Chapter 28

Wei Lin woke to the smell of smoke and herbs.

For a long moment, he simply lay there, blinking up at the unfamiliar wooden ceiling.

The weight of a blanket pressed against his chest, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear shouting. The sound of a hammer hitting something in the distance.

He shifted slightly before stopping, startled.

There was no pain.

No ache in his stomach, from the wolves claws, no nothing. Just a strange emptiness. Like a wound that had healed too fast, leaving only the memory of pain behind.

Wei Lin sat up slowly. The blanket slid from his shoulders, falling around his waist.

He had a good look around. Took in the rough log walls, the smell of dried roots and poultices heavy in the air.

How had he gotten here?

Bits and pieces of memory floated back. Waking to growling in the night, blood splattering across the cabin floor as he ripped his blade up and into the wolves head.

His heart twisted.

He threw off the blanket and swung his legs off the bed, barely noticing the cold floor under his bare feet. Fresh robes had been folded neatly on a stool nearby. He dressed with shaking hands, his thoughts spiralling.

Where was she. He had to see her.

He had to know.

Wei Lin stumbled into the hallway. The clinic was strangely quiet inside, but through the open windows, he could hear the village outside. It sounded alive. More alive than he had ever seen it. People were shouting and footsteps were running past.

He barely registered it.

He reached the back of the clinic, to the door that led to the small room where they laid the dead. His hand hovered over the latch.

He didn’t want to open it.

He already knew what he would find.

A rough sob caught in his throat, and he pressed his forehead against the doorframe, breathing hard, struggling to stay upright.

I wasn’t strong enough.

I wasn’t fast enough.

The memories came sharper now, the wolves, his Ma’s body crumpled in the bed, the way Fang Wu had dragged him up, thrown him over his shoulder, and moved.

And then nothing, only this cold, aching hollow where she used to be.

After a long moment, he pulled away from the door, his jaw tight.

The clinic door was half open, and the sharp air carried sounds of frantic activity.

Wei Lin pushed outside.

The square was chaos.

Villagers ran back and forth, hauling timber, stacking barrels, dragging carts to form makeshift walls. Every able-body was moving, shouting, hammering, doing something.

Wei Lin felt dread rising. What was going on?

Master Kai sat on a stool just outside the door. He was wrapping a bandage around Harako Jin’s arm.

Wei Lin forced himself to move and approach Master Kai.

When Wei Lin reached him, he bowed low and held while he spoke. “Thank you for healing me Master Kai. I don’t know how you done it but I’ve never felt better.”

Master Kai stood and placed a hand gently on Wei Lin’s shoulder.

“Raise your head boy. I’ll have none of that. Not when I can’t take all the credit.” He paused a second as Wei Lin stood up. The. He continued, looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry about your mother,”

Wei Lin blinked, the words hitting harder than any blow. He knew she was gone. Had seen it happen. But to have someone else confirm it broke something in him.

“She was a good woman,” Master Kai went on. “One of the best. Strong. Fierce when she had to be. It’s one of my life’s greatest failings, that I couldn’t heal her. But she never backed down. Much like you, she always had a fire burning in her.”

His hand tightened slightly on Wei Lin’s shoulder.

“She deserved better than this.”

Wei Lin swallowed, but no words came. His throat was thick with grief, with the crushing weight of everything he’d lost. Unwelcome tears fell down his face. He wiped them away.

Master Kai gave a small, understanding nod.

“You both deserve better than the hand you’s were dealt. When your father passed I should have stepped in. Let you go on your journey, see the world and all the miracles it holds. Let your fire burn brighter than ever. Instead I let you stay here, let your spark diminish and die. And for that I’m sorry. I’m truely sorry Wei Lin.”

He let his hand fall away. And returned Wei Lin’s low bow.

For a moment, Wei Lin didn’t know what to say. Until he looked around and couldn’t see Fang Wu anywhere.

“Master Kai, where’s Brother Fang.”

Master Kai looked up.

“You were both in bad shape, boy,” he said. “We did everything we could. If it hadn’t been for that pill the merchant left behind…” He shook his head grimly. “It pulled you back from the edge. Sped up what healing I could manage. As for Fang Wu, the merchant also gave him a pill. Something is happening to him in one of the rooms. Whether it’s good or bad, I couldn’t tell you.”

