Li Wei answered with everything he had left. Bone sand surged from his pouch in a torrent, spreading wide and then locking tight around the beast. He forced it inward, folding layer on layer until the mass sealed into a sphere. The air filled with the sound of stone grinding as the pressure closed. Plates split, armour shrieked against itself, and the lizard bellowed in rage.
But it did not die. The sphere cracked, fire punching out in bursts, breaking gaps wide enough for it to keep thrashing. Li Wei clenched his teeth, forcing the pressure harder, draining the last of his control into it. The beast staggered, strength ebbing, blood running freely from cracks in its hide.
He didn't hesitate. As the shell failed, he closed in, bracer raised. He darted to the pit's edge, eyes locking on a gash already torn along the beast's shoulder where bone shards had bitten before. He drove the bracer's hooked claws straight into the wound, tearing deeper into raw flesh. Hot blood burst up his arm as he ripped free, leaving the gouge wider, angrier.
He sprang back at once. The beast's head snapped around, jaws blazing, and a jet of fire burst from its throat. The stream caught him as he moved, heat crashing forward like a wall.
Li Wei threw bone sand up in a rush, compressing it into a flat shield before him. Flame hammered against it, the surface glowing, cracks spidering through the barrier as grit fused into glass. Heat washed over his face, searing at his skin, but the shield held long enough for him to fall clear of the blast.
The shield fell away, glass clattering to the ground. Li Wei's chest heaved, the heat clawing at his lungs, but he forced his focus steady. The beast hauled itself out of the pit, body laced with wounds, but its eyes burned hotter than ever.
He reached for his pouch and felt the emptiness. The sphere he had crushed around the beast had taken almost everything. The bone sand was scattered now, fused to glass or fallen in brittle clumps across the churned ground. His main weapon was gone. If he moved too far, he'd have nothing left to draw on.
So he stayed put, gathering what he could from the ground underfoot. Every handful of grit he pulled back into shape cost time, and he couldn't let the lizard know. His posture stayed steady, his hand raised as if the pouch were still full, hiding the weakness behind his breath.
The beast thundered forward, dragging the spring trap and leaving bloody prints where the poisoned barbs had chewed into its flesh. Li Wei threw a hurried volley, shards scraped together from the failed shell. Most clattered harmlessly off its scales, but a few struck cracks already made, widening them with sharp pings of stone against armour.
It pressed on, jaws snapping shut where he'd stood an instant before. Li Wei ducked aside, swung in close, and tore across the shoulder wound with the bracer's hooks. Flesh ripped, blood splashed hot, and he jerked back before the beast's counterstrike could land.
Each exchange slowed the monster further. Fire sputtered from its jaws but guttered before forming a blast. Its tail swept wide, smashing trunks, but dragged as though weighted. The black swelling on its foreleg spread further, every step grinding the bones caught in the trap.
Still, it fought. Its breath rasped, blood steaming off its flanks, but the eyes burned hotter, not dimmer. The lizard reared back, chest swelling. Smoke poured from its jaws, thicker, darker, until the air shimmered with heat.
Li Wei's gut tightened. Not another sputtering fireball. This was something else — the same blue fire it had unleashed earlier to clear the glass shards from its throat. He could feel the qi pouring into it, the desperation of a beast that knew it was dying and meant to drag him with it.
Flame blazed from its jaws, searing bright, hotter than anything it had thrown before. The trees themselves curled and blackened, bark peeling in sheets under the wave of heat.
Li Wei had nothing left in his pouch. Only fragments lay scattered across the churned earth. He yanked them in with both hands, compressing the scraps into a single mass, a thick cone of sand dense enough to hold shape for a heartbeat. Too weak to block it. He knew it.
So he drove it straight into the beast's mouth.
The blue fire hit, and the cone fused instantly into molten glass. The blast jammed against its own barrier, pressure ripping backward. The lizard's skull went first — a wet detonation that blew the back of its head apart in a spray of bone, blood, and burning fragments. Chunks of scale and flesh burst outward, cooked black on the edges, scattering through the trees.
Its body sagged but twitched on. The air stank of seared meat, the head half-gone, upper skull charred like a butchered carcass left too long on fire. Flames still guttered in its throat as its bulk shuddered and slumped into the pit.
Then, impossibly, it lurched forward. Limbs scraped at the dirt, dragging its ruined body an arm's length before it faltered. Li Wei froze, breath tight. Only when the spasms stilled did he see it for what it was — not life, but the last reflex.
