⚠️ AUTHOR'S WARNING ⚠️
The following content may contain very explicit descriptions,
including gore scenes and references to previous chapters.
The author does not seek shock value or provocation, but narrative
immersion. Everything you are about to read is pure fiction.
Reader discretion is advised. ☕🧐📖
🍷 AUTHOR'S NOTE 🍷
Did you really think I forgot about this character?
Please… 😌 I introduced them chapters ago for a reason.
Haha, okay, I'm kidding, I'm kidding 😏
Relax and enjoy the chapter, guys.
Get comfortable, because this is about to get good. 🥂🔥
───────────────────────────────────────
The crackling of the fire broke the stillness of the night.
Each branch that burned turned the coal into living ashes
that danced like tiny flames over the damp earth.
A woman was cooking a freshly hunted animal.
The heat of the fire gave a breath of relief
to a confused mind.
In the jungles of Yunnan, she felt she didn't belong anywhere.
Watching her closely, the details
of her appearance began to emerge.
Her arms were not normal; they didn't look tattooed
but blackened, as if they had been submerged
in oil under the orange light.
Her pale face showed deep dark circles and a hooked nose,
but the most unsettling part was her eyes: crimson,
with streaks of brownish orange.
She wore clothes from another era, perhaps the 1920s.
Around her, the ground was dead, as if
the earth had eroded away.
A five-meter circle surrounded the place,
flanked by stone pillars, remnants of an old forgotten ruin.
The woman murmured in a tired voice:
"If I had arrived earlier, maybe I could have stopped him.
Most likely he's already gone… They freed him."
She massaged her shoulders and took a deep breath:
"I have to move now… I'm surprised they
didn't find me."
"I don't know if that's an omen."
"Damn it…"
She only thought:
"I don't understand… they petrified me, but it wasn't him.
I was like that for years in that cave."
"It makes no sense that he didn't find me. Besides,
am I in a limbo?"
"Or am I already dead and haven't realized it yet?
With him, anything is possible."
However, the silence broke. She sensed another presence
in the distance. She turned, trying to identify whether it
was human or spirit.
"It's not a Mòshī, it's a person."
She seemed like a figure born from moonlight,
but her shadow did not project a woman—
it projected nothing.
She had no shadow at all, despite standing there, as if the
darkness itself claimed her and kept her bound to her skin.
She walked slowly toward the shadow of a tree,
each step almost silent, as if the world
held its breath watching her approach.
Like a specter, she vanished into the dimness barely lit
by the trembling glow of the campfire, merging with the
shadows.
Among the trees, a subtle movement could be seen: a monkey.
The human approaching was a young girl.
The firelight illuminated her face as she looked around.
She only saw living embers and meat browning over the coals.
She circled the fire and continued her path, unaware
of the danger.
She headed toward the stone circle, a few meters
from the fire, not knowing what awaited her
if she stepped on it.
Death was invisible to the eye; a few steps
would be enough to end her life.
Among the branches, the monkey began to move violently.
Its body tensed, as if something inside it were
pushing to break free.
It swung toward the girl, and mid-leap, its morphology
began to change: bones cracked, lengthening; muscles
stretched beneath the skin.
From its arms, feathers emerged, piercing outward like needles
of light; its mouth twisted until it became a sharp beak,
and its tail unfurled into a fan of trembling feathers
that shook with the wind.
By the time it touched the ground, the monkey was gone:
in its place stood a massive eagle.
It lifted into the air and, in a dive, hurled itself
toward the young lady.
Its talons, the size of a Tibetan bear's, slammed her
to the ground.
"Get out of here if you don't want to die," it said
in a feminine voice, mixing human tones with something
strange in Mandarin.
The young girl couldn't even scream.
The shock of seeing an animal speak made her faint
instantly.
The creature noticed she was still breathing; despite
everything, it had managed to save her life.
As the eagle sniffed her carefully.
The bird looked in several directions,
its eyes alert, calculating the perfect moment.
Slowly, it began to cover the woman's body
with its feathers, like a protective mantle.
