PtM Book 16 - Chapter 2: Savagery

It seems the polls are currently favoring a spread out release. We can always revisit in the future, so by all means try to convince each other it's the best option. 

Anyway, here's the last of three chapters this week. 

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Cha Ming woke well before first light. Not because he was well rested but because of the creature biting at his neck. The monstrous demon responsible for the pain had teeth were as large as his fingers. Despite being as small as an infant, its jaws were tough muscle-empowering grade iron.

Ironically, the bite didn’t hurt nearly as much as the pain he’d suffered yesterday, which had carried on into the morning. And neither did it hold a candle to the nightmares that had plagued his sleep. He was therefore able to keep a calm mind and examine the situation before acting.

His caution was rewarded. The demon’s batlike body had four poisonous sacks. Crushing it would have sent it all into his bloodstream. He therefore let it continue drinking away his blood and draining his divinity as he summoned the Clear Sky Carving Knife in throwing knife form.

The destruction-qi infused blade inched up against the creature’s exposed torso and pierced through its core, directly destroying it without damaging any of the poison glands. Only then did Cha Ming pry its mouth apart and fling away its corpse.

He immediately put his hand to the gaping wound on his neck, which was still bleeding profusely despite his body working overtime to try and heal it. He used his precious energy to purge out the contamination that accompanied the wounds inflicted by these strange creatures, and only then did it finally heal over.

It was early, and the forest was still dark. Light was just peaking through the canopy. The creatures that had been chasing him all day yesterday but had hidden away when the sun went down were back and meaner than ever. The root caves were only safe at night, he decided. And even then, he’d need to be on the lookout for trouble.

“Any injuries inflicted by these strange demons burn,” Cha Ming said, half to walk himself through his thought process and half to remind himself that he was no longer dreaming. “The poison, the cuts, and the scratches affect me even when, according to the weaker power of these creatures, they shouldn’t. What’s worse, I’m tired and hungry.” He retrieved a piece of Sabmel bread, which immediately melted as his body converted the high-energy substance into raw energy.

It was the fourth piece he’d eaten out of twenty, which meant that if he continued eating at the same rate, he had enough for four days. He would have rationed, but that would have meant weakness in a place where weakness meant death.

“Source of food are heavily guarded. I couldn’t get anywhere near the spirit fruits I found. They attacked me until sun-down, at which point they were forced to retreat. Which confirms that this is a game. A very cruel game with rules I don’t know. As far as I can tell, for the time being, the night is safe.”

If today was like yesterday, the demons assembling before him would reach a critical mass before swarming him. If he ran, more would appear and join in the chase. There seemed to be a set amount of them that appeared every hour or so. Their numbers were growing, and the species he encountered were growing increasingly dangerous.

“Sun Wukong, I’m going to beat the daylights of you for this one day.” He used his qi to create water that washed away the fresh blood and scabbed over wounds. From his storage ring, he took out a leaf-wrapped package of mashed herbs that he’d foraged and applied the paste to his cuts.

It took minutes to do so, and it stung, but the paste, along with his demigod body and his control over dismantling, breaking, and eruption, dissipated the higher-level energy that he’d been working during his feverish dreams. It was this energy that made the wounds so tenacious.

I have minutes at most, Cha Ming thought, looking at the beasts as they emerged from the wilderness. There were thirty of the hyena-like creatures now, five more than there had been at the end of the day yesterday. I can’t keep going like this.

In other words, he couldn’t keep running like before. He needed to start fighting, and he needed to find sustenance.

The Clear Sky World is barred. Time acceleration is out of the question. The Jade Moon Demi-Plane is blocked off. Teleportation is barred in this place as well, and whenever I use my domain, I seem to attract every creature in the nearest forty kilometers.

What’s worse is the pain. The agonizing pain from my soul. It forces me to remember when I don’t want to remember. Compared to this pain, these wounds are nothing.

