The northern defile climbed into a maze of jagged granite spires and narrow dark rock fissures known to the woodland beasts as the Broken Tooth Ravine. Here, the lush bamboo canopy thinned out, replaced by towering sheer stone walls draped in clinging lichens, thorny mountain briars, and bitter frost-moss.
Sprinting through the narrow canyon, Xiao Hei moved with the fluid grace of a hunting panther. His eight-foot muscular frame carried Lin Xiao effortlessly across the scree. But the canyon narrowed into a tight crevice barely five feet wide. Then, the giant shadow hound had to slow his pace, his broad, armored shoulders scraping against the rough granite walls and sending showers of gray pebbles clattering into the darkness below.
Lin Xiao, resting atop Xiao Hei’s neck like a comfortable azure helmet, felt a subtle, rhythmic shaking humming within the center of his origin core.
It wasn’t a physical sound. It was a ghostly, silver filament of conscious energy linking his Primordial Chaos Void directly to the glowing beast core in Xiao Hei’s chest. The connection was seamless, vibrant, and alive with sense information. Xiao Hei’s muscles bent to leap across a deep gap. Each time, Lin Xiao felt the subtle surge of wind-element qi. Lin Xiao shifted his mass to balance the hound. Each time, Xiao Hei adjusted his stride with gut, psychic harmony.
“Omniscient Dao Spirit,” Lin Xiao queried silently, watching the silver energy pulse in his mental sea. “What’s the precise stonework of this deep ring? It feels like an open fiber-optic cable running directly between our minds.”
A crisp bronze chime echoed softly through his mind:
“Report,” the Dao Spirit responded in her calm, sweet-sounding voice. “Host is experiencing the Primordial Soul Circuit. When Host bestows a True Name upon an entity using chaotic origin qi, an entangled spiritual hum is permanently forged between Host’s Primordial Void and the recipient’s spiritual root. Unlike conventional human telepathic magic charms or spiritual sense transmissions, this circuit operates via ancient quantum entanglement. It can’t be jammed by crushing weight arrays, cut by soul-cutting artifacts, or intercepted by third-party divine senses.”
Zero latency and fully encrypted? Lin Xiao mused, his blue jelly rippling with admiration. In my old logistics job, we would have paid billions for comms hardware that reliable. Let’s test the bandwidth.
Lin Xiao focused his will, sending a focused thought across the silver filament. He didn’t send spoken words. He projected a vivid, high-resolution sense memory. A massive cast-iron skillet filled with sizzling, cumin-crusted wild pork ribs, glistening with brown sugar glaze, dusted with crushed chili, and crackling with savory fat over charcoal embers.
Instantly, Xiao Hei’s black ears twitched wildly.
The huge wolf’s stomach let out a thunderous, deep-throated gurgle that shook against Lin Xiao’s underside. A thick drop of canine drool splashed onto the granite stones.
Master... Xiao Hei’s voice echoed directly within Lin Xiao’s mindscape, full of confused, desperate longing. The meat with the fragrant brown crust... Are we having that for lunch?
Lin Xiao had to chuckle inwardly. Focus, buddy! We’re tracking the arsonists. But yes, if we resolve this cleanly, you get three whole slabs of cumin ribs tonight.
I will tear through mountains for the master’s ribs, Xiao Hei replied with resolute, total canine determination.
Lin Xiao decided to test the energy-sharing capability of the link as well. Focusing on his internal Foundation-stage liquid pool, he nudged a single droplet of purified chaos dew across the circuit.
Xiao Hei shuddered in mid-stride. A jolt of electric life-force raced through the hound’s spine. The slight muscle fatigue from his rapid mountain sprint vanished instantly, replaced by a cool, bubbling spring of renewed endurance. The hound’s claws dug deeper into the dark rock, his eyes flashing with renewed vigor.
“Data point recorded,” the Dao Spirit chimed. “Bi-aimed energy transfer working. Host can replenish subordinate stamina and provide elemental buffs remotely.”
Ahead, the rocky path squeezed tight further. Two huge granite boulders had tumbled from the canyon rim hundreds of years ago, wedging together to form a claustrophobic stone choke-point barely three feet wide and four feet tall. For a mortal human or a small badger, squeezing through was simple. But for an eight-foot-long, four-foot-tall sky hound with shoulders broad as a draft horse, passing through would need smashing the stone to rubble—shattering any element of surprise.
Lin Xiao hopped down from the wolf’s back, landing on the gravel with a soft gloop.
“Xiao Hei,” Lin Xiao communicated through the soul link. “The Dao Spirit mentions a backup ability called [Beast Form Crushing]. Can you adjust your physical size?”
Xiao Hei tilted his head, his ruby eyes blinking in curious realization as the instructions embedded within his awakened bloodline unfolded.
Yes, Master. The divine starlight allows me to fold my spatial presence.
The giant wolf closed his eyes.