As before, its form began to shift:
the feathers loosened and fell one by one,
floating in the air as if losing their purpose.
Each falling feather revealed a different skin
beneath, transforming texture and shape.
The talons shrank, stretching into feet,
and the beak softened, turning into delicate lips.
A fine fur began to spread across its body,
running along its limbs as the avian form
slowly gave way.
The change was gradual, fascinating, almost hypnotic;
every centimeter of the bird mutated into flesh, fur,
and human-animal movement.
Finally, the eagle ceased to be a bird:
its wings folded, its structure bent,
and it transformed completely into a chimpanzee.
The ape dragged the young girl to a tree
near the campfire.
It positioned her so she could rest properly.
Its eyes reflected melancholy as it looked up
at the sky, as if remembering something lost.
Under the light of the moon and the stars, the fur on her body
began to fall away slowly, letting human hair grow in its place.
Her lower limbs took form: defined calves
and thighs, with tense and harmonious muscles.
Her chest expanded, her waist narrowed,
and her eyes took on an intense crimson color.
The final change was silent but striking:
her body became completely human,
though the animal energy still vibrated in every fiber
of her soul.
The moon illuminated her again, and so did the fire.
A naked woman. Beautiful, but with a black
pentagram marked on her chest,
as if it had been burned into her.
Her gaze was lost and confused, filled with history.
She gathered her clothes calmly and put them on,
each movement measured, precise, full of elegance.
She had been the monkey, the eagle, the chimpanzee…
There was no doubt at all.
She was Xiaoxui.
__________________________________________________________
This was happening in the Well of Judgment,
in the vault of Zhuang.
The echo of that place seemed to cross continents.
Meanwhile, in Néouvielle Massif, Spain,
Galton had been running all day,
even with fatigue biting into his bones.
Moving like that was not normal for him.
After Greenland, his divine strength
had been reduced by half.
Curled up in the snow, he could only gaze at the stars.
He remembered the words of his son Zaziel:
"Daddy, daddy, look at me… my mom is in one of those stars."
The phrase pierced him.
It was as if the sky struck his mind open:
the stars began to weigh on him,
to watch him,
to remind him of every mistake,
every failure he dragged like a sentence.
"I realize something."
"I don't know if it's the cold or if I'm starting to wake up."
"The truth is that I haven't been intelligent."
"I look at the past, and I don't understand how or why I did that."
"kill, punish, insult."
The words echoed in his head
as if someone else were shouting them from inside.
"Why did I do it?"
"Since I became immortal, I've understood that people will never
understand what I am… because I no longer count the years."
"I suppose the pain of aging really is a blessing."
"It gives you awareness of life… and also of how stupid
we are as people."
"I wonder what's worse… the devil or man."
"God… many times I look at the sky and I wonder," he whispered,
"what will happen to me when I die and you ask me
to answer for everything I've done."
"I just look at the sky… and I feel that, even living forever,
I'm far too small to ask to see Batuya and Zaziel again."
"Tell me when I will die… maybe… I have no right to that."
"I've already forgotten why I'm here."
"Why do I do all of this if in the end… I'll only end up failing."
"Tell me when I was born; I bet my mother remembers me,
but I don't remember her."
"It's as if I were never born."
"Or if I was born… it was only to cause harm."
"When I was born, when I cried… I don't remember
even my days of joy."
"Life has no path for me."
"For others it does… but for someone like me, I feel
that my existence is unnecessary in this life and all others."
"Why can't I move…"
"Why can't I love…"
"Why can't I feel…"
"Why did I stop being a man only to become a dead thing."
"When did I lose my life…"
"When did I lose my love…"
"When did I stop dreaming…"
"When did I stop laughing…"
"Helena gave some of that back to me… but now I have nothing."
"God… tell me why I was born."
"What did I truly come to Earth for."
"Tell me why you created me."
"Admit it… you made a mistake."
"Others would have done better than I did."
And as if his own words shattered under their weight,
he began to pray.
"Lord, watch over Helena. That girl knows nothing.
I'm tired. I only hope that the Saint of Light
protects the Saint of Ice."
