A great shell—bulging around its edge with rows and columns of rib-like ridges, each dark till they reached a flat plateau going towards the center of the beast’s back. In the center, it wasn’t exactly spiked like its tail. A single white spike like the crystalline standing. A spot that stood slightly. Hao only got a glimpse of more than one as it flicked around.

  Hao reached up and touched his face, finding himself in disbelief. “It’s moving way too fast for its size…”

  The giant beast reminded him of the Green-Horned bull he found when picking herbs for the first time. That was an abnormal beast, a freak of nature—monstrous in every way of the word. This was entirely a different beast altogether, monstrous in the same ways. It’s close to ninth rank—or already is, Hao gulped the thought like it was salt water.

  The couple, Lang and Bao, were behind him, talking mostly an incoherent babble of things, perhaps only they understood.

  Yao was just at Hao’s side, her shoulder pressing against his, a smirk on her face. “You don’t have much experience with beasts, do you? Little brother.”

  She emphasized her teasing words by lifting her hand and touching the top of his head like she was patting a child. “That’s why they are called demonic, they defy logic. Careful, though—you don’t offend any spirit beast if you run into them. They defy logic, too, but are a little smarter. Brilliant compared to some people.”

  Yao’s hand on his head drove down, Hao took it as a dig at him—he imagined that was her intention. He let the words go by, other sounds filled his ears, the stomping of four leather, gray tree-like legs holding his eyes.

  She laughed as she continued. Her voice, a pleasant sound of chiming bells, overlapped with the popping of rocks and bodies. “They won’t appreciate the comparison…”

  Hao watched closely the final turn of the beast before he could look at its face. A chance to stare into its eyes. He hoped it would not see him. The other animals, the pangolins or even the snake, the first he saw here, seemed blind yet able to see in the dark of the mountain halls.

  The eyes of the beast silenced even Yao, only for a moment. The click of her lips trying to get words out repeated in Hao’s left ear. It seemed to look right at both of them, yet seemed blind to them all the same. Two vacant hollow white orbs drained of their use from a life in the dark.

  The rest of the head was turtle-like, matching the rest of its shape with a few changes. Black and gray stripes spun around the soft parts of its leathery flesh. It had a beak as well. But much like the demonic counterparts of other creatures he had seen, it was overgrown, bulky, forming in a serrated pattern, and folding in rows. It was the same with the boar before, its tusks growing over its mouth.

  “I think it’s going to come this way…”

  A voice made Hao’s skin jump at the very thought of becoming the beast’s focus. Yao was practically sitting on his side. He forgot she was there for a moment.

  “Let’s hope not, we have to go through. We will attack once its back is turned.” Hao shook her hand over his head, looking up at the turtle demon, pushing Yao off him, her hand sinking into soft flesh. It was hard not to compare her to Bao, even when staring up at the beast.

  Hao heard her shifting on his right, her breath still hot on his neck despite his push, his mind whirring, feeling the beast’s footsteps like drums. Seeing the back of the beast over the beast’s back, its head peering into the chamber where the four wait, it hissed not at them, maybe at them. The stench of death leaked out from beneath its beak, steaming air billowing from its just chest. Whether it saw them or not, it no longer mattered; it spun its body.

  Hao saw its tail in the air, a white beacon over its back, shining in the dark. The spiked mace of a tail glided along the stone walls, shaking the mountain’s foundations—red fireworks left in its trail—once human. The grinding sound of stone crossing made his eardrums shake, mixing with the intelligible screams that shook the air. Dying shouts and banshee cries, screams and frog howls. The World seems silent in all the noise. Hao could only hear the shake of his eardrum, the beat of his heart.

  He felt the world tremor under his feet, a quake on its way.

  “Fuck…” He let worlds slip out of his mouth into the silent world. Thinking there was nothing on this plane that could hear it.

  Hao turned and yelled, trying to tell the others to get down to tell them the tail was coming, something awful. His own voice was drowning like a shout underwater in his head. He cared little now for decorum or respect, spitting as he shouted to them. He pointed at Lang, who was kneeling next to his wife, just now turning his head to the sound of the rumble. Bao picked now, of all times, to be sitting up.

  Hao turned his head, still yelling, yelling. Yao stared out, her eyes a shadow of her normal arrogance. Her thick eyebrows furrowed, her fingers shivering on his thigh. The sight of a different Yao made his chest tighten, waiting for his voice to reach her. Nothing, his ears screaming, yet he couldn’t find his own voice in the buzz.

  Death… The one thought he could always hear—looming, tempting him to play dangerous games. His own corpse in his mind, more than one. Every death. Deaths he avoided, places he was supposed to die? I’m still alive, his voice was still in his head, flesh, bone, and blood still moving, World Energy flowing, I’m still alive… He almost didn’t believe it. His body and mind launched into action, death and life, twins, taunting his hand, forcing him to play.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Hao pushed his arm around Yao, wrapping her head, pulling her down with his right arm, his left, hitting the ground, hoping Lang would get the message. Get down.

  Lang pushed down Bao, and Hao, knowing no one would notice in the chaos, summoned his giant cauldron, its edges and bottom still slick with the rendered fat of a Feline demonic beast. It fell over the couple, covering them. A stunned Yao in Hao’s chest, he slid tight to the stone they hid behind, holding her as tightly as he could.

