The next presence was different. A Shadow Beast, an Atrocious Dormant that was more an absence of light than a solid form. It didn't roar. It didn't warn. It simply materialized from a patch of darkness under a root and attacked, its movements erratic, unpredictable, lacking the rhythmic pattern Indra was beginning to learn to read.
The Harmony shattered.
His "Dew Step" was violated by a lateral attack he didn't anticipate. The blade clanged against a claw of solid shadow, and the brute force of the impact nearly tore the Jian from his hand. He staggered back, panting. The Shadow Beast had no rhythm. It was chaos incarnate.
He tried to force the "Rhythm of the Tranquil Core" to impose a cadence, but the creature simply dissipated and reappeared behind him, its claws tearing his cloak and scratching the flesh beneath. The pain was sharp. Fear returned.
It was then that an insight flashed in his mind, born of desperation and the memory of previous pain: the Rhythm of the Tranquil Core wasn't for imposing a rhythm on the enemy. It was for finding the rhythm within himself, even in chaos. It was an anchor, not a metronome.
He stopped trying to predict the Beast. Instead, he focused furiously on his own heart, on the stable pulse of his Qi. The external world of frenetic attacks became background noise. And in the center of the storm, he found his own beat.
When the Shadow Beast materialized for another blind attack, Indra was no longer guessing. He was centered. His blade moved not to where the creature was, but to where it would be in the next microsecond, guided by the internal rhythm he maintained. The Jian found solid matter within the shadow. The Beast shrieked, a sound of shattering glass, and recoiled, wounded. Indra didn't hesitate. He advanced, and his next strike, still imperfect but stable, found the core. +10 points. The lesson was painful, but vital: Harmony needed to be flexible, not a rigid set of rules.
---
The next danger announced itself not with a roar, but with a sudden silence. Then came the sound: a high-pitched, piercing buzz that didn't affect the ears, but the mind. It was the Sonic Drill, a Dark Dormant that resembled a giant, distorted firefly, its wings beating at frequencies that induced vertigo and disorientation.
Indra staggered, his newly acquired concentration crumbling under the sensory assault. His vision blurred, the world spun. The techniques in his mind scattered like smoke. He was vulnerable, nauseous.
The Sonic Drill dove toward him, a biological missile designed to shatter his sanity before tearing his flesh.
On the brink of despair, another insight emerged, so counterintuitive it was almost ignored. The Breath of the Latent Soul was about lightness, fluidity... and illusion. It wasn't just for him; it could be used to deceive.
With a last effort of will, Indra exhaled, infusing the Breath of the Latent Soul not into his body, but into the air before him. He didn't try to defend. He tried to create a mirage, a subtle disturbance in the energy around him.
The Sonic Drill, reliant on its precise sonic perception, faltered for a fraction of a second. Its perfect dive veered slightly, confused by the energetic veil Indra had created.
It was the opening he needed. Less than a second of clarity.
The Harmony, which he thought was lost, returned in a flash of pure necessity. He didn't think. He acted. His feet planted with "Dew Step," his Qi pulsed steadily with the "Rhythm of the Core," he channeled raw power into the blade with "Pulse of the Inner Essence," and moved with the fluidity of the "Breath of the Latent Soul." The Jian cut the air in a perfect arc, silencing the deafening buzz as it found and shattered the monster's vibrating core.
The silence that followed was heartbreaking. Indra fell to his knees, his head throbbing, sweat streaming down his face. +20 points. He had survived by a hair, because he'd managed to apply a fragment of harmony at the exact moment. The fight was visceral, a brutal reminder that one mistake meant death.
---
As he recovered, panting, a familiar presence made the air grow heavy again. It wasn't the Sonic Drill. It was something much older, heavier, hungrier. The Dormant Terror. The colossal bear.
He didn't see it. He felt it. A wave of pure flight instinct shot through his body. The forest around him seemed to hold its breath. The insects fell silent. The pollen stopped drifting.
It was as if the forest itself was reacting to his evolution, sending the greatest of predators to test him, to remind him of his place. He wasn't ready. Not even close. Sword Harmony was a promise, not a reality, before a monster of that magnitude.
