The bone forest was a graveyard that refused to lie still. The trees were not wood, but massive, petrified ribs and vertebrae, their surfaces porous like fossilized coral. Their branches were finger-bones that clacked together in the faint, foul breeze, a sound like endless, chattering teeth. The ground was a treacherous carpet of shattered rib shards over a fine, white powder. Every step was a potential betrayal.
Li Tian tested the terrain, gently scraping his foot. The resulting skritch echoed with unnatural clarity. From the right, a deeper, answering chest-thump vibrated through the fog. Sound was a weapon here. He adapted instantly. His Vein Step became even lighter, his weight settling only on the most stable-looking patches of ground. He synced his Star Lung exhalations to the random clacking of the branches, using the forest's own noise to mask the sound of his breath. Spend only what returns.
Under a great, split trunk that resembled a broken spine, he found a patch of sticky, greyish dust—bone-resin. It smelled of age and alkali. He scraped a handful and rubbed a thin layer on the soles of his boots and the cuffs of his robes. It wasn't magic, just practicality; it dampened the scrape and rustle of his movement, buying him precious moments of silence.
They found him anyway. Two Scarlet-Furred Apes emerged from the fog as shifting silhouettes. They were scouts, communicating not with growls, but with soft, rhythmic taps to their chests and raps of their knuckles on bone trunks. They moved to triangle him, trying to herd him toward a clearing littered with dry, noisy rib cages.
He refused the funnel. Instead, he threaded his way into a dense field of leaning rib clusters, a natural maze. The first ape closed in, its hammer-like fist swinging for his head. Cornered against a unstable-looking stack of bones, Li Tian had no room to dodge. He braced his forearm and opened a thread-thin devour.
The impact was a hook of cold fire in his muscle. A metallic taste filled his mouth. But he'd shaved enough force to keep the bones in his arm from snapping. He spiral-bled the agony mid-pivot, the pain a familiar tax, and sidestepped. The ape, overcommitted, stumbled into the precariously balanced rib stack. With a sound like a thousand dishes breaking, the bones collapsed, pinning the creature. A short, sharp palm strike to its temple ended the threat. His forearm buzzed with returning sensation, a map of the cost.
The second ape was smarter. It hung back, hurling a sharpened rib fragment like a javelin. Li Tian ducked, the bone shattering against a trunk behind him. Then it charged low, aiming to tackle his legs. He bait-stepped onto what looked like a solid shelf of packed powder. It wasn't. The ground gave way, dropping them both half a span into a shallow pit. Li Tian rode the slide, and as the ape scrambled up, he kicked a sharpened splinter from the pit wall into its exposed throat. No devour, no fancy technique. Just brutal, efficient survival. He retrieved a small, pulsating core from the first ape but felt its Qi was thin, polluted. He pocketed it for points, refusing the temptation. Discipline over greed.
The ground sighed. A distant, muffled thud rolled through the forest—the Star Well finally imploding. Bone-branches clattered down like rain. Through the fog, a voice carried, polite and faint, from a surprising direction. "Clever." A moment later, a distinct pop of a discharging talisman sounded far to the left. The intruder was free. And circling.
Before Li Tian could process this, the bone dust ahead of him lifted, forming a slow, wide, circular ring. The ground beneath it bulged slightly, then settled. A massive silhouette shifted under the fog and soil—not simian, but something longer, lower. A series of broad, bone plates rose and settled like the back of a breaching leviathan. The air grew heavier, older.
The ring on his finger warmed once. A warning. Not of immediate attack, but of profound scale.
Something older turned—and the forest rose with it.