Wei Lin nodded stiffly.

He didn’t remember the merchant.

Didn’t remember much of anything after the cabin.

Only blood. Darkness. Pain.

Before he could ask anything more, a shout split the night.

“Beasts! Treeline!”

Wei Lin spun toward the sound.

Beyond the fields, at the edge of the woods, dozens of beasts cleared into the opening.

Master Kai grabbed his arm.

“Your sabre,” he said urgently, nodding toward the clinic. “Inside. Bedside table.”

Wei Lin didn’t hesitate.

He turned and sprinted back through the open clinic door.

Once he grabbed his weapon and returned he looked back towards the paddy farms.

It was like staring down a living storm, the amount of beasts moving towards their small village was staggering.

Wei Lin stood at the edge of the barricade, sabre in hand, gripping the hilt so tight his knuckles ached.

Memories surged like bile.

The cabin.

The screaming.

His Ma’s broken body, still and bloodied.

The Mistfang he’d killed had been luck — desperation and instinct. If it wasn’t for Fang Wu, he knew he would be dead. Just like ma.

But something in Wei Lin felt different now.

His hands were steady. His breathing calm.

His body, for the first time in years, felt whole.

Even his knee , shattered a decade ago during the last beast wave, moved without pain. He rolled it slightly, just to be sure.

Rage burned under his skin like coals waiting for a breath as he looked at all the beasts approaching.

He would not run. He would slaughter every last fucking one. They had now taken everything from him. And there come a time when enough was enough. It should have been when they took his father. No matter, he would just have to make up for it now.

A voice bellowed over the rising noise.

“Form up! Defensive positions! Shields front! Weapons ready!”

Elder Tian stood atop the central cart, a giant of a man even in his later years, his beard streaked with grey and long scar running down his face, stood out even against his massive twin-bladed axe.

He pointed with the haft toward the southern approach.

“Cover that breach! Archers, take the high ground. Don’t waste your shots on the fast ones until they’re in striking range!”

Everyone scrambled to make the last minute preparations he had ordered.

“Ready shield formation!” Tian roared. “Second line holds. You stab through the gaps when they bite at the front. Don’t break formation. If one gets through, you leave them for the rest of us. Don’t chase!”

Wei Lin shifted into position, joining the front wedge of defenders. He took his place beside a barrel shield wall, where one of the older farmers crouched behind a wooden slab reinforced with iron.

Above them, archers moved into position on the rooftop of The Crooked Reed and nearby sheds, nocking arrows and taking aim into the dark.

The ground shook beneath Wei Lin’s feet.

Ahead, the treeline cracked and split like old bones snapping under pressure.

And then they came.

Beasts of every shape and size poured from the forest like a living tide, Mistfangs in the lead, pale-furred and low-slung. Behind them thundered heavier shapes: ironhide simians slamming their fists into the ground with each step, thornscale lizards dragging their spined bellies through the dirt, churning it into mud.

A roar rolled over the field, not one voice, but many so loud it rattled the shields, so deep it seemed to echo in his chest.

Wei Lin’s mouth was dry.

His pulse beat like a war drum behind his ears.

The command rang out above them.

“Loose!”

A storm of arrows screamed overhead.

They fell like rain, thudding into charging flesh, snapping against bone. Some of the Mistfangs dropped mid-stride. Others stumbled, howled, rolled over twitching.

But not enough.

The horde kept coming.

“Loose,” Once again more arrows sailed through the air, taking more beasts out.

Wei Lin braced himself behind the barricade, shoulder to shoulder with the man beside him. His sabre trembled slightly in his grip.

His body felt stronger than it ever had, no pain, no stiffness.

But his mind…

His mind was full of the cabin.

Of the wolves.

Of blood on the floorboards.

Of Ma’s still, cooling body, her face already slack, already far away.

He clenched his jaw and forced the thought down.

Not now.

Not yet.

The man beside Wei Lin grunted as a Mistfang slammed into him, driving him back a step.

