The morning sun over the Grand Desolate Spirit Forest rose in ribbons of amber and pale jade, bathing the emerald canopy of the central volcano bowl in gentle warmth. High above the valley floor, the ancient spirit willow spread its massive branches, each gossamer frond swaying lazily in the dawn draft like silk ribbons dipped in morning dew. Beneath that ancient bough, life in the Myriad Spirit Safe hall was unfolding with its customary calm rhythm.
Lin Xiao floated contentedly in a wide, circular cedar basin resting on the polished stone terrace of the main pavilion. The water had been drawn fresh from the cold mountain spring and warmed to the exact heat of a soothing bath by a handful of heated fire-vein stones resting at the bottom. As a semi-clear sapphire-blue sphere roughly two feet across, Lin Xiao possessed neither spine to ache nor shoulders to stiffen, but that didn’t shrink his appreciation for a hot soak. He swelled his jelly-like mass by three inches. That let the stone-rich water seep through his outer tension with a soft, bubbling sigh.
Across the low cedar table, Su Ling’er sat on a woven rush mat, her vermilion and cream robes arranged with habitual grace. Her three snowy fox tails, each tipped in bright ruby fur, swished gently against the floorboards. She turned a bronze roasting pan over a small fire bowl. The rich, nutty fragrance of toasted pine nuts and crackling sunflower seeds drifted across the porch. He mixed with the herbal steam rising from Lin Xiao’s basin.
At the foot of the terrace stairs, Xiao Hei lay sprawled across a sunlit patch of granite. The twelve-foot Shadow Gale Wolf King looked less like an apex sovereign of the forest and more like an overgrown puppy. His glossy black coat took in the morning light while one hind leg gave a reflex twitch in the middle of a pleasant dream.
“Master,” Su Ling’er said. Her musical voice carried a quiet smile as she passed a ladle of golden pine nuts onto a broad fine china dish. “The eastern orchards yielded fifty baskets of sweet dew-pears before daybreak. Elder Tie has already stoked the lower smelter to cast the new irrigation hinges. The river carp report that Xiao Long cleared two fallen boulders from the lower bend before sunrise. If today continues this peacefully, we may finish the harvest manifest before midday.”
“Peace is the whole point of having a safe hall, Ling’er,” Lin Xiao replied. His voice shook through the water as a clear, pleasant deep. A tiny azure slime arm sprouted from his dome, plucked three roasted pine nuts from the dish. Then he drew them into his semi-clear center. A gentle pop sounded in his core as the rich oils were cleanly broken down into pure essence. “Good food, warm water, and no screaming fighters throwing lightning swords at my face. If every day in this world could be like this, I’d never complain again.”
Before Su Ling’er could pour the morning peach-leaf tea, a wild scratching echoed from the outer stone steps.
Two badger beastfolk scouts, their earth-brown fur coated in grey limestone dust and their round ears pinned flat against their skulls, tumbled onto the terrace. They fell to their knees. Their claws shook against the polished flat stone slabs as they gasped for breath.
“Sovereign! Lady Ling’er!” the lead badger wheezed, clutching his chest. “Down at the Southern Defile... Something terrible has crossed the crags. The wind brought the smell of old slaughter before sunrise. So we went to inspect the boundary trail.”
Xiao Hei’s ears snapped upright. The great wolf rose to his feet in a single silent motion, his midnight fur bristling as silver star-pattern runes along his flanks began to pulse with cold, lunar radiance. The playful sleep vanished from his ruby eyes, replaced instantly by the icy focus of a pack commander.
Lin Xiao bobbed up to the rim of his cedar basin, his white crescent eyes widening into curious circles. “Catch your breath, little brother. Did a rockslide block the pass?”
“No rockslide, Sovereign,” the second scout stammered, his claws digging into the stone. “The game trail is dead. We found two spotted deer and an old mountain lynx lying beside the dry creek bed. They haven’t been eaten by hunting beasts. Their hides are shriveled like dry parchment, their bellies collapsed. Their throats are crusted with hard crimson crystals. Every drop of blood in their veins was ripped away while they were still running.”
