The midday breeze rustled through the southern bamboo groves. That created a sea of whispering green stalks that swayed gently under the sun. Among the thick clumps of green iron-bamboo, three young fox-spirit gatherers moved along a sun-dappled game trail. They carried woven split-cane baskets strapped to their shoulders, loaded with freshly dug wild mountain yams, sweet root bulbs, and bundles of fragrant yellow ginger.
The youngest of the three, a maiden named Xiao Tao whose fluffy auburn ears twitched at every falling leaf, held up a plump, golden-skinned tuber with a proud giggle. “Look at the size of this one! If Sister Ling’er roasts it over the hearth coals with wild mountain honey, Lord Xiao will be delighted. He ate six whole sweet potatoes yesterday while reviewing the irrigation maps.”
“Don’t let your guard down, Little Tao,” the eldest girl, Xiao Mei, cautioned gently, adjusting her woven basket. Her two red-tipped tails swished with measured caution. “The Sovereign warned all foraging teams this morning. The southern crags smell of dried copper. Elder Tie ordered the outer edge bells checked twice. We fill this last basket and return to the inner valley right away.”
Twenty paces behind them, hidden within the dense shadow of a hollowed cedar trunk, three hooded figures crouched motionless.
They wore ragged robes of coarse hemp dyed the color of dried blood, the hems stiffened with salt and dark offering oils. Across their chests hung bandoliers of blackened bone needles, and in their hands they carried coiled snares woven from sinew harvested from tortured beasts. Their pale faces were gaunt, their sunken eye sockets ringed with bruised violet veins—the clear mark of practitioners cultivating low-grade demonic manuals.
“Three pure-blooded fox spirits,” the lead scout whispered, his breath whistling through chipped teeth. “Their spiritual life-force is remarkably rich. Not a trace of impure wild foul fog in their spirit veins. If we present their living souls to Elder Han Gu’s cooking pot, he will reward us with ten Crimson Marrow Pills each.”
“Senior Brother,” the scout on his left muttered, his fingers nervously stroking the handle of a serrated bone dagger. “What about the warning from the outer watch? They said an ancient blue fiend swallowed the corpse-mist at the pass.”
“Idiot,” the leader hissed, cuffing the younger man across the ear. “That was just the mountain wind scattering the cloud into an underground sinkhole. What kind of demon looks like a round blue drop of water? The elders in the Blood Sea Sect have filled your head with nursery tales. Spread out, form the Sanguine Web, and take them alive. If they scream, slice their throat cords.”
The three cultists separated like hunting spiders, creeping through the bamboo with practiced, soundless steps. They drew their bone daggers. They unfurled a twenty-foot net woven from crimson sinew. The net cried sticky, foul-smelling droplets of blood-rot venom designed to paralyze spiritual energy upon skin contact.
“Now!” the leader snarled, leaping from the brush.
The crimson net flared with a sickly reddish light as it soared through the air, aimed directly at the three unsuspecting fox girls.
Xiao Tao gasped, stumbling backward as the stench of rotting marrow washed over her. Xiao Mei drew a small bronze gathering sickle. She stepped fiercely in front of her younger friend even as her ears pinned back in sheer terror.
The net never reached them.
A sudden, unnatural chill swept through the clearing. The bright midday sunlight didn’t vanish, but the shadows cast by the bamboo stalks suddenly elongated, detaching themselves from the damp earth like ribbons of living liquid black glass.
Snap!
A pair of massive, coal-black jaws materialized directly out of the darkness beneath the falling net. With a clean, bone-shaking crunch, the jaws caught the flying blood net mid-air, ripping the cursed sinew to shreds and stomping the leftovers into the damp loam.
From the pool of spreading black mist, Xiao Hei stepped into the clearing.
The Shadow Gale Wolf King was twelve feet of pure hungry dominance. His glossy midnight fur seemed to swallow the daylight, while silver star-pattern runes along his ribs flared with chilling, sky power. His deep ruby eyes fixed upon the three frozen cultists with terrifying calm.
A low, ringing growl rumbled deep in Xiao Hei’s chest. It wasn’t a mindless beast’s roar, but the steady, measured shaking of an apex hunter who had already calculated three different ways to snap their spines before their hearts could beat again.
“Demonic vermin,” Xiao Hei spoke. His deep voice shook through the bamboo grove like thunder over a mountain ridge. “You tread upon the sovereign’s soil, draw weapons against our family, and speak of cooking pots. On your knees.”
The lead scout’s jaw went slack. The blood drained fully from his face as the crushing spiritual aura of a Peak Foundation Establishment beast king slammed down upon his shoulders. The sheer weight of the wolf’s presence forced him to his knees. His kneecaps struck the dirt with a sharp crack.
“A-A beast king!” the younger cultist shrieked, his mind shattering under the pressure. “Blood-Mist Escape Magic charm! Activate! Activate!”
