The scent of conifer resin and iron-rich soil thickened as Bai crashed through the underbrush. Its white fur glowed phosphorescent in the moonlight, stained crimson at the paws. The rabbit dangling from its jaws leaked warmth that steamed in the chill air—fresh kill still pulsing with fading life.

  "Master!" Bai's mental voice crackled through the neural link, laced with static panic. "Hunters! Many hunters!"

  Lin Hao's mask filtered the night into thermal gradients. Twelve heat signatures bloomed through the pines—eleven radiating aggression's acrid sweat, one reeking of gangrenous rage from a ruined eye socket. The scarred leader's remaining pupil glinted like a shard of obsidian, reflecting firelight and madness.

  21:08 – Engagement

  Steel whistled through darkness as the battle-axe descended. Wolfspider's venom sacs pressurized with a liquid gurgle, but Lin Hao stayed the drone's strike. Fire erupted instead—a conflagration of burning musk and charring flesh as Huo Linhu materialized. The fire-tiger's incisors sheared through the axeman's skull with the crunch of roasted chestnuts, spraying gray matter that sizzled against its molten pelt.

  Panicked screams curdled the air. The remaining hunters backpedaled, their boots churning soil that reeked of upturned earthworms and fear. Kung Fu Fly's translucent wings hummed through the chaos, each pass leaving carotid fountains that arced crimson against pine bark.

  21:12 – Carnage

  The leader ran—a desperate, reeking streak of urine and adrenaline. His flight ended abruptly when silk strands snapped taut, webbing him in filaments that reeked of vinegar and necrosis. Lang Zhu descended from oak branches, its spinnerets pumping neurotoxin that turned shrieks into wet gurgles.

  Lin Hao approached the dissolving corpse, boots squelching through liquefied tissue that bubbled like spoiled broth. Sixteen storage rings clinked in his palm, their cold metal surfaces tacky with blood residue. The Devouring Void stirred hungrily at the massacre's energy—a black hole itch between his shoulder blades.

  21:25 – Aftermath

  Bai trembled by the camp's periphery, its claws still matted with ocular fluid. Lin Hao knelt, gloved fingers finding the exact spot behind the ape's ears that mimicked maternal grooming. Huo Linhu's flames dwindled to ember-glow, casting long shadows that danced like ancestral spirits across the killing ground.

  Kung Fu Fly polished its bladed appendages on moss, each scrape releasing metallic shrieks. Lang Zhu's mandibles clicked in satisfaction as it absorbed residual fear-energies—a psychic vintage to fuel its evolution.

  23:59 – Reckoning

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Dawn found Lin Hao dismantling the campsite. Charred bone fragments crumbled to ash beneath his boots, their calcium tang lingering like regret. The storage rings' contents unfolded across mental inventory screens—gold coins reeking of sweat-stained pouches, medicinal pellets redolent with ginseng and desperation.

  Wolfspider's sensors pinged. Three kilometers northeast, phosphorus flares painted the horizon in sickly green—Saint-tier bait glowing brighter than any star. The tomb awaited.

  Bloodline Secrets

  The forest exhaled copper and bile as Lin Hao pocketed sixteen storage rings. Rotting leaves squelched beneath his boots, releasing fungal spores that glinted like malignant dust in moonlight. Kung Fu Fly’s compound eyes split the night into hexagonal grids—three heat signatures approaching through witch-hazel thickets.

  21:45 – Intruders

  Two youths in Bladecloud Academy uniforms stepped into the clearing, their embroidered sword crests reeking of starch and naivety. The girl’s gasp carried juniper berry sweetness—a perfume masking fear-sweat. Her companions froze at the carnage: half-eaten skulls leaking marrow, entrails steaming with residual body heat.

  “Master,” Kung Fu Fly buzzed through neural link, “their insignia matches Starrain Empire’s western garrison.”

  Lin Hao observed silently. Bai hunched beside him, its cap pulled low to conceal intelligent eyes now mimicking vacant stupidity—a survival lesson learned in blood.

  22:03 – Deductions

  The muscular youth knelt to loot a corpse, fingers scrabbling through gore until he cursed. “Empty! That masked bastard took everything!”

  The girl—Fang Xiaoke—shivered as winter wind carried whispers of her ancestors. “Uncle Ming said our family tomb’s core requires direct lineage blood,” she murmured, breath fogging with ancestral guilt. “The outer chambers might still...”

  Her voice died as the scholarly youth gripped her shoulder. His nails bit through woolen fabric, scenting the air with ambition’s vinegar tang. “We’ll verify your claims at the tomb,” he said smoothly. “If the seal rejects our diluted blood, you’ll bleed enough for all three.”

  22:17 – Surveillance

  Kung Fu Fly tracked their retreat into black pines. Lin Hao’s mask filtered data streams—genealogical records confirming Fang lineage’s 400-year decline. Saint-tier tombs didn’t decorate imperial histories without reason.

  Wolfspider’s archives resurrected fragmented legends: Fang Zhentian, the Lightning Saint, entombed with artifacts capable of terraforming battlefields. A dynasty’s worth of grudges crystallized in one burial site.

  23:50 – Convergence

  Phosphorus flares painted the northeastern ridge in spectral green. Lin Hao’s boots crushed frost-rimed ferns as he climbed, each step releasing camphor and ironwood aromas. The tomb’s entrance yawned ahead—a stone maw carved with eroded lightning motifs.

  Three figures huddled at the threshold. Fang Xiaoke pricked her thumb on a ceremonial dagger, blood sizzling against ancient runes. The scholarly youth lunged as the seal fractured—

  —only to recoil as tendrils of voltaic energy lanced from the stone. His scream harmonized with sizzling flesh, the stench of burned pork fat overwhelming tomb mold’s earthy musk.

  00:01 – Threshold

  Lin Hao materialized behind them, gravity armor humming at 87% capacity. “Insufficient lineage purity,” he observed through vocal modifiers. The surviving Bladecloud students froze, their terror smelling of loosened bowels and pine needle tea.

  Fang Xiaoke’s dagger clattered on basalt. “You... you know the tomb’s secrets?”

  “I know starving men chew their own limbs.” Lin Hao stepped over the convulsing scholar, his mask reflecting lightning runes now pulsing crimson. “Your bloodline’s the key. Theirs—” He toed the muscular youth’s corpse. “—was bait.”