The forest on the outskirts of the city loomed before me, its shadows thick and heavy with silence. The wind carried the stench of rot, a smell that turned my stomach long before I saw the creature. Each step deeper felt like walking into another world a place stripped of human order, where only strength decided who breathed and who bled.
I stopped in a clearing, my senses sharpened by fear. The earth was scarred trees splintered, claw marks gouged into stone, broken weapons scattered in the dirt. Evidence of heroes who had come before me, and failed.
Then I heard it.
A guttural growl rolled through the trees, low and wet, like rocks grinding beneath the sea.
The beast stepped into the clearing.
It was massive half the size of a house, its body a grotesque fusion of muscle and carapace. Six arms, each ending in hooked claws, and eyes glowing faintly orange. Drool hissed as it hit the ground.
The moment it saw me, the forest shook with its roar.
My legs wanted to run. Every instinct screamed to escape. But Master Bang's words echoed in my skull: "Until you face the weight of death, you will never grasp its essence."
So I clenched my fists. And stayed.
The monster charged, earth exploding under its steps. I raised my arms, flowing into the stance Bang had drilled into me Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist.
The first claw came down.
I moved to redirect, but my body was stiff, my timing clumsy. The impact crushed my guard, flinging me through the air. My back slammed into a tree, ribs screaming in protest.
Coughing blood, I staggered up. My heart thundered.
The beast roared again, sweeping with its lower arms. I ducked and tried to circle, stepping as Bang had taught. But its movements were too fast, too brutal.
A claw raked my side, tearing flesh. Pain burned white-hot.
Too slow. Too rigid. You're not flowing you're forcing.
The creature pressed harder, each strike heavier than the last. Every failed redirection cost me blood, breath, strength. My body was breaking.
Fear clawed at my mind. I couldn't do this. I wasn't ready.
And yet behind the panic, there was something else.
A memory.
Bang's calm voice: "The stream does not resist. It does not anticipate. It simply is."
The monster lunged again, its claws arcing toward my skull. For a heartbeat, I stopped thinking. I stopped planning.
And my body moved.
I stepped aside, my palm brushing the monster's forearm not resisting, not blocking, but guiding. The force of its own charge carried it past me, its balance broken.
For the first time, I felt it.
Flow.
The next strike came, and my body shifted without thought. A twist of my hips, a redirect of the wrist, and the beast's claw smashed into the ground instead of me. Stone shattered where I would have stood.
I exhaled. My movements felt lighter, smoother, as though something inside me had unlocked.
This was no longer imitation. This was instinct.
But instinct was not enough.
The beast adapted, lashing out wildly with all six arms. The clearing became chaos a storm of claws, dust, and broken earth. I dodged, deflected, redirected, but each near miss shaved away my stamina. My cuts bled freely, my vision blurred.
When its back leg swung like a hammer, I failed to fully redirect. The impact launched me across the clearing. My bones screamed, my body crumpled.
I couldn't move.
The monster advanced, drool dripping onto the earth. Its shadow fell over me. Death loomed, closer than ever.
Get up.
The words weren't Bang's. They weren't Garou's. They were mine.
If you stay down, everything ends here. You came to understand the body. So prove it.
I forced myself upright, staggering into stance once more. Blood trickled into my eyes, my arms trembling. But I breathed, steady as the stream.
The monster attacked.
This time, I flowed.
Claws swiped I guided them aside. Fangs snapped I slipped beneath. Its own momentum betrayed it, each attack turned against itself. Step by step, I wove between its strikes, my palms redirecting its fury into empty air.
Then the opening came.
I drove my fist into its throat, not with brute force, but with the weight of its own charge behind me. Bone cracked. The beast staggered back, gagging.
Not defeated. But wounded.
My chest heaved. My body was nearly broken. But I was still standing.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, I knew I had truly learned something.
The beast glared, wounded pride in its glowing eyes. But then it hesitated. Perhaps sensing another battle it could not win, it snarled once and retreated into the forest, crashing through trees until silence swallowed the clearing once more.
I collapsed to my knees, my body shaking violently. Every breath was fire, every wound screaming. But I was alive.
Alive because I had finally stopped trying to control the flow and instead, became part of it.
The stream had carried me.
Hours later, bloodied and half-conscious, I stumbled back toward the city. The road blurred before me, but my heart was steady.
I hadn't defeated the monster. But I had survived. I had touched the edge of what Bang sought to teach.
And this was only the beginning.