I dreamed of teeth.
Massive jaws closing around me. Crushing bone and flesh with casual efficiency. A Rakshasa noble leaning back in satisfaction, my blood dripping from its chin.
Applause from other monsters as they waited their turn at the feast.
Then cold water hit my face.
"You stink, you bastards!" Zhao's laughter cut through the cage as I gasped and sputtered.
The scar-faced guard stood outside the bars with his empty bucket. Grinning at our misery. This was his favorite part of every morning. The power he wielded. The entertainment we provided.
I wiped water from my eyes. Around me, other prisoners shivered and choked. Their chains rattling against the wooden floor.
Seventy-six days of this.
Seventy-six mornings of waking to Zhao's cruelty.
Beside me, old Chen coughed wetly. Fluid in his lungs. Worse than yesterday. The cold water had accelerated what was already inevitable.
He had saved my life three days ago with that herbal paste. Sacrificing medicine he should have kept for himself.
Now he was dying because of it.
"Morning, little brother," Richard said quietly. His voice carefully neutral. The tone we all used when guards were close. "You were talking in your sleep."
"Nightmares."
"About Moon Night City?"
I nodded.
Richard's expression darkened. "Three more days. Three more days and we arrive."
Three days until we were sold to flesh traders.
Three days until Rakshasa nobles decided which of us would be most tender. Most flavorful. Most entertaining to devour.
"Brother," I said softly, watching Zhao move to the next cage. "What if we don't have to go to Moon Night City?"
Richard's hand found my shoulder. Squeezing in warning.
"Don't even think it. I can see it in your eyes. Whatever you're planning, stop."
"I'm not planning anything."
The lie came easily.
I had been planning for weeks. Ever since the fever broke and my mind cleared enough to think beyond simple survival.
I had studied the guards' routines. Memorized their patrol patterns. Counted their numbers. Assessed their hierarchy.
Captain Wei with his cold eyes and terrifying competence.
The three vice-captains who deferred to him.
The regular guards who were dangerous but not invincible.
All cultivators. All capable of killing me before I could blink.
But even cultivators had limitations.
Blind spots.
Weaknesses.
I just needed the right opportunity.
"Surya." Richard's voice dropped even lower. "Running is suicide. They're faster than us. Stronger. They can track us like animals."
"I know."
"Do you?" His grip tightened. "I've seen three people try to escape. I watched them die. I don't want to watch you die too."
The genuine concern in his voice made my throat tight.
In this hell of cages and cruelty, Richard's kindness was the only thing that reminded me humans could still care about each other.
"I don't want to die either," I said. "But I won't let them eat me without a fight."
Before Richard could respond, Zhao returned with daily rations.
Small loaves of bread. Dry and hard as rocks.
He tossed them through the bars one by one. Laughing when someone fumbled and dropped theirs in the filth.
I caught mine reflexively.
The bread was coarse. Difficult to swallow. Barely enough to sustain life.
I had learned the technique. Work saliva before each bite. Chew slowly. Force it down bit by painful bit.
Richard produced his own bread but didn't eat.
Instead, he broke it in half and offered me a piece.
"Brother, no—"
"Eat it. You're still recovering from the fever. You need the strength more than I do."
We compromised.
I took a quarter of his bread. We ate in silence.
Chen coughed again. This time blood flecked his lips.
I couldn't save him. Couldn't save any of them, really.
But maybe, if fortune smiled and I was clever enough, I could save myself.
The carriage lurched into motion.
Wheels grinding against dirt road. Through the bars, I watched the landscape pass.
We had been climbing for days now. Gentle hills giving way to darker forests. Ancient trees pressed close to the road. Their shadows deep and menacing.
The air had changed too.
Colder. Heavier. Charged with something I couldn't identify.
My analytical mind catalogued every detail.
The forest composition suggested higher elevation. The temperature drop indicated significant altitude gain. The changed vegetation meant different soil conditions.
Information was power.
Always had been, across three lifetimes.
And right now, I needed every scrap of power I could gather.
The morning dragged on.
The sun climbed higher. Heat made the cage feel like an oven. Bodies pressed too close together. The stench of unwashed flesh and human waste.
The constant rattle of chains.
I closed my eyes and tried to rest. But my mind wouldn't quiet.
It kept working through scenarios. Calculating odds. Searching for any possible path to freedom.
Then I felt it.
A tremor in the ground.
Subtle at first. Barely noticeable.
Then another. Stronger.
Conversations among the guards died mid-sentence.
Another tremor. Then another.
A rhythmic pounding that grew louder with each repetition. The ground itself shook with each impact.
