The merchant wagon lay on its side.
One wheel had snapped from the axle.
A horse struggled near a tree, reins tangled around the trunk.
Three merchants sheltered behind the overturned wagon.
Five men surrounded them.
Bandits.
But none were watching the merchants.
All five stared at the forest.
One bandit already lay dead.
Another clutched a bleeding shoulder.
The leader held his saber with both hands.
Something moved between the trees.
A beast emerged.
Grey fur hung from its body in wet clumps.
One foreleg bent badly.
A deep wound split its ribs.
Bone showed through.
It should not have been standing.
The bandit leader whispered, "What the hell is that?"
The beast charged.
The nearest bandit raised his knife too late.
The creature struck him down.
Chen Shun moved.
Darkness Qi gathered around White Fang.
Nether Emperor Lance.
Straight.
Condense.
Pierce.
The spear entered the beast's shoulder.
It did not recoil.
The creature twisted immediately.
Chen Shun released White Fang before its claws crossed his chest.
He extended his hand.
The spear tore free and returned.
Blackened blood seeped from the wound.
The beast charged again.
Chen Shun aimed for the heart.
His spear punched between the ribs.
Qi drove inward.
The creature staggered—
then kept coming.
Chen Shun's expression tightened.
That strike had been clean.
It should have ended the fight.
"Move the merchants!"
The bandits stared at him.
"If you want to live, move them!"
That worked.
Two rushed behind the wagon and helped the civilians away.
The beast followed Chen Shun.
He struck its flank.
No reaction.
Pierced a rear leg.
It dragged the damaged limb and continued.
Pain meant nothing to it.
Wounds meant little.
He needed the head.
The beast suddenly turned.
Not toward him.
Toward the merchants.
Chen Shun ran.
Too far.
A merchant woman stumbled while helping an older man.
The creature raised one claw.
Chen Shun had no clean attack.
So he stepped between them.
The claw tore across his back.
He hit the ground.
Blood soaked his robe.
The beast struck again.
Chen Shun rolled and caught the blow across White Fang's shaft.
The impact slammed his shoulder into the road.
Something cracked inside his chest.
The creature pressed down.
His arms shook.
Darkness Qi surged through the spear.
Too much.
His meridians burned.
"Move!"
The merchants fled.
Chen Shun shifted the shaft.
The claw slipped.
The creature fell forward.
He rolled clear and thrust through its eye.
For one heartbeat—
it stopped.
Something travelled through White Fang.
Not merely piercing.
Pressure.
A faint suppression that interrupted the creature's movement for the briefest instant.
Then it struck him with its head.
Chen Shun flew across the road.
White Fang remained lodged in its skull.
The creature staggered.
Still moving.
The bandit leader attacked from the side.
His saber hacked into the beast's damaged rear leg.
The joint gave way.
"Finish it!"
Chen Shun forced himself upright.
Every breath stabbed through his ribs.
His back bled freely.
Qi circulation twisted painfully through his meridians.
He recalled White Fang.
The beast tried to rise.
One final thrust.
Darkness Qi surged.
The spear drove through the damaged eye.
The strange pressure returned.
For a fraction of a second, the creature froze.
Then White Fang burst through the back of its skull.
The beast collapsed.
Chen Shun remained standing for three breaths.
Then dropped to one knee.
Nobody touched the body immediately.
The bandit leader finally kicked it.
Nothing.
Again.
"Dead?"
Chen Shun looked at the exposed ribs.
"It already was."
The man stared.
"What?"
"No pain. No response to a heart strike. Broken leg didn't stop it."
Chen Shun looked at its clouded eyes.
"It was dead before it attacked us."
One merchant whispered, "Dark cultivation?"
Chen Shun heard him.
He had no answer.
The Chen Clan taught that dark cultivators sacrificed life to distort or increase power.
Nobody had taught him about walking corpses.
That belonged with the elders.
The bandit leader backed away.
"We're leaving."
Chen Shun raised White Fang slightly.
"You attacked the wagon."
The remaining bandits still outnumbered him.
Everyone could see how badly he was injured.
Then the leader looked at the hole through the creature's skull.
He slowly lowered his saber.
"...Right."
The merchants bound the surviving bandits with their own rope.
One attacker was dead.
Another could still walk despite his injured shoulder.
Chen Shun sat beside the road while a merchant wrapped his back.
"You need a healer."
"I know."
"Can you walk?"
Chen Shun stood.
Four steps later, his knees weakened.
The older merchant caught him.
"You're not walking back."
"I can."
"No."
The man pointed toward the ruined wagon.
"You saved us. Sit down before we have to carry you unconscious."
Chen Shun sat.
There was little dignity left to defend.
The wagon was repaired well enough to move.
Chen Shun rode in the back.
White Fang rested across his legs.
He insisted they remove the dead beast's head as evidence.
During the second hour, fever set in.
Not infection.
Qi backlash.
His final attacks had forced too much Darkness Qi through Level Three meridians.
His ribs hurt with every breath.
His back burned.
Chen Ba entered his thoughts once.
He still wanted to beat him.
That had not changed.
But rivalry seemed smaller while lying in a merchant wagon covered in blood.
Out here, nobody cared who finished the selection first.
The merchants cared who stood between them and death.
Chen Shun closed his eyes.
He could compete again when he could stand.
A Chen Clan patrol found them before dusk.
The return became an emergency evacuation.
A senior cultivator examined the severed head.
His expression hardened.
Questions followed.
Was it already dead?
Had it responded to pain?
What injuries stopped it?
Then Elder Chen Zhaolin arrived.
Chen Shun forced himself through the report.
Stonebridge delivery completed.
Bandits.
Merchants.
Abnormal beast.
Strange reaction within Nether Emperor Lance.
Zhaolin asked one question.
"You protected the merchants after your assigned mission was already complete?"
"Yes."
"You could have returned."
"Yes."
"Why didn't you?"
Chen Shun answered without thinking.
"They would have died."
Zhaolin nodded once.
Chen Shun tried to stand.
The world tilted.
Darkness took him.
He woke beneath white curtains.
Emergency healing and recovery hall.
His chest was tightly bound.
His back felt numb.
Qi-stabilizing needles lined his arms.
He tried sitting.
"Don't."
The healer pushed him down.
"Two cracked ribs. Deep tearing across the back. Meridian strain."
"How long?"
"At least ten days before normal training."
"External missions?"
The healer stared at him.
"Three weeks."
That hurt more than the ribs.
Three weeks without missions.
Three weeks without normal training.
Three weeks while everyone else earned Achievement Points.
"Your mission assessment has already gone to the Hall," the healer added.
"Stonebridge was completed?"
"Yes."
"And the merchants?"
"Under review. Elder Zhaolin recommended additional contribution credit. You intervened after your assigned duty, civilians survived because of it, and your injuries will keep you inactive."
"How much?"
"Ask when you can reach the Achievement Hall without bleeding."
She left.
Chen Shun stared at the ceiling.
Then heard movement behind the next curtain.
Another patient.
He turned.
A familiar object leaned against the wall.
Black.
Plain.
Heavy.
The Black Pole.
Through the gap in the curtain, he saw bandages.
A familiar sleeve.
Chen Ba.
The rivalry disappeared from Chen Shun's mind.
Only one question remained.
"What happened to him?"