The mist swirled thicker as the thunder hawk's wings beat the air into submission, sending gusts that rattled the underbrush. Li Wang's heart hammered, not just from the impending clash but from that damned alert glowing in his mind's eye like a glitchy HUD. [Tide Sovereign. Assimilate Anomaly Host.] It wasn't poetic; it was code, cold and imperative, treating him like a bug to be patched out.
"Form up!" Tao Ren barked, his voice steady despite the chaos. The beast tamer stepped forward, his spirit fox materializing at his side in a shimmer of ethereal light, its nine tails fanning out like wary sentinels. The fox let out a low yip, and the air hummed with the promise of coordinated fury.
Sung Ji-Yeon drew her sword in a fluid arc, the blade humming with infused Qi that made the edge glow faintly blue. "Li Wang, stay behind me. Your... tricks won't hold against a sovereign."
He almost laughed at that, but the armored boars were already charging, their tusks scraping the earth like plows through flesh. Zhao Feng notched an arrow to his shortbow, his grin sharp as the point. "Tricks or not, we've got this. Aim for the eyes on those pigs!"
Li Wang nodded, but his thoughts raced ahead. The suite was his edge, but querying the Dao Core now, in the thick of it? That could fry his meridians or worse, summon something even bigger. No, he'd play it smart—freeze what he could, edit on the fly. He focused inward, the familiar interface blooming like a half-remembered dream.
[Scan Initiated: Environmental Threats.]
Data flooded in, a torrent of variables: boar health at 80% resilience, hawk's lightning charge building to critical. Amid the noise, one signature pulsed stronger—the rift's core, twisting beast instincts into a frenzy. He zeroed in on the boars first. [Freeze Values: Momentum Vectors.]
The lead boar stumbled mid-charge, its massive bulk skidding to a halt as if it had slammed into an invisible wall. The others piled into it, a comical tangle of grunts and flailing hooves that bought them seconds. Ji-Yeon didn't hesitate; she lunged, her sword slicing through the air with a whistle. Qi erupted from her blade in a crescent wave, carving into the frozen beast's flank. Black ichor sprayed, reeking of corrupted earth.
"Nice one!" Zhao Feng loosed his arrow, the shaft embedding in a boar's eye with pinpoint accuracy. It bellowed and thrashed, shattering the freeze as the spell's duration ticked down.
Tao Ren and his fox moved as one. The tamer whistled a sharp note, and the fox blurred forward, illusions sprouting from its tails—phantom duplicates that confused the herd. Claws raked true flesh while the boars swiped at ghosts, their armored hides cracking under the assault.
The thunder hawk screeched, diving low. Lightning arced from its talons, forking toward the group. Li Wang's eyes widened. [Edit Value: Charge Polarity.] He flipped the script, reversing the flow. The bolt veered wildly, grounding into a nearby tree with a crack that split the trunk and sent splinters flying.
"By the heavens," Tao Ren muttered, glancing back at Li Wang with a mix of awe and wariness. "What manner of art is that?"
"Later," Li Wang gasped, sweat beading on his brow. The edit had cost him—Qi backlash nipped at his dantian like frostbite, a reminder that he wasn't invincible. Not yet.
The hawk wheeled for another pass, but the boars were rallying, shaking off the confusion. The ground trembled as more shadows stirred in the mist, the tide's vanguard swelling. And then, from the rift's maw, it emerged.
The Tide Sovereign wasn't a beast in the traditional sense. It coalesced from the rift like smoke given form—a hulking silhouette of writhing tendrils, eyes like fractured obsidian glowing with hungry intelligence. Its body pulsed with stolen Qi, siphoning from the very air, power equivalent to early Foundation Establishment but laced with something alien, something that screamed *wrong* in Li Wang's hacker senses.
[Entity Locked: Tide Sovereign. Core Function: Assimilation Protocol. Target: Anomaly Host (You).]
Ji-Yeon's stance faltered for a split second. "What is that thing?"
"The real problem," Li Wang said, stepping forward despite her earlier warning. His group was holding the beasts at bay, but this... this was personal. The sovereign's tendrils quested toward him, tasting the air, drawn to the ripples of his meddling.
Zhao Feng fired another shot, the arrow glancing off a tendril with a sizzle. "It ignores everything else. It's after you, Li Wang!"
Tao Ren's fox yipped urgently, weaving illusions around the sovereign, but the entity shrugged them off, its form adapting, absorbing the phantom Qi like a sponge. "This isn't natural," the tamer said grimly. "It's the tide's heart. Kill it, and the beasts might scatter."
Easier said than done. Li Wang dove into the suite again, scanning frantically. [Analyze Function: Assimilation.] Layers peeled back— it was a subroutine, designed to purge anomalies by integrating them into the Dao's flow. Poetic, in a twisted way. But there was a vulnerability: the core link to the rift. Sever that, and maybe...
A tendril lashed out, wrapping around his ankle. Cold seeped in, Qi draining like water down a sieve. Pain lanced through him, his vision blurring. [Freeze Value: Drain Rate.] It held, but barely—the sovereign pushed back, its will like a virus probing his defenses.
