The Herd and The Hunt
The tree branch swayed beneath them, its ancient wood groaning with the transmitted force of approaching thunder. Yao Xuan's arms remained wrapped around Gu Yue, not from necessity now but from the simple comfort of contact—her warmth against his chest, the familiar weight of her body settled against him, the way her silver hair brushed his jaw with each tremor of the forest.
They should have been focused entirely on the approaching threat. And they were. But beneath that focus, a current of something warmer flowed—the quiet rightness of facing danger together, of sharing breath and heartbeat while the ground shook and the trees groaned.
"Yao Xuan," Gu Yue murmured, her voice carrying the particular softness reserved for these private moments, "you can put me down now."
"In a moment." His arms tightened fractionally, a silent promise that needed no words. "When we know what we're facing."
The thunder grew louder. The ground's trembling intensified until it seemed the forest itself was trying to shake them loose. Leaves rained down in continuous curtains, and through their gaps, Yao Xuan's enhanced vision finally caught sight of what approached.
A herd. Not merely a group, but a herd—perhaps a hundred massive forms charging through the ancient forest with the irresistible momentum of an avalanche given flesh. Each individual was enormous, comparable to the elephants of Yao Xuan's memory but broader, denser, their hides gleaming with the particular luster of accumulated cultivation.
Vajra Boars.
Yao Xuan's arms tightened protectively as he studied them. The species was notorious even among experienced soul masters—not for individual excellence, but for collective ferocity. Each boar possessed hide tough enough to turn aside blade strikes, tusks capable of piercing reinforced steel, and a temperament that transformed ordinary aggression into suicidal frenzy when their herd was threatened.
The individuals ranged from five thousand years of cultivation upward. At the herd's center, twice the size of its fellows, a true monstrosity charged: fifteen thousand years of accumulated power wrapped in pale golden bristles that stood like sheathed spears. Trees in its path didn't just break; they exploded, shattered by impact force that barely slowed the beast's momentum.
The system's information flowed into Yao Xuan's consciousness, parsed and analyzed before conscious thought could fully form:
Two elite boars flanked the leader, each at ten thousand years—Soul Saint equivalence without martial soul true body. The remainder of the herd, five to eight thousand years each, represented Soul King to early Soul Saint level threats.
By conventional assessment, this was a force that would require multiple Soul Sages working in coordinated teams to handle safely.
Yao Xuan smiled.
"How bad?" Gu Yue asked, reading his expression rather than the distant threat.
"Manageable." He finally set her down on the broad branch, keeping one hand at her waist for stability as the tree continued its rhythmic swaying. "The leader is fifteen thousand years. My equal in raw power, but suppressed by my bloodline. The elites are ten thousand—nuisances rather than threats. The rest are harvest."
Gu Yue's eyes tracked the approaching herd, her elemental senses mapping the distribution of life force, the concentrations of spiritual energy. "The numbers will complicate direct engagement with the leader."
"Which is why I have you." He turned to face her fully, the tree's motion now a background rhythm rather than a distraction. "Elemental Fusion Storm for crowd control. Clear the lesser threats, create an opening to the leader."
Her nod was immediate, certain. "Protect me during the casting. The storm requires sustained focus."
"Always."
Their plans set, they moved into position. Yao Xuan released Gu Yue's waist, but not before letting his hand linger—a moment of connection, of reaffirmation, before the chaos began. She settled onto the branch in a stable seated position, her legs crossed, her breathing slowing into the particular rhythm of deep concentration.
Yao Xuan positioned himself before her, a living shield between his partner and the approaching tide. His ancestral dragon scales surfaced across his forearms, his chest, his shoulders—not full possession yet, but readiness. The Elementary Ancestral Dragon Domain unfolded from him in subtle expansion, its nine-colored light washing over Gu Yue, enhancing her capabilities as naturally as breath.
Behind them, the thunder became deafening. The ground shook with such violence that the ancient tree's roots screamed against the soil. Through gaps in the foliage, Yao Xuan could see individual boars now—their tusks gleaming, their small eyes burning with the particular madness of the riot period's influence.
Gu Yue's eyes closed.
The air around her began to change.
"Elemental Staff."
Her fourth soul ring blazed, and elemental power converged from every direction—fire from the simulated sun above, water from the forest's hidden streams, earth from the trembling ground below, wind from the chaos of the herd's passage. They coalesced before her, not as separate forces but as harmonized expression, condensing into a staff of captured elements that hummed with contained power.
Her aura surged. Her control refined. The air itself seemed to bow to her will.
Yao Xun felt it even through his domain—the particular pressure of elemental authority asserting itself. The Silver Dragon King's vessel was not merely using elements; she was commanding them, and they responded with the obedience of subjects to sovereign.
The herd was two hundred meters away. One fifty. One hundred.
"Now," Yao Xun said.
Gu Yue's eyes opened.
They blazed with silver light, and the Elemental Fusion Storm erupted from her outstretched staff.
It was not merely an attack. It was a statement. Wind and fire and water and earth wove together into a spiral of destruction that reached toward the charging herd like a dragon's breath given form. The leading edge of the boars struck it and simply... ceased. Not killed so much as unmade, their physical forms dissolving into spiritual essence that flowed back toward Gu Yue and Yao Xun.
