The sand surged like a wild river, weaving between the crumbling trees.
Staying above the water, in an environment completely unsuited for combat, was the last thing I’d ever do.
The key survival factors had been drilled into my subconscious not just through trial and error.
They’d been hammered in by walking the razor’s edge between life and death.
My heart pounded like a war drum.
The howling pursuit behind me, capable of breaking an unprepared mind, seemed to come from the depths of the abyss itself.
I knew that sound well.
Guttural, screaming so loud everyone could hear.
Like the death rattle of an apex predator.
My frantic, terrified eyes scanned for solid ground.
Whenever I felt the threat closing in on my spine, I’d turn and meet the formless shadow’s gaze.
I’d strike with a sharp blade, slicing through every tree in my path into clean halves.
But even when the strike hit the creature, it caused no real damage.
The ground around me was dotted with tiny islands of unsuitable soil.
“It’s surrounding me!” The sand grains floating around me fed me information about the approaching threat.
Whenever I felt someone disturbing them, I ran for my life.
And I was right.
A massive shape smashed through towering tree trunks.
A fallen branch blocked my path, but instead of slowing down, I just wrapped myself in a sand shield and burst straight through.
It was draining my sand.
Every time I struck at the tentacles I used to grip the trees, the grains scattered beyond my control.
I even had to abandon the gourd, sacrificing it to keep using the Air Nomad techniques to flee.
The creature’s chittering was almost at my ear.
To keep my head attached, I had to drop.
SPLASH.
Wrapping myself in a dense sandstone barrier, I plunged into the deep river.
For a split second I looked up and saw a shadowy form streak past where my head had been.
My hands were shaking, not just trembling but flailing in panic, searching for something to grip so I could pull myself out.
Was the water going to save me?
Considering it dove in after me, it was making things worse, not better.
“I need more sand!
Not enough sand, I used it too carelessly.” Our eyes met, but now it was much closer.
A moment later, my unlucky body would be turned into food.
The formless spirit was ready to feast, and I didn’t know which would kill me first the enemy, or my own stopping heart.
In that moment of absolute terror, I extended my arms through my armor into long spikes.
They dug into the riverbed, gathered magical energy, and pushed.
I was launched out of the water onto the nearest shore, my body landing on the soft, sinking black soil.
My head swiveled, searching for something to defend myself with, until…
“Peat.” I looked down.
The substance I was lying on was so saturated with water that it was practically impossible to compact.
To separate it required the combined power of a waterbender and an earthbender.
Or one sandbender.
I plunged my hands into the swampy muck, my heart pounding as I watched the barely visible shape racing through the water.
I poured all my strength into drying it out.
The moisture fled quickly, leaving only crumbly rock that scattered like sand.
I raised the black mass into the air and solidified it into small, sharp stones.
Moving my arms smoothly through the air, the peat stones flowed like water.
In genuine desperation for my life, I used a Waterbender technique.
I directed the flowing current toward the enemy and abruptly hardened it into a single, unbreakable mass.
My muscles bulged.
Clenching my palms toward each other, I tried to crush the trapped opponent, squeezing them like a lemon wedge.
In response to my desperate attempt, a screech erupted.
The grating sound of tens of thousands of creatures.
Shhh.
Several transparent spirits slipped through and surfaced.
Huge insects resembling moths bore a pair of furious, glowing eyes on their wings.
They were coming for me, seeking revenge for the tens of thousands of bugs I’d killed.
As they gathered, their wings began to chitter, slicing through thick tree trunks on contact.
But that also meant they were bound to this world.
The swamp held them like shackles.
Unlike Afka, they couldn’t phase through walls.
The vortex I summoned above my palm shot forward.
The Air Nomad scrolls taught the correct movements for maximum speed, but most importantly, they contained the technique of a true tornado.
I moved the air currents from bottom to top, twisting them like threads on a spindle.
It didn’t push air out.
It sucked everything in.
The moth wings fluttered frantically, trying to resist the currents, but they were helpless.
Their bodies were swept into the sand vortex.
When I touched the water with the tornado, I transferred all that energy to the river.
A whirlpool formed.
I wasn’t a waterbender, but I managed to transfer the rotational force without any extra manipulation.
All the creatures, including those underwater, were dragged in and spun at high speed.
To make sure no one escaped, I took a firm stance, tensed my muscles, and compacted all the earth.
Then I encased anyone who’d tried to catch and eat me in stone coffins.
Only then did a relaxing silence fall.
The only sound was the drumming in my temples, and my arms were trembling badly.
“The swamp…
I hate the swamp.” I learned a new life truth.
To avoid attracting more trouble, and not wait for the old trouble to break free, I ran forward again.
Instead of sand, I now had a mix of black peat, equally suitable for high-speed travel.