Frenzied with blind survival instinct, the two flanking scouts slapped yellow paper magic charms onto their chests, preparing to detonate their own life-force to dissolve into streaks of red mist and flee across the treetops.
“Going somewhere without saying hello?”
A pleasant, cheerful voice echoed from the canopy above.
Before the magic charms could ignite, a shadow fell over the clearing. Dropping from a high bamboo stalk thirty feet above, a semi-clear sapphire-blue sphere dropped like a falling star. Lin Xiao didn’t use sharp claws or flashing swords. As he dropped, he swelled his stretchy mass, flattening his underside into a wide, rubbery dome.
SPLAT!
Lin Xiao landed squarely atop the two fleeing cultists.
His dynamic, non-Newtonian body reacted to the sudden moving crash instantly. Instead of crushing the men into bloody paste beneath a three-ton high-pressure drop, his outer surface thickened into a firm, shock-absorbing cushion that cleanly pinned them flat against the damp forest floor. The force knocked every breath of air from their lungs with an undignified oomph. Meanwhile, the yellow escape magic charms were smoothly smothered and peeled away by Lin Xiao’s adhesive pseudopods.
“Ouch,” the lead scout croaked, still pinned beneath Xiao Hei’s shadow pressure, staring in total, blank horror at the azure creature.
“Now, now,” Lin Xiao said, bubbling pleasantly as he wobbled back into his comfortable ball-shaped shape. “Running around the woods with bone knives is terribly unsafe. What if you tripped and poked your eye out?”
Two thick, semi-clear azure tendrils extended from Lin Xiao’s flank. With the smooth care of a warehouse machine wrapping bulk parcels in protective film, the fluid tendrils wrapped around the two gasping cultists. Within seconds, the two men found themselves fully enclosed within two separate, wiggling spheres of dense blue jelly, with only their noses and mouths left open to breathe the fresh mountain air.
The lead cultist, trembling under Xiao Hei’s gaze, tried to stab his bone dagger into the blue mass.
Ping!
The blade struck Lin Xiao’s water’s skin and simply bounced off with a clean, rubbery snap, the serrated bone point shattering into four harmless fragments. Lin Xiao sighed, extended a third fluid arm. Then he wrapped the leader into his own private jelly bubble as well.
Within his mind, the Dao Spirit’s calm voice rang:
The three demonic students hung suspended inside their single azure spheres. Their limbs were locked still by the thick, honey-like fluid. They tried to channel their blood-qi to break free. Each time, the Primordial Chaos essence lining the inside of the jelly instantly devoured the malicious energy. That left them as weak and helpless as newborn kittens.
To the three scouts, this was a waking nightmare beyond any hell described in their sect scriptures.
In their minds, this was no harmless ball of spring water. It was an impossible to understand Ancient Gluttonous Fiend. An ancient, formless entity that captured prey whole to slowly dissolve their living marrow in its jelly-like stomach over ten thousand years! The way the creature wobbled cheerfully only made it a thousand times more horrifying. It was clearly mocking their insignificance before beginning the feast!
“Spare us!” the lead scout sobbed, his voice muffled through the semi-clear gel. “Mercy, Great Chaos Demon God! We were only following orders! We have no meat on our bones! We taste foul, we swear it!”
“Why does everyone keep calling me a demon god?” Lin Xiao muttered, adjusting his balance. “I haven’t eaten meat in two hours, and I certainly don’t eat people. That would be fully disgusting.”
Turning around, Lin Xiao saw the three little fox maidens huddled together beside their yam baskets, their fluffy ears quivering. Xiao Tao was still sniffing back tears, clutching her golden yam tightly against her chest.
“Are you three hurt?” Lin Xiao asked gently, softening his voice into a soothing, elder-brother rhythm.
“L-Lord Xiao!” Xiao Mei cried out, dropping to her knees in deep thanks. “We’re unhurt! You... You saved us again!”
Xiao Tao sniffled, wiping her eyes with her sleeve before offering her prized tuber toward him with trembling paws. “L-Lord Xiao... We dug the sweetest yams for you. Please don’t let the scary red men take our valley.”
Lin Xiao felt a warm surge of affection in his central core. He extended a tiny, delicate slime arm and patted the little fox maiden gently between her ears. “Nobody is taking our valley, Little Tao. And this yam looks absolutely amazing. Let’s head home and ask Elder Tie to roast it with some wild chestnuts.”
Lin Xiao gathered the three wiggling, jelly-wrapped fighters behind him, connecting them with a flexible azure tether like three giant blue balloons.
“Xiao Hei, take point,” Lin Xiao ordered with a cheerful bounce. “Let’s bring our three noisy dumplings back to the courtyard. It’s high time we found out who’s sending uninvited guests into our front yard.”
Xiao Hei let out a sharp, approving bark, bounding ahead down the sunlit trail. Meanwhile, the three fox maidens followed closely behind.