By the time Chu Feng reached the foot of the mountain, the forest had thickened, and each step forward was swallowed by a deeper silence.
There was the moon looming in the sky that illuminated the path he threaded upon.
He was alert, and just as the hunter's memories advised—sometimes he was crawling low beneath the bramble, sometimes hiding behind reeds.
Before he knew it, he had already attempted several hunts, creeping close to squirrels gnawing on nuts or rabbits grazing in the moon-dappled grass.
Each time, the outcome was the same.
The animals darted away the moment he drew near—faster than his hand could grab, faster than his rusted knife could ever strike. Their senses were far sharper than he'd anticipated.
After several fruitless attempts, weariness crept into his limbs. His knees ached, his breath came in quiet huffs, and a sheen of sweat clung to his back despite the cool night air.
Maybe I took this too lightly, he thought grimly.
Before he arrived on the mountain, he had once felt he could be like the hunter. That he could display the same exceptional skills the hunter had, but imaginations are always far too disappointing when brought to the light of reality.
He had inherited the hunter's memories, yes—but not his body, nor his finely honed instincts earned through years of survival.
In his memory, the hunter had been successful in the hunting field, so much so that jealousy from his peers had cost him his life.
His haters had schemed against him, accused him forcedly and got him killed by the jurisdictions.
If Chu Feng was just like that hunter.
But he had only absorbed the knowledge but lacked the experience.
Knowledge alone, he now realized, wasn't enough.
With a frustrated sigh, Chu Feng slumped onto the damp forest floor, leaning back against the roots of a tree. He was panting lightly, both from exertion and discouragement.
"I can't even catch a single damn rabbit…" he muttered. Just as he finished speaking,
Rustle.
The faint sound snapped his eyes wide.
He sprang to his feet, heart pounding.
From a nearby patch of tall grass, a rabbit emerged—its white fur gleaming under a sliver of moonlight and it nibbled on a stalk, unaware of the eyes locked onto it.
Chu Feng instantly dropped low, his body nearly pressed to the ground as he crept forward. Slowly. Silently.
But the rabbit's ears suddenly twitched and it looked up.
Its black eyes met his.
They stared at each other—man and beast—caught in a silent standoff.
Then, without warning—
Swoosh.
The rabbit vanished in a blur.
Chu Feng's eyes twitched.
It's happening again.
But he wasn't going to let it go. Not this time.
Fueled by desperation, he launched into a frantic chase, crashing through the underbrush.
The rabbit bolted ahead, zigzagging through the grass. When it gained a wide distance, the rabbit suddenly paused just long enough to glance back at him, as if taunting him to catch up.
Chu Feng's lungs burned. His legs ached. But rage kept him moving.
Each time there is distance between them, the rabbit would pause and let him get closer to it. Then before Chu Feng could reach it with his hands, the rabbit would dodge and dart off at an even astonishing speed.
Leaving him behind to grab the air.
Is this thing… playing with me?
That thought pushed him further in rage. He could not believe the rabbit was using him for its amusement.
That thought infuriated him further and he wished nothing more than to catch it, wring its neck and boil it to a delicious soup. Then he would taunt it to play with him like it had done before.
Along the chase, Chu Feng noticed how the forest was growing darker around him, and how the moonlight was closing up in the sky by the overhead trees.
He stopped coming to an early realization before he could go further deeper. But even at that, the area was now denser than the primary side of the mountain he had come from.
The rabbit made another stop again, looking back.
But this time, Chu Feng didn't pursue it.
When the rabbit saw this, with disappointment, it vanished into the bush.
Chu Feng stood alone rooted to the spot, sweat slid down his temple as he glanced around and realized—he had no idea where he was anymore.
The trees were too dense. There were no obvious trails, no landmarks. Just brush and shadow. He looked behind him to the direction he seemed to have come from, and he panicked more.
Even though he had come from that direction, his mark did not seem to fall on a path… There's no trail…
Chu Feng swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.
He remembered from Ye Feng's memory that there are beasts in the mountains that are very dangerous. And there are even some with cultivation bases like humans that are more dangerous than the others.
He remembered that the ones with cultivation bases are always territorial and sentinel, they usually do not take lightly others intruding or invading into their space.
As he stood battering with various thoughts in his head, then…
BOOM!
Suddenly a thunderous crash shook the ground beneath him.
Chu Feng's heart rose and dropped as he almost fell on his feet.
He saw the resting birds burst from treetops as they flew away and the cracked trees.
Something had exploded before him, clearing a wide area of bush and tree. The moonlight that had once been overshadowed spilled down through the gap.
Chu Feng's heart would not stop hammering in his chest.
He stood frozen, torn between running and hiding.
After a few tense seconds, the noise subsided. The forest fell silent again, eerily so.
When his heart was calm, Chu Feng decided to check that spot.
It was just a few distance ahead and that part already had moonlight dropping to its ground.
Very cautiously, he moved behind tree barks and reeds, till he was at a safe distance where he could clearly see the view of the scene before him
He peered from behind a thick trunk.
His eyes widened.
There, in a gully that was freshly carved into the earth by some immense force, lay two bodies—lifeless, unmoving.
The ground around them was scorched and torn. The power that had done this was more than he could ever imagine.
Chu Feng's breath caught in his throat.
What sort of power?
He squinted his eyes and then he was able to make out the outline of the bodies.
One body was human and the other was some kind of beast.
Chu Feng's breath hitched.
But he didn't emerge from his hiding place. Not yet. His eyes stayed locked on the scene, scanning every detail, analyzing the aftermath.
