A cold wind blew through the gorges of the Silver-Fanged Hills.
Rael moved cautiously down the winding slope, his senses attuned to every vibration in the earth. Each footstep was measured, deliberate. The new bond with Veil had sharpened something inside him—his awareness stretching past his skin, deeper into the world's hidden threads. He could feel the rise and fall of the mist. Hear the breath of distant animals. Smell old stone.
But underneath all of that was something else.
A tremor.
A pulse.
Faint. Ancient. Hungry.
They were not alone.
"We should go around," Lin muttered, drawing a throwing dagger from her belt as they neared a shattered stone bridge.
Rael paused at the edge. The bridge arched across a narrow ravine, its supports cracked by time and weather. Beneath it, darkness festered. Roots hung like skeletal fingers from the cliff walls, and strange markings were carved into the rocks, partially hidden beneath moss and dirt.
Veil uncoiled from his shoulders, her scales shimmering faintly. Her eyes focused on the ravine's mouth.
Something was down there.
Rael's voice was low. "Too late."
Lin turned sharply.
From below, a second pulse throbbed—louder now.
Then the ground cracked.
The stone beneath them shattered as a massive claw burst from the earth, followed by a twisted body wrapped in layers of blackened bone and decayed Qi. The creature rose from the ravine like a broken statue—its back hunched, its face obscured beneath a jagged bone helm.
Its chest bore a single crimson seal, pulsing like a dying sun.
[Entity Detected: Sealed Devourer – Tier Unknown]
State: Starving
Status: Seal Integrity 17% – Imminent Breach
Warning: Entity exists beyond current combat threshold.
Suggested Action: Flee.
Rael didn't move.
His heart slowed, then steadied.
He had no plans of dying—but neither would he run blindly.
"What is it?" Lin whispered, stepping beside him.
Rael studied the creature as Veil hissed silently.
"…It's not hunting us. Not yet. It's trying to break its seal."
The creature let out a low groan, a sound like stone grinding over metal. A wave of killing intent surged from its body, coating the air like smoke.
Cracks spread around its feet.
Veil's warning throbbed in Rael's mind. He could sense her fear—but also something else: familiarity.
Not personal… but ancestral.
This thing had once been a beast.
No.
A king.
"Distract it," Rael said, pulling out a beast-core infused talisman from his satchel.
"You're insane," Lin snapped. "That thing could erase us with one hit!"
"No," Rael said calmly. "Only if we stay still."
He threw the talisman.
It struck the base of the cliff, igniting in a flash of crimson fire. The beast turned with sluggish curiosity—and Lin moved, faster than a whisper, tossing her dagger at the seal on its chest.
The weapon sparked uselessly off a ripple of Qi.
But it was enough.
Rael grabbed Veil, channeled his Qi, and leapt from the cliff's edge—mist coalescing beneath his feet. They fell in silence, wrapped in a dome of his own Spirit Veil Technique.
Veil's Mistform Evasion blurred their outline mid-air, scattering their presence.
They hit the slope and rolled—Rael biting back a grunt of pain as stone tore into his arms. But he never stopped moving.
The beast roared behind them.
The seal shattered.
A pulse rolled out like thunder.
The ground twisted.
Trees bent away from the ravine, roots pulling back as though fleeing. Insects burst from their nests, screaming. Above them, the sky flickered dark for a brief second—and then returned.
Rael glanced back once.
The beast had vanished.
But the air still felt wrong.
[Warning: Seal Broken – Unknown Entity Freed]
Tracking Ability – Disabled
Qi Flow Interference Detected
All maps in this region rendered obsolete.
They didn't stop until the hills gave way to a forest of broken willows.
Veil pulsed with exhaustion in Rael's mind, curling tight inside his cloak.
Lin dropped to her knees beside a rotting log, panting.
"I've never felt that much pressure in my life…"
Rael sat with his back to a rock, watching the horizon.
"That wasn't a beast."
"…Then what was it?"
"A remnant."
Lin blinked. "Of what?"
Rael stared into the trees.
"A war older than this age."
Night fell slowly.
They made camp beneath the shelter of stone and tree bark, a low fire flickering behind a camouflaged curtain of Qi threads.
Rael spent the hours meditating.
The forging had left cracks in his core—not dangerous, but delicate. And yet… something had grown in that pain. A deeper understanding of his own Qi flow. He visualized his channels, his inner sea, the fracture lines running through them.
And he began to refine.
Not in the style of the Azure Sect.
Not by copying any existing manual.
But instinctively.
He followed the rhythm of Veil's pulse. The serpent's breath and silence. Her cold precision. Her shapeless presence.
[New Technique Being Formed: Veil Step]
Current Completion: 9% – Unstable
Effect: Movement-based Qi Flow Disruption. Creates a delay in enemy perception.
Note: Technique is unique. Classification – Phantom-Type (Rare).
Before dawn, they moved again.
Rael didn't explain his urgency. He didn't need to. Lin had seen it too—the thing that climbed out of that ravine hadn't moved with hunger.
It had moved with memory.
And if it remembered what it once was, it might remember others.
Veil rested around his neck, silent.
Her dreams pulsed with flickers of battles—distant roars, shattered cities, chains being broken. He didn't know if those were her memories, or echoes of something deeper shared through the bond.
But he remembered one thing the blacksmith had said:
"Some beasts aren't born. They're made. Forged by war. Fed by betrayal."
He clenched his fist as the sun broke over the ridge.
They had to get out of these hills.
And fast.
Because something had awakened.
And it was not alone.