Wei Lin reacted without thinking. He stepped forward, pivoted, and brought his sabre down in a clean arc, carving across the beast’s spine. It shrieked and dropped, convulsing.

Another came over the top. Wei Lin ducked under it, twisted, and drove his sabre up into its belly. Warm blood spilled over his arms as the creature fell limp across the barrels, its body already having arrows sticking out of it.

Wei Lin looked up. Beasts were crawling over the barricades, slipping through gaps, clawing and howling and dragging bodies to the ground.

Someone screamed behind him.

Wei Lin couldn’t turn to look. A lizard type beast lunged for his throat, he slammed his sabre into its face, catching it just below the eye. It shrieked, flailing, and he shoved it back down behind the wall.

You weren’t strong enough.

The thought pierced him sharper wound he received that night.

She died because you were weak.

He roared in fury and met the next beast head-on.

His sabre moved faster now, swinging his blade in brutal strikes, hitting anything that came into range. He slammed it into shoulder joints, tore across tendons, crushed ribs with every downward stroke. His breath came ragged. His arms burned.

But he didn’t stop.

The shield line was breaking in places.

Mistfangs and other faster beasts ran in through the weak points. Everyone fought with a fury you would only find when you’re close to death.

And Wei Lin moved through them like a demon.

He wasn’t fighting to survive, like the other villagers.

He was fighting to kill. To kill every last one of them.

Blood splattered across his chest. His sabre caught in a spine — he wrenched it free and turned just in time to drive it into the next.

Someone shouted his name.

He barely heard them.

All that mattered, was where he would strike next.

———

The pain was like nothing I’d ever felt.

The Qi raged through my body leaving trails of agony in its wake.

I could feel my muscles ripping apart only to be stitched back together a heartbeat later by the cold, clinical hand of Last Stand.

Bones cracked. Tendons tore. Blood vessels burst and reformed.

All of it was background noise.

None of it mattered.

All that mattered was breathing.

In.

Out.

Calming the storm. Or becoming the storm. I wasn’t sure.

The world outside was gone, the village, the beasts, the looming threat. It was all reduced to a distant memory.

There was only me. And the roaring chaos inside me.

In the back of my mind, I could feel the system flickering wildly. Notifications trying to force their way into my awareness. Status windows flashing, updating, reforming.

I ignored them.

There was no space in me for anything but the next breath.

The Qi bucked and twisted, trying to tear me apart from the inside out.

I forced it down.

Pressed it back with everything I had.

Breath by breath.

Heartbeat by heartbeat.

Somewhere along the line, I felt Last Stand kick even harder. My body must have been falling apart. It was a final, desperate override of my crumbling limits.

And then, like a sunrise cresting the edge of the world, the system flared.

Not a whisper. Not a flicker.

A blinding, overwhelming flood of light behind my closed eyes.

I didn’t need the words to know what had happened.

I could feel it.

The mortal chains around my body shattered.

I had broken through.

The Qi still howled inside me, wild and furious but something had changed.

Something fundamental in my being.

A second flood hit me, not of power, but of understanding.

Information poured into my mind, too fast to catch at first, a thousand years of tradition compressed into a single heartbeat. Movements, breathing patterns, cycles of internal flow that wove Qi into breathing forms.

The quest reward.

The cultivation manual.

It fit me perfectly, like it had been waiting there all along.

I gritted my teeth, still half-drowned in the wild energy inside me, and seized on the new knowledge.

I moved without thinking.

I pulled a breath deep into my lungs.

And for the first time, instead of fighting the Qi, I guided it.

The torrent raged, but under my will it began to spiral, chaotic energy collapsing into a slow, grinding current that wrapped around my body.

I could feel it now. The start of something new.

Power, the likes I had only dreamed of.

The Qi flooded through the channels laid out by the manual, stitching paths through muscle and bone, knitting together what had been broken, strengthening what had been weak.

It hurt. Gods, it hurt.

Each breath was a hammer strike.

Each pulse of Qi a chisel carving something stronger out of the wreckage that had been my body.

I grinned through gritted teeth, sweat and blood sliding down my face.

Come on then,

I pulled the spiraling Qi tighter, forcing it to flow faster, deeper.

Let’s see who bends first.