From the looks of it, the two must have engaged in a fierce, bitter battle. But then, he hadn't heard any sign of their struggle earlier, no clashing, or sound, the deafening blast had just happened like that.
That meant that their blows had likely been exchanged from a distance, and the residue of their powers was enough to hurl their bodies here. Even causing a gully and blowing the trees away.
Chu Feng's thoughts spun.
How much strength is that, to have carved a gully through the ground and shattered the trees above?
He didn't have a cultivation base. He could only make rough guesses.
"They must've reached… Qi manipulator stage," he whispered, making his assumption based on the highest cultivation he yet knew.
He did not know if there were levels far beyond it.
Still seeing no movement from the bodies, Chu Feng finally stepped from behind the tree—his legs stiff with fear. His heart pounded against his chest. He crept cautiously, eyes darting in every direction, fingers wrapped on the hilt of his dull, rusty knife.
As he made his way down the slope, he noticed some scattered dead animals. Some were mangled, some intact, clearly they had been caught in the aftermath of the earlier explosion.
He blinked in disbelief.
He had spent hours chasing game, humiliated by a rabbit—yet here they lie without effort.
These animals wouldn't have expected what had come upon them. They wouldn't have even gotten a chance to run, he thought. They were just unlucky to be in the area where death was lurking.
Then he thought of something, he had actually been chasing the rabbit from a minute ago and this area had been where their chase was headed. He could also have been caught in the aftermath.
Realizing this, his forehead dropped even more.
But when he saw the dead animals that littered the ground again, a small part of him was pleased. He could at least salvage something from this mess.
He would return for those once that are still intact, but for now… the gully drew his attention like a flame lures a moth.
He inched closer.
He saw the human wearing an elegant, silken robe that was already smeared with earth, and covered with blood. He must be from one of those well known families, or maybe he is from a sect. Chu Feng thought.
And the beast lying next to the man, when Chu Feng saw it clearly, his body shook.
This was no ordinary creature.
It was a tiger covered in thick, dark green scales.
Its tail was not a normal tail but a complete serpent with a head, eyes, and fangs.
The tiger's body, even though it was covered with scales, was battered and bruised. A testament to how brutal the battle between it and the human.
Chu Feng leaned in closer, trying to make sense of what kind of monster this was.
But he shouldn't have done so.
Because while his mind churned with curiosity, a shadow slithered behind him.
It was the tail serpent that had crawled behind him.
Hissss.
Chu Feng turned too late.
Sink!
Fangs plunged into his arm.
"AAARGH!"
His scream tore through the forest, echoing, then fading like it had never existed. Pain exploded up his body. He staggered backward, but the serpent's jaw locked down harder. Its eyes were cold and lifeless
How could Chu Feng have expected that the tail was still very much alive even when the tiger was dead?
It seemed like the tail itself had a different mind of its own.
The pain was blinding as the serpent venom spread from his arm to his bloodstream like wildfire.
Chu Feng thrashed violently, trying to dislodge the serpent tail, but it wouldn't let go. In desperation, he reached for his rusty knife and just stabbed wildly.
By pure luck, the blade plummets into the serpent's eyes.
With a screeching hiss, the tail spasmed, then released its bite.
It flopped to the ground—lifeless at last.
Chu Feng collapsed.
He should've felt relief, but he didn't.
His arm throbbed. His veins turned a sickly red. His chest heaved as his breath grew shallow, erratic. The venom was spreading faster than he could comprehend—racing toward his heart.
He clutched at his chest, vision blurring.
As the venom moved in his body, his consciousness unknowingly trail behind the venom's movement.
As his consciousness followed, the venom passed within his mind-space, charging toward the suspended orbs. Which were the eight remaining orbs remaining from the nine that had once been.
He had already integrated with the tiniest one— the hunter's memory, which had vanished after he did.
As the venom came in contact with those orbs, one by one, they shattered. The venom tore through them like wind through paper.
When it reached the largest orb, half of it only cracked, while the rest simply disintegrated.
Had Chu Feng been lucid, he would have been horrified. That orb had once threatened to erase his existence entirely. Yet now… half of it had crumbled without effort while the half that remained was cracked.
His consciousness passed through the space the other orbs had once been and eventually came in contact with a cracked half part of the bigger orb, surprisingly, his consciousness went through it without resistance, integrating with him effortlessly.
But it was pointless. The venom had already reached his heart where it struck violently the most, and it felt like every fiber of his heart was been torn apart.
He gasped. His body jerked violently on the ground. His heartbeat surged into a frantic, irregular drumbeat. Pain lanced through him, far beyond anything he had ever known.
He screamed again but no matter how loud he did, it was futile. The forest kept swallowing his voice like he never cried.
His thoughts began to scatter.
And in the final moments, as the edges of consciousness began to blur, one image returned with startling clarity:
A small, gentle smile. A pair of wide, trusting eyes. A voice calling him Big brother Chu Feng.
"Ling'er…" he whispered hoarsely.
Tears pricked the corners of his eyes.
She'll be alone again…
He had promised to protect her. Promised to take care of her.
But now… it was all empty promise.
No one to hold her hand, no one to keep her safe in this brutal world. She wouldn't even know what had happened to him, where he had been, she would think he had just vanished like that.
Regret surged through him.
If only he had turned back… if only he had been satisfied with the dead games and not approached the gully…
But it was too late.
He writhed on the forest floor, lips trembling, his body spasming from the venom's violent rampage. He bit his tongue, thrashed, fought back with every ounce of will—
—but it was all in vain.