The silence inside the palisade was not an absence of sound; it was an armed neutrality.
Beneath the towering canopy of thousand-year-old ironwood and broad-leafed camphor, the undergrowth was dense, tangled with thorny brambles and thick swaths of pale green lichen that muffled their footsteps.
The air was heavy, damp, and smelled of decaying cellulose, acidic bog water, and the sharp, musky musk of predators marking their territorial boundaries against the wet bark.
Tang San walked half a pace behind the Grandmaster’s right hip.
Her eyes shifted continuously in an unbroken sixty-degree arc across the tree canopy, her ears twitching to separate the natural rustle of the wind from the distinct, irregular scrape of claws against shale.
Her hands hung loose by her thighs, the muscles in her forearms completely relaxed, yet her nervous system was primed like an oiled spring.
“Nuoding Hunting Forest encompasses four hundred square miles,” the Grandmaster said quietly, his voice pitched just low enough to carry to her ear without disturbing the underbrush.
“Because it is an enclosed reserve managed by the Heaven Dou Empire, the internal ecology is artificial.
The imperial foresters cull apex beasts exceeding the thousand-year threshold to prevent them from breaking the perimeter palisades.
The vast majority of the fauna here ranges between ten and five hundred years.”
He stopped in a small clearing where an ancient limestone boulder sat half-swallowed by moss.
“Rule one of hunting in the wilderness,” the Grandmaster continued, turning to face her, his eyes serious and unyielding.
“Never reveal your full strength until the killing strike is assured.
Rule two: never provoke a beast whose attribute or age exceeds your operational margin.
Rule three: in the forest, human greed is frequently more lethal than animal venom.”
“Understood,” Tang San replied.
“The beasts hunt for calories; humans hunt for advancement.
The latter has no biological ceiling.”
The Grandmaster’s lips twitched slightly in approval.
He stepped back two paces, clearing space between them, and crossed his forearms over his chest.
“To hunt safely, we must have reconnaissance and early warning.
My martial soul is…
unique.
It is a mutated variant of my ancestral clan’s lineage, though the mutation proved defective.
Most consider it a laughingstock.
But in an environment of low visibility, its sensory threshold is superior to a common tracking hound.”
He drew a slow breath through his teeth.
His eyes narrowed, and with a solemn, ritualistic cadence, he commanded:
“Come forth, Luo Sanpao!”
*Pop!*
A soft, pneumatic sound, like a wine cork being pulled from a bottle, echoed through the clearing.
A burst of pale yellow light erupted from the Grandmaster’s abdomen, coalescing upon the damp loam two feet before his boots.
When the light cleared, Tang San’s eyes widened by a fraction of a millimeter.
It was an animal roughly the size of a fattened mountain hound, but its proportions were entirely grotesque.
It possessed the stout, rounded torso of a pig, short, stubby legs that ended in blunt claws, and long, pendulous ears that flapped down past its jowls like those of a basset hound.
Its skin was covered in short, glossy purple fur, its snout was flat and pink, and two large, watery black eyes blinked up at the Grandmaster with an expression of pure, unadulterated canine devotion.
Around the creature’s stout body, two luminous rings of light rose from the earth: both a clean, vibrant lemon-yellow.
*Hundred-year, hundred-year,* Tang San noted, analyzing the energetic frequency of the rings.
*His cultivation is at the peak of the Grand Spirit Master realm, rank twenty-nine.
The rings possess high coherence, yet the externalized entity…*
“Luo Sanpao is a detached beast soul,” the Grandmaster said, his tone carrying a deep, ancient bitterness that he could not entirely mask beneath his academic cadence.
“Ordinarily, a beast soul integrates directly with the Spirit Master’s physical musculoskeletal frame during possession, altering bone density and muscular output.
But due to an incomplete genetic mutation, my soul was expelled from my internal meridian network during awakening, forming an independent organism.
It consumes my spirit power directly to maintain its physical existence.”
The little purple creature trotted forward, let out a cheerful *”Luo!
Luo!”* that sounded like a cross between a pig’s grunt and a dog’s bark, and rubbed its stout head affectionately against Tang San’s hemp trousers.
Tang San knelt down.
Her right hand reached out, her fingers resting lightly behind the creature’s long, flopping ears.
She scratched the thick skin behind its skull with gentle, rhythmic strokes.
Luo Sanpao let out a contented, wet purr, its short tail wagging so violently that its entire hindquarters swayed from side to side.
“Its olfactory bulbs are highly developed,” Tang San observed quietly, her fingers measuring the skull structure beneath the purple fur.
“The nasal cavity is twice the volume of a standard hound, and the auditory canals beneath the ears are wide, angled outward at forty-five degrees to capture subterranean vibrations.
For tracking spirit beasts by ground scent and burrow tremors, it is far superior to an integrated wolf or tiger soul.”
The Grandmaster stood completely frozen.
For thirty years, whenever he had summoned Luo Sanpao before other Spirit Masters, the response had been universal: contemptuous laughter, mocking sneers, or theatrical pity.
Even the academy instructors in Nuoding snickered behind their sleeves whenever the fat purple pig appeared.
