Hunter woke to silence.
Not peaceful silence. The wrong kind. The kind that happened when every bird, insect, and small creature in the forest decided simultaneously that being anywhere else was a better survival strategy.
He sat up. The doll fell from his shirt where he'd tucked it. He caught it reflexively, careful not to crush it with his stupid Foundation Realm strength that still felt like wearing someone else's hands.
Dawn was breaking. Purple and gold light filtered through the trees. Beautiful. The kind of morning poets wrote about.
Instead, it got squirrels and murder.
Probably in that order.
[LUNA] GOOD MORNING! (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧
[LUNA] BIG DAY TODAY
[LUNA] VERY EXCITING
[LUNA] 73% CHANCE OF DISMEMBERMENT ♥
"That's oddly specific."
[LUNA] I RAN THE NUMBERS [LUNA] TWICE [LUNA] BECAUSE I COULDN'T BELIEVE THEM THE FIRST TIME [LUNA] YOU'RE REALLY BAD AT THIS ♥
"Thanks for the confidence boost."
[LUNA] ALSO THE SQUIRRELS ARE HERE [LUNA] LIKE, RIGHT NOW [LUNA] SURROUNDING THE CAMP [LUNA] YOU SLEPT THROUGH THEIR APPROACH [LUNA] VERY PROFESSIONAL (◕‿◕✿)
Hunter's spiritual sense exploded outward. One mile radius. Scanning.
Oh. Oh no.
Red-Maple Shadow Squirrels. Everywhere. Like someone had taken "too many squirrels" and multiplied it by nightmare. They'd formed a perfect perimeter around the camp during the night. Closing in with patience that suggested tactical genius or petty revenge.
Probably both.
This wasn't a random attack. This was warfare. This was "we're going to eat your face slowly while maintaining eye contact" levels of personal.
"HAN!" Hunter stood, grabbed his rusty sword. "THEY'RE HERE!"
The camp exploded into motion. Han was already up, already armored, spear in hand. The man probably slept standing up with his eyes open like some kind of paranoid horse.
Or didn't sleep at all. Just stood there. Waiting. Judging. Planning violence.
Hunter had never seen him yawn. Maybe he didn't need sleep. Maybe sleep was for the weak.
Everything was for the weak according to Han.
"Positions!" Han's voice cut through the panic. "Exactly like we practiced! Refugees inside the cave! Combatants to your assigned posts! If anyone dies doing something stupid, I'm bringing you back to life just to kill you again properly! MOVE!"
The refugees scrambled. They'd drilled this evacuation seventeen times over six days. Knew exactly where to go. Families vanished into the cave like water down a drain. The able-bodied grabbed weapons—sharpened sticks, rocks, optimism—all equally useless against spirit beasts.
Tao, Xuan, and Lex rushed to Hunter's side. All three looked like they were about to throw up or cry or both simultaneously.
"Master," Tao said, voice shaking. "We're ready."
Hunter studied them. At Tao who'd probably punch himself in the face at least twice during the fight. At Xuan who'd trip over his own feet while dodging. At Lex who might actually die from anxiety before any squirrel touched him.
"You're not ready. I'm not ready. Nobody is ready. But we're doing it anyway because the alternative is getting eaten by rodents and that's embarrassing." Hunter tried to look confident. Failed miserably. "Stay behind me. Protect the refugees. Don't try to be heroes. Heroes die first. Be cowards who live. That's the goal."
"What about you, Master?" Xuan asked.
"I'm going to do something incredibly stupid that will either work brilliantly or kill me in a hilarious way." Hunter checked his sword. Still rusty. Still questionable. Still the only weapon he had. "Do not, under any circumstances, copy anything I do. I'm making it up as I go and hoping Foundation Realm cultivation compensates for complete lack of planning."
"That's not inspiring, Master."
"It's honest. Honesty is important when you're about to die."
The little girl appeared. She should have been in the cave with the others, hiding behind adults and safety and reasonable life choices. Instead, she walked up to Hunter with the kind of calm that suggested she either had complete faith or had accepted death already.
Seven-year-olds shouldn't look like that. But here they were.
"The doll," she said, holding out her hand.
"I thought this was for luck."
"You don't need luck. You need to remember." She took the doll back, tucked it safely into her dress like it was the most precious thing in the world. Because to her, it was. "Remember what you're fighting for."
Then she did something that made Hunter's chest crack open and his brain short-circuit and his carefully maintained emotional distance crumble like wet paper.