The pleasant warmth on the porch seemed to cool by several degrees. Su Ling’er’s fox ears twitched toward the south. Her slender fingers tightened around the fine china teapot. Her snowy tails fanned outward, faint sparks of pale fox-fire crackling along the fur tips.
“Blood-draining arts,” she whispered, her amber eyes darkening with remembered sorrow. “When the demonic sects raided my old family valley in the Western Hills, the vanguard always used blood-parasite hounds to sweep the borders. They leave the carcasses behind because the blood is refined into sanguine training pills.”
Lin Xiao slid over the edge of the cedar basin, landing on the timber deck with a soft, rubbery squelch. He disliked seeing his people frightened. He disliked the idea of hunting beasts who slaughtered without eating even more. In his last life, wasted cargo and broken supply lines were annoying. But senseless cruelty was an entirely different matter.
“Let’s go see,” Lin Xiao said calmly. “Xiao Hei, give our badger friends some roasted nuts and water. Ling’er, fetch your traveling fan. We take a look before we jump to conclusions.”
Leaving the quiet haven of the inner volcano bowl, the three of them moved swiftly toward the southern outer edge. Xiao Hei bounded through the shadowed undergrowth. His body flickered between the physical realm and the shadow plane with easy grace. Su Ling’er drifted beside him like a crimson leaf carried on an autumn wind, her spirit-silk sash fluttering behind her. Lin Xiao simply rolled. Condensing his mass into a dense, non-Newtonian sphere, he bounded down the sloping game trails. He cleared fifty paces with each elastic bounce.
They dropped past the third terraced orchard. Then, the vibrant green of the forest began to lose its luster. The air, usually crisp and fragrant with pine resin, turned heavy and warm. A faint metal tang settled on Lin Xiao’s sense outer edge. It carried the clear scent of rusted iron and stale copper.
They reached the crest of the southern crags ten minutes later.
Below them lay the narrow canyon known as the Southern Defile, the only low-height breach through the jagged granite ridge separating the Grand Desolate Forest from the barren southern borderlands. Usually, the gorge was alive with the chattering of cliff swallows and the scampering of stone squirrels.
Today, total silence reigned over the canyon.
Creeping along the floor of the gorge was a sluggish, churning river of scarlet vapor. The mist didn’t drift like ordinary mountain clouds. It clung to the soil, oozing around boulders and through the underbrush like spilled paint. Wherever the red fog brushed against living flora, emerald ferns curled into brittle brown husks. The broad leaves of mountain elms withered into blackened lace.
Fifty paces ahead on the gravel path lay the carcass of a spotted buck. The animal’s grey hide was drawn tight over its ribs, fully emptied of fluid. Meanwhile, a thick scab of dark crystal-clear blood sealed two puncture wounds on its neck.
“Acid-burning blood foul fog,” Su Ling’er said quietly, her fox-fire flaring around her hands to form a protective barrier against the drifting air. “It carries the taint of living souls burned in refining furnaces. Normal beasts who breathe even a wisp of this fog will suffer spirit vein rot within thirty heartbeats.”
Xiao Hei stepped to the cliff edge. That let out a low, shaking growl that caused the pebbles beneath his paws to rattle. “Demonic filth. They foul the air of our borders. Sovereign, grant me forty wolves. We’ll track these worms through the rocks and tear their limbs from their torsos.”
“No need to hurry into a brawl, Xiao Hei,” Lin Xiao murmured. He bounced forward to the very lip of the crag, leaning out over the sea of scarlet vapor. “If we just rush out and start biting people, we don’t learn who sent them, how many there are, or why they’re dumping this foul smog into our valley. Besides, that mist smells terrible. It reminds me of the time an apprentice mechanic spilled signal fluid into a barrel of pickled cabbage.”
“Master, don’t get too close,” Su Ling’er cautioned, stepping forward with her fan raised. “The foul fog carries rotting blood-parasites. It can erode spiritual vessels.”
