The forest was quieter now.
Not in the way that brought peace, but in the way that suggested something had passed through, something violent, something alive that had not yet left. The silence was a presence, thick and slow-moving, like the fog that clung to every limb and leaf. It wasn't emptiness. It was the stillness of breath held before a scream, of footsteps paused before a chase.
Xue Mo moved like a shadow through the trees, his breathing controlled, his steps deliberate. Blood still clung to his robes, though the worst of his wounds had been tended. His boot pressed into soft earth with each step, muffling his presence as he advanced eastward, away from the place he had nearly died.
His mind was calm. Not empty, but disciplined, pushing aside pain, fatigue, hunger. Emotions made the world too loud. He couldn't afford that here.
The sky above was veiled in mist, shafts of light barely making it through the woven canopy. Occasionally, a birdcall rang out, sharp and solitary, as if daring predators to answer. Xue Mo didn't respond. His eyes were steady, his hand never straying far from the hilt of his blade.
He crossed a shallow brook where fog rolled low over the surface. The water chilled his fingers, but he drank anyway, keeping alert for movement. Occasionally, his gaze scanned upward toward the canopy, his senses spread like a web.
He came across a corpse an hour later. A disciple, one of the outer sect, slumped near the base of a tree. His face was frozen in panic, his weapon missing. His neck had been broken.
Xue Mo knelt and inspected the body with clinical detachment. A few talismans remained in the boy's pouch. He took them. Also a spirit-nourishing pill, half used. He checked the corpse's belt and found two small knives and a roll of binding silk.
Useful.
He did not pray. Did not mourn. Only moved on.
Two more corpses came later, one mauled, the other half-consumed by something that had dug into the chest. Both bore jade plaques, darkened with death. Xue Mo took the still-intact weapons, three minor pills, and a vial of beast repellent one had forgotten to use.
Again, he moved on.
The trees grew thicker the deeper he went. Branches snagged at his sleeves. Brambles tugged at his legs. The scent of blood had long since blended into the damp, earthy musk of the forest floor.
He didn't dare cultivate. The energy would attract beasts. His current state demanded subtlety, not strength.
But his technique...
He drew out a strip of beast flesh from a pouch, wrapped in blood-soaked cloth. It pulsed faintly with residual Qi. Drawing a knife, he carved a symbol onto his palm and smeared the blood across it.
The mark glowed briefly, then faded into his skin. His breathing steadied. The technique gave him clarity, not raw power, not yet. Beast blood sustained it for now, though he knew the effect would weaken with each use.
Normal blood would become less effective soon.
He pressed onward.
Hours passed. Then more.
He stopped only to mark a tree or apply blood to wounds that needed binding. He picked leaves known for their numbing properties, chewing one slowly as he walked. Once, he found a fang buried in the soil, still stained red. He pocketed it.
The forest began to thin in parts, revealing the occasional broken pillar, remnants of old structures consumed by time. He paused once beneath an overgrown archway, reading the faded runes carved into its surface. It spoke of a shrine long lost, of those who offered blood to gain strength.
Xue Mo understood the irony. Or perhaps it was fate.
He left a symbol there, etched faintly into stone. Not a message. A promise.
Elsewhere in the forest…
Wei Zhi crouched by a tree, one hand braced against the bark as he breathed heavily. His eyes were distant. Liang Fu and Luo Tan stood nearby with two new disciples they'd met, Shao Lin, a spear-user with a quiet mouth, and Nara, a girl with too many scars and too few words.
They'd joined forces after a close encounter with a pack of bone-wolves. Strength in numbers.
But something was different.
Luo Tan was the first to notice.
"Hey," he said, nudging Wei Zhi. "You're quiet. Unnervingly so. What's going on in that little talisman-making head of yours?"
Wei Zhi looked up. His eyes were sharper now. Colder.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "Something inside me feels… like it's waking up. Like I'd been bound, and now the bindings are cracking."
Liang Fu raised a brow. "Are you okay?"
Wei Zhi stood. "I don't know. But I'm not afraid anymore."
There was no drama in his voice. Just fact.
Nara glanced at him. "You sound like someone who's seen death and decided it wasn't that scary after all."
Wei Zhi gave a small, humorless smile. "Maybe I did."
Luo Tan exchanged a glance with Nara, who shrugged. Then he said, "Well, scary version of you might just help us stay alive."
Wei Zhi didn't respond. He looked east.
Later, as night crept in, the group made camp near the roots of a large tree whose bark peeled in spiral patterns. Luo Tan took first watch. Liang Fu sharpened his blade quietly. Shao Lin cleaned his spear. Nara leaned against a stone, eyes closed but alert.
Wei Zhi sat apart, fingers playing over a talisman. It didn't glow like usual. Instead, it pulsed faintly, as if responding to something deeper.
He wasn't sure what was changing inside him.
But he knew it had started the moment they left Xue Mo behind.
---
Xue Mo found a small cliff and climbed it, using a rope tied from scavenged gear. From the top, he could see a distant ruin—pillars half-collapsed, overtaken by vines.
The ruin reeked of old power.
He descended, left no trail, and continued.
His path would not intersect the others yet.
But fate was turning.
And when it did, blood would follow.