chains or spirit-breaking shackles. I let my intent guide my animus flow into my Storm-Grip Talon Bands.
"Cloud step—double rise!"
With a burst of animus, I launched upward in a sky-cracking jump, then air-dashed sideways off the falling feather sigil air dash glyph.
The Grey Claws scattered, surprised.
"Too slow!" I shouted down. From above, mid-air I dropped a quick Vorpal Slash in spirit-man form! My body going limp and unconscious sailing through the air-spirit-less An ethereal blade of qi slicing the siphon gauntlet in half, shattering it before it could activate!
The grey claw leader snarled, activating a corrupted Beast Cloak—a stolen aura form of a Fang bear, limbs elongating and gaining spectral claws.
He surged toward my unconscious body with berserker speed. I quickly returned to my body still sailing through the air, eyes snapping open as I twisted to avoid and counter!
"Thunder coil claw!" A flash of lightning arced down from the heavens—called from the storm essence still lingering in my animus—and slammed into the leader mid-lunge, stunning him long enough for me to close the gap.
I launched a hidden dragon palm from inside the leaders guard, the blow sent the corrupted hunter flying back, crashing into the ravine wall!
One rogue tried to shackle my legs—
My animus-flared a pulse fried the spirit shackles on contact.
"I'm not your prey," I growled. "I'm you're reckoning."
The ravine echoed with chaos—
crackling animus, screams, and the whiplash boom of exploding dust. I surged forward in a blur, lightning-scaled arms shimmering, my animus surging into a brutal fusion of martial flows!
Hidden dragon wind palms for fluidity plus the mind flame talisman for misdirection—I mixed things up with a blazing tempest roundhouse kick for raw destruction!
Two Grey Claws tried to box me in from both sides—
I spun and launched into an aerial spinning windmill kick sweeping both across the jaw, animus-heat igniting their armor and launching them off the cliff wall!
A third came in with a serrated fang blade—I stepped inside guard, my scales crackling with lightning, and palm-struck the man's chest, sending a wind-infused shockwave through his ribs. Bones shattered like pottery. Another lunged from behind—I rolled into his attack grasping his arm and used the attacker's momentum against them flipping them harmlessly over me. The attacker was seared by the arcs of blue lightening racing along my scales, I hefted them into a boulder with a hip toss!
The leader snarled, rising again, spectral beast claws reforming—
My animus spiked.
"Thunder coil form."
I blurred across the battlefield, a comet of storm and lightening. My palms struck in five directions at once—a hidden dragon flurry with wind so sharp it sheared weapons in half.
I roared, finishing with a final spinning flame-kick to the leader's chest, my foot blazing with ember coil fire and crackling storm light.
The man exploded into the cliff wall, his body shattering—his beast crystal sparking wildly, then going dark.
When the dust settled, five grey claws lay broken or dead. Only one survived—barely conscious, bleeding from his side, his qi veins scorched from exposure.
I grabbed him by the collar, hoisting him to eye level. "Talk!" I growled, lightning flickering through his gaze. "Where are you getting your siphons? Who's backing you?"
The rogue's lips trembled. "We—we were promised power… A voice from the west. It was a man—no, a thing... calls himself Red Cap."
"He gave us qi-siphons. Said… said we'd be rewarded for every bonded core we delivered. Said the Clans were weak... and the land needed cleansing."
My fists clenched.
Red Cap... I'd heard the name once before—by Kael, in one of his warped notes.
I tossed the rogue down and let him crawl.
"Run," I said coldly. "If I see you again, I'll burn your bones from the inside out." The man limped off into the ravine mist. I turned back to the path, eyes burning like storm-forged embers. "So, there's a new player," I muttered.
"Then the Vein Continent's about to learn— "I don't share the hunt." Thunder rolled faintly overhead, but deep beneath the lush plains, far from storm or sun, a fortress of obsidian and bone pulsed with unnatural life. This was no mortal citadel—it was carved from the ribcage of a fallen continent beast, sunk into the crust of the Vein Continent. Its name whispered in fear: The Hollow Bastion.
In its heart, surrounded by writhing qi-flesh, sat the Demon Lord of the Buried Veins.