A soft, silver radiance shone along the star-pattern runes etched into his midnight fur. The dark wind swirling around his paws began to spiral inward. It pulled his physical mass toward the dense, diamond-hard beast core at his center. There was no horrific cracking of bones or tearing of flesh. The transformation was as smooth and natural as water condensing into morning dew.
His huge eight-foot frame smoothly folded in upon itself. His towering shoulders settled, his massive paws retracted into neat, velvet pads. His ferocious, sabertooth fangs softened into the playful grin of a healthy young dog.
Within three seconds, where an intimidating, world-shaking Beast King had stood, there sat a sleek, fluffy black hound roughly the size of a golden retriever, weighing perhaps thirty pounds.
His fur was still jet-black and glossy as midnight silk. His eyes still burned with bright ruby intelligence. But his terrifying, choking spiritual pressure was fully drawn inward. To any passing fighter or beast, he appeared to be nothing more than an exceptionally handsome, well-bred mortal hunting dog.
Xiao Hei opened his eyes, gave a high-pitched yip of delight. Then he wagged his tail so enthusiastically that his entire hindquarters wiggled. He trotted in tight circles. He tested his new balance point, then hopped effortlessly atop a four-foot boulder without displacing a single pebble.
Master! I’m small! I can slip through the mouse holes! And my weight feels light as a feather!
Lin Xiao bounced with pure, pure delight. “Look at you! You went from a mythical war-beast to an adorable living-room retriever! This is brilliant. Now you won’t knock over every clay jar in the kitchen when you walk through the door.”
Extending two azure tendrils, Lin Xiao gave the tightly packed hound a thorough, vigorous scratching behind both ears. Xiao Hei leaned his head into the slime’s soft embrace. He panted happily with his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
And look at this stealth factor, Lin Xiao thought, hopping back onto the hound’s tightly packed shoulders. Even in this smaller form, Xiao Hei’s back was remarkably solid, easily supporting Lin Xiao’s fifty-pound fluid mass without sagging in the slightest. The thickness of his muscle had simply packed, giving him an even higher strength-to-weight ratio.
“All right, Xiao Hei. Let’s share sense feeds. Lead the way through the gap.”
Xiao Hei dropped his nose to the ground, trotting silently through the narrow stone crevice. His smaller paws moved with supernatural agility. He stepped across loose gravel and dry pine needles with zero sound deep ring.
They slipped through the choke-point. Then, Lin Xiao opened his mind to the Primordial Soul Circuit, linking his panoramic vision with Xiao Hei’s heightened canine senses.
The world suddenly transformed into a fine, detailed mix of light and scent.
Lin Xiao was no longer merely seeing light and color. Through Xiao Hei’s senses, the forest canyon was overlaid with vibrant, glowing ribbons of smell data. The scent of pine resin appeared as pale green mist. The cold air flowing from the peaks showed as pale blue currents. And winding through the rocky defile was a distinct, jagged trail of dark crimson and sickly violet.
Along the path, they passed signs of recent human desecration. A hundreds of years-old mountain juniper had been chopped down with crude axes to clear a line of sight. A natural spirit spring had been fouled with dumped animal fat grease. And several yellowed, cursed magic charm papers fluttered from tree trunks. It hummed with repulsive blood-hexes designed to torment woodland critters.
Blood and ghost poison, Xiao Hei sent. His thoughts tightened with intense hungry focus as his hackles rose. The fox maiden passed through here less than sixty breaths ago. Her breathing is shallow. She is crawling on three legs.
Overlaying that trail were three heavy, clumsy trails glowing with muddy brown and dull iron gray. The pungent odor of cheap animal fat, dried tobacco, sweat, and acid-burning corpse-oil.
The Iron Vulture rogues, Xiao Hei growled through the circuit. Three humans. They’re twenty yards ahead, around the bend of the cliff. They have cornered her.
Through the soul link, Lin Xiao could even feel Xiao Hei’s internal moving readiness. The wind-element qi coiled in the wolf’s hind legs, ready to unleash a faster-than-sound burst of shadow-step violence at a moment’s notice.
Easy, Xiao Hei, Lin Xiao sent gently. It sent a calming, cooling wave of chaos essence across the circuit to steady the hound’s rising battle fever. No lethal strikes unless absolutely necessary. We need to find out who hired them. There, their main camp is located, and how many more poisoned snares they’ve scattered across our mountain.
Understood, Master, Xiao Hei responded, his breathing becoming fully silent. I will hold the flank. You deliver the judgment.
Lin Xiao smiled inwardly, his azure fluid matrix stiffening into dense, non-Newtonian readiness.
A lossless telepathic link, a tightly packed stealth hound, and real-time sense feeds, Lin Xiao thought. He peeked through the rocky gap toward the shadowed clearing ahead. Modern special forces would give their left arms for this level of tactical coordination.
Now, let’s see what kind of cowards hunt wounded fox maidens with barbed iron chains.