Arin gazed at the flower, momentarily stunned by its beauty.
Cold qi drifted from its petals, sharp and biting, carrying the unmistakable chill of ice.
He was mesmerized—but only for a moment.
His scales suddenly tightened.
Instincts screamed.
Run.
Something deadly was coming.
His face paled. Every part of him knew he had to flee—yet his gaze lingered on the mysterious flower, greed tugging at his thoughts.
Should I take this?
It feels valuable… but will it hunt me down if I do?
Time slipped away.
In the end, survival won.
Arin turned away, abandoning the flower without another glance—and fled.
He looked up at the hole he had dug.
There was no time to hesitate.
His body moved on instinct—coiling, then launching upward in a single burst. The ground vanished beneath him, and a heartbeat later, he landed cleanly at the top.
Arin froze.
…Did I just do that?
His muscles still thrummed with unfamiliar power.
For now, he was out of danger—at least he thought so.
Yet a faint sense of unease lingered within him. It wasn't fear.
It was awareness.
Curiosity soon overwhelmed everything else.
Arin lowered his head and studied his body. His crimson scales gleamed faintly in the dim light, tighter and smoother than before. As his gaze moved along his tail, he froze.
Small thorns protruded from it—sharp, orderly, and very real.
"…That's new."
He flexed his body experimentally. The response was immediate. Too immediate.
While softly humming to himself, Arin felt a strange excitement rise in his chest. Since arriving in this world, everything had been dangerous, painful, and confusing—but now…
There was more.
More to explore.
More to understand.
More to live...
A familiar flicker of light appeared before his eyes.
Skills:
Basic Bite (Lv.5) — You finally learned how to bite. Yay.
Fear Sense (Lv.7) — Your species' instinct to sense danger and flee.
Basic Slither (Lv.5) — Your first proper wiggle-wiggle. Congratulations.
Instinctual Dominance (Lv.1) — A passive pressure rooted in instinct and hierarchy.
Lesser creatures will subconsciously recognize you as superior.]
Surprised, he muttered, "No insult?"
The thought barely finished forming before another screen flashed—this one overflowing with delayed, scathing remarks.
"…Of course," Arin sighed.
Irritated, he resumed slithering back toward his cave.
When he arrived, only four cave serpents remained. They had just emerged from brumation, their movements sluggish, their senses dull.
Arin slowed.
A quiet curiosity stirred within him.
Would Instinctual Dominance work on them?
He closed the distance.
The air shifted.
One of the serpents stiffened mid-slither. Its head lifted slightly—then froze. Its pupils shrank, body coiling tight as if struck by an unseen pressure.
Another serpent hesitated, lowering its head without realizing it had done so.
The third recoiled a step back.
The fourth surprisingly recoiled a step forward
None of them attacked.
None of them fled.
They simply… reacted.
Arin stopped.
His heart beat faster.
"So it works," he whispered.
Their hunger was obvious now.
Bodies shifted. Tongues flicked. Eyes lingered on him—and on the space between them.
Arin felt it.
He took out the rotten meat from his inventory and dropped it onto the stone floor.
It landed between them with a dull sound.
For a moment, they hesitated.
Then one moved.
Then another.
Soon, all four gave in to hunger.
No fight broke out.
No struggle.
As they fed, something within Arin settled—things that had once felt clouded now became clear.
It had never been desire.
It had been survival.
Cannibalism wasn't chosen—it had been forced upon them by desperation.
When it was over, the serpents lifted their heads.
All four looked at Arin.
Not with hostility.
Not with fear.
But as if… waiting.
As they finish eating a faint chime echoed in Arin's head
[Shop update F -> E]
Elsewhere, within the Chivalrous Wind Sect, an order had been issued.
A woman sat calmly upon a high-backed chair, her presence alone enough to weigh down the air.
Before her, three cultivators bowed deeply, heads lowered.
"Junior Liu. Junior Shen. Junior Luo," she said, her voice measured.
"This will be your first beast execution."
She gestured lightly behind them.
A man stepped forward, hands clasped in respect.
"Senior Ren Duong will accompany you."
The three juniors stiffened almost imperceptibly.
"He is at the peak of Qi Refinement," the woman continued.
"Conduct yourselves accordingly."