Something massive was approaching.
Something that didn't care about roads or human convoys or anything else that stood in its path.
Captain Wei's voice cut through the air like a blade.
"Halt! Defensive positions!"
The carriage ground to an immediate stop.
Guards abandoned their casual postures. Weapons materializing in their hands with cultivator speed.
Then Captain Wei did something I had only seen once before.
He launched himself upward.
One moment standing on the ground. The next, thirty feet up. Landing in the tree canopy with impossible precision.
His vice-captain followed. Ascending with the same gravity-defying grace.
My stomach dropped.
I had been planning escape. Calculating odds. Thinking I might somehow slip away if the right opportunity presented itself.
I had been a fool.
These men weren't just strong.
They were something else entirely.
Something that transcended normal human limitations so completely that comparing us to them was like comparing insects to apex predators.
From the canopy, Captain Wei's voice rang out.
"Beast horde! At least fifty strong! Defensive formation around the cargo!"
Beast horde.
For the first time since capture, I saw genuine fear flicker across the guards' faces.
Not panic. Not terror.
But the sharp, focused awareness of experienced fighters who knew they faced real danger.
They formed a circle around our cages with practiced efficiency. Weapons drawn. Qi beginning to manifest as visible auras around their bodies.
The ground shook harder.
Trees swayed and creaked. Birds exploded from the canopy in screaming clouds. Fleeing whatever approached.
Small animals darted past us.
Rabbits. Deer. A wild boar.
All running in blind panic.
Richard's hand found my shoulder.
"Surya. Whatever happens, stay low. Don't draw their attention."
But I couldn't look away.
Couldn't stop watching the treeline where something massive was about to emerge.
Old Chen had stopped coughing.
He sat perfectly still. His faded eyes fixed on the forest with an expression I couldn't read.
Not fear. Not resignation.
Something else.
Recognition, maybe.
As if he had seen this before.
Then the forest exploded into chaos.
A mammoth beast crashed through the trees with unstoppable force.
The size of a small house. Maybe larger.
Enormous tusks jutted from its mouth like twin battering rams. Each one thick as my torso.
But this was no elephant.
Crimson scales covered its entire body. Each scale the size of a dinner plate. Catching the afternoon light with metallic sheen.
Steam rose from its nostrils with each breath.
The ground cratered under its weight.
The beast's aura pressed down on everyone like a physical force.
My heart hammered against my ribs. Breathing itself felt like defiance against nature's hierarchy.
Behind the mammoth, smaller beasts poured from the forest.
Wolves the size of horses. Serpents that moved between trees with horrifying speed. Venom dripping from fangs as long as my forearm.
A beast tide.
"Hold formation!" Captain Wei bellowed, descending from the trees. "Vice-captains, engage the primary target!"
One vice-captain charged forward.
A woman with a scarred face and cold eyes. Her movement was impossible. Each step covering distances that violated physics.
Two blood-red rings materialized around her body. Rotating slowly.
The oppressive weight of the mammoth's aura suddenly lessened. Pushed back by her power.
She drew her dao. The blade gleamed with inner light.
Then she met the mammoth's charge head-on.
The impact when they collided shook the world.
Her blade bit deep into the beast's scaled hide. Drawing blood that hissed and steamed when it hit the ground.
But the mammoth barely slowed.
One massive tusk swung toward her. She twisted in mid-air with inhuman grace. Avoiding death by centimeters.
Around us, chaos erupted.
Smaller beasts crashed into the defensive line. Guards met them with enhanced strength and qi-infused weapons.
A wolf leapt at one guard. Jaws wide enough to swallow a man whole.
The guard's sword flashed. Moving faster than my eye could track.
The wolf's head separated from its body in a spray of dark blood.
But for every beast that fell, two more pressed forward.
Blood sprayed across the clearing. Bodies began piling up. The screams of dying animals mixed with battle cries and the metallic ring of weapons on scales.
And through it all, the mammoth continued its rampage.
Unstoppable as an avalanche.
"The cages!" someone screamed. "They're targeting the cages!"
I saw it immediately.
The beasts weren't attacking randomly. They were driving toward us specifically. Toward the concentration of human scent and terror.
A serpent, easily fifteen meters long, slithered past two guards locked in combat.
Its scaled body moved with horrifying speed.
Heading directly for our cage.
Richard shoved me behind him. "Get back!"
But there was nowhere to go.
The cage was three meters square. Packed with two dozen people.
The serpent's head rose up. Coming eye-level with us through the bars.
I saw my death in those eyes.
