The breath had just begun to settle in their lungs when the leaves behind Lei shivered—and all the world narrowed.

  There was no warning, no growl, no guttural scream to herald the pounce—just a flash of movement, black against green, and then weight.

  Lei’s cry didn’t fully form. The thing hit him like a landslide in motion, sleek and silent, and suddenly his chest was in the dirt, his arms splayed forward, his ribs crushed beneath the pulsing muscle of something wrong. His breath caught sharp in his throat, his face half-buried in damp mud and leaves. All he could feel was the heat of it—fur slick with jungle sweat, claws digging shallow marks through the back of his armor, breath hot and rank close to his neck.

  He tried to turn. Couldn’t. His hands scraped for purchase, but the pressure was too much.

  Then the weight shifted—and Liu was there.

  The clash wasn’t clean. It wasn’t graceful. Just a collision of force and instinct, Liu’s full weight slamming into the beast’s side with the blunt momentum of a falling tree. The puma snarled—low, guttural, shocked—and for a moment, it rolled, dragged off Lei’s spine and into the underbrush in a tangle of limbs and wild muscle.

  Liu held tight. One arm locked around the creature’s torso, his other hand straining to grab a wrist or a jaw or anything he could use to pin it. But the beast moved, liquid and sudden, its body all sinew and sharp turns, not struggling with panic but with something colder—an animal precision that twisted out of grips just before they locked, that planted paws where no weight should hold, that bucked and jerked in rhythms Liu couldn’t predict.

  “I can’t—!” he managed through clenched teeth, heels digging into the ground for leverage. “Move—now!”

  Nozomi was already running.

  Her blade cleared its sheath with a whisper. She slid across the mud, boots barely finding purchase, the edge of her sword low and rising. The beast twisted again, caught sight of her—and turned.

  That shouldn’t have been possible. It was pinned. Liu was still on its back, arms around its ribs. But somehow, the puma’s head snapped toward her just before she struck, its hind legs tensing.

  Nozomi slashed—but the strike didn’t land clean. Not because she missed. The blade was sharp, the aim precise. But the beast moved, body dipping low with a grace that felt more like foresight than reflex. Her weapon grazed along its flank, drawing blood—but shallow. A surface wound. Nothing that would slow it down.

  It saw her, she thought. Not like a beast sees. Not reaction. Recognition.

  She pivoted fast, sliding past it before it could counter, but even as she turned, she saw its eyes lock to her movement—not with fear, not even aggression. Just cold calculation. As if it was watching her every shift before she made it.

  “Back!” she snapped, breath tight.

  Liu tried to shift, to force it down again—but the puma rolled, using its whole body like a coiled whip, and Liu lost his grip. It sprang free with a growl, low and almost human, landing in a crouch between them, claws slicing thin lines into the soil.

  Lei coughed, dragging himself upright, mud streaking his cheek. His bow was still strapped across his back. Too far. Too slow.

  Xo was already moving forward, steps heavy with momentum, guandao in hand—but he was still a few meters behind the others when it all broke loose. The first shadow puma was still twisting between Liu and Nozomi, its low form ducking and weaving like smoke with muscle, claws flashing with surgical threat.

  He didn’t see the second.

  Not until it struck.

  The impact came from the left—low and fast—just a flicker of shadow leaping from the underbrush. The claws caught Xo across the ribs, raking shallow grooves through his coat and biting at the hardened layers beneath. Pain flared—sharp, but not deep. Not enough to drop him.

  He staggered back a step, escaping the worst of the ambush, gritting his teeth. The puma landed in front of him, tail twitching, breath slow and steady despite the violence. Its shoulders rose and fell with the silence of a predator that didn’t waste sound. Xo felt the familiar hum of Qi stirring in his gut—pain layering itself into resolve.

  “Alright,” he murmured.

  One wide stance. One breath drawn low into the belly.

  Then—his foot hit the ground.

  The earth answered.

  Seismic slam.

  It wasn’t a quake. But the soil beneath the second puma jolted like a held breath breaking loose. Qi surged from Xo’s core into the ground, pulsing outward in concentric waves, like rings from a stone tossed in water.

  The force cracked through roots and churned the undergrowth into splinters. The puma’s paws lost purchase, and it was thrown aside from the concussive blast—not cleanly, not far, but enough to send it tumbling into a thick patch of grass, a pained snarl bursting from its throat. When it landed, its left foreleg dragged slightly in the dirt, already trembling. Not broken, but close.

  The hit hadn’t killed it.

  But it hurt.

  Across the clearing, Nozomi and Liu were still tangled with the first puma. Nozomi moved like a breath in motion, blade dancing through slashes meant to end the fight—but the beast anticipated her, ducking with unnerving timing. Liu stayed close, his frame broad and defiant, hands raised like a brawler holding the line—but the puma danced between them, always moving, always too close and too fast to pin down.

