The deep green forest stretched like an endless, restless sea. Towering ancient trees wove their branches into a dense canopy, permitting only shattered fragments of sunlight to pierce through, casting a mosaic of light upon the thick carpet of decaying leaves below. In this realm of silent danger, a single figure moved with preternatural agility.
Silas's feet found purchase on thick boughs, his steps making no sound. The balance of the mountain goat and the lightness of the wolf allowed him to navigate the treetops like a specter. He had deliberately shunned the main road to Essence Grace City, choosing this more hazardous, winding path through the woods to eliminate any chance of encountering the plantation owner.
Abruptly, a distinct ripple of energy, punctuated by shouts and sharp reports, echoed from the dense foliage ahead.
Silas froze instantly, his presence diminishing until he was as inconspicuous as stone. He soundlessly scaled a massive, gnarled tree and melted into its thick canopy, his sharp eyes peering through the leaves towards a small clearing below.
The sight made his pupils constrict.
One side held a single figure: an elder clad in faded hemp robes, his face marked with ancient, fading sigils, his skin a roadmap of deep wrinkles. He leaned on a simple dry-wood staff, yet the potent life energy radiating from him was unmistakably at the peak of the First Rank. More astonishingly, the very earth under his feet, the ancient trees surrounding him, even the air itself, seemed to pulse in unison with his breath, emanating a formidable, unified power.
"Wu Tribesman…" Silas recalled snippets from the plantation owner's library.
Besieging him were four others. Three warriors in matching leather armor moved with disciplined agility, their auras shimmering with practiced energy—clearly adepts of some Beast Shifting Art. Sheltered within their formation was a tall, young woman of noble bearing. Her finely-made scaled armor was silver, etched with the emblem of a diving hawk. A slender rapier gleamed in her hand, its blade sheathed in a pure, dazzling gold-white light. Her energy signature also peaked at the First Rank.
"In the name of Isabella Green, Daughter of the Marquis of the Emerald Aura Confederacy! Blade of Order, purge the wicked!" Isabella's shout cut the air. Her wrist flicked, and a condensed beam of light-energy, a sword radiance, shot from her rapier's tip with a piercing shriek, aimed unerringly for the elder's heart. The attack was spectacularly precise, carrying an air of absolute authority.
Her warriors acted as one. The left-most fighter roared, muscles bulging, his skin taking on a rough, rhino-like texture. He stomped the ground, charging like a battering ram to close the distance. The right-hand warrior drew his bow in a fluid motion; the arrowhead swirled with compressed air. It tore through the air faster than the charge, aimed for the elder's throat. The central warrior slammed his palms into the earth, sending an invisible shockwave rippling through the ground to disrupt the elder's footing and connection to the land.
Facing this coordinated assault, the Wu elder's clouded eyes showed no panic. He intoned a series of guttural, ancient syllables and slammed his staff down.
"The barriers of nature defy your defilement!"
A resonant hum filled the air. The pale green light around him flared violently. The earth beneath him seemed to awaken. Thick, powerful roots, as wide as a man's forearm, erupted from the soil in a shower of dirt and decaying leaves - loam, weaving instantly into a solid wall that met the charging warrior head-on.
THUD! The impact was dull and massive.The charging man felt as if he'd hit a cliff face of steel and stone. His momentum vanished, his qi churning violently, forcing him to stumble backward.
Simultaneously, the elder's left hand rose. Aerial roots and vines from a nearby ancient tree thrashed like enraged serpents, wildly overgrowing into a thick net before him. The piercing arrow shot deep into the tangle, shredding layers of vine before becoming hopelessly ensnared in the endlessly replenishing growth, its force spent. It dropped uselessly to the ground.
The subterranean shockwave required no specific counter. The natural energy swirling around the elder flowed autonomously; the tremor reached his feet and was absorbed seamlessly into the earth, failing to unsettle him.