It was the same pain that had rendered him useless for three whole months. The same unbearable pain he’d felt before shattering his wings as he fought Artemis. The same pain… the same pain…

It flared up again. He’d thought too much. Thinking was dangerous.

He needed to keep busy, he decided, so he marched out of the cave. He fell back on what he knew: the Runebound Arts. He adopted the Flowing Water stance and summoned all four of his divine abilities, keeping Claddings of Light in its subdued stealth form.

And then the fight began. Quickly and viciously. The creatures charged at him with no regard for their own safety.

Cha Ming danced between them in carefully practiced patterns, slapping out and punching and breaking bones with elbows and knees. He was ever moving, every flowing. But that didn’t stop the creatures from nicking him with claws and teeth.

The Runebound Arts weren’t suited to this kind of combat. He’d known since yesterday, but he had no better options. The problem lay not in the arts themselves but in the fact that these were not trained warriors nor soldiers. These were vicious monstrous demons that acted purely on instinct and wanted blood.

They weren’t strong enough individually to harm him sine they were much weaker than he was, but they could still nick him here and there or bite him superficially. As he crushed sculls and broke bones and caught others with his wrist wraps and threw them into trees, the damage kept accumulating.

They scampered off when he’d killed all but five of them, but by then he’d suffered ten more injuries. They would come back with friends. But for now, he had peace. He could go foraging for the next hour or so.

He summoned the Clear Sky Carving Knife and decisively cut chunks of corrupted flesh off his body. The price was a bit of extra divinity to regenerate the flesh, but he’d learned a hard lesson yesterday that these cuts would fester and infect his body if he did not treat them immediately and thoroughly.

Besides, the pain was nothing compared to… compared to… he shivered and fell to his knees as he remembered, then forced himself not to.

It was a while before he picked himself up. “I need a weapon,” Cha Ming muttered. “I didn’t use the Clear Sky Staff, because I haven’t trained with it properly, and I’m just beating everything with a stick. But maybe with reach…”

He began what would prove to be a long day. And by the end of it, found five spirit fruits and seven edible vines. To do so, he suffered two hundred and thirty minor wounds, all of which required him to eat said fruits and vines and five more pieces of bread, leaving him with only eleven.

That night, he lay in another root cellar, a safe haven from the creatures of the day and the unseen creatures of the night.

He didn’t dare sleep, even though it would help his recovery, because with sleep came dreams and things he would rather not face.

***

On the third day, Cha Ming decided to take another look at the Savage Deity War Staff. The sun had not yet risen, and the demons that hunted him in the daytime were still sleeping. Soon, they would rise and began the chase anew. And this time, he didn’t know if he would survive it.

He would have cursed Sun Wukong if he had the energy, but now, he was just numb. Numb from the injuries that littered his body, and number from the pain at the core of his being. It was that pain that ultimately made him seek out the staff, because he remembered when he’d touched it. The staff had taken way the pain and replaced it with soothing, cold emptiness.

The Savage Deity War Staff looked just as sinister in the darkness. It was made of a dark wood and was carved with the same runes he saw on the Clear Sky Staff, though these ones were vicious and reeked of blood.

“You warned me about it, teacher” Cha Ming muttered. “You said it was there as a last resort.” He eyed the few pieces of bread he had left. Like the food in the forest, it was brimming with potent energy, the type that couldn’t be found on the Inkwell Plane. “You knew what trouble I’d run into when you sent me here. You knew I’d have to use it.”

He placed his hand on the staff and felt relieve course through his body. He knew that the moment he picked up the staff, he would gain what he needed to see him through the trial.

But do I really need it, or do I just want it? Cha Ming thought. In the end, I just want a way to escape the pain. His headaches were getting worse, as was the gaping wound in his heart that didn’t bleed but drained him all the same.

The staff promised something that he’d found a few months before, numbness, a state where he wouldn’t feel anything. Yet it wasn’t the same in that he would still be able to act and think and move. The staff would not render him helpless.