The presence lingered for long, agonizing seconds, and then began to move away, its steps making the ground tremble slightly. Indra remained motionless until the last echo faded, his heart beating like a war drum.
---
The sky was growing dark, heralding nightfall. Indra checked his Dimensional Ring. Ninety-four points. He was so close. But night on the Other Side wasn't a peaceful twilight. It was the hour when hordes of Lesser Creatures and Imps hunted in overwhelming numbers.
Even with his insights and incipient Harmony, he knew he wouldn't survive a swarm. The technique was still unstable, consumed too much mental energy, and could fail at the crucial moment. Wisdom, not courage, dictated retreat.
With a last look at the rapidly darkening forest, Indra retraced his steps. His journey back to the cave behind the waterfall was faster, his senses sharpened by the proximity of nocturnal danger.
As he crawled back inside the cave, the deafening sound of water was a relief. He was safe. For now.
He leaned against the cold wall, exhausted but vibrating. Ninety-four points. And more importantly, he carried with him not just cores, but living lessons. Sword Harmony wasn't a myth. It was a complex and dangerous music, and he was learning to hear its notes, one by one. The night would bring rest, and the dawn would bring the final hunt. This time, he wasn't just seeking points. He was seeking to master the next note of the melody that could, one day, save his life.
---
Exhaustion was a heavy blanket pulling Indra into the black embrace of sleep. His muscles ached, his mind buzzed with the echoes of the day's battles, and the cave's precarious promise of safety finally allowed his vigilance to waver. He had almost crossed the line into unconsciousness when the first sound jerked him back to the surface.
Click. Scrape.
It wasn't the constant noise of the waterfall. It was drier, closer. Like a claw scraping the stone outside.
Indra froze, his breath catching. His senses, once dulled by fatigue, sharpened violently. Another sound joined the first. Then another. And another. They were no longer isolated sounds. They were footsteps. Muffled snarls. The chilling noise of claws scratching the wet stone of the cave entrance, as if testing, probing, searching.
A cold understanding washed over him. The nocturnal forest wasn't just active. It had concentrated its fury precisely on his refuge.
He rose silently, every movement calculated to make no noise. The Jian materialized in his hand from the Dimensional Ring, the cold metal a familiar comfort. Peering through the curtain of water, his heart froze.
The cave entrance was no longer an opening. It was a sea of shifting shadows. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of pairs of glowing eyes—red, yellow, green—stared into the darkness inside. Lesser Creatures and Imps crowded together, not with the disorganized hunger of before, but with a horrifying coordination. They weren't charging blindly. They waited. They blocked the exit. It was a siege.
The pressure in the air was palpable, a physical weight oppressing his chest. This wasn't a common hunt. It was an assault. A hungry horde, and he was the only prey on the menu.
There was no time for strategy, for fear even. Survival instinct took over. Sword Harmony, still crude and unstable, flared within him like a reflex. His feet found "Dew Step", rooting him. His breath synchronized with the accelerated rhythm of his own heart, transforming panic into raw power.
When the first creatures pushed through the water curtain, he was already moving.
The blade danced. The first strikes were efficient, lethal. Two Imps fell, dissolved before they even understood what hit them. The Harmony worked, turning his defense into a deadly harvest. But the numbers were relentless. For every creature he cut down, three seemed to take its place. The cave entrance began to fill with twitching bodies, but the horde didn't retreat. They pressed forward, snarling and spitting, their collective weight beginning to suffocate him, to push him back, into the dark depths of the cave.
The air grew heavy with the stench of blood and corrupt energy. Indra fought, but it was like trying to hold back the tide with his hands. He was being swallowed.
It was then, cornered against the damp wall, that his gaze caught a flaw not in the enemy, but in the environment. The cave ceiling, near the waterfall's veil, was irregular, cracked, weakened by constant erosion.
A desperate plan sprouted in his mind. It was risky. It could be suicidal.
There was no alternative.
He yelled, not in fear, but in pure effort, channeling every last drop of his remaining Qi into the Jian. The blade didn't glow—it vibrated, the air around it distorting with the intensity of the energy. He didn't aim at the creatures. He aimed at the weakest point of the ceiling, above the compact mass of monsters crowding the entrance.
With a roar that overpowered the waterfall's thunder, he released the power.
