The winds howled in the midst of silence
There was neither moon nor stars in the sky making the silhouette of the trees blend and merge in the darkness itself.
But in a forest with no animals or insects rang out the sounds of frantic panting of a man from all those running
What was he running from?
That man didn't know either, the darkness swallowed the man along with whatever it was escaping from
Despite his knees giving out, despite his nails bleeding from digging dirt over and over after falling constantly
He ran, without direction, gasping for air with his burning heart
Clawing his way through the overgrown paths of the dark forest
"Ugh!"
Hitting the roots with his feet he almost fell once more, but managed to steady himself by grabbing the barks of some tree,
His head was dizzy, he wasn't sure if he was even getting enough air despite all the gasping or if it was just from blood loss
All those impacts from the previous fall were finally hitting him,
But even if his feet were raw
Because, if he stopped, it would catch up to him
The fear from that kept him going for hours on end in that maze of a forest, but no matter how much or where he ran, he could feel the dread reaching to his legs,
It didn't take long for him to finally realise he was being toyed with.
Through exhaustion, through torn lips he continued,
Because... He couldn't forget the expressions of his seniors as they sent him off.
The least he could do was run till his breath ceased.
His seniors...
Thinking about them he could only chew his already raw lips,
Before he could at least hear the distant sounds of fight but now it was pure silence
His seniors...
He squeezed his eyes shut
He had to get reinforcement.
He no longer had his sword, nor any materials,
He had thrown them all away to be more quick
But... despair was catching up to him
The faster he ran, the closer the being felt
Almost as if it was just biding it's time to finally grab him by his ankle and drag him through dirt.
The young cultivator was wet from his sweat and blood, dirt stuck to him like maggots to a rotting body
his hands were cut, bruised and split but he couldn't care less about the state of his body anymore.
After all he had long lost his feelings from knees down
Since at some point, even his shoes had to be discarded
But he didn't care,
Whether his feet were raw from running or not, he couldn't even care about leaving traces of blood nor skin anymore
As he had been running for so long without ever reaching the end of this cursed forest
Still he wished.
Only wished to get out of the damn forest, to get reinforcements,
He hoped that his seniors were still breathing somewhere,
But seeing how that thing was now after him...
Still he shrugged off all those thoughts,
His chest was beating so fast that he might fall over and die at any moment, his whole body felt like it was being burned through
While running he scrounged through his robes to access the signal for backup
He knew that his seniors being alive was very unlikely, but he had already ceased to think reasonably, and to a dying man, any thread of hope was as precious as a drop of water to a man dying of thirst
And for him, that drop of water was the hope of his seniors being alive.
In all this, a single thought echoed in his mind over and over
Why is it happening to us?
They only wanted to explore a little to catch some spiritual beasts
Why had it turned to this?
...
A couple of hours back
The sun was shining high in the sky,
There was still a lot of sun left before nightfall
During our stay in Fengrao Port
Seniors had suggested I do some practice even though we had more or less come to just enjoy the upcoming harvest festival,
And that's how I ended up being dragged along by them to a nearby forest.
They said it was to teach me some secret techniques and give me pointers that'll help me advance more efficiently, well I couldn't say no, since I did want to advance my cultivation a bit faster
Shizun told me that I was quick to learn but I still couldn't break through the mid foundation stage so it made me a little discouraged
I glanced at the four seniors in front of me,
They were all chatting amongst themselves
Maybe seniors had realised that and wanted to cheer me up
It made me a bit happy.
Halfway through the quest of teaching me techniques changed to hunting spiritual beasts after hearing rumours about them as we passed by some folks from the mountains.
The west being known for their spiritual abundance didn't disappoint, but we only came across low level beasts maybe because we didn't go too deep into the forest
No wonder both the Serene Jade sect and the Blazing Phoenix sect shared this territory,
But it was still fascinating, to see two different sects in such harmony it was nothing short of amazing
Having grown near the east despite my mother being from the Serene jade sect I still couldn't believe it, especially seeing it with my own eyes despite hearing about it for so long
Shizun lived with us and he wasn't much of a talker, which was pretty boring, but the seniors here were all very talkative, after only knowing them all for a month or two i could say we were very close, it made me wonder if having siblings was similar to this
While we began exploring deeper we happened to come across some remains of what seemed to have been a carrier cart
One of my seniors decided to examine it himself, as the bandits seemed to have grown more active in the mountains and forests with the upcoming harvest festival.