Cloaked in living shadows and a red tunic overlaid with chain mail shirt, the Demon Lord stood upon a balcony of jagged soul steel, overlooking the cavernous war-forges far below. Hundreds—no, thousands—of malformed soldiers writhed beneath him. Twisted Hunters.
Failed cultivators.
Genome beasts spliced with human cores.
Their souls had been ripped, bonded to intent-stapled carapaces, and infused with an infernal rhythm—a heartbeat not their own.
"Accelerate the refining vats," Red Cap hissed.
A subordinate—more machine than man—nodded with jerking movements. The vats glowed crimson, steam rising as spirit fluid was pumped into coffins holding the half-dead.
In the walls, caged essence wisps screamed—remnants of the fallen—fed into the soldiers like fuel.
The Demon Lord extended a hand. A sphere of Ultima Essence—pitch-black lightning swirled with amethyst mist—floated before his palm.
With a flick of his clawed hand, he opened a soul mirror showing a flickering image of Ash.
The youth crackled with lightning animus, cloaked in rising power.
"This is the youth Moon Seraph spoke of. He must not be allowed to ascend!" The mirror cracked. His shadow deepened.
Around him, robed cultists chanted—the Cult of the Hollow Pulse, madmen devoted to his ascension.
Inside the towering cliff halls of the Iron fang stronghold, a tempest brewed—not in the sky, but across the faces of its leaders.
Elder Vash, eyes sharp as iron daggers, paced before a flame-flickering map table. Master Korren, more measured, tapped a qi-imbued stone tracking distant spiritual shifts. Both stared at the strange pulsing signals echoing through the table—rising void essence and echoes of corrupted qi signatures bleeding outward from the south and east. "These pulses… they're not just spiritual tremors," Korren muttered. "Something is building, and the corruption has rhythm. As if it breathes." "A marching army," Vash replied grimly. "One infused with unnatural structure. This isn't a feral beast horde. It's… orchestrated."
He looked toward a crimson-threaded section of the map labeled The Hollow Bastion, now flickering erratically. "Kael was just the blade's tip. We're only now seeing the hilt." Elder Vash raised a sigil stone and began scrawling a coded spiritual missive.
"Send warning to the other clans. Dispatch envoys to Dusk Bane, Cloud Reef, and Stone Vine. And prepare our best Sages—we'll need a Soul-fire Council."
Greater Vein Continent – 150 Kilometers out.
I stood at the edge of a strange, shifting fog wall. It rolled like liquid silk across the valley ahead—This was the Mist rot Shroud, famed in clan legend as both a test and a trap. My fire lightning-tinged aura crackled, but it couldn't pierce the dense mystical barrier ahead.
"No vision… No sound… Just taste," I whispered. The flavor hit my mind instantly—a maze of burnt stone, sweet ozone, and bitter marrow, like tasting memory itself.
"Spicy right is danger. Sweet left is death… Sour middle with ozone…" I smirked. "That's the path."
Every step forward was guided by taste. I moved slowly, one foot at a time, the world vanishing into white mist behind me.
My animus and intent narrowed to a razor's edge, ember coil sprit and instincts guiding me. Then—a flicker in the fog.
A shape.
Sleeping beneath a veil of woven dream-light, atop a marble mound of moss, was a towering dream stag. Towering antlers of faint blue light swirled with astral motes, each point glowing with ancient power. Its breathing was so soft it barely stirred the mist.
I instinctively sank to one knee.
A voice rang out—not aloud, but in his soul.
"One who walks the spirit road…speak your purpose."
I answered with my animus, not my voice—the Vorpal Path… Lightning Spirit… Purpose beyond bonding.
I summoned my Spirit Man Crackling with storm animus.
The stag's right antler shimmered, and one of its astral points floated toward me.
It hovered before my chest—then fused into my Spirit sternum like a second soul layer!
I gasped. My animus pool flared. My Spirit Projection form now pulsed with an astral echo—a second presence layered within it.
My spirit man could now astral veil, briefly becoming intangible to other spirit users—ghosting through barriers or attacks.
In Spirit Man I could now use dream recall to witness memories trapped in locations! —echoes of the past, useful in tracking or unraveling secrets.
I stood as the stag slowly turned its head, then faded into mist—its gift given, its vigil uninterrupted.
"Thank you, dream walker," I whispered. I stepped forward, now deeper into the Vein Continent—closer to the Anger of the Land.