She stood on her tiptoes. Too short. He was too tall. She made an impatient noise—the first childish sound he'd heard from her in days—and grabbed his face with both hands, yanking him down to her level with surprising strength for a seven-year-old.
The kiss landed on his cheek. Sticky. Definitely breakfast residue. Probably rice. Maybe some fruit.
It was the most important kiss of his life.
"Win," she whispered.
Not a request. A command.
The tone of a disappointed parent telling a child to clean their room, except the room was a battlefield and cleaning involved not dying to squirrels.
Hunter's throat closed. His chest tightened. Words died before reaching his mouth.
Then she ran to the cave before he could respond, before he could promise something he couldn't deliver, before he could point out her faith was misplaced.
[LUNA] OH MY GOD (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ [LUNA] THAT'S IT [LUNA] THAT'S THE MOMENT [LUNA] IF YOU DIE NOW I'M GOING TO BE SO MAD [LUNA] LIKE, I'LL RESURRECT YOU JUST TO KILL YOU AGAIN MAD [LUNA] THEN RESURRECT YOU AGAIN TO YELL AT YOUR CORPSE ♥
Not dying. That would make this tragic, and he'd had enough tragedy for one transmigration.
Hunter walked to the front of the defensive line. The barriers they'd built looked pathetic in the morning light.
Sharpened stakes that would stop three squirrels. Ditches that would inconvenience seven more. Obstacles that would delay the swarm for twelve seconds.
Two days of work. Seventeen arguments. Three injuries.
Twelve seconds of protection.
Return on investment: terrible.
Qiu Hengdao would be horrified by these numbers.
Han joined him, spear planted in the ground like he was posing for a dramatic painting. "Two hundred minimum. Maybe three hundred. Hard to count when they're moving like that." He paused. "Hard to care about exact numbers when 'way too many' is all that matters."
"Can we win?"
"Honestly?" Han's expression was grim. "I have no idea. Tactically, we should all die. Realistically, we should all die. Optimistically, we should all die but maybe take some of them with us." He paused. "But you've surprised me before. So maybe we'll survive. Or maybe we'll die in an interesting way. Either outcome is acceptable at this point."
"That's the worst pep talk ever."
"It's not a pep talk. It's a threat assessment with optimistic undertones."
"There were no optimistic undertones."
"Exactly. Realistic."
Hunter channeled qi through his meridians. Felt his dantian respond, that warm pool of power that still felt alien and wrong and like it belonged to someone more competent. The foundation he'd built. The control he'd learned. The power he'd refined over six days of suffering.
Six days ago: panic, flail, die in thirty seconds.
Today: panic with better form, flail with controlled motions, maybe last two minutes.
Progress.
The bar for success had gotten so low it was drilling through bedrock, but progress was progress.
"Yeah," Hunter said, trying to sound confident and achieving "mildly constipated" instead. "I'm ready. Let's fight way too many squirrels. This is fine. Everything is fine."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I know."
The forest went quiet.
Quieter.
Silence.
That impossible moment before violence. Everyone knowing what was coming. No one wanting to go first.
Then the chittering started.
Not from one direction. From everywhere. A chorus of rage and hunger and murderous intent and probably some squirrel profanity that Hunter didn't understand but could definitely feel. The sound of hundreds of small throats promising death in creative and personal ways.
The sound built. Grew. Became almost physical, like someone was pressing sound directly into Hunter's skull.
Then it stopped.
Silence.
Hunter's spiritual sense picked up movement. Something approaching from the north. Something bigger than the others. Something that radiated power like heat from a bonfire.
The trees shook. Not from wind. From presence. From a C-rank spirit beast entering its battlefield like a wrestler entering a ring.
The Alpha emerged from the forest, and Hunter's brain started writing his obituary.
It wasn't a squirrel. Not really. It was what squirrels became when they cultivated for decades, consumed enough spiritual energy to transform from "annoying tree rat" to "actual legitimate threat," and decided that being normal-sized was for losers.
Four feet tall at the shoulder. Massive. Its fur was deep crimson, almost black at the edges, like a normal squirrel dipped in blood and dried under a harvest moon. The fur rippled and moved despite no breeze, responding to the wind qi that suffused every inch of its body. Each individual hair seemed alive, shifting and flowing like grass in a storm.
But the most striking feature—the thing that made Hunter's cultivator instincts scream "RUN"—was the jewel.
