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Chapter 14
1,206 words · 10 days ago
The swamp lay quiet behind him, its breath thick with mist and secrets.
Li Chen opened his eyes before dawn. The trees were still. No birds sang.
His body was sore but healed, his spirit ragged but holding. The Blood Fruit remained sealed within his spatial ring, its soft pulse barely perceptible, but ever-present. The Mudhorn Serpent’s blood, too, had been properly preserved.
He checked everything one last time.
Satisfied, he stood.
Today, he would return.
The deeper he moved through the forest, the more it felt... different.
Not just quieter, but wrong.
There was no morning chorus. No rustling in the underbrush. No signs of beasts hiding or watching.
It was as though the forest itself had paused.
Li Chen slowed and activated Perception Pulse.
Qi trails shimmered faintly into view, some old, some recent. But the patterns were strange. Broad. Wide. Dozens of beasts had moved through, all heading deeper into the forest’s core.
Herds, he thought. No... groups being led.
He remembered the old stories of Beast Lords, creatures powerful enough to command low-tier beasts, building hordes that could level villages and drown entire cities in blood and fang.
Even Jinling had records of such calamities.
The weight of that possibility pressed on him. But he turned away.
I’ll need more than a second-stage body to face that storm.
Around midday, as the trees thinned slightly and the shadows softened, Li Chen crossed into familiar territory, an outer section of the forest where hunters from Jinling often gathered.
He didn’t relax.
A sharp rustle to the side snapped his attention.
Three low-tier beasts burst through the ferns, two fang-backed wolves and a red-furred lynx, eyes glowing with hunger.
Li Chen moved before they landed.
He spun left, delivered a clean strike to the first wolf’s ribs. Bones cracked. The beast dropped, whining.
The lynx swept wide, fast and cunning. It leapt.
He ducked beneath it, twisted his hips, and drove his heel into its back as it passed overhead. It crashed to the ground.
The second wolf hesitated.
Li Chen met its gaze. It turned and fled into the woods.
He stood in the clearing again, barely winded. His blade dripped faintly. The fight had lasted less than a breath.
Once, beasts like these might’ve wounded him. Now, they couldn’t even make him blink.
He crouched to extract the heart blood from one of the beasts, already sealing it when a sound reached him, deliberate steps approaching through the brush.
He rose slowly.
A young man emerged between the trees.
He looked to be around seventeen. Pale, lean, and dressed in a travel-stained robe with a fading red sash. His saber, chipped and poorly kept, hung at his side. His eyes drifted over the dead beasts, then narrowed as they settled on Li Chen.
Greed flickered in his gaze.
“You’re from the Li family?” he asked. “Didn’t think I’d find one of you out here.”
Li Chen offered no answer.
“You don’t look that strong. First level, maybe second?” The boy smirked. “Not worth much. But those bodies... they’re worth something.”
He stepped closer.
“Leave them. And walk away. You won’t like what happens if you don’t.”
Li Chen’s voice was calm. “Fifth level. That’s where you’re at.”
The boy blinked, then grinned. “So you’re not dumb. Makes this quicker.”
The saber left its sheath with a clatter.
He lunged.
Li Chen moved in one step, closing the gap. Perception Pulse flared. His body flowed through the motion.
He caught the arm mid-swing, twisted, and struck the rogue in the ribs, once, twice, before sweeping his legs from beneath him and driving his knee into his gut.
The boy gasped, staggered, but still reached for a dagger beneath his belt.
Li Chen’s blade flashed.
It was over.
He stood in silence as the body slumped to the forest floor. A bird called distantly in the canopy, then went quiet again.
He looked down at the corpse.
He hadn’t hesitated.
But he didn’t feel nothing, either.
Somewhere beneath the quiet clarity was a weight. Not regret. Not doubt. Just... gravity.
His enemies would not always be beasts. Some would wear familiar faces. Some would smile before they struck.
Later, seated beneath a moss-draped tree, Li Chen let the wind cool his face.
The Stone Body ritual was coming.
He now possessed everything: the five beast bloods, the Blood Fruit, and the strength to endure what would come next.
Still, his thoughts lingered on home.
What will I say to Father? Mother?
Would they sense the shift? The way the dreams had changed? Would they see what stirred within him each night when the crimson tree appeared in sleep, now closer and more real than ever?
He reached into his ring and withdrew a weathered scroll: On the Dual Paths.
A line from the final page stood out:
“To walk two roads is to balance blades. One slips, and the soul shatters before the bones.”
It was meant as a warning.
But to him, it felt like a vow.
As the sun began to fall behind the trees, the city walls came into view, gray stone catching golden light. The air was thicker now with the smell of cooking smoke and the distant clatter of hooves on stone.
He paused near a ridge and activated Perception Pulse once more.
Qi shimmered across the forest.
And there it was, a presence, just on the edge of his range.
Watching.
He turned his head slowly.
For a heartbeat, he saw a figure tucked behind a crooked tree. And then, it was gone. No footstep. No sound. Vanished.
But he had seen enough.
A flash of a robe.
Wang family colors.
He stood still a moment longer, then continued walking. They had wanted to be seen. That much was clear.
By the time he reached the city gates, the sky was bleeding into dusk.
Ten days.
It had been ten days since he had walked into the forest.
The guards at the gate stiffened.
“Is that... Young Master Li Chen?” one murmured.
“He looks... different.”
They couldn’t feel his cultivation, his ring veiled it well, but some things didn’t need to be sensed to be seen. There was a stillness to his stride. A quiet focus. Like a blade honed one breath from striking.
He nodded to them and passed through.
Jinling bustled with life.
Vendors called out from alleys. Children ran between food stalls. Lanterns flickered along the eaves of tiled rooftops. The noise and light surrounded him, but Li Chen moved through it like a shadow beneath waves, untouched, unseen.
He reached the outer gates of the Li estate just as the last light of day kissed the stones.
He stood for a moment, watching.
His parents would be inside. His room would be waiting. And in the depths of the compound, the place where the bloodlines were awakened... a new ritual would begin.
He took a breath.
He would not walk away the same.
“The forest gave me strength,” he murmured. “But it also gave me eyes. And some things I saw... were not meant to be ignored.”
And with that, he stepped through the gate, and into the next trial.