There was no time to think.

  And yet, despite that, Jiang was somehow able to track the situation anyway. In the fraction of a second it took for the horde to launch themselves, he saw the trajectory of the three beasts diving for his face, the dozen more spiralling down the trunk to cut off their escape, and, crucially, the four that had circled behind Ren Li, their claws extended for the young cultivator’s exposed back. Ren was still staring up at the ones above him, sword half-drawn, completely blind to the threat behind him.

  Jiang knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that fighting in the trees wasn’t just disadvantageous; it was a death sentence.

  He cycled his Qi.

  It was a small burst, barely a flicker of power directed into his legs, but the reaction was immediate and violent. It felt like pumping molten glass through his veins, and the pain stole the breath from his chest. He grit his teeth and shoved it down, channelling the explosive force into his muscles.

  The oak branch beneath him didn’t just break; it detonated, showering the forest floor with splinters as Jiang launched himself downwards.

  He hit Ren Li squarely in the chest.

  The impact knocked the breath from both of them as Jiang wrapped an arm around Ren’s shoulders and drove them sideways. They hit the forest floor in a tangle of limbs, rolling through dead leaves and frost-stiff mud as claws snapped through the space they’d occupied a moment earlier. Jiang tucked his shoulder and rolled, using the momentum to spring back to his feet in a fluid motion, his sword hissing from its sheath before he had even fully stabilised. Ren was less graceful. He landed like a sack of grain, skidding through the leaf litter and scrambling frantically to untangle his limbs from his robes.

  Two of the beasts, their momentum carried from the high branches, slammed into the earth where the cultivators had been standing a heartbeat before. They recovered instantly, pivoting on powerful haunches to lunge at Jiang.

  They were fast, but Jiang was faster.

  The creature died in mid-air, its body split cleanly from shoulder to hip, momentum carrying the two halves past Jiang to thud wetly against the ground behind him. He pivoted on his heel, letting the momentum of the first strike carry the blade around to catch the second beast in the throat. It collapsed with a wet gurgle, sliding to a halt at his feet.

  For a second, Jiang thought he had overestimated the threat. They were weak. Fast, yes, but light. Fragile. If they came at him like this—

  Then he really looked.

  They were everywhere.

  The clearing was alive with motion. Dark shapes bounded through the undergrowth, leapt from trunks, dropped from branches. Dozens of them. More. Jiang did a quick headcount and stopped when he passed forty.

  “Behind you!” Ren shouted.

  Jiang twisted, parrying a pair of claws that screeched against his blade, then drove his sword through the beast’s chest and kicked it free. Another replaced it immediately. And another. They weren’t coordinating, not really, but there were simply too many angles to cover.

  Ren moved up beside him, back to back, and for the first time, Jiang was actually thankful for his presence.

  Water surged along the man’s blade, coating the steel in a rippling sheen before extending outward in a translucent arc. He slashed, and the water followed the motion, carving through a lunging beast and continuing on to slice into a second before snapping back to the sword.

  But they were going to lose. Jiang could feel it. The sheer weight of numbers was pressing them in, restricting their movement. He felt a sharp sting as a claw raked across his thigh, then another on his forearm. Shallow cuts, but they added up. He knew that if he didn’t use his Qi, they would be overwhelmed; and if he was going to use it, there was no point in half measures. Dragging the fight out would only make things worse.

  He reached for his Qi.

  Before the technique could even form, agony exploded in his chest. It wasn’t the dull, constant ache of the last few weeks, nor was it the sharp sting of the small burst he’d used to jump. This was total. It was a scream that tore through his nervous system, turning every inch of his meridians into a channel for liquid fire. His vision fractured, white static bleeding into the edges of the world as his knees buckled.

  The beasts didn’t even have time to react.

  Blackness ripped out from where Jiang’s shadow touched the ground. Unlike the usual smooth constructs he formed, these were jagged, savage things.

  The shadows hit them like a tidal wave. Claws punched through fur and bone alike. Some were torn apart mid-leap, others pinned to tree trunks, limbs twitching before going still. The canopy shook as creatures were ripped free of branches and hurled down like discarded refuse.

  Ren yelped behind him.

  “Jiang—!”

  The sound barely registered. Jiang’s entire world had narrowed to agony and control – ragged, slipping control. The shadows felt wrong. Heavy. Hungry. They strained against his intent, snapping toward movement, toward warmth, toward life.

  For the first time since he’d formed them, Jiang had to wrestle them back.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Not him.

  The thought wasn’t words so much as a raw shove of will. He forced his attention sideways, dragging the shadows away from Ren by sheer stubbornness, carving a narrow, empty pocket around the other cultivator. It was harder than it had any right to be, like trying to hold back a tide with numb fingers. The claws scraped close enough that Ren stumbled back with a sharp intake of breath, but they didn’t touch him.

  Barely.

  And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

  Jiang swayed as the pain surged one final time. His grip loosened on his sword, fingers refusing to obey, and the world tilted sharply to one side.

  The last thing he registered was Ren shouting his name again, closer this time, before the forest rushed up to meet him and everything went black.

  — — —

  Consciousness returned to Jiang in a rush, accompanied by the distinct taste of dirt and the coppery smell of blood.

  His head throbbed a little, and there was an unpleasant ache in his meridians, but it was mostly the memory of pain rather than the sharp agony of cycling Qi.

  “Oh— good. You’re awake.”

  Ren Li’s face hovered into view, upside down and a little too close. He looked relieved enough that it bordered on indecent.

