The Verdant Maw sleeps lightly.
Mist coils between the trees like breath. Insects chirp in haunting rhythms. Beasts pause, ears flicking toward the dark canopy—because something has entered the jungle that does not belong.
From beneath a root-bridge of twisted trees, a monstrous form emerges:
—Enter: Molmara, the Devourer
Nine feet tall, hunched yet sinuous.
His body fuses reptilian scale with spider chitin. His arms end in bone-bladed claws that drip with venom that melts Qi defenses. His face shifts, half-human and half-jaguar, with a maw lined in spiral rows of teeth.
Three beast cores pulse visibly in his chest, caged in a spider web of black Qi. A fourth socket glows—empty, waiting.
He drops to all six limbs, sniffs the ground like a predator, and speaks in a gurgled hiss:
"The Seed core's scent… flame-flavored. Jungle-claimed. Beast-touched…"
"Mine."
Behind him, a trail of carcasses. No blood. Just husked, their cores devoured.
—Meanwhile: A Growing Tension—
Feng Xian and Nai'Esha travel quietly along an elevated moss way, led by Whisper who has half-recovered. Nai'Esha senses it first—Qi in the air shifting like wind before a storm.
"We're being tracked," she says, eyes narrowing. "Not by a beast. By something bred for murder."
"Another from the Brood?"
"Worse. A Devourer Class. Serraspine's elite predators. They don't just kill—they eat legacies."
Feng Xian exhales. The Seed core pulses faintly within his inner world, warning him.
"Then let's lead him away from the pool. I won't let him taint what Ra'Zhan left behind."
—The Chase Begins—
They set a trap—leaving false flame trails, illusions of scent using Nai'Esha's ancestral art. But Molmara adapts too quickly. He begins speaking in fragmented beast-tongues, mimicking Feng Xian's past movements.
"Your steps echo ancient flame… you are not heir. You are… food."
They reach an abandoned Stone Beast Altar, a jagged pillar from the Old Era. Nai'Esha lays a sigil ward.
"We make our stand here."
The wind dies.
Trees split open.
Molmara crashes into the glade, moving like liquid shadow and bone. His claws scrape fire from the air.
—The Battle: Beast borne vs. Devourer—
Feng Xian channels his newly balanced Qi—not raw flame, but Flame Beast Flow. His strikes mirror animal instinct, enhanced by his connection to the Seed core.
Nai'Esha distorts the battleground with spectral illusions—multiple Feng Xians rush the Devourer, only one real.
Still, Molmara is relentless. He devours one of the illusions, instantly adapting to its Qi signature. His limbs split, forming a scythe-tail of hardened poison-bone.
Whisper intercepts one strike—wounded again.
Feng Xian roars—his Beast borne Mark ignites, and he shifts partially into the astral form of his beast: A Flame-Marked Dusk Lynx, fast and elusive.
—Climax: Fire vs. Hunger—
Feng Xian dives into close combat, feinting with beastlike rolls and flaming tail sweeps. He finally lures Molmara to the Stone Beast Altar—where Nai'Esha activates the trap:
A binding field of ancestral roots, awakened from the altar's hidden script.
Molmara is locked in place—briefly.
Feng Xian channels his Flame Beast Burst, striking Molmara's core cage—shattering one of the cores.
Molmara screeches, essence spilling from his body like infected smoke.
But before they can destroy him fully, he melts into the earth, dragging himself into the soil.
Feng Xian falls to his knees, panting. His hands still burn.
"That thing… wasn't meant to kill me."
Nai'Esha frowns.
"It was meant to study you. Measure you."
"You've been marked, Feng Xian. Not just by the jungle."
"By something far worse."
Far beneath the jungle floor, Molmara writhes in a cocoon of his own bone-webbing. Whispering to the shadows:
"He is not heir. He is threat."
"Mother will be pleased."