A ruby-red crystal the size of a chicken egg embedded directly in its forehead. Not attached. Embedded. Grown into the skull through decades of cultivation. It pulsed with internal light, glowing in rhythm with the alpha's heartbeat.
Beast core. The crystallized essence of decades of hard work and spiritual energy. Proof of C-rank status.
Worth more than everything the Clearwater raid had netted combined.
Also worth exactly zero if Hunter died trying to get it.
The air around the alpha shimmered. Wind qi, so dense it was visible, created a constant distortion field. Like looking through summer heat waves, reality warping around concentrated power. Every movement the alpha made sent small gusts of wind radiating outward, bending grass, rustling leaves, making Hunter's robes flutter dramatically in a way that would have been cool if he wasn't about to die.
The lesser squirrels parted like water. Made space. Showed respect. Fear.
This wasn't their leader. This was their god.
[LUNA] OH (◕‿◕✿) [LUNA] OH NO [LUNA] THAT'S A C-RANK [LUNA] UPDATED SURVIVAL ODDS: 31% [LUNA] DOWN FROM 73% [LUNA] BECAUSE MATH IS MEAN ♥
"You said 73% chance of dismemberment!"
[LUNA] THAT WAS BEFORE BIG SQUIRREL [LUNA] BIG SQUIRREL CHANGES THINGS
Its eyes locked onto Hunter. Child-level intelligence, but focused. Sharp. It understood cause and effect. Understood that its scouts had died. Understood that the human in front of it was responsible.
Understood that revenge was a dish best served with extreme violence and possible dismemberment.
This was personal.
Hunter's bladder tried to file for early retirement.
His legs suggested running. His brain agreed. His Foundation Realm pride overruled both.
"I'm going to die," he whispered.
[LUNA] PROBABLY! (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧
"You're supposed to say 'no you're not!'"
[LUNA] I DON'T LIE TO YOU HUNTER [LUNA] OUR RELATIONSHIP IS BUILT ON HONESTY [LUNA] AND HONESTY SAYS: VERY BIG SQUIRREL VERY SCARY ♥
The alpha screamed. Not a chitter. Not a squeak. A proper scream. High-pitched, furious, full of loss and rage and the promise of revenge.
The swarm responded instantly. They poured from the forest like a red tide, like water from a broken dam, like every nightmare about rodents Hunter had ever had manifesting simultaneously.
"HERE THEY COME!" Han's voice cut through the chaos. "HOLD THE LINE! OR DIE TRYING! PREFERABLY HOLD THE LINE THOUGH!"
The first wave hit the defensive barriers.
Hunter had expected chaos. Instead, he got tactical precision that would make a military commander proud and a random Foundation Realm cultivator very, very scared.
The squirrels didn't charge mindlessly. They attacked in waves.
First wave: hit the stakes. Deliberately. Impaled themselves.
Second wave: used the corpses as bridges.
Third wave: was already through.
Coordinated. Efficient. Terrifying.
These weren't animals. These were soldiers.
"Oh, that's deeply unsettling," Hunter muttered.
More squirrels poured over the corpse-bridges. Others dug under the barriers with Foundation-realm-equivalent strength, creating tunnels in seconds. A third group leaped over everything, shadow-stepping through the air in short bursts.
The defenses they'd spent two days building lasted exactly fifteen seconds.
Hunter's prediction had been wildly, catastrophically optimistic.
Even his pessimism was incompetent.
"CLOSE COMBAT!" Han yelled. "KEEP THEM OFF THE REFUGEES!"
Hunter's Shadow Step activated instinctively. Muscle memory from six days of Han hitting him with a stick while yelling "FASTER!"
Turns out that training was useful. Who knew.
He moved through the attacking swarm—awkward, inefficient, but alive. The blade sang through the air. Each strike a lesson from six days of hell. Shadow Step into range, sword at precise angle, qi controlled to exactly one-tenth power, withdraw before the counter. Repeat. Like a dance choreographed by someone who'd never actually danced.
His form was terrible. His footwork was worse. But his control? Perfect.
Well. 60% perfect. The other 40% was enthusiastic guessing.
His sword flashed once, twice, three times.
Three squirrels fell. Clean cuts. Perfect control.
Then the fourth exploded.
Blood and fur everywhere. Mostly on Hunter.
"STOP EXPLODING THEM!" Han shouted while spearing two squirrels simultaneously. "YOU'RE WASTING SWORD MOVEMENTS!"
"I'M TRYING! THEY'RE VERY EXPLODABLE!"
