The quiet didn’t last.

  Somewhere in the underbrush, something moved. A branch snapped. Leaves rustled. The sound was soft, cautious—but it was there.

  I tensed, one hand sliding toward the billhook lying in the blood-soaked dirt beside me. My other hand pressed against my side, barely holding back the steady trickle of blood. I wasn’t ready for another fight. Not even close.

  The noise came again. Closer this time.

  I gritted my teeth, forcing myself upright, ready to make a final stand if I had to.

  Then it stepped out.

  Small. Black. Fur sleek and glossy in the light filtering through the trees. Two bright eyes stared up at me from the shadow of a low branch.

  The fox.

  It stood at the edge of the clearing, nose twitching, head tilted slightly to the side. It didn’t look afraid. Just curious.

  I stared at it, chest still heaving. My muscles trembled with fatigue.

  “You again, come to poison me again.” I muttered.

  It didn’t reply.

  “Go on. Shoo.” I waved my hand weakly. “No fish today.”

  Still nothing.

  I blinked at it, half expecting it to vanish. The same fox had been watching me since I arrived in this world. At the stream. Near the trees. Always watching, never close enough to touch. I still wasn’t sure if it was just a fox.

  I motioned again. “Seriously. Go.”

  After a long pause and a side eye at the corpse resting beside me, it finally turned and stepped back into the underbrush, tail flicking once before disappearing completely.

  I sagged with relief. Not because I thought it was a threat—at least not right now—but because it meant I could relax.

  My arms felt like lead. My legs barely responded. But I couldn’t stay here. If I passed out in this clearing, I wouldn’t wake up.

  Step by step, I started the long shuffle back.

  The forest felt different now. Not in the way it had earlier, when the air had buzzed with the pressure of something waiting. Now it felt… hollow. Like the trees themselves were holding their breath.

  I didn’t see the fox again.

  It took far too long to reach the edge of the woods. The sun was already high by the time I stumbled down the narrow path toward the farm. My vision had narrowed into a tunnel, and my hands were slick with drying blood by the time the cabin came into view.

  Wei Lin was outside, crouched by the garden, trimming a line of green shoots with a curved knife.

  He looked up as I limped into the clearing.

  And dropped the blade.

  “By the heavens—what happened?”

  I didn’t answer. I just collapsed onto one knee near the porch.

  Wei Lin was at my side in an instant. His hands hovered near my shoulder, not sure where to touch. “You’re bleeding. Everywhere. What—what did you—”

  “I’m fine,” I managed, which was a lie. “Just need a bit of stitching.”

  He helped me inside, careful with every step, guiding me to the mat near the hearth. The familiar scent of smoke and herbs wrapped around me as he lowered me down. I leaned back against the wall, eyes half-closed, heart still hammering in my chest.

  Wei Lin didn’t ask more questions—not right away. He moved with quiet urgency, rummaging through jars and drawers until he found what he needed. A spool of thread. A hooked needle. A bowl of hot water.

  “This will sting,” he warned.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “It already does,” I muttered.

  He didn’t laugh.

  The first stitch burned like fire. I hissed through my teeth, gripping the edge of the mat with white knuckles.

  “I don’t know what you fought,” he said quietly, eyes focused on his work, “but it must’ve been something.”

  “It was.”

  A pause.

  “And?”

  “I won.”

  He snorted. “Barely.”

  We didn’t say much after that. He worked in silence. I endured it in silence. When he finally tied off the last stitch and stepped back, I felt like I’d lost the fight all over again.

  Wei Lin started gathering up the bloodied cloths and setting aside his tools, but I caught the flicker of a thought behind his eyes. He wasn’t done talking.

  “You said you killed it?”

  I nodded once.

  He stood and glanced toward the window, the direction I’d come from. “What kind of beast?”

  “Same as the one that attacked me before. But bigger.” I let out a slow breath. “Meaner too.”

  He frowned. “Striped fur? Glassy eyes? Long claws?”

  “Yeah.”

  He clicked his tongue, nodding to himself. “Might’ve been a lyracat . Locals call them dusk creepers. The town will pays decent coin for their hides.”

  I blinked at him. “You’re telling me it’s worth something?”

  “Everything’s worth something. Fur, claws, even the core if it has one.” He looked at me, and there was a quiet practicality in his expression I hadn’t seen before. “If it’s still intact, I could haul it back. It’d fetch enough for food and medicine for a while. Maybe more.”