The corpse lay smoking, half its skull gone, flames guttering weakly in the ruin of its throat. Li Wei did not waste time. He gestured, and the small bone slave scrambled forward, claws scraping over the carcass.
The core came first. As it was pried loose from the chest, heat licked at his hand even before he touched it. When he lifted it clear, the surface pulsed faintly, hot enough to sting his palm. No mistaking it — a fire core.
Then the rest. Bones pried loose, claws clipped, strips of hide carved where the scales had burned thin. From the wreck of its head the slave dug out the gland sacs, slick with venom and smoke. Every usable piece went into Li Wei's pouch, no matter how bloodied.
The clearing reeked of ash and char. Trees around the pit were scorched black, bark curled and steaming. Patches of undergrowth still smouldered, sending thin threads of smoke into the air. Only the recent rains kept the blaze from running wild — without them the whole treeline would already be fire.
Li Wei glanced once at the wreckage. The roar of the fight had echoed far across the basin, louder than anything yet. If disciples were near, they would come.
He turned without a word and slipped back into the trees, the slave gathering the last of the usable parts before storing them away. The cave was waiting, and the risk out here was already too great.
Li Wei slipped back into the cave without pause, the slave trailing behind. Once inside, he sealed the entrance as best he could and lowered himself against the stone wall, pulling his robe aside to bare the wound.
The gash along his ribs was angry and swollen, the flesh around it flushed dark. The beast's claws had not just cut; something lingered, crawling deeper with each throb of blood. He pressed two fingers against it and felt the heat spreading slow but steady through the muscle. Poison.
He closed his eyes, sinking briefly into meditation. At once he felt it more clearly — threads of heat bleeding beyond the wound, seeping into his bones, echoing faintly even in his sea of consciousness. Each pulse was a smear of fire that did not belong, pressing against his focus, muddying the calm of his mind. It would not kill him quickly, but left alone it would eat at him, dulling his control until his qi failed.
He laid out what he had. A handful of herbs that slowed blood flow, a bitter root that dulled pain, scraps of dried fungus that drew pus from festering wounds. Crude, but better than nothing. He chewed the root to pulp and spat it into the cut, then bound it tight with strips torn from a spare robe, grinding the herbs beneath the cloth to bleed their juices in. The sting was sharp enough to make his vision blur, but the crawl beneath his skin slowed. Temporary at best.
The fire core sat on the stone beside him, radiating heat even through the air. This was the chance he had been waiting for. With it, the Cinderbone Elixir was no longer theory. He drew his cauldron from the pouch, set it down, and began to arrange what remained of his stores.
Every move was steady, precise. He had no margin now — the poison worked with every breath, and the elixir was the only path to Bone Fire.
Li Wei sat still for a long moment, blood seeping under the bandage, the fire core burning hot beside him. He had what he needed for the Cinderbone Elixir. Everything he'd wanted was here in his hands.
But the cut at his ribs wouldn't let him forget. It was a slow crawl of heat, seeping deeper, twisting through his bones and even brushing against his sea of consciousness. Not sharp enough to cripple him, not yet, but steady, insistent.
He clenched his jaw. Poison from a beast like that was not going to be weak. Who could say if he'd even see tomorrow? The only comfort was that it had been a fire beast first — maybe the venom was only a side note, not its main weapon. Maybe. He doubted luck like that, but it was all he had.
He shut his eyes again, feeling the pulses echo in his sea of consciousness. They weren't unbearable, not a crushing tide, but they didn't fade either. Just a constant smear of fire, eating at the edges of his focus, promising to grow worse with time.
There was no cure in his pouch. No secret method at hand. The only answer was to keep going, and hope that the elixir came before the poison hollowed him out.
Only then did the weight of it sink in. If the Cinderbone Elixir required a fire beast core, then anyone who wanted it had to kill one of those things. The thought jarred him. That creature had been impossible to bring down cleanly, even for. Without all of it, he would already be dead. Those three disciples he'd killed before, even together, would have been torn apart in moments. The scale of what he'd just survived left him cold.
Li Wei thought of Senior Huo. He had seen the man conjure Bone Fire from a fingertip as if it were nothing. The memory landed heavier now. The fire beast had nearly killed him; Huo wielded a flame greater than that as casually as pointing a finger. The gap between them was brutal.
His eyes went to the fire core. The Cinderbone Elixir had always been the key, but now it was more. The Compendium of Elixirs noted that Bone Fire carried purifying effects. If that was true, then the elixir might scour the poison creeping through his body.