"When will these bandits learn to fucking rest"
Senior Jun complained,
"It appears that the attack happened a while back"
Senior Li concluded his examination,
"And watch your mouth in front of a kid" he slapped senior Jun's back as he stood up,
While these two began bickering like usual, one of the seniors shrugged it off and placed his arms around my shoulder leading me away from them
Until he stopped only four steps in
On the ground was some dried up spilled liquid
Senior frowned, mumbling
"Old blood"
Hearing that, senior Li and Jun stopped their bickering
When they saw this, another senior found a different spot
Where the grass was dyed filthy in blood
The blood on this spot was splattered on the ground in large amounts unlike the first one we found
It was undoubtedly a fatal amount for a common folk
Even for cultivators, what they saw was an alarming amount of blood loss
Finding a faint trail, we decided to follow it.
As it seemed the victim had tried to go somewhere else after the attack
Senior Jun clicked his tongue while we followed the trail,
"These damn bandits"
He cursed under his breath,
I couldn't help but nod to that sentiment,
We followed it for a while however, it vanished after walking some meters deeper into the forest
We found no remains of a body, or even anything that implied one where it vanished.
It just... Disappeared
It was quite odd.
Soon a shiver ran down my spine as the surroundings felt colder.
We had ventured deeper than intended without realising
While the forest was calm, almost eerily so,
There were no signals of life, no chirping of birds, nor any buzzes or whines of insects
When I turned to look at my seniors it seemed they found it odd as well, even I realised that there must be something that lived here that drove all animals away.
Senior Li frowned immediately,
"Something's off about this place, we should report it to the elders"
The others remained silent,
"Let's return to our inn for now"
"Hey"
Senior Jun spoke up,
"Don't you think a high level beast might live here?"
Those words made all five of us pause, including me
To a cultivator what was more important than their cultivation?
"Hey what are you implying-" senior Li furrowed his brows,
"Tsk"
He approached senior Li "what I mean is, we should kill it ourselves and take the materials, no?"
He turned his head towards me,
"Look, when will our Xiao Han get another opportunity to see a high level beast? I mean sure he will eventually get there but let's perform a little for our dear junior, no?"
This made everyone go quiet
But I could see Senior Li's displeasure,
"We don't know what type of beast it is nor its class, it's too dangerous"
He stepped forward and argued,
"And we don't even know if it's an actual beast like you suggested"
As excited as I was by senior Jun's words meeting senior Li's eyes as he said those words made me hesitate
What he was saying was true
Mother also always said,
"A cultivator's soul always comes first before their cultivation. If it's lost, what use is one's hard earned cultivation?"
But the other senior only scoffed in response,
"If you're scared go ahead, we'll just share it amongst ourselves "
The other seniors also seemed to hesitate a bit but eventually sided with him.
"And if not a beast, you think that corpse would just suck back their blood and leave?"
"Yeah right" he scoffed at that Senior Li
I was almost taken aback by Senior Jun's words, I knew that he was quite straightforward with his words but it was still very... forward.
Although we just saw some blood and remains of a cart he had already assumed the other person was a "corpse"... I still couldn't quite get used to his indifference to a person's death
As mother was a healer
But I wasn't moved when I saw those bloods either so I guess I was the same.
Even if we found no body or signals of the victim's death there was no way they survived after that amount of blood loss, so I guess it was fair to refer to them as a "corpse"
Seeing senior Li grit his teeth, I felt a pang of guilt as he stood without saying anything
But I didn't want to go back just yet, as Senior Jun said, if it was a high level beast, its materials would certainly help me advance faster and maybe... Shizun would be proud of me too
As a new cultivator, high level materials rarely came my way, they were all given or snagged by others with better cultivation
All my friends began cultivation early unlike me
I want to catch up to them
Seeing me silent, Senior Li clenched and unclenched his fist
"Fine" he spat out and turned around to leave
Seeing that as I was already overwhelmed with guilt despite not wanting to return, I tried to stop him
While the other seniors couldn't care less
he merely looked at me with a defeated smile before handing me something,
A distress signal.
"Use it if you run into trouble"
He pressed it onto my palms,
"I'll be back with more seniors, try not to fall behind when you follow them okay?"
He messed up my hair,
"Remember, safety first, okay?"
He smiled then left the forest, i could only watch his silhouette disappear as he got further away from our location
My chest felt troubled, but I soon caught up with my other seniors, they were waiting for me it seems,
Soon they started trying to trace the beast, and during that I just watched from afar,
When I tried to help they just laughed at me and told me to stand guard for some wild animals
All while knowing there weren't any because of that damn beast.
It seems that they were having some trouble, but it only made sense since he did say that it could be a high class spiritual beasts
They were known for being quite intelligent, maybe they had sensed danger and hidden itself
"Xiao Han hurry over!"