  I didn’t argue. Honestly, the thought of that thing being useful was a strange comfort.

  Wei Lin set a kettle over the fire and stepped away to gather his things. A satchel, a rope coil, a small hooked blade for skinning. Then he glanced back at me. “Don’t die while I’m gone.”

  I managed a grunt that might’ve been a laugh.

  He left soon after, disappearing down the trail with the same quiet steps he always had.

  I didn’t try to move.

  The hours passed in fragments. My body drifted in and out of shallow sleep, never quite fully resting. Every time I shifted, pain lit up across my chest and thigh. The stitches pulled, my ribs ached, and my arm throbbed like it was pulsing with its own heartbeat.

  Sometime in the afternoon, Wei Lin returned.

  He didn’t say much—just dropped the bag with a dull thud and went to work. He brought water first, then a bitter green paste he slathered over my wounds with the ease of long habit. It smelled like crushed leaves and something sharp, and it burned worse than the needle had.

  I didn’t complain.

  “Drink this,” he said, handing me a cup filled with something thick and murky. “Will help with the swelling.”

  It tasted like tree bark and spoiled tea. I drank it anyway.

  That night, he set up a small cookfire near the doorway and ladled out bowls of rice and thin broth. He sat across from me, watching the flames, and didn’t ask what had really happened out there. Whether he didn’t want to know or figured I’d tell him eventually, I wasn’t sure.

  The next day passed in the same rhythm.

  Rest. Herbs. Sleep. Pain.

  Wei Lin changed the bandages. Fed me again. Applied more of the burning paste and muttered something about “bone-deep claw rakes” and how lucky I was it hadn’t gone for the throat.

  I believed him.

  By the end of that day, I could sit up without everything spinning. The worst of the bleeding had stopped, and my limbs no longer felt like sacks of wet stone. The pain was still there, deep and ever-present, but it had settled into something manageable.

  The cabin was quiet that evening. The wind stirred gently through the rafters, carrying with it the scent of rice paddies and woodsmoke. I could hear Wei Lin out front, sharpening a blade with slow, deliberate strokes.

  It was the first time since the fight that I let myself exhale fully.

  By the second night, I could stand again.

  Not well. Not quickly. But upright was a start.

  Wei Lin watched me wobble toward the water bucket with his usual unreadable expression. When I didn’t immediately collapse, he gave a small grunt and returned to sorting the bundle of dried herbs he’d laid out across the floor.

  “You’re stubborn,” he said after a moment.

  “Usually,” I replied, wincing as I sat back down.

  He nodded like that confirmed something he already knew. Then passed me a cup of water without another word.

  Later, after he’d gone outside to tend to the garden—though I suspected he was giving me space—I leaned back against the wall and let myself breathe. The pain had dulled into something distant and heavy. Every movement still felt like dragging a chain through my bones, but I could think clearly again.

  And that meant it was time to check.

  I closed my eyes and reached for that now-familiar thread inside me—that spark of awareness the system had awakened. It wasn’t just a feeling anymore. It was there, constant and quiet, like a second pulse beneath my skin.

  A soft chime echoed through my mind.

  Status

  Name: Ethan Ward

  Cultivation: Mortal – 2/10

  Titles:

  ? Diligence’s Chosen

  ? Otherworlder

  Skills:

  ? Last Stand

  Stats:

  Strength: 10

  Agility: 10

  Constitution: 15

  Spirit: 13

  There it was.

  Mortal. 2 out of 10.

  Last time I looked, it had just ticked up to 1.

  I stared at the number for a long time, not because I didn’t understand it—but because now I did.

  This wasn’t random.

  I’d absorbed Qi twice now. Both times after killing something stronger than me. Both times after bleeding for it. And both times, the number had gone up.

  Ten.

  That was the goal. The number it was building toward.

  Which meant the Mortal stage wasn’t permanent. It had a ceiling. A cap. And once I hit that ceiling… something would change.

  I didn’t know what came next. But I knew what came now.

  Keep going.

  Keep killing. Keep surviving. Keep pushing.

  It wasn’t a comforting thought.

  But it was simple.

  I let the screen fade and stared at the ceiling for a while. The cracked wood beams, the flicker of firelight on old nails, the faint scent of herbs in the air.

  This wasn’t Earth. There were no shortcuts. No safe paths.

  Just blood, pain, and progress.

  The kind that left scars behind.

  And if I ever wanted to go home—if that was even possible—I’d need to reach the end of that path.