"Get off him!" Ji-Yeon charged, her sword a blur. She hacked at the tendril, severing it in a spray of void essence. The sovereign recoiled with a psychic wail that shook Li Wang's bones.
He broke free, rolling to his feet. The boars were pressing harder now, the hawk circling overhead, but the group's coordination was fraying. Tao Ren was binding a boar with vines summoned from his fox's power, Zhao Feng picking off stragglers, but exhaustion showed in their labored breaths.
Li Wang's mind raced. Query the Dao Core? It was a gamble, but fighting blind would get them killed. He sank into meditation mid-battle, a trick he'd honed in quieter moments. The world faded to code—endless streams of variables, functions nested like Matryoshka dolls.
[Query: Dao Core Access - Rift Origins.]
Resistance hit like a firewall, burning his meridians. Visions flashed: ancient seals cracked by his edits, rifts as scars in the realm's fabric, the tide a self-correcting mechanism. And at the heart, a whisper of something bigger—a *system* overseeing it all, flagging him as the intruder.
But there— a exploit. [Modify Function: Rift Link - Redirect Assimilation.]
He poured his will into it, rewriting the sovereign's target. The entity shuddered, tendrils flailing as its hunger turned inward, devouring its own connections to the rift. The air crackled, the rift destabilizing, spewing erratic Qi that buffeted the beasts into retreat.
The thunder hawk squawked in confusion, veering away as lightning fizzled harmlessly. The boars stamped and fled into the mist, their frenzy broken.
The sovereign let out a final, gurgling roar before collapsing into wisps of shadow, absorbed back into the closing rift. Silence fell, broken only by the group's heavy breathing.
Li Wang slumped against a tree, his body screaming from the backlash. Qi swirled unstably in his dantian, teetering on the edge of collapse. "It's... gone. For now."
Sung Ji-Yeon sheathed her sword, her eyes sharp on him. "You did that. Not with a blade or art, but something else. Care to explain?"
Tao Ren approached, his fox nuzzling his leg wearily. "She has a point. That wasn't beast taming or sword Qi. And the way the tide turned on itself..."
Zhao Feng clapped Li Wang on the shoulder, a bit too hard. "Whatever it was, it saved our hides. But yeah, spill. We're in this mess together now."
Li Wang forced a grin, though it felt brittle. "Let's just say I'm good with... unconventional methods. From my old life."
The words hung heavy, a half-truth that invited more questions. As the mist began to lift, revealing the scarred landscape of the Wilds, a new alert flickered faintly in his mind—unbidden, like an aftershock.
[Warning: Dao Oversight Escalated. Pursuit Vector: Sect Inquisitor. ETA: Imminent.]
Someone had noticed. And they were coming for answers.
Back at the Azure Cloud Sect, the sun hung low over the outer disciple quarters, casting long shadows across the stone courtyards. Li Wang trudged through the gates with his companions, their faces streaked with dirt and ichor, the weight of the day's battle etched in every step. Elder Huo Feng awaited them at the pavilion, his arms crossed, expression thunderous.
"You return late," the elder said, his voice like grinding gravel. "And reeking of void taint. Report."
Tao Ren stepped forward first, ever the mediator. "Elder, the tide was no natural surge. Rifts in the Wilds, corrupting beasts. We sealed one, but others stir."
Huo Feng's gaze slid to Li Wang, piercing. "And your role in this? Whispers from the scouts say anomalies followed you."
Ji-Yeon tensed beside him, but Li Wang met the elder's eyes steadily. "I fought, Elder. Helped close the rift. If there's anomaly, it's the tide's doing—not mine."
A lie wrapped in truth, but Huo Feng wasn't buying it fully. "See me in my hall at dawn. Alone. The sect demands clarity."
As the group dispersed to recover, Li Wang felt the noose tightening. Elder Mei Ling's summons from days ago echoed in his mind—her offer of guidance, laced with her own suspicions. But now, with the Dao's oversight closing in, alliances were fracturing before they could solidify.
That night, in the dim glow of his sparse chamber, Li Wang sat cross-legged, stabilizing his Qi with labored breaths. The suite hummed faintly, scanning for threats, but the real danger was internal. His transmigration, his hacks—they were unraveling the world's seams. And the inquisitor? That could mean exposure, or worse.
A soft knock interrupted his thoughts. Zhao Feng slipped in, eyes darting. "Kang Wei's been talking. Says you're a fraud, that you cheated the trials. With the elder sniffing around, it could get ugly."
Li Wang sighed. "Let him talk. I've got bigger problems."
But as Zhao Feng left, another figure emerged from the shadows—Sung Ji-Yeon, her presence silent as a ghost. "We need to talk. About your 'old life.' Before the inquisitor arrives and drags us all into the fire."
She was right. Secrets wouldn't hold forever. But revealing them? That could bind them closer—or shatter everything.
Dawn crept in too soon, the sect bells tolling like a warning. Li Wang rose, the alert from the rift still burning in his mind. The inquisitor was coming, and with it, perhaps the key to controlling the rifts—or his undoing.