The fifth strike was too gentle. The squirrel took the hit, shook it off like a mild inconvenience, and bit Hunter's ankle.
Pain shot up his leg. Actual pain. Foundation Realm body shouldn't feel mortal bites, but spirit beast teeth went through cultivation defense like it was paper.
Blood. Hot. Wet. His.
"OW! IT BIT ME! WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH?!"
"THAT'S CALLED PAIN! IT MEANS YOU'RE STILL ALIVE! KEEP MOVING!"
Hunter kept moving. Shadow Step carried him between attacks. He was everywhere at once and nowhere the squirrels expected. His blade found targets with surgical accuracy 60% of the time.
The other 40% was split between "accidental war crime" and "aggressive petting."
No middle ground. Just perfection or catastrophe.
The Hunter Special.
Ten squirrels down. Twelve if you counted the ones he'd accidentally exploded. Twenty if you included the ones that died from his terrible technique somehow working.
[LUNA] YOU'RE ACTUALLY NOT DYING (◕‿◕✿) [LUNA] I'M GENUINELY SURPRISED [LUNA] YOUR INCOMPETENCE IS SOMEHOW EFFECTIVE [LUNA] IT'S CONFUSING THE SQUIRRELS [LUNA] THEY TRAINED FOR COMPETENT ENEMIES [LUNA] YOU'RE LIKE FIGHTING A DRUNK TODDLER WITH A SWORD [LUNA] UNPREDICTABLE [LUNA] DANGEROUS TO EVERYONE INCLUDING YOURSELF [LUNA] BEAUTIFUL ♥
Behind him, the defensive line was holding. Barely.
Every second he bought them was one more second they lived.
Every squirrel he killed was one less trying to eat the little girl in the cave.
That math mattered.
Han's spear moved in controlled arcs, each strike perfect, each movement wasted zero energy. He was a master showing exactly what twenty years of cultivation looked like.
Tao was holding his own through sheer aggressive stupidity. He swung his sword in wide, uncontrolled arcs that somehow kept connecting because the squirrels didn't expect anyone to be that reckless.
His internal monologue was less coherent: SWORD SWORD SWORD HIT THING SWORD OW I HIT MYSELF SWORD SWORD
Very sophisticated. Very tactical. Definitely what Master had trained him for.
"TAKE THAT! AND THAT! I'M VERY SCARY!" Tao yelled while accidentally hitting himself in the shin with his own blade.
Thankfully, Body Refining cultivation meant the strike just bounced off.
"OW! STUPID SWORD!"
The sword was not the stupid one in this relationship.
Xuan had given up on proper technique entirely and was just punching squirrels. Each punch was too strong, launching squirrels fifteen feet into the air where they landed in trees and scurried away in confusion and possibly concussion.
"SORRY!" he yelled after each punch. "SORRY FOR PUNCHING YOU! THIS ISN'T PERSONAL! I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND!"
The squirrels, currently airborne and concussed, did not understand.
Or maybe they did and just didn't care. Hard to tell with the flying.
Lex had found a large stick and was using it as a shield. Just a shield. He wasn't attacking anyone. Just hiding behind his stick and occasionally screaming when squirrels got too close.
His technique was "terrified turtle" and it worked.
The squirrels looked at him. Looked at Tao actively murdering their friends while screaming. Looked back at Lex.
Even the squirrels understood threat prioritization.
Lex had weaponized cowardice. It was almost impressive.
The refugees threw rocks and stabbed with spears. It wasn't much. But it was something. Every rock that connected was one less squirrel. Every spear thrust was one moment of delay.
Qiu Hengdao stood at the cave entrance, merchant's ledger forgotten in his hand, watching Foundation Realm combat for the first time in his life. Watching Hunter blur between shadows. Watching squirrels die in sprays of blood and occasional explosions.
"I'm never complaining about my boring life again," he muttered.
A refugee next to him nodded. "Senior is very impressive."
"Senior is very terrifying."
"That too."
They threw more rocks.
Fifty squirrels down. Sixty. Seventy.
Through it all, the alpha watched.
Hadn't moved. Hadn't attacked. Just stood at the forest edge, studying him.
Learning his patterns.
Waiting.
It was waiting for him to get tired. Waiting for his qi to deplete. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Smart squirrel. Terrifying squirrel.
Then it made its decision.
The alpha charged.
