The expedition pressed on. Ken lagged at the back, ribs screaming with every step, Mirinda's warning looping behind his eyes: "do not use the First Finger again.""You've been staring at the tree line for five minutes," Suzuki said, falling into step beside him."Admiring the scenery.""There is no scenery.""Exactly. Restful.""You're insufferable.""You keep saying that like it's not working on you."Color climbed her neck. "It's not.""Your face says otherwise."She opened her mouth to fire back, and a scream ripped through the front of the line. Elder Han's hand shot up. "Nobody move."A deer lay beside the road, skin drawn tight over its skeleton like parchment. No blood. No wounds. Just — emptied."Someone drained its essence," Elder Han said, crouching without touching it. "Life force. Not Beast Qi. What sustains the body itself."Mu Qing pressed a hand to her mouth. "Someone did this?" They found a wolf next. A boar. An eagle, wings still spread. All husks.Ken crouched by the

The most dangerous enemy is not always the one holding a weapon. Sometimes, it is the one learning everything about you before making a move.The expedition woke before sunrise, camp draped in cold smoke from the dead fire. Nobody complained about the chill anymore, not since Zhou Kui. Everyone slept lightly now, weapons within reach.Ken sat beneath a tree, circulating his Beast Qi carefully, not pushing for a breakthrough. His body was still held together with willpower and Mirinda's warning: strength without a foundation is borrowed power. He hated that she was right.A thread of lightning flickered across his fingers, then died. "Too unstable."He tried again. It held a beat longer, and something in his chest loosened."Talking to your fingers now?" Suzuki said above him, arms crossed."They listen better than you.""Do you want me to hit you?""See? Immediately violent.""I haven't hit you.""Yet."She shook her head, though the edge in her eyes wasn't as sharp as her tone. "You

The ground stopped shaking. For several seconds, nobody moved. The gate stood ahead of them, half-buried in the roots of dead trees, and the strange voice was still crawling around inside Ken's skull. “The heir has returned.” He hated that sentence more with every repetition, mostly because he still had no idea what it meant.Elder Han finally spoke. "Nobody approaches that gate. Not until we understand what woke it.""What if the gate decides it wants to approach us instead?" Ken said. "Somehow I don't think 'stay back' is going to matter much to a stone door that just talked."Le Bao snorted despite himself. Mu Qing pressed a hand over her mouth. Even Suzuki's composure slipped for half a second before she caught it.Elder Han rubbed his temple. "Was that supposed to be funny?""I was trying to lighten the mood. Everyone looked like they were about to have a heart attack.""You gave me one instead.""Then technically I still succeeded, just not the way I planned.""I am beginning

A breakthrough is not a gift. It is every wound, every failure, and every moment you refused to remain weak finally answering at once.Ken had never hated a number more than fourteen. It had trailed him like an insult through assassins, through beasts stronger than himself, through a near-death fight against a Level 25 Demon Cultivator, through his first brush with the First Finger, and still his cultivation hadn't moved an inch. Tonight, sitting alone beneath an ancient tree at the camp's edge, something finally felt different.Legs crossed, hands on his knees, he circulated his Beast Qi through every meridian — once, twice, ten times, twenty. The Miracle Bloom's energy hadn't vanished after all; it had been settling into his foundation the whole time, quietly rebuilding him instead of giving him a quick surge. He breathed out. "Let's see what you're hiding."His Thunder Panther appeared behind him, steadier than before — thunder curling around its paws without flickering, its claws

Sometimes saving someone requires doing something unforgivable in their eyes.The expedition reached the edge of the Dead Zone as the light was starting to fail. Behind them lay the black forest, the broken gate, the impossible tree that had screamed like a person, and a handful of secrets Ken still couldn't untangle. Ahead was the familiar treeline where the main camp waited. They had survived, but not everyone had, and the ones who came back weren't quite the people who'd gone in.Ken lingered at the tree line, looking back at the darkness they'd just escaped. His fingers found the crystal fragment hidden in his robes without him meaning to move them. Two symbols now, both tied to the same ancient seal, and neither one told him anything useful."Still staring at it like it's going to explain itself?" Suzuki had come up behind him without a sound."I'm thinking it through.""That's usually when you get us into trouble.""You've gotten sharper-tongued since we left the clan," Ken said