But the price… the price is too great. He shot the staff a pained look, and decided to try again, to see how long he could last.

That day, three pieces of bread remained.

The next day, a single piece remained.

Finally, on the morning of the fifth day, Cha Ming made his choice. He gripped the Savage Deity War Staff, and the depths of the Clear Sky World, the image of the Clear Sky Staff warped and changed. It became a likeness of the Savage Deity War Staff and would never return to its original state.

At the same time, a seed appeared in his spiritual sea, right next to his badly mangled soul. The seed was cold and unfeeling, and radiated unbound savagery.

The moment the seed appeared, a gray fog surrounded it and jumped into Cha Ming soul. It chased out another seed – an iridescent seed, which was now so weak that it could only whimper and cower.

The iridescent seed ran off into a corner and watched in horror as the gray mist poured into his mind, locking away memories, locking away emotions, and locking away anything unnecessary.

When Cha Ming opened his eyes, he felt nothing.

***

So this is the nature of the Heartforge Realm, Cha Ming thought as he rose from his resting place. He looked at the ground where a single piece of bread lay and ate it, filling his body with the warm energy he’d need to survive the day. What a cold and brutal place. What a wild and unfeeling place.

He rolled his shoulders and popped his joints as he purged his body using some of his excess energy. Because there was excess. A lot of excess. He just hadn’t been able to see it.

The pain in his soul was gone. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t question it, because it was good thing. You didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

He was left with about a third of optimal energy stores. Not enough for the him of yesterday, but now that his mind was clear, he felt it was enough.

The net thing he did was summon the Savage Deity War Staff. It was dark and sinister looking, but the aura it gave off was no longer uneasy. The moment he it appeared, blurry shadows began dancing around inside his mind. They were images of a monkey fighting in the wilderness.

A half hour passed in this way until the first bit of sunlight poked through the forest canopy. Cha Ming left his shelter because it wouldn’t do to get cornered, then began fleeing through the wilderness.

The day had barely started, and already he saw a bird swooping down from the first leafy canopy. Cha Ming had just put his foot on the ground and was about to take another step. The bird wasn’t strong, but it was quick, and it gave him no time to think.

So he didn’t think. He twisted and lashed out with the Savage Deity War Staff, catching the bird just moments before it struck him the chest. Waves of wind still struck his arms, causing tiny cuts that would weigh him down, but he ignored them. A bigger threat was on the way.

The forest floor exploded as a horde of fifty tiny bunnies with vicious red eyes and sharp fangs emerged from their boroughs and launched themselves at him.

Their numbers were too great, and unwieldy things like martial arts would only get in the way. In a situation like this, it was best to rely on his instincts.

He swung out with his staff and began picking off the rabbits one after another. One of them tore in to leg, and another his arm. He ignored the pain and the wounds and kept on lashing out, knowing that today, it was either they died or they did.

His intuition proved especially useful, so he leaned on it. His Crown of the Starry Sky was working in overdrive. And as he dodged and ducked and dipped and struck, he realized that there was a pattern to it all. A pattern he’d seen a half hour prior. It was the same pattern as the shadows in his mind.

Fifty rabbits soon became 40, and 40 became 20. By the time there were only 10 left, they scattered. By then, Cha Ming was covered in cuts and scraps. He was bleeding from five severe wounds. But he’d won, and ground was littered in corpses.

That was when Cha Ming proceeded to the next phase of his plan, but he froze partway. He frowned and wondered what it could possibly be, then realized it was the corpses on the ground. “This… is important to me. Something tells me that I shouldn’t do this. That I don’t want to do this. That this disgusts me.”

His stomach grumbled then, and this time, he knew it was critical. His energy stores were practically nonexistent. At this rate, his wounds would heal, and his divinity would become exhausted.

He needed food to survive. There was no question about it. The plan was well thought out, but at the same time, a part of himself, a part of him that he couldn’t remember, objected.