Finally, against Isabella's threatening sword radiance, the elder's staff traced a perfect circle. The surrounding air compressed, spinning rapidly into a semi-transparent, buzzing cyclone shield that positioned itself perfectly in the attack's path.
SCREECH—BOOM! The collision was violent,the sound grating. The radiance exhausted itself in a burst of light, the wind shield dispersing with it. A blast of air whipped out, scattering leaves across the clearing.
In a flash, the elder stood completely unscathed, having neutralized the quartet's combined assault.
Watching from the tree, Silas felt a thrill of awe. He perceived the difference clearly: the noble's attacks were systematic, precise, full of 'technique'. But the Wu elder's power was raw, overwhelming, as if he conversed with the forest itself, borrowing the boundless strength of nature—limitless, vast in scope, granting him terrifying efficiency against multiple opponents.
"Primitive tribal tricks! Let's see your stamina hold!" Isabella, enraged by the failure, her pretty face cold, altered her tactics. She ceased seeking a single kill, instead coordinating with her subordinates to rain a relentless storm of sword light upon the elder, aiming to exhaust him.
The three warriors shifted strategy too, harrying and probing—loosing arrows, triggering earth tremors, making feinting charges—constantly pressuring the elder's space.
The elder remained imperturbable, his staff tapping and tracing patterns. He sporadically summoned spikes of earth to rupture at his opponents' feet, forcing clumsy evasions; commanded nearby branches to lash down like whips, disrupting their formation; or condensed bullets of air to snipe arrows from the sky. Each spell seemed effortless, drawn from an infinite well of environmental power. Though outnumbered four to one, he not only held his ground but seemed to control the flow of the battle.
"Wrath of the Forest, Root Bindings!" Seizing a momentary lapse, the elder's staff struck the earth again. Instantly, countless thin rootlets burst from the soil around Isabella's group, coiling around their ankles and calves like eager tentacles.
Their expressions changed. They scrambled to evade or snap the roots with bursts of force, their formation fracturing for a critical instant.
"Now!" the elder barked, not pressing the attack but instead throwing his weight backward. As he retreated, he swept his hands out, infusing countless emerald motes of light into the surrounding undergrowth and vines.
The plant life exploded into rampant, furious overgrowth, instantly weaving an immensely thick living barrier between the elder and his opponents, completely severing the line of sight and any attack path.
"Confederacy Noble," the elder's voice came, already fading into the distance from behind the green wall. "This forest rejects you. Seek your trophy elsewhere. Tell your Marquis father to come himself if he dares!"
Isabella was livid, her face pale with fury. A savage sword radiance slashed against the barrier, shearing through vines, but new growth immediately surged to replace it. A quick breakthrough was impossible. She and her subordinates were already drained from the fruitless assault. Chasing a determined Wu tribesman of equal rank deeper into his territory was utter folly.
"Useless!" She spat the word at her subordinates, her chest heaving. Her furious gaze swept the surroundings, searching for an outlet for her rage, and snagged on a faint, accidental glint from Silas's hiding place (likely a stray reflection off his tiger-tooth dagger).
"Who's there?! You skulking rat!" Isabella shrieked, her sword pointing accusingly. "I am Isabella Green, Daughter of the Marquis! I command you to show yourself! Are you that old fiend's accomplice?!"
Her tone was pure arrogance and misplaced venom.
In the canopy, Silas's frown was instant. This baseless accusation and entitled command grated on him. Reveal himself? Just to become a punching bag for this spoiled noble's temper tantrum? It violated his core principle of caution.
Almost before Isabella finished speaking, Silas decided. Without a moment's hesitation, he exploded backward from the canopy like a startled leopard!
"Running?! I knew it!" A relatively weak gold-white sword radiance lanced out from Isabella, more a spiteful gesture than a aimed kill.
