Hao arrived at what he presumed was the first trial of sorts. The source of the foul smell that traveled on the wind. One of many sources. It seemed there were dozens more, fainter, stronger depending on the direction, and most lingering, seeping through the mountain.

  On the stone wall of the mountain, there were three carvings, as crude as the tigers on the pillars outside the mountain. A man, a stick figure almost, with his arms wrapped around a tree with no leaves. A tiger, one alone, his head falling from his shoulders. Then, wrapped around the three, a snake, with four eyes, biting down on its own tail.

  At least he assumed it was a snake, or something close, because of the creature in front of him wrapped around a giant pillar covered in what he hoped was mud.

  The snake itself was nothing special. Other than it was Hao’s first time seeing a snake from land, and wow, was the only thought he had. Not just because the carving looked like it was made by a man on his last breath. But because of the sheer size of the creature. It was a lot of meat, and perhaps a core.

  There were large creatures in the ocean, some much larger than the ones on land, but the snakes in the water were no larger than an arm or leg. Yet this one could easily swallow him whole. It seemed everything on land was a little exaggerated, except for rabbits and horses; those were quite normal.

  Black scales nearly hide it in the dark. A purple pattern of scales, one facing tail, the next head, the next tail, back and forth, flowing down its back, exposing it. Its odd-shaped spade of a head and coiling body didn’t do it any favors for hiding either.

  As it shifted in the silent cave, its body made a sound like stones rubbing. Underneath it, a pillar wrapped in its coal. The pillar caught Hao’s eye for just a moment. A spot or two that shone with a bit of dark light, or rather swallowed any light that touched it.

  Hao looked between the wall carving and the snake, finding they weren’t similar in any way; the carving was not in any way ‘magic’ like the pillars that brought him inside the mountain. He ran his fingers past the carving twice, just in case. It didn’t crumble but fell away in dust.

  After doing so, the carving looked even more crude, like it was ink that had been smudged. It was rather curious, though, there was no snake, no serpent creature in the images that the pass showed him. And the creature in front of him could not hold a candlelight to the deity-like beings he felt in those memories.

  Both the tree and the immortal could shape the sky and land. The tiger froze the world it walked on. That beast could fight both of them on uneven ground until its death.

  And this snake seemed like nothing compared to them. Hao had a fair chance at beating the creature. It was not stronger than the Fifth or Sixth rank of Reclamation. Hao didn’t have a sensory skill or the talent for it. But he could touch the World Energy around him. He felt the gaps in it that flowed towards the creature. It shifted when he did, tightening its body around the pillar.

  Hao didn’t stop, he kept his hold on the flowing World Energy as he went forward. If he felt a sudden jump in the flow, he would have to change his approach. As things stood, he planned to use the saber and remove its head.

  The closer he got, the snake’s nose twitched, then a two-foot-long forked tongue shot from his mouth. Hao compared it to Pao Taoyi, not the shape of the body that was quite the opposite, but the tongue would be identical if it were silver and forked five more times.

  The snake’s head turned, looking right at Hao without having to open its eyes. It watched him as he approached. The tongue came out a few more times, in quick succession, and its head turned, watching him with its eyes still closed. Smell, something else, a question for Tuzai or Meiqi.

  With a pop, the scaled eyelids cracked, opening extremely slowly. Wherever Hao went, that wide-based head followed. Tongue, like a pink leather strap, shooting out, flicking the air like a whip.

  After a deep breath in, like it got a good whiff of Hao's scent, great crystal eyes with a dozen shades of silver blue and purple looked at him. Wide pupils went thin and sharp. Even if the beast was weaker than the tiger, the way it stared made Hao's skin crawl.

  He was just a meal, a piece of meat. It was strange how that cold intent in the beast's eyes was comforting. Hao didn’t want the soft eyes of a creature with compassion, not the way Hua Yi’Er or Bai Ling. Not selfless eyes that cared for the world to look at him. He could look at it the same way without guilt.

  He was out of water, though he harvested as many berries as possible while with Dong Lingli. By salt, how he wants to eat and laugh again. But the bag of blood in front of him could make a few Vital Crystals and wet roots, and he could get more. More berries, more herbs.

  It uncoiled, straightening out like an arrow; the pillar it was wrapped around creaked, begging to be let go. The snake shot at Hao, and he stepped to the side. During his break during the chase with Swordface, he found inspiration in thinking of how Meiqi moved. Smoke danced in the air, reacting to whatever came at it before it ever reached. Seven Colored Steps, and a new intention took his entire body, not just his feet, while he was moved.

  The beast shot right by him, a maw of a mouth, red and so wide it was flat. Marble eyes stared passed him. Looking right at him. It was still on target, trying to stop and turn. The slit-shaped pupil expanded until it was round.

  Hao was tempted to plug his nose. A scent bellowed from the snake’s mouth like a building full of meat that had gone off. The entire area it rested in had a unique aroma, but the snake itself was something else..