A beam of raw, white energy shot from the tip of his Jian, not a refined cut, but an explosion of pure force. The impact against the rock was a deafening BOOM that made the cave itself shudder.
For a second, there was silence.
Then, the world came down.
Stones the size of his head, and some larger, rained down from the ceiling in a furious avalanche. Indra threw himself against the back wall, covering his head with his arms. Rocks pounded his back, his shoulders, his legs. The pain was sharp and widespread, a general bruising that left him dizzy, but miraculously, no bones broke. Nothing was fatal.
For the horde, however, it was chaos.
The creatures, disoriented and terrified by the sudden rockfall, were caught by surprise. Sharp cries of pain and confusion filled the cave. Many were crushed instantly. Others, wounded, crashed into each other in panic, breaking the coordinated formation that had brought them there.
It was the breach.
Indra didn't wait. Ignoring the throbbing pain in his body, he lunged forward. His Jian became a whirlwind of steel, cutting through the confused and wounded creatures blocking his path. He was no longer fighting to kill them all; he was fighting to clear a path. Every strike was a step toward freedom.
And then he was out. The cold, damp night hit him like a slap in the face. He didn't look back. He ran.
His speed was no longer human. Fueled by adrenaline, desperation, and the last vestiges of Qi burning in his veins, he moved through the forest like a cheetah, his feet barely touching the uneven ground. Branches whipped his face, thorns tore his clothes, but he didn't slow down. The forest, however, seemed to conspire against him. Every shadow seemed to hide hungry eyes. Every step echoed, attracting the attention of nocturnal predators. He found no shelter, only more danger.
Soon, the angry, frustrated cries of the horde he'd left behind turned into howls of pursuit. They had found him. The hunt had begun anew.
Indra ran until his lungs burned and his legs threatened to give way. He knew he couldn't keep this up all night. Not even a Paranormal had infinite stamina. Exhaustion would eventually catch him, and then it would be the end.
As he ran, his mind, fueled by panic, circled a crucial question: Why?
Why did the horde come for him? How did they know exactly where he was? And, most disturbingly: why weren't they afraid of the presence in the underground, that terrifying entity that had previously kept all creatures at bay?
A flash of understanding, cold and clear as the steel of his blade, cut through his terror.
The anomalies in the forest—the colossal bear on the first night, the Shadow Beast, the Sonic Drill where they shouldn't be—had started when that Subterranean Presence manifested. And when the anomalies ceased, when the forest seemed to return to a perverse "normality," the Presence had also vanished.
The conclusion was inevitable and terrifying: that thing in the underground, that entity which had indirectly saved him twice (driving away the bear and then the creatures themselves), was no longer there. It had left. Or something had silenced it.
And if the horde advanced without fear, it was because the territory's apex predator was gone. And they weren't just there to hunt. They were there to cleanse. And he was the intrusion to be eliminated.
Before he could fully process the horrifying implication, a roar cut through the night.
It wasn't like the sounds before. This one was deeper, more visceral, laden with a fury as ancient as the forest itself. It was followed by a series of loud cracks—trees being snapped like twigs under an inconceivable weight.
Indra froze. His blood seemed to stop flowing in his veins. His entire body, every fiber of his being, recognized that sound. His heart, a trapped animal in his ribcage, refused to believe.
Terrified, but unable not to look, he glanced over his shoulder, his feet still moving mechanically forward.
And he saw.
The blue moon, filtered through the tree canopies, illuminated the silhouette of a nightmare. A colossal bear, as tall as the lower trees, its fur wasn't simply black—it was made of bone plates black as charcoal, overlapping like grotesque armor. Stone spikes protruded from its shoulders and spine. Its eyes weren't points of light; they were pools of boiling red lava, burning with an insanity that transcended animality. And its snout, pulled back in a grin of pure carnage, was stained with fresh blood, its teeth black and twisted like spears.
The scars crisscrossing its bony plates told the story of a life of immeasurable violence.
It was him. The Dormant Terror. The same bear from the first night.
Only now, he wasn't passing by. He wasn't wandering.
He was coming straight for Indra. His red eyes, filled with malevolent intelligence and recognition, were fixed on him. He was no longer an environmental hazard. He was a hunter. And he had returned to finish the job.