"I'm wearing out… but maybe it was necessary
to take Helena to that place."
"I don't know how or why… but something was screaming it
from inside me."
"I know my mission was to take the Saint of Light to Vermont.
But I couldn't go saint by saint… it would take years,
and those things from the underworld… those things
are hunting them."
"I'm sorry for not always doing what you say," he whispered, broken.
"It's fine… I accept it… but this time I do regret
not listening to you."
"I realize I almost never think things through…
that I always ruin everything…"
"Tell me… are you condemning me?"
"You send so many angels after my missions…"
"Why?"
"Just let me rest… I can't anymore…
let me die… I don't want to live anymore… please… kill me…"
"I want to die…"
"I don't want to think anymore… I don't want to walk anymore… no more…"
Galton began to cry without crying:
a dry weeping, without expression, without life.
His body lay sprawled on the frozen snow,
as if the earth itself wanted to swallow him
so he could finally rest.
Then an angel appeared at his side, seated with a calm
that hurt more than despair itself:
"God will not let you die yet. He wants you to live…"
"He does not want you to end like this."
"He will watch over Helena…"
"And over you as well."
Galton spoke with a broken voice, almost a breath:
"Helena… I only hope she's alright. It's a tragedy…"
"Because of me she's immortal now… she'll carry the same burden I do…"
Then, staring into nothingness, he asked:
"Tell me… did God make a mistake with me?"
"Tell me, angel… did He know I would kill those people,
and still let me do it?"
The angel touched him like someone brushing against an open wound:
"God does not make mistakes. Nor does He allow anything
without consequence."
"Galton, do not think God will not demand an account
for all the lives you carry."
"He is just. He knows you failed, as He knew you would fail,
and He knows you will fail again.
If He does not stop you…
it is because stopping you would take away your freedom."
"And He does not ask for praise out of vanity."
"Humans and angels praise so they do not forget
who created them… and how to thank Him."
Galton remained motionless in the snow,
touching his skin as if trying to feel something—
anything—
while the vast sky shone over him with no comfort at all.
"My mind feels heavy, I can't move… the shine of the stars
reminds me that life was not meant to be lived forever…
death is a gift… I don't know if God was choosing me
or condemning me."
________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world,
in the Yunnan jungle, the young lady woke up.
She had only fainted for a few minutes.
The sound of the campfire returned slowly,
soft, hypnotic, as if someone were breathing with her.
The air smelled of damp ash and rotting leaves.
She was tied by the ankles, but not by the hands.
When she opened her eyes in a jolt, she saw Xiaoxui in front of her.
A knot tightened in her throat.
She was in the middle of the jungle…
and before her stood a completely naked woman,
her skin glowing with the steam from the fire.
Xiaoxui noticed her shock.
Before fear could rise in her voice, she moved forward slowly.
Each step cracked over the wet earth,
as if the jungle itself held its breath.
She stopped in front of her. Without opening her mouth,
she extended a skewer of roasted meat.
The warm smoke mingled with the tense air between them.
"Do you want some?" she asked with a serene voice.
The young lady nodded, trembling, and took the food
like someone accepting a weapon without knowing it.
Xiaoxui pointed toward a dark depression in the undergrowth.
"Do you see that hole over there?
Don't go near it for anything in the world."
Her tone sharpened, almost clinical.
"If you do, your spirit will collapse permanently."
A pause.
Xiaoxui's gaze turned cold as wet metal.
"You will lose your soul," she continued.
"It's like walking through a minefield:
one wrong step… and your body will be torn apart.
There won't be a single bone left to recover."
She began to walk in circles around the fire,
as if guarding something invisible.
"Warn the people in your village not to come near.
This place is completely cursed.
I would seal it… but I can't."
The young lady stared at her with a mix of terror
and a curiosity she couldn't control.
"You… what are you?" she asked, barely breathing.
Xiaoxui smiled without joy.
"I am many things," she replied,
"but if it helps you… I am a mistake."
She moved toward her again.
Her shadow stretched over the embers,
seeming to move on its own.