As I was lost in my own thoughts a senior waved his hand calling me over,
And that's how we ended up exploring even deeper into the forest,
The longer we went, the louder the silence seemed
I couldn't help but keep caressing the distress signal senior left me unconsciously
Before I realised it, my body had begun tensing up over the smallest movement, the sound of leaves, the graze of the wind and finally my own heart beat.
It was beating faster than usual as something crept up within my stomach.
Then finally we exited the dense forest, and in the distance a small cottage stood alone.
We had reached the middle of the forest.
The sun was already setting in the beyond
Too much time had passed within the forest looking for the supposed beast
But, it was a little weird, I didn't realise so much time had passed as it only seemed a couple hours after we stepped into the mountain
I could've sworn it hadn't been that long since Senior Li left the forest
Hmm?
As I was deep in my thoughts, I felt a sense of relief?
As if something had gotten off my shoulder
I hadn't realised I had been that tense--
Suddenly, a senior moved his hands before me in a flash,
"Back off"
His voice sounded very serious as he firmly said those two words, and that was when a long chilling whistle was heard
All the hairs of my body stood up
"Senior what is happening"
'quiet'
Senior Jun pressed his fingers against his lips signalling me to remain quiet
They wore serious expressions, I couldn't understand why they all suddenly changed so fast. What was happening?
And soon, the sun fell down, and darkness enveloped the sky.
Blinding me with the dark
It seemed the beast had come out of its hiding, that was the only possible explanation, but I didn't know that it could control shadows?
Senior lit up one of his talismans, helping us see better
Sure some beasts could control shadows but to this extent?
What exactly was it?
To that, I got my answer quite soon
Soon our vision stirred, the faraway house we saw before was no longer there
One of the seniors quickly grabbed me by my wrist, bringing my attention to him, I could see the distress on his face
I didn't have to know anything to realise that something was very wrong
They had all drawn their weapons
As I tried to follow suit he quickly stopped me,
"Leave"
They said sternly
And that was when I finally realised, it wasn't a spiritual beast.
I would've tried to argue but seeing those serious looks I couldn't bring myself to, after all, I still hadn't entered the mid foundation stage,
So I knew I wouldn't be much help but being told to leave in such situations still stung
However, before senior could open his mouth again, the air quickly grew heavy and in a distance i caught a glimpse as a form stepped out of the pitch dark shadow
I felt utterly overwhelmed but it's presence alone,
There was no way I could help,
That's when I understood why seniors were in such a rush
And at this point, nobody had any time left to be talking
Pushing me away immediately with all he had to get me as far as possible
"Run! We'll handle this"
He said with a rough smile but I could see his expression waver
I squeezed the firework signal, and quickly got up on my feet,
Leaving my seniors with whatever that being was
I ran and ran, but the forest made me dizzy, I didn't know where to go, I could hardly see anything, I didn't have good visions in the dark unlike my seniors, I could hardly do anything at that time too,
I was so useless.
I bit my lips
I am so useless.
I sprinted towards the direction we first came,
my chest raced so quickly that it almost made me want to keel over
The forest was so big, that my face was heating up from all that running,
Nevertheless, I had to run as fast as possible, as far as possible and call for support, but I couldn't fire it here, it would get stuck or muffled by the branches and leaves
I had to get out of the forest, or at least get to a more open place
I had to be quick, seniors were strong, really strong but anxiousness still devoured my heart,
And that anxiety soon seeped into my brains
Running like a headless chicken, I bumped into tress, I crashed into stones, however hurt I was, as soon as I remembered those uneasy look of seniors as they told me to escape I felt my heart squeeze in anxiety
My shoulder was burning, my other leg was limping, however the dread instead of growing fainter grew stronger than before, almost as if it was just some distance behind me.
And finally, I got to the same place where we separated,
I could no longer run,
The creeping feeling I had been burying since before rooted itself into certainty.
I was going to die
I pulled out the distress signal, trying to fire it as quick as possible despite my failing breath and my fading vision from exhaustion
Then,
I heard footsteps behind me.
The smell of blood crushing my stomach
Turning my head to the side,
I saw a smile.
" Found you "
...
I wonder when the sun had gotten so bright,
Sitting with a cup of tea in my hand, I gazed outside,
'i wonder if he's awake'
I thought of the child that I had picked up in the north,
"Tea not to your liking?"
Chen Fang raised his hand,
"I'm sure you were quite fond of these leaves just a couple decades ago or did your taste change?"
He narrowed his eyes with that distasteful smile of his,
The same one that made me mistake him for a scammer when we first met
"Nothing of that sort"
The steam rose from the cup, taking it in, I took a sip from the cup
The warmth spreading and melting within my mouth
Closing my eyes, I asked
"How is Shizun?"