Only one problem remained.
Afka was gone.
Hoping she hadn’t been eaten by the spirits, I climbed to the top of a tree.
From there, I had a wide view of the endless sea of trees stretching to the horizon.
What drew my attention more was the titanic tree, almost reaching the clouds.
It vaguely reminded me of a mushroom.
Fyrk, fyrk, fyrk.
At that moment, a familiar voice sounded somewhere below.
I looked down and saw only the transparent silhouette of a fox, already taking a step toward the massive tree.
After that, the strange mirage vanished.
“Wh…
that’s not Afka…
but maybe the other spirits are showing me where she is?” I narrowed my eyes, finding it hard to believe anything anymore.
I couldn’t trust images from creatures that had attacked me.
That’s why my shoulders relaxed when a message appeared before my eyes:
“Choose:”
1 Head toward the giant tree (Chance to meet a companion.
A predetermined encounter with a stranger awaits).
2 Stay put and wait for your companion to find you (Standing still is much safer than going deeper into the swamp.
Your companion will likely return).
3 Turn around and leave the swamp (The safest option, no risk.
You’ll change your path, high chance of developing Earth bending).
Once again, it all came down to principles.
Don’t put yourself in danger.
Walk away and even accelerate your earthbending development?
I’d be thrilled.
But the fear that saturated my body had to be overcome.
Otherwise, I’d end up like that bandit.
Gradual degradation and stagnation.
Wrapping myself in armor, I ran forward, this time through the treetops.
My long whips moved like octopus tentacles.
I didn’t even plan on descending.
Although even up here, I kept running into problems.
Above the swamp, countless bugs swarmed, hunted by large birds. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
For some reason, they all chose me as their new food source.
I was so sick of dealing with all of it that I left a single tornado behind me while I flew like the wind.
With my heart nearly stopped, the mother-tree finally loomed before my eyes.
Stepping onto its trunk like a true paranoid, I kept glancing around, looking for any trick.
A sound on the edge of perception, like a fox’s snoring, came to my ears.
Even that was hard to trust now.
Armed to the teeth, with several sharp blades and whips extending from my limbs, I climbed higher.
There, behind an inexplicably protruding root, sat a scruffy-looking old man with disheveled gray hair, stroking my little fox’s head.
Hearing my footsteps, both looked up and squinted.
“…Who are you?” My heavy voice made the strange man smile.
“Just a simple swamp caretaker.
I knew you’d come.
This spirit ran to me, begging me not to chase you away.” I looked down at the fox sticking out her tongue.
I wanted to do something drastic, but the lack of immediate threat made my tension ease.
I leaned against the tree, letting the stress flow out with a deep breath.
Afka trotted over to my feet and sat down beside me.
“Meanwhile, I was worried.
Thought that damn moth had eaten you.
It almost got me too, you know!”
“Af.”
“She says she knew you’d handle it,” the stranger squinted, speaking as if he understood her.
“Though I’m honestly surprised you ran into the wasp-moth spirits during their peak aggression period.
They usually avoid people.
Running into them anywhere in this swamp is almost impossible.
Lucky you!”
“…”
I was still replaying the same question in my head, trying to remember who this was.
Among all the people I knew, the swamp was home to the Foggy Swamp tribe.
But I didn’t fully understand why he could understand Afka, or why he talked as if he saw everything happening in this place.
“Rrr.” The fox grabbed my pants and pulled me toward the man.
Reluctantly, I looked at the spot in front of him, but sat down anyway.
The man watched us with genuine amusement.
“My name is Hue.
It’s my duty to be the guardian of this swamp and this tree.
To protect it from anyone who wants to harm it.
There are people who think we’re different from each other, different from the spirits or these trees, and they want to destroy everything.” His hands gently petted Afka.
“Af.”
“Haha, yes, exactly.”
“How do you understand her?” I frowned again.
I won’t lie, it unnerved me how casually they talked to each other, smirking in my direction.
But what bothered me more were my suspicions.
Only gurus and Avatars could communicate so easily with spiritual beings.
And this old man certainly didn’t look like Aang.
“Because we’re no different!
Listen closely.
You can feel how life pulses in this place, how the trees grow.
We all share the same roots.
Why wouldn’t two close beings understand each other?” His words were more rambling than the guru texts I’d read in the library, but thanks to what I’d studied, I understood something.
The man before me was definitely one of the enlightened.
“We’re all souls, and you’ve tamed yours,” I concluded.
He gave me a very satisfied smile.
It was simple.
Only by taming yourself, your inner spirit, could you fully merge with nature and the two worlds that exist so close together.
“I want to do that too!
I’m trying to open my first chakra to harden and improve my bending, but I think I lack the experience or advice to achieve the right effect.”
“Yeah?
And I know just how to help you.”