The mountains of Yǎnyù Valley had always been a place of silence and secrets. Ancient pines clawed at the cliffsides, their roots tangled in stone like veins of the earth itself. Mist clung to the peaks even at midday, swallowing the shouts of the teenagers training below. Their fists cracked against wooden dummies, their feet scuffing the dirt of the courtyard—a rhythm as old as the martial arts school they attended.
Liu Jian, the eldest of the group at seventeen, paused mid-kick. A low hum vibrated in his molars, subtle but wrong, like the growl of a beast leagues underground. He glanced at his friends: Meili, her braid whipping as she spun; Hiroto, his wooden staff a blur; Aisha and Ravi, locked in a grappling stance. None of them seemed to notice.
Then the sky split.
A streak of emerald fire tore through the clouds, silent at first, as though the world had muted itself in dread. The ground shuddered. Birds erupted from the trees in a cacophony of wings. The seven teens froze, eyes wide, as the fireball crashed into the northern ridge with a thunderclap that shook dust from the temple roofs.
——
They shouldn't have gone. The headmaster had forbidden leaving the compound after sundown. But curiosity, that sly serpent, had coiled tight around their throats. By moonlight, they picked their way through the forest, flashlights darting like nervous fireflies. The air reeked of burnt metal and something sharper, acidic, that made their eyes water.
"This is stupid," whispered Yumi, the youngest, her tanto knife glinting in her grip. "That was no meteor."
"Then what?" challenged Ravi, his usual smirk strained. "Government tech? Rival schools?"
"Quiet," Liu Jian hissed.
The trees thinned. Ahead, the mountainside was scarred—a jagged trench plowed through rock and soil, steaming faintly. At its end lay the wreck.
It wasn't human.
The ship—if it could be called that—resembled a gutted leviathan, its hull blackened and iridescent, like beetle shell charred in a fire. Organic curves melded with jagged spines, as though grown rather than built. Parts of it shimmered, half-visible, like a mirage. Hiroto reached to touch a protruding strut.
"Don't." Aisha yanked his wrist back. "Look."
Fluid dripped from a gash in the hull—thick, phosphorescent green. Where it pooled, the soil hissed and blackened.
Meili gagged. "Are those… eggs?"
They edged closer. Embedded in the ship's ruptured belly were dozens of leathery ovoids, each nearly three feet tall, their surfaces veined and pulsing faintly. One had cracked open, its edges curled outward like the petals of a grotesque flower.
Ravi leaned in. "What's inside—"
A shadow moved.
Something fall from the ship. The thing that dropped from the ship's underbelly was a nightmare of angles—taller than any man, armored in segmented plates that clicked like insect carapace. Its face… Liu Jian would dream of that face: mandibles splayed in a permanent snarl, eyes burning amber beneath a domed crest. It staggered, one clawed hand pressed to its ribs where oily blood seeped.
The predator—for it could be nothing else—growled. A sound that bypassed the ears and vibrated straight into the bone. Its free hand rose, and light erupted from a gauntlet—a hologram flickering above its wrist. Stars. A star map. Then Earth, rotating, as a dozen crimson dots bloomed across its surface.
"Invasion," breathed Hiroto.
The creature snarled, jerking its head toward the cracked egg. The hologram shifted: a spindling, serpentine creature, its jaws lamprey-like, tail barbed. Then humans, their bodies contorting, chests bursting—
Meili retched. The predator slammed its fist against the ship. A compartment hissed open, revealing seven vials filled with swirling black liquid. It gestured fiercely at the teens, then at the vials.
"It… wants us to take them?" Yumi said.
Aisha stepped forward. "What are they?"
The predator's answering roar shook the air. It seized a vial, plunged it into its own thigh. For a heartbeat, nothing. Then its body rippled—scales erupted across its skin, claws lengthened, eyes blazing crimson. It became more.
"DNA," Liu Jian realized. "It's a weapon. To fight them."
The creature convulsed suddenly, collapsing against the ship. With its last strength, it hurled the vials at their feet. One shattered. The liquid inside writhed like living shadow before dissolving into the soil.
Then the eggs began to hatch.
——
They ran. Behind them, a skittering—a sound like knives on stone. They didn't see the spider-limbed creatures that boiled from the wreck, nor the way their hooked tails arched high, ready to strike. They didn't see the predator's final act—a detonation that lit the valley in actinic blue, incinerating the ship and half the forest.
By the time they realised what's happening they were hit by the shockwaves and thrown into distance.
When they wakeup from dizziness they realise half off the forest is gone. Lu jian saw his friends are also injured. But all the potion remain intact. So he decided to gamble to take the potion.
But they felt the vials burn in their hands. Felt the power inside, hungry and primal.
And in the ashes, as dawn bled across the sky, Liu Jian pressed his palm to a wounded wolf they found whimpering in the rubble. The vial at his neck flared. Shadows engulfed him—and when they cleared, the others gasped.
Where Liu Jian had stood, there now crouched a wolf, its eyes blazing human and feral all at once.