  Hao’s body tightened up, his stomach lurched up to his chest as he heard the collision. A crash, the spiked club of a tail hitting the wall and archway that separated the stone chamber they were in from the next room. The buzzing in Hao’s eardrums vanished, the world muted, not even a ring, silence. Then—nothing, he was in a senseless void. Like a candle choking in a jar. White to gray, gray suddenly black.

  In his meditations, he enjoyed this void. The challenge of filling it, adding purpose to it, new color, new threads, fate was his to weave. When Cultivating, he approaches that nothingness willingly. Now—now he was forced inside it. Feeling trapped, unable to move. Forced into a colorless, shadeless void of nothing—DEATH. No one could hear his scream of rage at a senseless death, agony filling his mouth with unnoticeable dust.

  Hao tried to escape, his mind sinking into the Spirit-Holding Bag. The feeling of everything he had done so far inside. Plants and dirt, like the outside of this trial. Bones and meat of beasts, all butchered himself, giant beast half processed, their eyes still in their lifeless heads gazing without sense at his floating mind. Jars of blood, proof of his marks on this world. And far-off, secret things only he knew of, the Drinking-Stone, a piece to his puzzle towards an endless life, one only others could take, and time could not.

  As his mind floated in the Spirit-Holding bag outside, his senses started to come back. The first thing he noticed was the sound of a spoon hitting the bottom of a pot. Hao followed the sound, his shock fading slowly bringing his nerves back online, the feeling of warm needs poking him shook his body. He turned his head to the sound of the pan.

  The light tapping was from the cauldron at his side. Stones flew like arrows, hitting the cauldron’s base. Knowing he should have heard a sound like a bell. The cauldron’s base slammed back on the ground.

  The stones came like rain, one hitting after another, almost managing to lift the cauldron. When the horizontal torrent of stones stopped, Hao began to breathe. His mouth, coated with dirt, made a sort of mud. He reached over to the cauldron, holding onto Yao’s head, reaching out for the cauldron. It should have been over. He coughed and spat, touching the giant metal basin. It vanished from the space and went into his bag.

  *

  Hao covered his face once he saw movement from Lang; the man was alive, so his wife must have been. All things considered, Lang was a decent man like that; he would die before anything happened to Bao. One admirable quality overshadowing his faults—Loyalty.

  Hao wasn’t as kind, but he tried here and there, his hand placed over Yao’s head, holding her. The woman who enjoyed torturing him, the one he knew wouldn’t care for his favor if he lost a limb for it.

  His other arm was draped over his eyes, his sleeve covered his mouth, waiting for the dust to settle. He wasn’t blind to the situation anymore. His ears were clicking, still unable to hear, but he was feeling the ground. Counting the steps in vibrations, how heavy they were. Where the beast was heading.

  Yao began to shift after a few more seconds, a little bit of sound coming back to Hao. Muffled words turned to shouts as he lifted his head, letting Yao go. Just as everything faded to silence, everything doubled in volume when words were clear.

  Hao sat up, looking out over to the beast, which was facing away from them again, its tail tucked back into the chamber well beyond their reach, screams for help echoing. Remaining quiet, he tried to understand the words Yao was yelling in his ear. But a voice cut through all the noise and voices.

  “Get the young beast first…” It was a droll, exhausted, but a voice Hao knew clearly, that had chased him and threatened him. It was the reason he was in this trial in the first place. The voice of Swordface, squeaking out, covered the distance of a hundred steps—all that weakness carried intangible strength.

  Hao shivered, his eyes going sharp. A passing thought of revenge danced with a thought of fear. He looked over at Yao, the blush on her face disappearing, the corner of her lip lifting, she caught him, and found an exploit to use. “You know him…”

  “It doesn’t matter, I know his voice and name, that’s all. It’s your relationship with him I’m curious about—he has quite the reputation in the Blue Moons Mountain, the grand Elder’s toy—A vicious, prideful dog. You’ll take the deal now, right, and eat my cooking?”

  Hao’s eyes spun around her, he crushed the violent impulse—he didn’t save these people just for them to die or kill them himself. “Fine, keep silent—”

  “Bao, stop, stop it, come back here!”

  Hao turned his head, seeing Lang pushing himself to his feet, blood dripping from his nose. Further away, behind the stone pillar they hid behind, Bao was standing tall, the cushion on her belly the only piece of her not pressed down to bone. Her fingers wrapped around her sword with conviction, her steps a crusade based on her face.

  “Zhongshi Lang, We have to help them…” she said, “They asked for help…” her eyes did not match her words.

  Bao Ran forward, her steps light and fragile, and the willow branches in the wind.

  “Bao, stop coming back. Don’t call me by that name, I am your husband now…” Lang groaned, wiping blood on his pants as he stumbled forward. He tried to run to catch up to her, his sickened state, a stumbling jog, made her feral stupor seem like a sprint.

  Hao didn’t want to know the story, nodding his head to Yao, he stood, leaping over the pillar. “Fine, we go, let’s help kill this beast…” Let the woman feed him what she wanted; games and tricks won’t work anymore. Unless the Tortoise takes his life or legs.