The storm carved through the herd's front ranks, creating a channel of devastation that the remaining boars could not avoid. Their charge momentum carried them into the maelstrom, and each contact stripped away years of cultivation, feeding the very power destroying them.
Yao Xun moved.
He didn't leap from the tree so much as release himself, his body becoming a projectile aimed at the heart of the chaos. Ancestral Dragon Shattering Step propelled him through the air, across the intervening space, directly toward the Vajra Boar leader that had already begun to slow, its small mind registering that something had gone terribly wrong with its charge.
The leader saw him coming. Its head lowered, tusks aligning to impale this airborne threat. Behind it, the two elite boars adjusted their positions, preparing to flank.
Yao Xun didn't give them time.
"Ancestral Dragon Shocks Heaven!"
His blood qi reversed along pathways now as familiar as breathing. Nine-colored light erupted around him, and the dragon phantom manifested not as separate projection but as extension, his body becoming its vessel rather than merely its source. He struck the Vajra Boar leader not with his claws but with the full weight of ancestral dragon presence crashing down upon lesser beast.
The impact shattered the ground beneath them. The boar's charge momentum met Yao Xun's descending force, and for a moment, they held—fifteen thousand years of accumulated power against thirty-nine percent of awakened dragon legacy.
Then the dragon's will prevailed.
The boar's legs buckled. Its head drove into the earth, tusks carving trenches as Yao Xun's momentum continued to press it down, down, into the broken soil. Its spiritual essence, the accumulated cultivation of millennia, began to flow—not of its own will, but drawn by the ancestral dragon's absolute authority over lesser beasts.
Around them, the herd's remnants panicked. The Elemental Fusion Storm had taken thirty, perhaps forty of their number. The remaining sixty still outnumbered their attackers grotesquely, but the death of their leader—occurring before their eyes, accomplished in a single exchange—broke their cohesion.
They fled.
The two elite boars did not.
Ten thousand years of cultivation each, they had witnessed the fall of their leader and responded not with fear but with rage. The riot period's influence burned in their small eyes, transforming survival instinct into suicidal aggression. They charged Yao Xun from opposite angles, their tusks aimed at his flanks, their mass promising crushing impact.
From the tree, Gu Yue observed. Her Elemental Fusion Storm had completed its work; the fleeing herd was not worth pursuing. The elites, however...
She didn't need to speak. Yao Xun felt her intention through the bond they had built over six months of shared combat. He shifted his stance, presenting an opening that would draw both elites into a kill box.
They took the bait.
As the first elite committed to its charge, Gu Yue's next attack manifested—not a storm this time, but precision. Compressed air formed a blade that struck the second elite's rear leg, severing tendon, dropping it to its knees mid-charge. Its momentum carried it forward, but its trajectory was broken, its impact ruined.
The first elite reached Yao Xun.
He met it not with dragon techniques but with simple, brutal efficiency. His claws found the juncture between its neck and shoulder, where even Vajra Boar hide thinned enough for penetration. He pulled, and millennia of cultivation flowed into him as the beast's life force evacuated through the wound.
The second elite, crippled but not defeated, dragged itself toward him. Yao Xun turned, considered it for a moment, then drove his claw through its skull with the economy of motion that spoke of genuine mastery rather than desperate struggle.
Silence.
The forest, moments ago filled with thunder and chaos, now held only the whisper of settling dust and the distant sounds of the fleeing herd fading into deeper woods. Yao Xun stood amid the bodies of three significant soul beasts, their spiritual essence flowing into him in steady currents.
He breathed. The battle fury that had carried him through the engagement receded, leaving clarity in its wake. Fifty years. One more significant engagement, perhaps two, and his soul spirit would cross the ten-thousand-year threshold.
Above him, Gu Yue descended from the tree with the particular grace of someone who had learned to make even gravity serve her. The wind elements that had carried her down dissipated as her feet touched the broken earth.
"Fifty years," he said.
"Mine as well." She surveyed the bodies, her designer's mind already calculating the spiritual harvest. "The herd's remnants will spread panic. More soul beasts will be drawn to the disturbance." A pause, then the slight smile that meant satisfaction with a plan well-formed. "We've created a hunting ground."
Yao Xun moved to her side, his hand finding hers as naturally as breath. Together they stood amid the aftermath of their coordinated violence, the silence of the forest slowly reclaiming space around them.
"How long?" she asked.
"An hour, perhaps two. The spiritual residue will draw scavengers. Stronger beasts will investigate the deaths." He squeezed her hand. "We rest, recover, and prepare for the next wave."
Gu Yue leaned against him, her head finding its familiar place against his shoulder. The battle's heat still radiated from his body, warm against her cheek. "This is good," she murmured. "This... us. Working together. Growing together."
Yao Xun's arm curved around her, holding her close as the forest slowly returned to its simulated normalcy. Above them, the eternal twilight of the Spirit Ascension Platform continued its unchanging cycle. Around them, the bodies of fallen soul beasts slowly dissolved into spiritual essence, their power waiting to be claimed.
Fifty years remained. Fifty years of cultivation separated them from the threshold.
And they would cross it together, as they crossed everything—hand in hand, heart in heart, two dragons whose separate flames burned brighter when they burned as one.