The night split open above the city.
A blinding streak of silver carved across the clouds, tearing at the sky as if someone had drawn a blade through the heavens. The air rippled, and then a figure fell through the light.
He was half-human, half-beast, his white hair streaked with blood, his body trembling from the backlash of shattered cultivation. When Rin Yeshan hit the ground, the world around him shattered in sound. His form transformed entirely to that of human.
The concrete where he had landed cracked. The streetlights flickered. The glow of distant neon rippled like water.
Rin gasped, curling his fingers into the cold pavement. Every muscle in his body spammed. Screaming with pain. His breath was shallow and sharp. He could feel the burn of his fractured core pulsing under his ribs.
Seems like I failed the ascension...
The taste of blood filled his mouth. He spat and dragged himself up to his knees, eyes narrowing at the unfamiliar lights that blinked and hummed all around him. Strange metal beasts rolled past, coughing smoke. Their eyes glowed white and red.
This scent...the air...there's no spirit flow..No qi...
He staggered forward. His once-luminous aura was gone. The energy veins beneath his skin flickered lightly.
The world He knew was not what was before his eyes...
He was somewhere else.
Whatever this place called itself.
A wave of nausea crashed over him. His vision swayed. He collapsed to one knee, panting. Then he heard a shuffle of feet behind him.
A drunk man stood in the mouth of the alley, bottle in hand, eyes squinting through the half-dark. "Hey, you alright there? Damn you look like a model or something."
Rin didn't move. His senses were screaming danger. The man's aura was filthy. He smelled like a rotten corpse. He took a step closer, and the bottle clicked against the metal railing.
"Where are your clothes, huh? You lost or just lookin' for trouble?"
The air thickened. Rin's muscles tightened. His hand shot up automatically, trying to summon spiritual force, but the moment he reached inward, his core flared in agony.
Damn it! It's weak!
The man laughed under his breath. "Pretty thing like you shouldn't be alone out here."
Rin thought that the strangely shaped beast seemed to be too intoxicated to even put him together with the word thing. He was naked alright but he was in no way small in stature.
The filthy man reached forward.
"Stay back." Rin's voice came out hoarse, low and too weak to sound like a warning.
The man's grin widened. "Or what?"
The light from a nearby sign spilled over Rin's bare skin; pale, silver veins glowing faintly. To human eyes, he looked like an angel who had fallen straight from heaven. To someone like that man, a pervert! It was temptation.
The drunkard lunged.
Rin's pulse spiked. Instinct roared awake.
The mark behind his shoulder blades flared, a sigil that once shimmered with divine blue light now cracked like lighting scars. Energy bursting from his body, unsteady and somewhat violent.
Pain sliced through his chest.
And then...his body shrank in a flash of silver.
The man's outstretched hand froze mid-air as a burst of white fur and a trail of light replaced the man.
"What the hell..."
Where the wounded man had been, a small snow-white creature landed on the ground. It looked like a kitten sculpted from moonlight, it's fur shinning faintly blue under the neon lights. It's tiny paws trembled. A long, elegant tail brushed the ground, and a pair of crystalline blue eyes stared up at him.
The man stumbled back, dropping the bottle of booze.
"A cat..No wait..what!!"
Run hissed weakly, backing away. His paws slipped against the wet concrete, his fur matted with blood. Pain rippled through him again. He hadn't meant to shift, but his core was unstable, the energy collapse forcing him into his smallest, powerless form.
The man blinked, muttered something about going crazy, and staggered out of the alleyway, leaving the little snow panther alone in the rain.
There was silence, broken only by the soft hum of distant traffic.
Rin dragged himself beneath a pile of old cardboard. His tiny chest heaved.
The air was heavy with iron and smoke. Unlike the pure air in the Beasto World. There was not even a tiny bit of qi.
I can't even heal here, the energy is dead.
His consciousness flickered. The wound on his shoulder throbbed with so much pain. His blood seeped into the pavement mixing with rainwater.
Pathetic. A Beata reduced to a stray.
He curled up,
Tail wrapping around his small frame. The world blurred, light dimming at the edges.
Then he heard a voice, this time it was soft. Soothing even.
"Momo, this shortcut's terrible...my allergies are already acting up."
Footsteps splashed through the paddles. Two shadows crossed into the alley, one tall and graceful beneath an umbrella, the other short and fidgety with a phone flashlight on.