No one had ever looked at the creature and immediately calculated the physiological advantages of its cranial anatomy.
“You…
do not find it ridiculous?” the Grandmaster asked, his voice rough, scraping against his throat.
“In the art of hidden warfare,” Tang San said, rising smoothly to her feet, “an asset that appears harmless is ten times more valuable than an iron-scaled war tiger. The source of this chapter is novelping(.)com.
An enemy who sees a tiger prepares their shield; an enemy who sees a pig lowers their guard.
In an ambush, that single second of contempt is the margin between an intact throat and a severed artery.”
The Grandmaster closed his eyes, inhaling the cold air of the forest to steady the sudden, violent surge of emotion in his chest.
When he opened them, his melancholy face was set into an expression of iron resolution.
“Sanpao, lead the way,” he commanded.
“Scent the wind for serpentine toxins and high-tensile botanical entities.
Ignore the low-rank herbivores.”
*”Luo!”*
Luo Sanpao barked sharply, lowered its flat pink snout to the wet moss, and trotted briskly toward the northeast, its stout legs churning through the decaying leaves with surprising, buoyant agility.
They pushed deeper into the reserve.
As they crossed the two-mile mark, the canopy grew thicker, blocking the midday sun until only narrow, spear-like shafts of green-tinted light pierced the gloom.
The temperature dropped steadily.
Every few hundred paces, the Grandmaster would halt, point an ink-stained finger toward a specific plant or animal, and test her knowledge with clinical precision:
“That rodent on the cedar bough?”
“Ghost-Toothed Squirrel,” Tang San replied instantly, her eyes not even lingering on the creature.
“Ten-year spirit beast.
Attack method: leaping bite targeting the jugular.
Its incisors carry a mild salivary anticoagulant, but its spinal column is brittle; a blunt impact of twenty pounds will shatter its thoracic vertebrae.”
“The fungus growing on that fallen birch?”
“Scarlet-Cap Puffball.
Not a spirit beast, but an auxiliary botanical with high-affinity fire properties.
If crushed in oil, its spores induce localized epidermal burning.
Useless for Blue Silver Grass; the fire attribute would scorch my vegetative conduits.”
The Grandmaster nodded with rhythmic regularity.
His astonishment at her encyclopedic comprehension had already ceased to be surprise; it had settled into a profound, terrifying awe.
It was as though this six-year-old child had spent half a century dissecting the natural world in an underground laboratory before stepping into his carriage.
Two hours later, Luo Sanpao suddenly halted.
The creature’s stout body went completely rigid, its front right paw lifting off the ground, its long ears perking up until they pointed forward like two velvet funnels.
A low, vibrating growl rumbled from its throat: *”Luo…
luo…”*
“Halt,” the Grandmaster whispered, stepping in front of Tang San, his right hand slipping beneath his traveling cloak to grip an iron wand.
Thirty paces ahead, the dense bamboo thicket parted.
A pack of low, gray-furred beasts crept into the dim light.
They were roughly the size of common wolves, but their skulls were elongated, covered in hard, bony crests that swept back toward their shoulder blades, and their eyes burned with a sickly, phosphorescent green light.
There were six of them.
Their lips curled back to reveal black gums and serrated, yellowing teeth dripping with foul, stringy saliva.
“Nether Wolves,” the Grandmaster muttered, his brow furrowing with academic disdain.
“Scavengers of the outer forest.
The largest one has a bone crest of approximately four inches; roughly forty years of age.
The others are ten-year whelps.
A nuisance.”
The lead wolf let out a harsh, rasping bark, its hind legs tensing against the loam, preparing to coordinate a flanking rush.
“Sanpao,” the Grandmaster ordered calmly.
“First skill.”
His first lemon-yellow spirit ring flared with vibrant radiance.
Luo Sanpao’s stout purple belly suddenly expanded like a leather bellows being pumped by a blacksmith.
Its sides swelled until it resembled a taut, vibrating purple sphere, its short legs barely touching the ground.
The creature spun around in a lightning-fast circle, presenting its stout, rounded rear directly toward the advancing pack of Nether Wolves.
*THUMP.*
A sound like an iron cannon firing wet gravel echoed through the ancient trees.
A dense, yellow shockwave of compressed gas exploded from Luo Sanpao’s rear, carrying a gale-force kinetic blast that tore the moss from the boulders and ripped the lower branches from the bamboo stalks.
Along with the kinetic wave came an odor so catastrophic, so foul, so chemically violent that the very air seemed to turn a greasy, sulfurous yellow.
It smelled of rotting carrion, spoiled eggs, and rancid swine fat heated over an open sewer.
“Aargh!”
The six Nether Wolves didn’t even have the opportunity to leap.
The kinetic blast struck them like an invisible battering ram, lifting all six off their paws and hurling them ten paces backward into the thorny briars.
The moment the foul gas entered their sensitive nasal passages, the beasts began to convulse violently, pawing at their snouts and rolling in the dirt, their green eyes streaming with blinding tears as they let out pitiful, gagging whines before scrambling into the deep undergrowth with their tails clamped tight between their hocks.