The distance between the forest and the defensive line was maybe sixty feet. The alpha crossed it in what felt like negative time. Not through technique. Through pure, overwhelming physical speed enhanced by wind qi and possibly rage.
The air screamed. The alpha moved so fast it created a sonic disturbance, a high-pitched whine that made Hunter's teeth hurt and his brain rattle and his survival instincts scream "YOU'RE GOING TO DIE."
Hunter's Shadow Step activated automatically. Muscle memory from six days of training. He dodged left. Ten feet. Shadow Step carrying him toward the cave entrance.
The alpha crashed through empty air where he'd been. Wooden barriers exploded into splinters. Stakes shattered like toothpicks. The defensive line that had taken two days to build was destroyed in a single charge.
Gone. Obliterated. Kindling and regret.
Hunter's entire contribution to camp defense: made worthless in one second.
Oh shit.
The alpha pivoted. Impossibly fast pivot. Physics-defying pivot. Its back claws dug into the earth, wind qi propelling it into a tight turn that should have been physically impossible at that speed.
It came at Hunter again.
Hunter dodged right. Away from the refugees. Drawing it off. Shadow Step carried him ten feet away.
The alpha was already there. Waiting. Like it had predicted the teleport destination and arrived first.
It's fought shadow users before. It knows the technique. It knows where I'm going to appear before I appear there.
I'm fighting something smarter than me.
It knows Shadow Step. Predicts my moves. Uses tactics.
I have: panic, determination, and a really rusty sword.
This is fine.
Usually, I'm the smartest thing in the fight. Usually, the bar is "can you count to potato."
This time the bar is "tactical genius with wind powers."
I'm so far below the bar I'd need a ladder to reach rock bottom.
Claws raked across Hunter's chest. Four parallel lines of fire that went deep. Through robes. Through skin. Scraping bone.
Warm blood soaked through his robes. The fabric stuck to his skin. Copper smell filled his nose. Pain bloomed—sharp, hot, present, and very much not going away.
His healing circulation kicked in automatically. Six days of Han hitting him with a stick while he maintained the pattern had trained his body to heal without conscious thought.
The wounds closed. Slowly. Too slowly.
C-rank spirit beast claws apparently had some kind of qi poison that interfered with healing. Because of course they did. Why would anything be simple?
Hunter stumbled back, sword coming up defensively, brain screaming that this was bad, very bad, "start writing goodbye letters" levels of bad.
The alpha didn't press the advantage. It stood there, wind qi swirling around it like a visible aura of "I'm better than you and we both know it," and chittered.
Not a battle cry. Not a threat.
It sounded like laughter.
Mocking laughter.
The alpha sat back on its haunches. Tilted its head. Made a gesture with one paw that looked suspiciously like "come at me bro" in universal body language.
Behind it, the lesser squirrels chittered. Also laughing. The whole swarm was laughing at him.
Hunter had been mocked by many things in his life. His coworkers. His ex-girlfriend. His plant (probably). Luna (constantly).
But being mocked by squirrels hit different.
This was personal.
"Oh, that's just rude," Hunter gasped.
[LUNA] IT'S MOCKING YOU (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ [LUNA] A SQUIRREL IS MOCKING YOU [LUNA] NOT JUST ANY SQUIRREL [LUNA] A SQUIRREL THAT'S WINNING [LUNA] YOUR DIGNITY IS DEAD [LUNA] AVENGE YOUR DIGNITY ♥
"My dignity died when I drank raw eggs!"
[LUNA] YOUR DIGNITY DIED WAY BEFORE THAT [LUNA] THE EGGS JUST DESECRATED THE CORPSE (◕‿◕✿)
"Alright," Hunter said, channeling qi through his meridians. "You want to dance? Let's dance."
[LUNA] THAT'S THE SPIRIT (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ [LUNA] VERY DRAMATIC [LUNA] VERY HEROIC [LUNA] YOU'RE STILL PROBABLY GOING TO DIE ♥
"NOT HELPING, LUNA."
[LUNA] WASN'T TRYING TO (◕‿◕✿)
The alpha charged again.
This time, it wasn't alone.
Behind it, the entire swarm surged forward as one. Two hundred squirrels moving with unified purpose.
No more testing. No more playing.
The real fight started now.
[LUNA] OH (◕‿◕✿) [LUNA] OH NO [LUNA] UPDATED SURVIVAL ODDS: 12% [LUNA] WOULD YOU LIKE TO WRITE A WILL?
Hunter raised his sword.
"Too late for that."