  Meanwhile, Lei pushed himself upright, one hand pressed against his ribs where the first strike had landed. His breath came low and sharp, but steady enough. Two or three broken ribs. Liu reactivity probably saved his him, he thought. He winced as he staggered to the side, slipping behind a low cluster of rocks just tall enough to shield half his body.

  He reached inward.

  The warmth of Qi obeyed, flowing not like fire, but like water—soothing, sharp, and exact. He pressed a hand to his ribs again and whispered the weave, breath syncing to the rhythm of healing. A pulse. A correction. The pain dulled—not gone, but bearable.

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  Above him, the treeline blurred, but his gaze found the outcrop nearby—a jagged spine of stone jutting from the forest floor. Higher ground.

  He ran, out of the melee, fast and low, boots kicking damp leaves, bow already unshouldered as he climbed. His fingers brushed the edge of the rock, hauled himself up in two quick movements, and turned to draw.

  Liu dropped low, one knee to the dirt, the embers already kindling behind his teeth.

  He didn’t shout, just breathed deep—and let the Qi rise.

  Emberguard bloomed from his chest like a furnace exhaling. It wasn't a blaze, not like Seismic Slam or a fireball hurled skyward. It was armor—ghost-flames clinging tight to his limbs, his ribs, his throat. They formed, solid. Shimmering with heat, but held in place by focus and stubborn control.

  He rose again in a smooth motion and cast his will outward.

  "Here!" His voice cracked across the clearing like a drawn blade. “Come on, then!”

  The Taunt hit like a ripple—power in declaration, a presence that demanded attention. The first puma, locked in the dance with Nozomi’s blade, froze mid-step. Its gaze snapped toward him, jaw parting in a guttural snarl. It bolted.

  Liu stood his ground. The beast slammed into him like a tree, but the flame-bound armor held. Claws screeched off the Qi like metal on stone. Heat flared, searing along the beast’s forelimbs, but it didn’t stop—just reeled back, confused, frustrated.

  “You're a bad dog,” Liu muttered, grabbing its foreleg mid-swipe and twisting, trying to lock the beast for Nozomi. “Very bad—”

  “Liu,” Xo’s voice came sharp from the other side of the clearing, “Focus! And what’s wrong with you ? That’s a cat !”

  Liu grinned, still locked with the snarling puma. “Bad cat, argh, bad cat. Aaargh—”

  From behind him, a subtle presence came swiftly. A third puma struck from the underbrush—smaller, leaner, younger. It came at Nozomi with killing speed.

  She didn’t flinch.

  Half-step pivot. Draw. Methodical.

  “Phantom Edge,” she whispered.

  A shimmer of blackness coated the blade, as if even the light wasn’t tolerated on the silver edge of her katana. The blade cut through the air with surgical silence. A trail of nothingness stained the air where the tip of the blade sliced space. No scream, no flame—just a black fracture in space, a whisper of Qi humming sharp enough to cut light itself.

  The young puma never touched her. It landed in two pieces—severed along the spine from shoulder to hip. Blood splattered across the mossy stones. The two halves skidded in different directions, convulsed once, and stilled.

  Nozomi didn’t slow. She stepped over the carcass and turned toward the next.

  On the far side, Xo didn’t get the chance to reposition. The second puma leapt for his throat with renewed rage, all weight and claw.

  He planted.

  Boots sunk into the dirt. Guandao braced—not as a weapon, but a wall.

  The beast flew into him. He twisted his grip, caught it with the blade, and lifted above him. The guandao tore through gut and belly, dragging intestines in a hot, wet coil. Blood sprayed across Xo’s chest. The corpse hit the ground behind in a heap of steaming offal.

  Xo stepped back, wiped his brow, and almost did not gag.

  From above, Lei took his perch at the top of a stone outcrop and watched the gruesome scene. He exhaled once, drew, and loosed.

  The first arrow caught the lead puma’s shoulder. It hissed but turned into the shot, avoiding the worst of it. Another shaft followed—this time slicing past its thigh. It moved with unnatural grace, reacting just before each strike could hit deep. As if the shadows themselves whispered warnings.

  “Tricky bastard,” Lei muttered.

  Liu surged forward.

  The last puma twisted away from the fading reach of flame and steel, panting, bleeding—but not broken. Its body dipped low, ready to dart again into the shadows. Liu didn’t give it the chance.

  He lunged.

  But thick arms wrapped around empty air.

  The puma slipped sideways with a grunt and, instead of wrestling it to the ground, Liu’s momentum pitched him forward. He hit the mud with an audible splat, chest-first, arms splayed. A muffled curse followed.

