The wilderness did not sleep.
As night fell over the shattered peaks and twisted forests beyond the Shen Clan's outer boundary, danger crept from every shadow. Shen Zian sat beneath the hollow tree, the corpse talisman clutched in one hand, a makeshift dagger in the other. The beast core in his chest burned quietly, like a sleeping flame.
He had survived the first day.
But the mysterious man's words echoed in his ears.
"Survive the next three nights…"
And already, the howls had begun.
In the distance, shrill cries pierced the dark—beasts on the prowl. Zian could sense them now, their presence like flickers of heat on the edge of his awareness. The beast core was attuned to them. Their qi called to it… to him.
He drew a slow breath, grounding himself.
The corpse talisman hung at his neck now, carved bone glowing with faint dark light. When he touched it, it gave him focus—its chill tempering the burning qi of the beast core. Two opposing forces. Two paths. Fire and death. Life and rot.
And somehow, they coexisted within him.
A rustle in the underbrush snapped him from meditation.
He tensed.
Something was approaching—low to the ground, fast, silent. He pressed his back to the tree, dagger raised.
A mutated fox-beast burst from the foliage. Its fur was dark gray, streaked with green scars. Two tails whipped behind it like spears. Its eyes glowed yellow with qi madness.
It snarled—and lunged.
Zian rolled to the side, the beast's claws raking the bark behind him. He scrambled to his feet and slashed with his dagger. The blade scraped across the creature's side, but barely left a mark.
Too fast.
He reached inward—toward the beast core.
Heat exploded in his chest.
Qi surged through his limbs—unrefined, wild, but potent. His eyes sharpened. The fox-beast darted at him again, and this time he moved with it—sidestepping the charge, slamming his dagger into its ribcage with a shout.
The blade sank in.
The beast shrieked and thrashed, but Zian clung on, twisting the dagger deeper. With a final growl, the fox collapsed.
Zian fell beside it, chest heaving. His arm throbbed from the impact, but he was alive. He had won.
His hands trembled as he pressed them to the beast's chest. The core… where was it?
He focused, reaching with the strange sense the panther's gift had given him.
There.
A fragment of energy, faint and flickering, still nestled deep within the fox's heart.
He closed his eyes—and pulled.
The core resisted. Its qi was not his. It was not flame. Not corpse. It was wind and blood and speed. But his body, his very being, had changed. He no longer relied on a dantian. He was something else.
The fox's core gave way.
Zian gasped as a shard of wild qi rushed into his chest. The beast core pulsed violently—absorbing, integrating, evolving.
Visions danced behind his eyes—leaping through trees, sprinting on four legs, hunting, running, wind at his back.
When it ended, he slumped forward, gasping.
And he felt it.
Speed. Lightness in his limbs. His step now held a fraction of the fox-beast's agility.
His beast core had grown.
"Is this… my path now?" he whispered. "Steal power from beasts. Fuse it. Become…"
He couldn't even name what he was becoming.
Not a cultivator. Not a tamer. Something in between.
The first core had come to him in sacrifice.
This one… he had taken.
And it had changed him.
He stood again, testing his steps. Quicker. Sharper. His senses more attuned. The wind whispered louder now. Every breath carried information. The world was clearer.
He was evolving.
Faster than any normal cultivator could dream.
But the hunger remained.
And so did the danger.
He wasn't the only predator in the forest.
At dawn, Zian climbed a low ridge and looked down into a mist-shrouded valley.
Ruins.
Crumbling stone pillars, broken statues of beasts long forgotten. A collapsed shrine half-swallowed by vines. His breath caught.
He remembered these.
In the Shen Clan's ancient texts, they were called the Silent Shrines—remnants of a pre-human era, where divine beasts ruled the land. Few knew where to find them. Fewer dared enter.
But the beast core in his chest pulsed in recognition.
Drawn to something within.
"Is this what you want me to find?" he asked aloud.
The core flared.
Zian gritted his teeth. His fate was no longer his own alone. He carried the will of beasts now—whether he understood it or not.
And deep within those ruins, something old waited.
Something forbidden.
He gripped the corpse talisman hanging from his neck.
Three nights, the stranger had said.
This was only the second.
And already, he was walking into a place no sane cultivator would dare approach.
But Zian no longer cared for sanity.
He had been cast aside by the heavens.
Now he would make his own law.
Even if he had to steal power from corpses and monsters alike.