Her crimson eyes boxed her in.
"Listen closely," she said in a low, steady voice.
"If you don't want to die, don't say you saw me.
Don't say I spoke to you."
Her face stopped just inches from hers.
"And don't think that, if you do…
I won't come looking for you."
She leaned in until they were only centimeters apart.
"I will come for you," she whispered.
"And I swear you will not make it out alive.
Not you… nor anyone who hears your story."
The girl nodded, trembling like a leaf.
Xiaoxui's lips trembled for an instant,
as if she were fighting something inside her.
"Please… don't let anyone get near that place," she managed to say.
And then her body changed again.
The transformation began at the skin:
the girl watched as, little by little, Xiaoxui's arms
became covered in soft fur.
A pair of rounded ears sprouted from her hair.
Her nose shrank and stretched, reshaping itself
into the pointed form of a raccoon.
Her whole body compacted, lighter,
and a fluffy tail emerged behind her.
In a matter of seconds, where the woman had stood,
there was now a red panda.
"Don't say you saw me," the panda warned,
with a faint but perfectly clear voice.
She took a piece of meat between her paws
and vanished into the bushes without a sound,
as if she had always been part of the jungle.
The girl, paralyzed, finished eating in silence.
She wanted to go home.
And the reason she was there was so simple
that it now felt ridiculous: she had gotten lost.
She knew that if she told anyone what she had seen,
no one in her village would believe her.
Besides, she had been away from the community for so long
that she no longer understood their customs.
She took a deep breath, stood up…
but she didn't make it past a single step.
Her body simply stopped responding.
She stayed fixed to the ground,
as if the darkness itself had touched her.
First, because she still didn't understand anything she had seen.
And second, because what stood before her
could not exist.
Not under any law of life.
Something was approaching.
Something that looked human…
but wasn't.
It was as if a pile of corpses had been stitched together,
sewn in fury,
and thrown into the world just to walk.
An abomination moved toward her,
each step more grotesque than the last.
It stood nearly two meters tall.
Bodies, limbs, and senseless fragments
coexisted as if they shared a single heartbeat.
It had eyes all over its body,
four mouths, two noses, five arms,
two legs… and five tails dragging behind it
like starving serpents.
The creature was completely black,
as if it had been molded from living soot.
It tried to speak.
What came out were growls, bursts of air,
and an impossible language that broke apart
before forming.
Until finally, with effort, it articulated:
"You have seen… an entity."
The girl didn't understand.
Her mind screamed that it was a dream,
but her body knew the truth:
dreams don't smell like death.
After seeing a woman transform,
the girl believed that nothing in that place could be real.
But the entity spoke again,
this time in a tone that scraped her soul:
"Where is the entity?"
The creature grabbed her suddenly.
Hands, arms, impossible limbs
seized her chest, her leg, her neck…
as if every part of the monster wanted a piece of her.
It lifted her off the ground and shook her violently.
She tried to break free, but it was useless:
her strength was that of a child facing an earthquake.
She didn't even have time to think.
She only waited, suspended,
for something terrible to happen.
The aberration twisted her abruptly.
Four jaws opened at once,
all aimed at her neck.
"Help!" she screamed, her voice tearing apart.
"Help… please…!"
But no one heard her.
No one could.
And the animal-woman, the only one capable of defending her,
had already gone.
There was no one left in that cursed jungle
who could save her.
The first jaw reached her neck.
The girl let out a scream that the forest devoured,
and then… nothing.
Her body stopped responding.
The monster bit her with monstrous force:
her head snapped off with a dry, brutal crack,
and her body hung lifeless, like a tattered rag.
It was the cruelest image of humanity.
Because this was not the work of God.
Not even of Hell.
It was the work of man,
of the potential for horror we carry inside
when we are allowed to deform it.
Perhaps humans are worse than demons.
The creature began devouring the girl's body
piece by piece,
nerve by nerve,
until in a matter of seconds
not even the bones remained.
Only the skull was left,
fallen after the dismemberment.
The entity took it with macabre delicacy
and brought it close to its multiple eyes.