  Behind him, the beast coiled again to leap.

  Thunk.

  The arrow caught it in the skull just above the right eye.

  It staggered once, legs folding underneath, and collapsed beside Liu’s outstretched hand. Still twitching. Lei lowered his bow and checked the surroundings for any remaining threat.

  Liu spat a clump of dirt from his mouth and rolled over onto his back. “You’re welcome.”

  Nozomi walked past the fallen puma without looking at it. “What were you even trying to do?”

  “Subdue it,” Liu replied, voice thick with pride and mud. “Grapple to end it clean.”

  “Didn’t seem clean,” Xo rumbled, stepping beside them and checking the puma’s corpse with his foot. “Seemed like it almost took your face off.”

  Liu sat up, grinning. “You’re the one to talk. Is it shit on your face ? And also, everywhere else on you, by the ancestors you stink ?”

  Nozomi’s stare didn’t soften. “Next time, maybe don’t try to headbutt a spirit beast.”

  Liu gave a half-hearted shrug. “Look, I move now. I feel good. Like my fire. Can’t always wait to plan.”

  Lei approached last, bow still strung, gaze sharper than usual. “And that’s the problem,” he said.

  The others turned slightly.

  Lei didn’t raise his voice. “I get it, Liu. You’re changing. Your fire moves when you do. You need that momentum. But you’re our wall. If you drop, we’re exposed.”

  Liu’s grin faded. He nodded once, slower.

  “It’s not just about how much pain you can take, we know that you’re tough,” Lei added. “It’s how many hits we won’t have to take because you’re still standing.”

  Liu looked down at his arms—still dusted in ash, slick with sweat, flame-marked from Emberguard. The Qi in his joints was still humming. He could feel it—reinforced skin, hardened bone. He was a fortress.

  But even a fortress could collapse if it leapt too far ahead.

  “Alright,” he said. “Point made.”

  Xo cracked his knuckles and try to remove part of the grim on his hands. “Long as you’re alive to hear it.” Then he turned without another word and strode toward a shallow dip in the earth, where rainwater had pooled in the jungle’s soft belly. It wasn’t more than a few inches deep, brown rimmed with moss and leaves, but it was water. And he was covered in more blood and viscera than anyone should ever be, so better mud than grime.

  He knelt with a sigh and dipped his arms in. The water clouded instantly—brown and red at first, then darker. Almost black. The heavy stench of rot lifted faintly off his gauntlets. He worked them clean with methodical motions, slow, precise, scrubbing at the blood caked beneath the rim of his sleeves.

  Then he paused.

  Nozomi, still catching her breath a few paces away, noticed it first. “Xo?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He just shifted to the side, and the water moved with him. A sheen of something shimmered where his arm had been submerged—a slick trace that clung to the surface and didn’t disperse. A purplish tint, iridescent under the slanted light cutting through the canopy.

  Liu stepped closer, mud still drying on his chest. “That looks like…”

  “The same as the hyenas,” Lei finished, crouching beside the pool. “It’s faint. But the color’s right. That sickly, tainted glow.”

  No one moved for a moment. The jungle around them remained silent—oppressively so. Not even the usual creak of distant birds or wind through the leaves. Just their breathing, and the faint ripple of corrupted water as it recoiled from the disturbance.

  “You think this is from the pumas?” Liu asked.

  “Maybe,” Lei said. “Or maybe whatever tainted the hyenas is here too. In the land. The water. It’s not just in the beasts.”

  Xo rose slowly, shaking droplets from his hands. “Then it’s spreading.”

  Nozomi scanned the surrounding trees. Her voice was quiet. “No animals, or birds. Just monsters where people used to be.”

  Lei exhaled through his nose and stood. “Alright. Take a breath. Then I’ll see to the worst of it.”

  They sat where they could—stones, roots, a fallen trunk. Lei moved between them, checking wounds. Xo’s shoulder was scraped raw beneath the armor, but the bleeding had stopped. Nozomi’s side had taken a glancing claw, and Liu… well, Liu just needed the mud wiped off.

  A few careful applications of Resonant Waters and Mending later, and their bruises began to fade. The pressure lifted from their ribs, their muscles cooled.

  Lei pressed the last of the water against his own side with a hiss and flexed his fingers once. “Better.”

  Silence held them for a moment, all eyes drawn toward the thick canopy stretching east. Toward the peak.

  “Still half a day,” Lei said. “If we keep a good pace. We should be there by morning tomorrow if we find a place to rest for the night in between.”

  “We should move then.” Xo agreed.

  Nozomi gave a last glance at the pool, now still again, the shimmer of purple fading beneath dirt and reflection. She took a breath. The water forgot what it had shown. But Nozomi did not.

  “Let’s go.”