The descent was a different kind of agony. Where the ascent had been a battle against gravity and thin air, the climb down was a war against momentum and treachery. Every step sent a jolt through Li's weary legs. Loose shale shifted underfoot, threatening to send them skidding over a precipice. They moved sideways at times, crab-like, fingers raw and bleeding from gripping any handhold they could find.
The lush green of the Western Valley, a promised land from the ridge, now seemed a tauntingly distant mirage. The air grew thicker, heavier with the scent of damp earth and pine, a stark contrast to the sterile cold of the peaks. It should have been a relief, but to Li, it felt suffocating. The thin, clean air of the heights had mirrored the singular clarity of his rage. Down here, everything was muddled, complicated. The memory of the blood was thicker here, the ghost of the soldier felt closer.
Mei followed him, her silence a heavy weight. He could feel her eyes on his back, sense the unspoken questions. The easy camaraderie of their escape had been fractured, replaced by the chasm of his violent act. He was no longer just her childhood friend; he was the boy who had killed a man, and the shadow of that deed lay between them like a fallen tree.
After what felt like an eternity, the angle of the slope gradually softened. The bare rock gave way to tough, hardy grasses, then to stunted, wind-bent trees, and finally, they stumbled into the true embrace of the forest at the valley's rim. The canopy closed overhead, plunging them into a green-twilight. The sounds of the mountain—the relentless wind, the scrabble of rock—were swallowed by the deep, living silence of the woods.
It was a primal, ancient place. Giant cedars, their trunks wider than Li was tall, rose like pillars in a celestial temple. The air was cool and moist, thick with the smell of decay and growth. Ferns unfurled in lush carpets, and strange, bioluminescent fungi clung to fallen logs, glowing with a soft, ethereal light even in the daytime.
They stood for a moment, listening. No shouts. No clatter of armor. Only the drip of water from leaves and the distant call of an unknown bird.
"We… we made it," Mei whispered, her voice full of awe and exhaustion. She leaned against a massive tree, sliding down its trunk to sit on the soft, mossy ground. "We're in the Western Valley."
Li did not share her relief. His senses, sharpened by terror and survival, screamed at him. This was not sanctuary. This was a new kind of battlefield. The forest was too quiet, too watchful. Every shadow between the massive trees could hide a predator. Every rustle in the undergrowth could be the soldier, having found a faster way down.
"We can't stop here," he said, his voice rough. He scanned the dense foliage, his hand instinctively going to the empty space on his belt where a weapon should be. "It's too open."
"Open?" Mei gestured at the impenetrable wall of green around them. "Li, we can barely see ten feet!"
"Exactly. He could be ten feet away and we wouldn't know." He turned to her, his eyes hard. "The stories about this valley… they never said it was safe. They said it was unmapped. We're not safe until we find people. A village. Something."
The mention of people sent a fresh wave of anxiety through him. What would they find here? Would they be friendly? Or would they see two ragged, starving children as easy prey? The simple trust of Dragon's End was a currency that no longer held value in his world.
Pushing away from the tree, he forced himself to move deeper into the forest, following the slight downward slope, hoping it would lead to the river they had seen. Water was life. It was also a path.
The going was slow. Thorns tore at their already tattered clothes. Thick, sticky spiderwebs, strong as wire, barred their path. They had to wade through icy-cold streams that flowed across the forest floor, their soaked shoes chafing their feet raw.
Hunger was now a constant, gnawing presence. Their stomachs cramped and growled. They saw berries, but unlike the familiar Azure Cloud berries of their home, these were strange, alien things in lurid colors. Li remembered Old Man Fen's lessons about forest lore, but none of them applied here. This was a different world with different rules.
"I can't… I need to stop," Mei gasped, leaning against a tree, her face pale. "Just for a minute."
Li wanted to argue, to push on, but he saw the genuine exhaustion in her eyes. Her resilience was fraying. He gave a curt nod, his own body screaming for rest. He kept standing, his back to a tree, his eyes searching the shifting patterns of light and shadow.
It was then that he saw it. A flicker of movement, too fluid to be the wind. A shape, low to the ground and dappled like sunlight on leaves, moving between the trees. It was a predator's grace. A large cat, its coat a perfect mimicry of the forest floor, its golden eyes fixed on them with unnerving intelligence. It was bigger than any wildcat from the Jade Dragon foothills, its fangs visible in a silent snarl.
Mei saw it a second later. A small whimper escaped her lips. She froze, the classic response of prey.
Li's blood ran cold. This was a different kind of death than the soldier offered—swift, natural, and utterly merciless. He had no shale, no high ground, no element of surprise. He was just meat.
The cat lowered its haunches, muscles coiling like springs. It was going to pounce.
Find the center.
The thought came not as a gentle reminder, but as a final, desperate command. His father's voice cut through the panic. The stone does not fight you. It simply is.
Li didn't try to become the predator. He couldn't. He tried to become the forest. The deep, ancient, unmoving patience of the giant cedars. The unyielding solidity of the rock beneath the moss. He stopped trembling. His breathing slowed. He didn't look away from the cat's golden eyes, but his gaze lost its fear, becoming as still and deep as a pool.
He was no longer a boy. He was part of the tree. He was part of the stone.
The cat hesitated. Its tail, which had been twitching, stilled. Its head cocked slightly, a flicker of confusion in its predatory gaze. This piece of prey was not acting like prey. It wasn't running. It wasn't freezing in terror. It was just… there. It was an anomaly in the simple equation of the hunt.
For a long, heart-stopping moment, man and beast regarded each other in the green silence. Then, with a soft, dismissive chuff, the great cat turned. It melted back into the shadows, its form disappearing so completely it might have been a forest phantom.
Li didn't move for a full minute after it was gone. The stillness held him. He had not fought. He had not fled. He had simply been, and it had been enough.
Mei finally let out the breath she'd been holding in a ragged gasp. "How… how did you do that?"
Li slowly turned to look at her. The cold, hard shell in his eyes had cracked, revealing not the old boy, but something else—something quieter, more dangerous, and infinitely more weary.
"I remembered," he said softly, his gaze drifting back to the empty space where the cat had been. The forest was still a labyrinth, and death still waited in the green shadows. But he had learned a new way to face it. He had learned that sometimes, the way to win the hunt was to refuse to be the hunted.