"Thank you… but who are you, actually?" one of the hunters croaked, clutching his bloodied side as he leaned against a tree for support. His voice was faint, yet his eyes held something stronger—curiosity, maybe even suspicion.
Lin Ziao paused.
It had been a long time since anyone had asked him that. Even longer since he'd thought about how he might answer. He wasn't a traveler passing through, nor a hermit living in peace. The truth was darker. He had come into these woods because his world had turned to ash.
He saw his brother's face then—sunlight on his skin, laughter in his voice. And then the fight. The suppressed pain in his eyes. The way the air turned to smoke and the silence that followed.
His grip tightened on the shaft of his spear.
"Just a passerby," he finally said, voice low, nearly a whisper. "Someone trying to find his place again."
The hunter didn't push. He winced as Lin knelt beside him, inspecting the wound. Blood had soaked the man's tunic, but the gash wasn't as deep as it looked.
"You're lucky," Lin murmured. "A little higher and this would've ended in a burial."
The man tried to chuckle, but it turned into a cough. Lin's hands were calm, practiced. Not the hands of a nomad, but of someone who had tended to wounds—his own, and maybe others'.
Behind them, the other two surviving hunters stirred. One whimpered as he clutched his mangled leg, and the other lay still, breathing shallowly. All of them were a mess—bloodied, bruised, and broken by something none of them had the strength to name.
"You came out hunting?" Lin asked while tearing strips from a shredded cloak to form bandages.
The man nodded. "Red Willow Village. Our traps started coming up empty, so we pushed deeper into the forest. We didn't think…" He trailed off, eyes flickering with remembered horror.
"You didn't think you'd find something stronger than you."
The man laughed bitterly. "Or that it would enjoy killing us."
Lin's eyes narrowed. He said nothing, but the thought echoed in his mind. The beast he'd fought wasn't just strong—it was wrong. Its movements, its aura, the black blood that steamed as it hit the ground—it all felt cursed. Unnatural.
"You won't survive the walk back in this condition," Lin said at last, rising to his feet and gently hoisting the unconscious hunter onto his back. "You'll rest at my shelter. We move when you're strong enough."
No one argued.
The journey back was slow. Lin led them through twisting paths only he seemed to know, his gaze darting constantly to the canopy above and the underbrush below. The forest had gone silent again—but not in peace. It felt like the world was holding its breath.
Something was watching them. Waiting.
It wasn't until the crude shape of Lin's shelter came into view that any of the hunters allowed themselves to exhale. Lin ushered them inside and laid them down gently. He lit the fire pit, its warmth casting long shadows across the wooden walls. The tension didn't fade.
After a while, the one-eyed hunter—Qingshan, he had called himself—finally broke the silence.
"That thing… it didn't just want to eat us. It played with us. Watched us crawl."
Lin nodded grimly. "It hunted for pleasure."
Qingshan's voice dropped. "Back in Red Willow, people talk. Rumors. Of beasts that don't bleed right. Of travelers vanishing. Elders say the seals are weakening."
Lin's brow furrowed. "Seals?"
Qingshan nodded. "Old ones. From before the Empire. Before this land was tamed. They say there were wars—dark ones. Cultivators who twisted beasts, who opened rifts. Some monsters were too dangerous to kill. So they were bound. Buried."
He looked at Lin Ziao, eyes haunted. "They say one of those places is beneath this forest."
Lin Ziao didn't reply. He stared into the fire, but his mind was somewhere else.
He'd felt it during meditation—the pull beneath his feet, like a heartbeat in the roots of the earth. A whisper that grew louder every time he trained with the scroll. He thought it was grief. Or madness. But maybe it was something worse.
He rose suddenly and stepped outside.
The clearing was still, the moonlight silver on the grass. And yet, something was off. The air tasted of copper. The leaves hung limp. There was no wind—but there was movement.
A flicker between the trees.
Lin's grip tightened around his spear. "Show yourself."
No answer.
He scanned the treeline, muscles tense. Then—a whisper.
"You smell of Qi, spear boy."
"Are you a cultivator?"
The voice was ancient. Cold. It didn't come from the trees or the wind, but from everywhere. Lin spun, but saw nothing.
"Who's there?" he demanded, voice sharp.
A chuckle followed—dry as cracked bone.
"Just a shadow. For now."
Silence returned.
Lin waited, every nerve alight. But whatever had spoken was gone—or hiding deeper than he could reach.
When he returned inside, the hunters looked up, faces pale, fear drawn tight across their features.
"You heard that too," one of them said. It wasn't a question.
Lin gave a single nod. "We leave at dawn."
"But—our wounds—" Qingshan began.
"I'll carry you if I must," Lin said. "We're not staying another night in this cursed grove."
He didn't say what he felt beneath the soil—that low, pulsing presence. That sense of something vast and buried, waking inch by inch.
That night, Lin didn't sleep.
He sat by the doorway, spear across his knees, watching the tree line for movement. The fire crackled softly behind him, but its warmth couldn't chase away the chill that had sunk into his bones.
He remembered his brother again.
The village fire. The friendship they'd both had . The promise that the powerless Lin Ziao had failed to keep.
He clenched his jaw.
He hadn't come to this forest just to escape. Deep down, he had been searching for something. Not redemption. Not even peace.
Purpose and strength.
And now, as the forest breathed around him, as whispers echoed from shadows with no source, he realized: he might have found it.
Whatever stirred beneath this land, whatever was clawing its way free, it was old—and it was hungry.