  Hao reached out, grabbing the side of the snake, his hand being too small to wrap around its bulk. Scales slipped through his palm, little buttons of stone that could easily cut flesh. He got a solid grasp of scales. His fingers dug beneath the scales, finding nothing but stone muscle constantly tense and going soft in a rhythm.

  The snake lash, scales pulled tight. Nearly escaping, the cord-like body of rope-thick muscle vibrated as it shook again. It threw Hao around, his feet sliding on the dusty, dirty stone.

  The beast turned violently, flicking around using Hao as an anchor. A second leap as his neck, the rumbling wheeze escaping its open throat. A cavernous mass of flesh. Sickle-like fangs were prone to pierce his bone, but it may have just swallowed him whole if it got the chance.

  Hao pushed away, and the part of the body he held. That one part hit the ground with the sounds of a sack of rocks falling on stone.

  Neither the push nor the strike slowed it down. Forked tongue still resting along its bottom lips, closing in. If anything, it got faster, its body flipping into an odd orientation, with more muscle to push the ground with.

  Hao could imagine the empty eyes of the creature behind the open mouth. It had no chance of seeing as Hao stepped to the side, his upper body flowing around it, the saber appearing in his hand. A giant slab of dented black steel, hardly worth calling sharp any longer, but sharp enough to cleave demonic beast bone.

  It looked shocked as it passed him, marble eyes glowing as pupils closed tight again in the dark. Its nose wiggled, then it SNAPPED.

  Hao’s hand shook as the jaw of the beast closed on the blade, two blades clashing with the saber's side in the form of fangs that would fit on a beast that slithered from the Netherrealm. The sound of the metal creaking fangs shook eardrums.

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  Blood dripped from the edges of the snake’s mouth.

  Hao pushed and pulled, leaning forward, the snake pushing against him. The saber slid further into flesh. And if a snake could scream, it did. He dropped one of his hands off the handle, letting the snake continue to bite down, fangs scratching steel, crying scratching ears, blood marking the floor.

  With that hand free, he ended its misery, though for a moment, he still found enough pity in him, and a little pride that caused dejection for his actions. To kill was to kill, a part of nature. But pain was not his goal or anything the snake deserved; it saw him as nothing more than food, a meal. It never wronged him, it simply wanted to live. Once he would never inflict pain on anything, nothing at all, now…

  The top of the head fell back, marble, purple speckled eyes going colorless, trying to roll to the side. But Hao’s hand was already on it. It disappeared into the space of the Spirit-Holding bag. A jar replaced the head, catching the spray of blood.

  He stored the saber. Hao needed both his hands to lower the jar and the snake at the same time. But once he got the jar on the ground, the body started thrashing like it was still alive.

  The tail struck him in the face. His eyes were coated in whatever liquid, not red, spraying from the beast. Hao had to nestle the jar between his feet to keep it from falling over as it filled with blood.

  He never put his shoes back on, after this would have been a good time. The flesh on his foot was still raw, but no longer melted.

  The snake, still wiggling, yet nearly emptied of liquid, lashed Hao twice more. The third nearly put him to sleep; he would have welcomed it if he had gotten a chance to wash first. The only liquid he had in abundance that wouldn’t just make him dirtier was wine and liquor. His alternative was berry juice, monster fat, or blood. He already got some of the snake blood in his mouth. He only gagged once; the tiger blood was not bad, but this snake was foul to the bone. The meat, though, he would find some way to eat if it had World Energy in it.

  Once the blood was drained and stored, he placed it down and went to work. It should have been an easy task.

  It was his first time butchering a reptile; its scales differed from fish scales, and its skin was as tough as tanned leather. After the first few cuts, the skin peeled off whole. The innards came away in one strip as well. Anything he found suspicious, he cut away. Flesh and bone were cut and cleaned. Jars sealed every piece together into the Spirit-Holding bag.

  When all was done, he was unsure whether he should smile at his luck or not, holding up a tiny purple stone, gem-like, radiant, reflective even in the dark. But no larger than his thumb. Give it to a Sect Elder, they would think it a glass bead.

  Hao was holding the core, if it could count as a core. It was cold on his fingertips, and it had some presence to it. But he still found it hard to believe. Of the cores he had seen from the butcher’s hall and his hunts with Yi Shou, none were smaller than a chicken egg. The Feline Demonic Beast core he ate was the size of a grown man’s fist. He was quite sure he had died swallowing it. Hao knew nothing of the core but their power and value, not when a beast would form one or how. He assumed it was like his Vital Core, a slow accumulation over the First Rank of Cultivation. But it may have been something that formed differently, slower, at different times, depending on the type of beast.

  He knew that it was impossible to harvest a solid thing like this from a human. He had a ball twice this size near his center of gravity, and no matter how hard he pushed where he felt it, there was nothing there, physically anyway. But more than the size of the core, the strength of the beast itched at him. If its core was half his, was he so weak that he struggled against a beast half his cultivation? No, no, it didn’t make sense; it had to be something else.

  Hao didn’t know enough about beasts, cores, or cultivation to make such assumptions.