“Damn…” He needed food, and he needed it now. He reached, but immediately regretted as the blinding headache returned, if only briefly. “Inconvenient. So the staff can only protect me so much. I still can’t use my spiritual senses.”

He could only use his eyes and his sense of smell. Now that he was no longer being attacked, he could better focus on the facts around him.

In the end, all he could find was greenery on the forest’s bottom level. It wouldn’t be filling, but it was something. “Dismantle.” he commanded all greenery in the vicinity to break down. “Accumulate.” The greenery combined into a small sphere that shrank down until it was the size of his pinky nail.

He bit down on the energy-dense sphere and noticed a trickle of energy filling his parched inner world. It filled him by ten percentage points, at best.

Unfortunately, doing so had also angered the local wildlife, forcing him into yet another blood battle. In the end, he lost more energy than he’d gathered in the first place.

***

Cha Ming tried many other strategies that same day. Since the greenery wasn’t sufficient, he decided that the forest’s many trees and mushrooms might be suitable. Alas, these proved to be not unlike magic treasures. Huxian might be able to devour such things, but Cha Ming couldn’t.

It was not just a matter of dispersing and accumulating energy. The food Cha Ming needed was vitality, and the trees and mushrooms in the forest were as dead as lightning or lava.

There was only one thing that would provide him the energy that he needed: the fruit that grew on taller trees. The well-guarded fruit that gave him a terrible feeling every time he approached.

Cha Ming weighed his options and decided it was worth it in the end. He didn’t know what had stopped him before, or why this principle was so important to him, but he was a cultivator and knew that it could do him more harm than good if he ignored his nature.

The next day, he approached a fruit tree filled to the brim with ripe peaches. He could sense the concentrated energy within them from a distance.

While he could not sense its guardians, he could see them quite easily. A group of monstrous monkeys haunted the area, as did a serpent coiled around the tree’s branches. Both these groups were waiting for the tree to ripen.

The fruits would be most useful when they ripened naturally. Cha Ming didn’t have that luxury, so he stopped just outside where the monkey demons usually roamed and thought of what tools he might be able to utilize.

Yesterday, when I tried to use my domain again, and it didn’t end well, Cha Ming thought. My creation domain at least. The only safe time to use his creation domain was at night, and even then only within the root cellar he rested in.

In the end, he needed speed, so he used his precious qi stores and Words of Creation to produce two Gale Step Talismans, which he pasted on his legs for a thirty percent increase in movement speed.

Cha Ming also needed stealth. He used some of his dwindling divinity to increase the light absorbing properties of Claddings of Light.

He then focused on the images in his mind that had come the moment he’d touched the Savage Deity War Staff. He now knew that these images were trying to teach him a new fighting style – the Savage Deity Battle Arts. He focused on those images that had to do with speed, climbing, and stealth.

His stance adjusted accordingly. He crouched until one of his hands was touching the ground and kept only a single hand on his staff. By doing so, he increase his cover slightly and gave himself more mobility in case of unpredictable developments.

He waited for a few minutes, and when it seemed that the enemy’s guard was at its lowest, he rushed out with all the speed he could muster. The creatures guarding the fruit tree only noticed him when he was two hundred meters away.

He immediately activated the Golden Boots of the Clockwork Dragon. He was especially fond of this divine ability since it did not consume divinity. Instead, it consumed charges, which would be replaced when enough time elapsed.

Cha Ming sprinted with three limbs, not stopping to respond to the monkey guardians, who attacked him with powerful fist attacks. He only lashed out swiftly with his war staff to knock them off balance. He didn’t have energy to waste on them.

The Crown of the Starry Skies pulsed a warning as he broke free of the monkeys and reached the base of the peach tree. That was when the serpent guarding the fruits chose to strike, and web suddenly appeared between him and his target.

Cha Ming had expected a surprise, but he hadn’t expected a web technique from a serpent. He immediately used his destruction domain, and the moment it appeared, the web began to dissolve and fade.

