The shuttle waited for them, it was called the Black Cloud Shuttle and the name that suited it perfectly.
The vessel was constructed from a wood of exceptional quality, the kind that only grew in the deepest, oldest forests. The wood itself was dark as midnight.
Almost black, with a glow that seemed to shift and flow like living shadow when light moved across it. Golden engravings covered it's sides. Intricate designs that told stories of conquest and power.
Symbols that marked this as a vessel belonging to someone of considerable importance and considerable danger. Or maybe just random artistry that came in to Luo He's head. No one knew.
The underside gleamed with deep red copper scales. Layered like a serpent's skin, fitted with such precision that no gap existed between them.
The scales served a practical purpose they absorbed and dispersed damage from wearing and tare. But they were also deliberately beautiful.
The red copper caught the light as the shuttle moved, creating the impression of something alive, something that might open its eyes at any moment.
The shuttle rose smoothly under Luo He's spiritual force flowing into it. The golden engravings seeming to glow as they caught the sunlight. The copper scales beneath them caught the light like flame.
Lang whispered some thing, wonder making his voice small. "Yes, we are flying." Luo He said, one hand on his son's head while the other holding him. "We are." Lang said surprising him.
The plan was elegantly simple in its brutality. The tribe's coming-of-age ritual was merciless. Young men called new bloods ventured into the forest and were required to return with proof of a kill:
A deer, a boar, or ideally something larger. Only warriors could marry, own property, or hold status in the tribe.
Failure in the hunt meant certain death. As they won't be accepted to the tribe till a kill is confirmed. There was no middle ground.
Luo He had identified his target the last time, a boy with black hair and dark eyes, shorter than average, weak by tribal standards.
The child had no parents, no relatives of consequence, only his younger sister would miss him if he disappeared. He was precisely the kind of individual who would be forgotten within a generation.
His face unmemorable, his existence barely noted. The boy was destined to die in the tribal trials. Luo He simply offered him an alternative.
When Luo He arrived at the forest clearing where the boy hunted, Lang was sleeping peacefully with Su Kim a few hours ago, secured in a nest of soft furs.
So he delt with the boy before hand.
The boy looked up in terror as a figure descended from the sky, a faceless being wearing the skin of a great deer.
Antlers spreading impossibly wide, moving with the fluid grace of something not entirely earthbound.
"Do not be afraid," Luo He said. His voice distorted through the mask of his armour to sound otherworldly.
"I am the spirit of the forest. The faceless one. The giver of gifts." He said bearly containing his laughter.
The boy fell to his knees immediately.
"I will offer you salvation," Luo He continued. "Survive six days and six nights alone on the distant island."
"Bring yourself back alive, and I will reward you beyond measure. But you must not leave. You must not seek help. You must survive on your own strength."
The boy nodded, too terrified to speak.
Within minutes, the shuttle had transported him to a distant island barren, harsh, but not actually lethal.
There was fresh water. There were plants that could be eaten. It was survivable for those with the will to survive.
And while the boy fought to stay alive on that distant shore, Luo He returned to the forest and began searching for his true prey. A bear.
The black bear was massive, easily four hundred pounds of muscle and fur and predatory instinct. It had killed two hunters the previous season.
It was the kind of beast that made warriors hesitate. Luo He found it drinking from a stream, its great shoulders massive, its claws leaving deep gouges in the earth.
"Stay back," Luo He said quietly to Lang. Who had been kept on the shuttle hovering a few inches from the ground. The boy's eyes were alert, watching everything, learning.
"Watch your father." He said proudly. Then Luo He stepped forward, and his leg came up in a perfect arc. His foot connected with the bear's skull.
Hitting it with the precision of a man who had practiced such movements thousands of times. The kick was devastating not theatrical, not exaggerated, but absolutely lethal.
The bear crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. Luo He did not waste time checking if it was dead. He already knew.
Instead, he gathered his son closer and used his spirit energy to lift the massive carcass, cradling it behind them with the ease of a man carrying a sleeping child.
He walked through the forest toward the tribe, his son warm against his chest, the dead bear suspended in the air beside him. Lang's small face looked curious rather than frightened.
"They will fear this." Luo He said. "Fear is useful. Fear creates respect. Fear makes people listen." Luo He lectured his little child like a true phyco.
Then they finally arrived. A girl came running out of the tribe's main shelter at the sound of commotion.
A young woman with deep brown eyes and soft tanned skin, her hair falling in waves down her back. This was Shirshir, sister to the boy Luo He had replaced.
When she saw the figure carrying the massive bear, her jaw went slack. "Brother?" she called out hesitantly.
"Brother... is that really you?" Shirshir's voice was small and uncertain as she stepped closer. Her hand reached out almost instinctively.
Her fingertips brushing against the rough deer hide covering his face. For a moment she simply stared. Then Luo He smiled beneath the disguise.
Slowly, he removed it. The deer hide fell away. Shirshir froze. The man standing before her didn't possessed the same face she had known all her life.
But not only that his everything was different. His frame had grown broader.
His shoulders seemed heavier. His muscles carried a density that had never existed before.
Even his height appeared greater than she remembered. But none of that disturbed her as much as his eyes.
Something burned within them now.
A confidence. A power. A presence. The brother she remembered had always seemed ordinary. This man felt like a predator standing among prey.
For a brief moment an uncomfortable thought flashed through her mind. This isn't my brother. The thought frightened her. Yet she could not look away.
"I am transformed," Luo He said calmly.
"The Forest God blessed me." He said with utmost reverance. His voice remained gentle, but even that sounded different somehow.
"He granted me strength beyond measure." He said calmely. Then he shifted Lang slightly higher in his arms.
"And he gifted me this child." He said proudly.
The afternoon sunlight fell across the boy's face. Lang blinked sleepily before grabbing at Luo He's clothing. In his small hands rested a carved wooden deer.
Shirshir immediately noticed it. Among her people, the deer was sacred. The deer represented the Forest God himself.
Seeing the child clutching one so naturally only reinforced what she had already begun to believe. Perhaps it truly was a blessing.
Her eyes moved from the child to the enormous bear lying nearby, then to Luo He and back again. The silence stretched. Finally she spoke.
"You hunted a bear." She asked curiously. It was not a question. "I did." Luo He replied calmly. Shirshir swallowed.
"No one hunts bears alone." She added coldly. Her eyes widened slightly. "And no one kills one and comes back alive." She said with a ghostly expression.
"I did." Luo He answered again. As if he was merely discussing the weather.
The simplicity of his response somehow made it even harder to believe him.
Shirshir slowly stepped closer. The closer she came, the stronger the feeling became. This was her brother. And yet he was not. The timid hunter she remembered seemed gone.
In his place stood a man touched by something greater. Something powerful.
Something dangerous. For reasons she could not explain, her heartbeat began to quicken.
"I always..." Shirshir began. Then stopped. A faint blush appeared on her cheeks. "I mean..." She began and she looked away.
"When you became a warrior..." Again the words failed her. Luo He waited patiently. Shirshir clenched her hands together.
"There was always something in my heart that..." Her voice became quieter.
She lowered her head. Unable to finish.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Luo He smiled softly. "I know." Luo He said gently. "I have always known." He added calmly. Shirshir's face turned completely red.
The answer felt more intimate than any confession she could have made herself.
The forest wind moved softly through the trees. Lang yawned sleepily.
The massive bear remained motionless behind them. And Shirshir found herself staring at him once again. Not at the brother she remembered.
But at the man standing before her now.
A man who seemed to be chosen by god.