Tang San stood motionless.
Her left hand had risen to cover her mouth and nose, her internal breath locking the pulmonary gate with the speed of an assassin recognizing an airborne blood-coagulant. This chapter is updated first at novelping(.)com.
Her eyebrows were knotted in absolute, profound bewilderment.
*Kinetic shockwave combined with high-density sulfurous bio-chemical deterrent,* her modern mind analyzed, struggling to reconcile the mechanical elegance of the Tang Sect with the reality of what she had just witnessed.
*An offensive fart.
A martial soul whose primary combat vector is an explosive flatulence attack.*
She looked at the Grandmaster.
The scholar was standing with his hands behind his back, his expression entirely composed, completely accustomed to the horrific spectacle.
“Luo Sanpao’s digestive tract concentrates ambient spirit power into an explosive, non-lethal biogas discharge,” the Grandmaster explained calmly, entirely immune to the lingering stench.
“At my rank, he can execute this attack three times before his internal energy is depleted.
A crude mechanism, but effective against pack predators whose olfactory systems are over-sensitized.”
Tang San slowly released the breath from her lungs, using the Mysterious Heaven Skill to filter the residual odor from her nostrils.
“A highly efficient area-denial weapon, Master,” she said, her voice completely even, refusing to allow a single shred of sarcasm to enter her tone.
“In a confined corridor, the psychological and sensory disruption alone would neutralize an advancing infantry squad.”
The Grandmaster glanced at her, a faint, genuine smile finally breaking the rigid lines of his melancholy face.
“You have a great capacity for composure, San’er,” he said.
“Come.
The wind is shifting toward the north.
The disturbance caused by Sanpao will draw scavengers, but it may also flush out what we are truly looking for.”
They continued their advance, moving away from the bamboo grove and into a rocky ravine where the damp granite bluffs were choked with ancient, twisted vines.
Half an hour later, Luo Sanpao stopped again.
This time, the creature did not growl.
It did not wag its tail.
Its stout purple body dropped flat against the frozen loam, its long ears pressing flat against its skull, its watery black eyes staring toward the canopy of a colossal, gnarled ironwood tree thirty paces ahead with pure, unadulterated terror.
A faint, sweet scent—like overripe rotting peaches mixed with the sharp, acidic tang of burnt vinegar—drifted down through the cold forest draft.
The Grandmaster’s face changed instantly.
The calm, instructional demeanor vanished, replaced by an expression of sharp, terrifying vigilance.
He grabbed Tang San’s shoulder, pulling her down behind the mossy flank of a split boulder.
“Do not move,” he hissed, his voice scarcely louder than the scraping of an insect’s wing.
“Look up into the third fork of the ironwood.”
Tang San focused her eyes.
The Purple Demon Eyes engaged instantly, the obsidian depth of her pupils glowing with an imperceptible violet sheen as her vision pierced the dense curtain of Spanish moss hanging from the ancient branches.
There, coiled around a horizontal limb as thick as a wine barrel, was a shadow.
It was a serpent.
Its body was roughly the thickness of a grown man’s thigh, exceeding twelve feet in length.
Its scales were triangular, overlapping like iron shingles, colored a deep, mottled swamp-green, broken only by faint, phosphorescent yellow rings that pulsed with a slow, rhythmic luminescence.
Its head was broad, distinctly arrow-shaped, with two small, fleshy crests protruding from above its lightless black eyes.
From its black, split tongue, a thin mist of pale pink vapor drifted into the cold mountain air, dissolving the lichen on the bark wherever it touched.
“Datura Serpent,” the Grandmaster breathed, his hand tightening on his iron wand until his knuckles turned bloodless.
“An apex venomous beast of the lower forestry tiers.
Its scales are harder than boiled ox-hide, its speed exceeds a falling arrow, and its venom attacks both the nervous system and the cellular tissue, causing total respiratory paralysis in six breaths.”
He squinted, measuring the thickness of the serpent’s body and the length of its fleshy cranial crests.
“Twelve feet…
the crests have fully divided.
Four hundred and twenty years.
It is near the four-hundred-year threshold.”
The Grandmaster turned to look down at Tang San, his dark eyes burning with an intense, terrifying conflict between scientific ambition and protective fear.
“The theoretical limit for a Spirit Master’s first ring,” he whispered, his breath catching in his throat, “is four hundred and twenty-three years.
This beast sits at the absolute, razor-thin precipice of what human flesh can endure.
If you absorb it, your Blue Silver Grass will gain its high-tensile flexibility and its lethal neurotoxin.
But if your meridians fail to bear the spiritual shockwave…”
He paused, the silence heavy as an iron anvil.
Tang San looked up through the moss at the coiled monster.
Her right hand slid down to the third jade of Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges.
Inside the folded space, thirty-six hand-filed steel needles rested in their oiled paper sleeves, alongside three vials of pulverized hemlock and three pounds of refined scrap iron.
*Four hundred and twenty years,* she thought.
*The edge of the precipice.*
She looked back at the Grandmaster, her clear blue-tinged eyes as steady, as motionless, and as cold as deep-well water under winter ice:
“Master…
we take it.”