Cold. Reptilian. Hungry.
The serpent struck.
Fangs punched through the wooden bars like paper. Heading straight for Richard's chest.
Then old Chen moved.
The dying man who could barely cough without blood exploding from his lips suddenly surged forward with impossible speed.
His weathered hand caught the serpent behind its head.
Stopping the strike inches from Richard.
And for just a moment, I saw something that made my blood run cold.
Ghostly rings flickered around Chen's body.
Not solid like the vice-captain's blood-red rings. These were translucent. Broken. Fragments of something that had once been whole.
Chen had been a cultivator.
Once. Long ago.
The serpent thrashed. Trying to break free.
But Chen held firm. His other hand moving in a complex pattern I couldn't follow.
The serpent suddenly went rigid. Then collapsed. Dead before it hit the ground.
Chen followed it down.
Blood pouring from his mouth.
"Chen!" I dropped beside him. My hands checking his pulse.
Barely there. Irregular and fading fast.
His eyes found mine. For just a moment, they were sharp. Clear.
The eyes of the man he had been before whatever broke him.
"Boy," he whispered. Voice barely audible over the chaos. "You're different. I've seen it since the fever broke."
He coughed. More blood.
"Different eyes. Different thoughts. Like you've lived before."
My heart stopped.
How could he possibly know?
"When you escape," he continued. Each word costing him. "And you will escape. Remember this."
His grip on my wrist tightened.
"The rings are not gifts. They're—"
His eyes went wide.
His mouth moved. Trying to form one more word.
But no sound came out.
Then Chen was gone.
The man who had saved my life. Who had sacrificed his medicine, his strength, his very life to protect me and Richard.
Dead on the cage floor with secrets dying on his lips.
"He's gone, little brother," Richard said gently, pulling me back.
Around us, the battle continued.
More beasts fell. The guards were holding. Barely. But the cost was brutal.
Then I saw it.
In all the chaos, with every guard focused on staying alive, one of the smaller beasts had crashed into our cage.
The wooden bars on one side were warped. Twisted by the impact.
And the lock mechanism was partially destroyed.
An opportunity.
The only one I would get.
"Richard." I grabbed his arm. "The door. Look."
His eyes widened. Hope and terror warred on his face.
"If we run, they'll hunt us."
"If we stay, we're already dead." I met his eyes. "Chen just gave his life for us. I won't waste that."
Captain Wei was fifty meters away. Locked in combat with the mammoth alongside his vice-captain.
This was it.
The moment.
Do or die.
I grabbed the damaged door and pulled with everything I had.
It didn't move.
Come on. Come on!
Richard joined me. Both of us pulling with desperate strength.
The metal groaned. Resisting.
Other prisoners just stared at us. Too terrified or broken to help.
A wolf broke through the defensive line. Heading straight for our cage.
Thirty meters away.
Twenty.
Ten.
The door shrieked and gave way. Twisting off its damaged hinges.
"Now!" I shoved Richard through first. Then squeezed after him.
"Run! Into the forest!"
We ran.
Behind us, someone shouted. Maybe a guard. Maybe another prisoner.
It didn't matter.
All that mattered was distance.
My legs, weakened by months of captivity, screamed in protest with every step.
My lungs burned. My vision blurred.
But I ran anyway.
Richard stayed beside me. Could have easily outpaced me but didn't.
"This way," he gasped. Angling toward denser undergrowth.
Then Captain Wei's voice, somehow amplified across impossible distance.
"Escaped slaves! Secondary priority after the beast tide!"
Secondary priority.
We had time. Not much. But some.
We crashed through the forest. Branches tearing at our ragged clothes. Roots trying to trip us.
The sounds of battle faded behind us. Replaced by the thundering of our own heartbeats and gasping breath.
"Keep moving," I panted. "They're occupied. We have maybe an hour."
"And then?" Richard's face was pale. Terrified. "They'll track us down like animals."
He was right.
But something Chen had said echoed in my mind.
About the rings. About secrets. About power that was not what it seemed.
If I could just survive long enough to understand what he had been trying to tell me.
We ran deeper into the forest.
With every step, the weight of freedom mixing with the terror of being hunted.
Chen had seen something in me. Something different.
Something that suggested I had lived before.
He had been right.
And he had died protecting that secret.
I wouldn't waste his sacrifice.
The forest swallowed us whole.
And somewhere behind us, the beast tide raged on.
But we were free.
Terrified. Exhausted. Hunted.
But free.
And I would use every scrap of knowledge from three lifetimes to stay that way.
End of Chapter 2