The sun's last light bled orange behind the jagged ridge as Yan Shen and Ji Suyin crested the final slope of the day's march. The terrain changed subtly around them,
the trees grew sparser, the earth beneath their feet hardened and cracked. The trail twisted past clawed-up roots and boulders scarred by deep, fresh gouges.
Yan Shen came to a stop beside one of the trees. He knelt without a word and ran his fingers over a wide, rough strip of bark stripped clean, the height precisely matching a boar's tusk line.
Ji Suyin stepped up beside him, her eyes sweeping the terrain. "They're close."
"Ironhide boars," Yan Shen confirmed quietly. "We've reached the edge of their territory."
They set up camp slightly uphill from the main trail, a shallow rock shelf offering cover on three sides. Ji Suyin's hand moved toward the array base within her spatial ring, but Yan Shen raised a hand, halting her.
"No formation tonight," he said, his tone final.
She looked at him, questioning. "They patrol this far out?"
He gestured toward a fallen log nearby, where the soil was freshly churned. "They already have. Those tracks are from today."
She didn't argue, only gave a small, tight nod and began arranging their gear with silent efficiency, thin sleeping mats, preserved rations, and a handful of low-grade Qi-concealment talismans.
Night fell swiftly.
The wind shifted, and a cold, heavy mist flowed down from the ridge, sliding between the trees and enveloping the camp in a sound-deadening blanket.
They had just settled their mats when a dry snap fractured the stillness. Then another. Close.
Ji Suyin's head came up sharply, her hand instinctively dropping to the hilt of her sword.
Yan Shen was already turning toward the slope, his fists coming up slightly, his breathing deep and measured.
A low, wet snort rolled through the mist.
"They're here," he said.
Ji Suyin stared at him. "Wait… how did you"
Before she could finish, a boar charged from the mist, head lowered, tusks forward.
Yan Shen stepped into its path. His right palm shot forward in a sharp, linear motion, no flourish, no wasted energy.
Impact.
The boar's head exploded. A wet, percussive crack echoed across the clearing. Bone fragments and viscera sprayed outward as the body dropped, momentum extinguished. For a moment, a dull, glowing beast core was visible near the base of the neck before it vanished beneath blood and matted fur.
Ji Suyin froze, stunned by the sheer, unadorned violence of the strike.
She recovered, raising her blade to meet a second boar rushing from her flank. She sidestepped, redirected its charge, and sliced deep into its front leg before driving her sword up beneath its jaw.
By the time her opponent hit the ground
Yan Shen had already killed three.
The second boar had attempted to flank him; he met it with a rising elbow that shattered its temple. The third lunged from behind; he caught it mid-air, slammed it onto its back, and crushed its throat with a single, downward knee strike.
Only two remained.
One turned to flee. Yan Shen closed the distance in three strides and brought it down with a spinning heel kick to the ribs, the sound of its spine snapping like a wet branch.
The last charged Ji Suyin but was cut down before it could close, her sword parting its neck in a single, fluid arc.
The forest returned to silence.
Steam rose from the blood-soaked earth.
Neither spoke.
The mist began to settle again, the tension in the clearing dissipating like the fading echoes of the fight.
Yan Shen shook the blood from his knuckles and knelt beside the first corpse. His fingers probed the flesh near the neck, but the angle was awkward. His grip slipped on the wet tissue, and he had to tear through muscle and sinew to reach the core. When he pulled it free, his hand was slick with gore, the carcass left gruesomely disfigured.
He looked down at the mess, his expression tightening faintly.
He moved to the next body.
This time, his fingers found the precise depth immediately. A slight rotation of his wrist, and the core came free cleanly, no struggle, no secondary damage.
By the third, his body had calibrated. The extraction was swift, surgical. One motion, one breath. The core rested in his palm.
He dropped all three into the pouch at his belt without a word.
Ji Suyin exhaled quietly and repeated the process with her kill, her hands precise as she sliced carefully into the thick neck. Her eyes, however, kept drifting toward Yan Shen.
She didn't speak at first, simply watched as he moved from body to body with methodical calm. The three he had killed showed almost no defensive wounds. One with a crushed throat, another with a caved skull, the third bent at an unnatural angle, each death delivered with exacting efficiency.
By the time she stood and wiped her blade, Yan Shen was already securing his pouch.
"You're fast," she said, her voice casual but subdued.
He looked at her. "They were linear."
She gave a soft, breathy laugh. "No. You are simply built different."
Yan Shen didn't answer. His gaze swept over the dead boars, then scanned the mist-shrouded treeline.
Ji Suyin stepped beside him, her eyes narrowing. "We may have miscalculated."
"Explain."
She pointed toward the slope where the boars had emerged. "They were too far from the core territory. Scouts this deep, this coordinated, this aggressive… it suggests displacement."
"A bold pack leader."
"No," she said, her tone gaining an edge. "Not unless something stronger has pushed them out. If they're patrolling the borders this tightly… there's likely a Boar Lord. One powerful enough to command the entire herd, compressing their range."
Yan Shen absorbed this. He looked back at the scattered corpses, then at the faint warmth of the cores through the leather of his pouch.
"You believe it's already consolidated the central ridge?"
"I can't be certain," she admitted. "But if it has, the real challenge is ahead."
Ji Suyin fell silent for a long moment, watching the mist curl over the cooling bodies.
Then she turned and walked back to the camp, sitting cross-legged beside the cold fire pit, brushing pine needles from her lap. "We move at first light. If a Boar Lord holds the ridge, we'll know soon enough."
Yan Shen didn't respond immediately. He completed a slow circuit of the clearing's perimeter, then returned to stand near his mat.
"I'll maintain watch," he said.
"You didn't rest last night either," Ji Suyin noted, not looking at him.
"The requirement wasn't present," he replied evenly. Then, after a measured pause: "But haste is unnecessary. We proceed with precision."
He moved toward his side of the camp, then adjusted his trajectory, settling down slightly closer to her than the night before. Not within touching distance, but within shared space, close enough that the same faint light would fall on them both. After the violence, a subtle recalibration had occurred within him. Perhaps it was the way she had held her ground, her calm execution. Perhaps it was simpler.
She had witnessed his capacity without retreat.
He sat with deliberate stillness, legs crossed, spine straight, eyes closing. Qi began its silent circulation within him, his body entering that deep, resonant state between action and rest.
Ji Suyin glanced at him once, a quick, sidelong assessment, then let her shoulders relax in a slow exhalation.
Outside their small island of quiet, the forest breathed. The mist moved like a living shroud, but no further challenge came from the darkness.
By morning, the true hunt would begin.