Doing so cost him dearly, however, because his destruction domain wasn’t very selective. It broke the two talismans on his feet, slowing him down significantly. Divine abilities were unaffected, fortunately, because they were a part of him, and not unstable magic tricks. So he kept his boots and his robes and his wrappings, for all the good they would do him.

Cha Ming flew past the snake and closed in on the fruits. The snake, annoyed at having missed Cha Ming with its fangs and web, struck out with its tail. The attack was fast, and Cha Ming only managed to grab three fruits before the tail struck him so hard that he broke a few ribs.

The attack took him by surprise. Not just because of its speed, but because of its power. He’d underestimated the serpent. He’d thought it was a rank 10 monstrous demon, but it was actually a rank 11 monstrous demon!

Cha Ming did not hesitate to consume another charge from his boots to evade the follow up attack from the snake’s venomous fangs. The ground exploded next to Cha Ming as he took off in a manner not unlike a scampering monkey.

Unfortunately, he’d underestimated the snake’s speed, and it was gaining on him quickly. He needed a solution, and fast. Cha Ming was no expert poll vaulter, but he suddenly felt inspired – he planted the Savage Deity War Staff in the ground and heaved himself upwards by having the staff extend.

This allowed him to evade death via poison cloud, but it also shot him through the forest’s bottom-most canopy, a world of interlinked tree branches, leaves, and vines.

He soon discovered that even here he was surrounded. A swarm of arachnids came out of the woodwork, threatening to tear him to pieces with their poisonous fangs. They were angry, because the moment he landed, their web began to dissolve thanks to his destruction domain.

Cha Ming lashed out instinctively, and once again, he realized he was imitating one of the shadows in his mind. He crouched forward, braced his staff with his body, and cut a wheel of savage destruction. He used no qi, but the spiders he struck burst apart, including the much larger spider leading them.

The spiders were temporarily frightened, and Cha Ming used the opportunity to run. He used the Savage Deity War Staff as a pole vault and covered a large distance, landing not far away from one of the forest’s large trees. This tree had been claimed by a horde of squirrels, which chattered aggressively when they saw him.

No time to waste! Cha Ming thought. He devoured one of the fruits he’d gathered and discovered, to his disappointment, that it barely made-up half of what he’d consumed to obtain it. Then he charged down the tree and set of a chase that would last the entire day.

***

Cha Ming found shelter as the night came in one of the many tree root caves. This time, he was unlucky and found it occupied by an ornery creature that reminded him of a badger.

He was tired. Exhausted. Out of energy. It was this place or death. The creature was weak, so Cha Ming killed it before plopping himself on the ground not far way from it.

Cha Ming shivered as his wounds were acted up. He withdrew a package of leaves and medicinal paste and spread it on them, but he knew that it wasn’t enough.

He was dying. Dying from lack of sustenance. A hunger unlike any he’d ever felt. It consumed what was left of his mind and spirit.

What’s worse, his inner world was suffering and breaking apart. His body was instinctually cannibalizing it to sustain his own life. He might not be able to hear a single person, but as world were pillaged to supplement his waning strength, and billions of lesser creatures perished to make up for his deficiency, he couldn’t help but weep.

“Damn you, Sun Wukong!” he said with clenched teeth. He’d been forced into this and wanted nothing to do with this. But he was here, and he would survive.

So Cha Ming did what he had to. He looked at the corpse of the badger. It was still hot from when Cha Ming had appeared behind it and caved its skull in.

The situation was unfair. He didn’t want to do this. But he had no choice.

So dragged himself over to the badger and bit into its fur. Blood leaked around his mouth as he chewed and gagged and chewed, not knowing why he was upset, not knowing why this bothered him, only knowing that he was doing what he had to do.

His stomach heaved, but he kept the flesh and blood down, and his body rejoiced and warmed up as heat flooded every inch of his body.

That energy, that strange energy that normally caused him so much pain, was present in the badger’s flesh, and with its help, his inner world stabilized.