  “Well, that’s that,” he said, turning to the pillar it was wrapped around, perhaps that had something to do with the beast’s strength. The core disappeared, vanishing into the Spirit-Holding bag. He turned back to the pillar, looking it up and down, covered in filth.

  Hao took the saber back out. He didn’t want to be covered in the substance that coated the pillar after he washed himself off. As he raised the saber to strike, the blade moved forward on its own. Hao held tight to his feet, sliding on the ground. His heels found some friction on the ground, pressing down, he tried to keep it. Once skin, some burns started to tear on his feet, he let up.

  Saber and wielder sped through the air, towards a pillar covered in a calcified layer of three different shades of gray. Hao let the handle go, the pull only got stronger as it got closer. He was going to give the pillar a knock, anyway.

  The chunk of metal, nearly as tall as a man, flew through the air. As soon as it touched the pillar, gray dust scattered, crushed, followed by a bang.

  Hao covered his ears at the saber slide down the side of the chunk of metallic glass. It made the cry of the snake just before seem like a whisper. He didn’t know if the whole cave was shaking or the sound was just making his skull vibrate so fast his eyes couldn’t keep up. It finally came to a stop when the edge of the sabre rested on the ground, which made a fair clunk too, but relatively, nothing worth noting.

  All that noise resulted in the brilliant shine on the stone and something worse being revealed. They must have fallen off the pillar itself, five bags of purple leather. They had a bounce, hitting the ground twice but staying whole, then they rolled right in front of Hao’s feet. Five eggs, Hao just looked down at them. Crouching, he poked one.

  “It’s just one thing after another.” Hao didn’t feel responsible; their mother and they only did what nature deemed they should do, and only one survived. A snake wouldn’t really take care of its young anyway, right…

  Hao leaned down and lifted one. It was heavy and filled his palm; it felt like cold mud sloshing in a leather ball. He could feel World Energy sliding past his fingers, going into the little thing. Hao sighed, debating a thought; convincing himself. There were five, and if they could hatch on their own, it was better for them to take them than to let them rock in the cave. Plus, it was an appealing idea. All five were already cold, so he put them inside the Spirit-Holding bag, upon the field of berries and herbs. It should have been warmer there.

  Hao pushed that aside; if they hatched, they would do it on their own. What he really wanted to look at right now was the pillar of stone, no, not quite stone. Metallic with a black shine, but also matte, like it refused to reflect anything. He lightly placed his hand on it. Pulling back five times faster than he needed to.

  It had been a while since he felt anything like it. World Energy being ripped from his hand, from his body. It was unpleasant, if nothing else. All his cultivation seemed obsolete when he touched it.

  The saber was still there, its edge ground into sound, not the pillar but the stone around its base. Hao grabbed the saber, first pushing against the pillar. There was no give whatsoever. It was like trying to push the world down with a push-up; the only thing moving as a result of his effort was him.

  After the first bead of sweat ran down his face, he realized he was putting the cart before the horse. He had to pull the saber free or he would lose it, and not take the stone either. Swapping the direction he was moving with the handle of the blade, the cry of the stone on the steel began again. Hao simply had to endure as he pushed and pulled. When he got some give, he doubled his strength, World Energy rushing to his legs.

  With a last push, it popped off, flying far enough away, it spun back, but didn’t immediately attach. It was moving, though, slowly skating across the ground.

  Hao ran to it, pulling it into the space of the Spirit-Holding bag as fast as he could. He had no more than two minutes to find his bearings as he heard footsteps and some muttering. The sound must have pulled something over.

  *

  Hao stood there, watching a light flash around a bend. There was no place to run, it was either forward into the cave or back. It had been a while since he had seen a person, or at least it felt so. It was hard to tell the time when the only light was a steady glow that never blinked.

  Out of habit, he rubbed stone dust in his hair, yet made sure he was in a decent state; hiding his appearance didn’t mean he needed to be underestimated. If it were possible with a robe with more holes than this mountain had for exits.

  “Hello, is there another noisy junior brother here?” a voice called, a woman, it was sharp, higher because of the shout. Which was unnecessary. They were in a cave, after all. It almost sounded like one of the old Island aunties, but had an edge of confidence and youth they would only display when their husbands were out fishing.

  But one voice didn’t mean one person. There were three sets of footsteps, one much heavier than the other two. Silent now as they approached, walking towards him from the dark of the cave. A light shone on the path in front of them.

  Just in case, Hao touched everything inside the Spirit-Holding bag with his mind. It calmed him, reminded him of what he had. What could he do if he had to.

  The first thing he saw was a silver coin with what looked like a wing of jade standing upright, the bottom half nestled in something. The spirit stone shone down, the wing bouncing with fervor like it was trying to fly. Hao watched it. As the woman came into the light, he found he was staring at her bosom, a necklace of jade silver resting between her breasts. A sword at her waist was just as bright, but not as white.

  Hao wanted to pull his head away, but he kept his face stern, looked half a second longer, then dragged his eyes up to her and the two others beside her. Another woman, who had quite a twitch in her fingers. And a man, who was not shy about his hand, gripping a sword handle, with more than one fidgety finger.