Silas didn't bother looking back. The danger sense fused from the python made his body contort mid-air at an impossible angle, the radiance missing him by a hair's breadth to scorch a black mark on a tree trunk. He hit the ground already at a full sprint, pushing the wolf's speed to its absolute limit. He vanished into the deep woods in mere heartbeats, leaving only a ghost of a phrase on the wind:
"Just passing…"
Isabella could only watch, her anger so intense she nearly choked on it. Too exhausted to give chase, and with the real target long gone, she had no choice but to bitterly store this fresh humiliation away.
Silas ran until the energy disturbances faded completely and he was deep into untouched woods. Leaning against rough bark, he steadied his breath and heart. That brief observation had granted him a visceral understanding of the combat styles here. "Noble power… Wu Tribe power… both formidable. That city will be more complex than the forest. Must be even more careful." His hand drifted unconsciously to the hard shape concealed against his chest before he moved on.
Days later, a travel-stained and weary Silas finally saw the outlines of Essence Grace City.
The towering cyanstone walls stood like part of the mountain range, silent and imposing, radiating palpable authority. The great gate stood open, a steady stream of traffic flowing under the sharp eyes of squads of well-equipped guards who maintained strict, orderly inspections.
Silas adjusted his ragged clothes, now even more torn from his journey, and merged into the tail end of the queue, trying to appear inconspicuous.
The line crept forward until it was his turn.
"Halt! Identification token!" A guard blocked his path, hand outstretched, his gaze hawk-like and impersonal.
Silas's heart sank. Identification token? The original body's fractured memories hinted at such a thing, but a slave would never possess one.
He summoned a humble, slightly fearful expression and gave a slight bow. "My apologies, sir… This lowly one was set upon by bandits on the road. My pack and funds were all lost… the identification token too… I beg your mercy, could you make an exception?"
The guard looked him up and down, skepticism plain. Silas's build was solid, his aura steady—not like a common drifter—but his clothes screamed destitution and hardship.
The guard exchanged a glance with his partner, who gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
"Lost?" the guard's voice remained flat. "Confederacy law states those without identification are to be treated as escaped slaves or illegal migrants, subject to detention! However…" his tone feigned a slight softening, "...you don't look the troublemaker type. Alright. Go wait in that side room. We'll record your details, might be able to issue a temporary pass."
He gestured to a nondescript stone hut beside the gate.
A worm of suspicion turned in Silas's gut, but the offer seemed logical, a potential path forward. Suppressing his unease, he thanked the man and walked towards the hut.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the heavy door slammed shut behind him with a definitive BANG! From the shadows within, four burly figures rose as one, their auras aggressive and unmistakably at the Peak of the Initial Beast Body Grafting Realm! The doorway was blocked solidly by two more guards.
"Ha! A neat story!" the first guard sneered, entering behind him, all pretense of courtesy gone. "Robbed but untouched? With a build like that, you look like prime fugitive labor! Seize him! The mines are screaming for hands. This one's perfect for them!"
Silas's heart plunged. He'd been too careless! These gate guards saw countless souls daily; his flimsy story and condition hadn't fooled them for a second.
The impulse to fight flared white-hot. But his eyes darted: six skilled opponents, a confined space, a prepared ambush. Even with his abilities and recovery, a fight was hopeless and would only bring the entire garrison down on him.
In that split second, Silas crushed the impulse. His face molded into a mask of perfect terror, confusion, and wounded innocence. "S-sirs! What is this?! This lowly one is an honest man! There must be some mistake?!"
"Your honesty will be tested in the mines! Tie him tight!" the head guard ordered brusquely.
A rope etched with faint, intricate patterns was looped around his wrists, yanking them behind his back. Silas tested it subtly; the rope tightened in response and seemed to mildly suppress the flow of spiritual energy within him. His physical strength remained, he could likely break it by force, but he chose not to. He lowered his head, hiding the icy glint that flashed in his eyes.
The mines…
He was shoved roughly into a line of other shackled figures, their faces blank with resignation. Under the guards' harsh commands, the line began to move, trudging toward the distant, barren mountains on the horizon.