Confusion filled his eyes. Intellectually, this shouldn’t bother him. But somewhere deep inside himself, in the foggy region of his consciousness, he knew that he didn’t want this. Alas, the reason escaped him, and necessity drove him forward. Now that he’d regained some lucidity, he remembered that fires existed.

The badger became a meal that replenished about a tenth of his energy. The core was inedible, so he kept it in his pocket in case of emergency. It wasn’t enough, but even if he had more, Cha Ming wasn’t sure if he could stomach it.

This is important to me, he repeated to himself. For some reason, It’s important. And he continued repeating those words over and over as the night grew dark.

By morning, he’d forgotten them.

***

The days grew short and busy. They were filled with slaughter and blood and fighting, but still a great deal of hiding.

Cha Ming stopped thinking much form then on, because there wasn’t much point in thinking when you were relying on your instincts for just about anything. He became cold blooded, and survival consumed every aspect of his life.

On the surface, he’d lost himself, but inside him was a struggle, a war being waged between himself and the gray seed in his soul that continued clouding his higher-level thoughts with that same savage gray mist.

Then, one day, things changed. It was a normal day, and he’d already suffered a few scratches in the beginning from minor skirmishes. Small damage like this wasn’t much to worry about since he’d fixed his food supply issue, so he didn’t bother doing more than forcing a bit of the excess energy out of his wounds so they could recover naturally.

Like clockwork, a new group of demons came to find him. And like always, this group was slightly stronger than the one before, since the name of the game was survival. The administrator of this trial had decided to do this by gradually forcing out the weakest of them.

The demons were a type of wolf. He didn’t know their proper name, but he called them silvermesh wolves, after their bunched-up silver fur on their backs that acted like steel woold compressed into a thick layer of armor. Blades would have great difficulty damaging these creatures, but not the Savage Deity War Staff, which relied on crushing force and brute strength.

Defeating these demons would be easy, but for the first time in many days, Cha Ming hesitated. Something tickled the back of his mind. He realized that he didn’t want to attack demons that didn’t attack him, and these demons had in fact not initiated any form of aggression and were waiting just outside his threat zone.

And yet a week of constant fighting using the Savage Deity Battle Arts had honed Cha Ming’s instincts. He knew at a glance that these wolves were just waiting for him to show weakness. The moment another group attacked him, they would attack as well.

On the one hand, some part of himself still wanted to let them go. On the other hand, getting rid of these creatures was practical and would stop them from flanking him. If he was proactive, he could solve many problems before they actually bit him.

Never mind the fact that they were monstrous demons. These days, he didn’t differentiate between different types of creatures. He didn’t think about right and wrong. And yet now, of all times, he was hesitating, frozen in place.

They demons saw it, and fear flickered through their eyes as Cha Ming’s own eyes gradually grew cold. Yes, it was best to take care of the problem now. No, he shouldn’t wait to be attacked, that would be foolish. If you knew what they were planning, you should act on it, regardless of whether they had already acted.

He focused on the leader of the silvermesh wolves, their matriarch, who quivered in fear as she realized that this was not easy prey, and that she might not get a free pass as she’d anticipated. Then he moved, and the instincts he’d honed over the past week took over. He jumped into the pack of thirty and activated his destruction domain.

The silvermesh wolves had a dominion technique, which they activated to fill the area with deadly pins and needles, but those pins shattered the moment Cha Ming’s domain arrived, taking away their only advantage in this battle.

Cha Ming did not attack the weakest of them. That would defeat the whole purpose of this exercise. Instead, he attacked their matriarch, rank 10 monstrous demon that was halfway to rank 11.

He attacked swiftly and suddenly. His footsteps were deliberately explosive and loud. A few of the stronger wolves managed to get in his way, so he activated clockwork blitz and bent down to avoid them.

With his current three-limbed running pattern, he was easily able to pivot when the wolves panicked and threw themselves and their spiked backs in front of him like barricades. They attacked without reservation, knowing that if their matriarch fell, their pack was dead.