It studied it with curiosity,
almost with childlike fascination.
With its claws, it opened the skull
as if peeling a fruit,
breaking it with surgical precision.
Then its hands began to mutate:
not into octopus tentacles,
but into flexible, living appendages,
like the sensitive filaments of a jellyfish.
Each tentacle vibrated, breathed,
exploring the air…
as if searching for more.
In one of the orifices, it distinguished something familiar:
the girl's memories. Its body reacted like a spring.
It recognized them one by one,
as if they were pieces fitting into a grotesque puzzle.
It knew where the shapeshifting woman had gone…
and also understood that she had burned her clothes to avoid being tracked.
Clever, but not clever enough.
Then, the creature opened its mouth and let out a scream.
It was neither human nor animal.
It was as if thousands of throats twisted inside it at once.
An echo that seemed to rise from the depths of hell.
That scream was not rage… it was a call.
And its pack responded.
Enormous shadows began rising among the trees.
Creatures like it, deformed, made of pure aberration.
We had seen them hunched… but when they stood upright,
we understood the magnitude of the problem: almost seven meters tall. Seven.
Meters.
They had already located our protagonist.
The panda sensed the danger and didn't hesitate: it ran.
It ran as if the ground were burning. Through its fur,
it could feel the vibration of those beasts closing in at full speed.
The threat was already upon it.
To mislead them, it changed form: it became a snake.
It lunged into the underbrush, sliding through soil, roots,
and damp earth. But fear clouded its mind; it needed to think,
to move, to survive.
It transformed again, this time into a rat.
It slipped into narrow burrows, searching for an exit, any exit.
But it surfaced again: it had to make sure no presence lurked nearby.
It only wanted to escape the forest. The entire jungle.
It emerged to throw off whoever might be close… and saw a lake.
The idea struck its mind like a whip:
"I have to get out of here."
"I have to get out."
The rat became a fish. It plunged into the water and swam
with its whole body, letting the current carry it toward the river.
It moved so fast that it used the water's momentum
to transform once more, this time into a reptile.
It climbed a rock protruding from the lake and took a breath for a few seconds.
Then a flash lit the jungle.
A voice whispered:
"Xiaoxui…"
The darkness parted like a curtain. A figure descended from the void.
It was no ordinary angel: a cherub. Panda head, serpent body, human face.
Its presence did more than impress…
it crushed. As if the air itself grew heavier around it.
"Xiaoxui, that is the name your mother gave you,
beautiful lotus woman," said the angel.
"God has chosen you to go against what is happening today."
Xiaoxui looked at him with anger burning in her throat.
"I have been calling God for years…
why does He answer me now?"
The angel tilted his head, almost with sorrow.
"Because He wanted to save you. He wanted you to live."
But you chose to seek Zaziel,
and now the fate of the Fire Ancestor
has intertwined with that of the Lightning Ancestor.
"Xiaoxui," he continued, "God has chosen you.
Take my hand if you wish to live.
He will grant you the redemption you long for.
He will free you from the body that confines you.
He will grant you a peaceful death.
He will restore everything.
But He needs you.
We must prevent a third cosmic war."
Behind the shadows, the beasts drew closer,
creaking, breathing as if hatred weighed in their bones.
Xiaoxui, in lizard form, became human again
and steadied herself on the rock, trembling.
"Come with me," said the angel.
"Let me put you to safety.
This must be your choice.
If we take you without your consent,
we would not be respecting your will."
Xiaoxui looked back.
The forest moved.
Something enormous slithered among the trees.
Her breath caught.
"Tell me one thing… will Zaziel go after Galton?"
"He will," replied the angel, without hesitation.
Fear struck her like a dart.
"Take me out of here, please."
Xiaoxui took his hand.
The world shattered in a white flash.
Both disappeared into the light.
The beasts reached the river seconds later,
roaring with a fury that seemed to scorch the air.
They struck the water, desperate, frantic,
screaming as if heralding a dire omen:
"Two entities! Two entities! Two entities! Two entities!"
And in that wild echo, something in the sky
seemed to awaken.