“I’m made of water, Ling’er. Let’s see what this soup actually contains.”
Lin Xiao dropped from the crag, landing directly in the thickest concentration of the crimson fog with a wet, floating thud.
The red vapor right away surged toward him. It was drawn by the vibrant life-force pulsating within his semi-clear sapphire mass. Crystal-clear tendrils of blood-mist coiled around his outer edge. It hissed as they tried to bore through his outer membrane like swarms of tiny leech-like needles.
Within his spiritual sea, the familiar bronze deep ring chimed with crisp, crystal-clear clarity:
Lin Xiao flared his water’s skin. Instead of repelling the mist, he opened a tiny, spiraling vortex at his crown. The swirling funnel sucked in a great metal tube of crimson vapor. He drew fifteen liters of the foul fog straight into his boundless ancient dantian.
The rotting curses, the leech-like blood-worms, and the acid-burning yin-fire struck the internal void of his core and vanished. The Ancient Chaos Dantian dismantled the complex organic toxins at the deepest energetic level, stripping away the malice and leaving behind a packed trickle of pure, neutral origin essence that settled pleasantly into his reserve.
Lin Xiao wobbled slightly. That let out a soft, satisfied burp that released a harmless puff of clear white steam into the morning air.
“Hmm,” Lin Xiao remarked, rolling his azure body in a small circle to wipe away the leftover red dust. “Tastes like copper coins boiled in sour plum vinegar. Not something I’d order at a restaurant, but it certainly isn’t dangerous to me. The nutritional content is surprisingly decent.”
Above on the ridge, Su Ling’er let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Meanwhile, Xiao Hei’s chest puffed up with unreserved canine pride.
Three miles to the south, hidden beneath an overhanging shale ledge, two figures clad in blood-red robes crouched beside a bronze fortune-telling mirror. They were advance scouting students of the Blood Sea Demonic Sect, tasked with deploying the Corpse-Cloud Sanguine Array to test the border defenses of the mountain.
The younger student stared into the polished surface of the scrying glass. His hand shook so wildly that his bone dagger clattered against the rock.
“Senior Brother... Look at the mirror,” the youth whispered, his face draining of all color.
The senior student leaned over, his eyes bulging behind his crimson cowl.
Through the cloudy bronze glow, they watched the lethal Grade-2 blood foul fog—a cursed vapor that their sect spent hundreds of mortal lives to brew—swirl harmlessly around a semi-clear blue orb. Not only did the ball-shaped creature fail to dissolve into blood sludge. But it opened its top, drank the foul fog like a bowl of morning congee. Then burped out purified sky vapor.
“What... What kind of ancient fiend is that?” the senior student croaked, his throat constricting in sheer dread. “It swallowed the Corpse-Cloud Miasma raw! It digested rotting soul-rot without even sitting in quiet focus to suppress the backlash! Is that a sleeping Ancient Demon God guarding this forest?”
“Senior Brother, should we retreat?”
“No! Elder Han Gu gave strict orders. The blood-tide must advance on schedule. We deploy the bone-seeking nets and capture whatever beasts wander into the lower ravine. If that blue fiend approaches, we report directly to the sect vanguard!”
Back on the southern trail, Lin Xiao bounced back up the rocks, landing neatly beside Su Ling’er and Xiao Hei.
“The air down there’s cleared for now,” Lin Xiao said, his tone turning crisp. “Xiao Hei, station ten shadow wolves along the high ledges. If whoever brewed that sour vinegar tries to cross into our home, don’t kill them. Trap them, disarm them, and bring them to the courtyard. I have a feeling our quiet morning was just the first course of a very noisy banquet.”
“Understood, Sovereign,” Xiao Hei rumbled, bowing his great head before melting seamlessly into the mountain shadows.
Lin Xiao looked toward the southern horizon, where faint ribbons of crimson cloud stained the blue sky. His peaceful life was precious, and he had no intention of letting anyone spoil it.