But Cha Ming made it through and struck downward with his staff, which she dodged before biting at his legs. If it were Cha Ming before, he might have blocked with his staff, but this wild persona simply jumped up to avoid the bite and barrel rolled in midair before landing on one leg and lashing out with a horizontal staff strike. The matriarch howled, and silver spikes shot out of the ground, stabbing deep into his body.

Seeing that he was wounded, the matriarch ran. Cha Ming would not let her. He ran towards her using all four paws, and whatever got in his way, he smashed apart with the Savage Deity War Staff.

The matriarch was tricky and was able to dodge most of his attacks. She was fast for a demon, and her own battle instincts weren’t lacking. But she was at a disadvantage, because Cha Ming the Golden Boots of the Clockwork Dragon, which recovered charges as he fought and allowed him to occasionally execute a time-accelerated blitz attack with his heavy staff, shattering bones and pulverizing muscles and tendons.

The wolves, enraged at his repeated attacks on their matriarch, began to emit a blood red glow. They were burning their blood essence! And by doing so, they were able to close the distance and bite out chunks of his flesh.

But he didn’t retreat. He’d known the fight would cost him. But at least this way, he had the initiative, which would save him valuable energy in the long run.

The matriarch retreated as the wolves jumped on him. She remained nervous despite the clear one-sidedness of the situation, because as a beast, her instincts processed information far faster than her thinking mind.

Her apprehension was not misplaced, because the moment the last of her rear guardians piled onto Cha Ming, he vanished and became lightning. His body re-materialized on the other side of the matriarch in lieu of teleportation.

This cost Cha Ming five percent of his divinity, but as a result, he was able to avoid encirclement and land a crushing blow on her spine. The matriarch’s body came crashing down. Even with her demonic regeneration abilities, it would take her days to recover.

The matriarch went prone then and whined in a way that suggested submission and loyalty. Cha Ming only briefly considered the proposal before striking down again and again with his staff, purposefully avoiding her core in favor of causing her greater pain.

The other wolves heard it all, and it filled them with fear. They could do nothing in front of such a savage display.

It took a full minute for it to end, and by then, the matriarch’s body was little more than a bloody pulp. The horrified wolves backed up as Cha Ming pulled out the fragments of her core with bloody hands and placed him in his storage ring. There was something different about him when he looked up. A cold gray light in his eyes.

He was almost surprised to see that the wolves were still there and hadn’t run away. He’d just brutally murdered their matriarch, after all. They should have scattered long ago. But then again, seeing such a thing was probably traumatizing. As intended.

He decided to add to their trauma by choosing another wolf to kill. Then another. Then another. None of them fought back, for they still paralyzed with fear.

The spell broke when half of them were dead on the ground. The wolves scattered to the four winds, carrying their fear and their worries with them. That, more than anything was what he’d been after.

Seeing that the fight was over, Cha Ming looked down and saw the bloody mess on the floor. “Accumulate.” He said, and all the blood on the ground condensed into six bloody pills. He popped three into his mouth to replenish the energy he’d spent and kept the rest in his storage ring. You never knew when a fight would go the wrong way and you’d need to hunker down and recover.

This time when he walked through the wilderness, he noticed a change in the way the other creatures perceived him. Many of them were silently appraising him, while a few of the weaker ones shrank back in a show of deference to another creature of the savage and untamed wilds.

No more wolves bothered him that day. In fact, he didn’t even see, hear, or smell any. They had taken his warning to heart and would no longer provoke him from near on out.

That night, he discovered something new inside his spiritual sea. The gray seed that had appeared there had grown. The shadows in his mind had also become clearer, and he now saw that they were not monkey shadows as he’d originally suspected.

Instead, they were shadows of himself executing the many movements he’d been using all this time. He wasn’t imitating and copying a Savage Deity’s shadows, but becoming one, little by little.