  Jiang closed his eyes again for a brief moment, then opened them properly and pushed himself up onto one elbow. The movement sent a dull ache through his torso, but nothing flared or tore, which he took as a small mercy.

  “How long was I out for?” he asked.

  “Only a few minutes,” Ren said quickly. “You scared me there. One moment, everything was… shadows and screaming, and the next, you were on the ground and not responding. Whatever that was, it looked like it took a toll.”

  There was a distinct note of curiosity in his voice, but the other cultivator didn’t push, which Jiang was thankful for.

  “Thank you, by the way,” Ren continued after a moment. “I… well, I think I was doing okay, but there were a lot more of them than I thought. If you hadn’t done that, I suspect we both would have ended up as lunch. And if you hadn’t pushed me out of the way at the beginning there.. well. Thanks.”

  Jiang nodded at him awkwardly, looking around the clearing to avoid having to respond. The forest floor was littered with the broken bodies of the spirit beasts, their carcasses twisted and torn by the shadows he had unleashed. It was effective, certainly, but it was messy.

  He looked down at his hands, flexing them slowly. For the first time, his shadows hadn’t felt like an extension of his will; he had barely managed to stop them from tearing Ren apart along with the beasts. In the moment, it had felt almost like they had a will of their own – though now that he thought back to it, he didn’t think that was actually the case. It was more that the pain of using his Qi, combined with the fact that he was using an indiscriminate attack, made it difficult for him to avoid harming Ren.

  Either way, it was clear his plan to just ‘wait and see’, or try to figure it out himself, was no longer viable. The fact that the pain had been bad enough that he’d passed out, however briefly, meant that he simply couldn’t afford to use his Qi in combat, and that wasn’t acceptable. He needed to get some proper help.

  Unfortunately, there was a more immediate problem – namely, that Ren was likely going to have some questions for him. Honestly, it was a minor miracle the man had stayed quiet for this long already. His gaze flickered back to the other cultivator for a moment. Ren clearly caught the look, hesitating a moment before speaking up.

  “Did you have a run-in with a demonic cultivator, Brother Jiang?”

  Jiang stiffened slightly, but forced himself to relax. “Something like that,” Jiang said. “I fought one a few weeks back. I won, obviously, but he left me with… after effects. It’s usually manageable.”

  Ren nodded, as if that confirmed something. “That would explain the… texture of it. The corruption, I mean. It didn’t feel self-generated.”

  Jiang studied him for a long moment. “You’re very calm about this.”

  Ren smiled faintly. “I didn’t say I wasn’t concerned. Just that I didn’t think you were the problem.”

  Jiang snorted. “And why is that?”

  Ren hesitated, then reached into his sleeve and produced a small pendant. It looked similar to the one Mistress Bai had used on him, back when they had first met and she had been suspicious of him.

  “I checked,” Ren admitted sheepishly. “While you were unconscious. I hope you don’t mind. I figured it was better than guessing.”

  Well, if nothing else, Jiang had to give him points for caution. It was somewhat reassuring to know that the man wasn’t just a blind optimist who relied on luck to survive.

  Jiang sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. He was tired, his body ached, and his options were dwindling faster than he liked. He had no idea where to even start looking for a cure in a city as large and complex as Biragawa, and stumbling around blindly asking questions about corruption was a good way to get arrested or killed. Ren, despite being weaker than him, clearly knew more about the world of cultivation than Jiang did – and more importantly, he seemed helpful.

  “Ren,” he said, deciding to take the plunge. “I’m from a small village. My teacher… didn’t cover this kind of thing. I know the corruption is bad, and I know it’s getting worse, but I don’t know how to get rid of it. Do you know anything that could help?”

  Ren looked thoughtful, tapping his chin with a finger. “Keep in mind that I am very far from an expert, and can’t speak to the specifics,” he started, “but from what I understand, there are a few options. The most direct method is finding a cultivator who specialises in purification arts—usually light or fire aligned, depending on the school—and paying them to burn it out of you. But that’s painful, dangerous, and incredibly rare. Most cultivators with that kind of skill are tied to the Great Sects, and they don’t work cheap.”

  Jiang grimaced. That sounded about right. “And the other ways?”

  “Alchemy,” Ren said promptly. “Pills and elixirs. There are cleansing pills—I’ve seen them listed in auction catalogues occasionally. They work by flushing out foreign Qi and repairing damage to the channels. They aren’t perfect, and for something as deep as what you seem to have, you’d probably need a high-grade regimen, but it’s safer than letting a stranger blast Qi into your core.”

  “Expensive?” Jiang asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Extremely,” Ren admitted with a wince. “A single low-grade cleansing pill can run ten or twenty gold, depending on the market. High grade? You’re looking at hundreds. Maybe more. By that point you’d be spending with spirit stones, not gold anyway.”

  Jiang closed his eyes briefly. Hundreds of gold. He had three gold in his pouch, and he felt rich. The sheer scale of the economy he was stepping into was daunting.

  “I can’t afford that,” Jiang said flatly. “Not even close.”

  “Most wandering cultivators can’t,” Ren agreed sympathetically. “That kind of wealth is usually reserved for Sect elders or merchant princes. Speaking of which…” He paused, his gaze drifting around the clearing. He looked at the scattered carcasses of the spirit beasts – there were dozens of them, and while they were individually weak, their numbers added up.

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Ren asked. “Hunting the dregs. You’re trying to raise the funds.”

  “Something like that,” Jiang admitted.

  Ren hummed, looking from the dead beasts back to Jiang. “Then… our meeting really might have been more fortuitous than I thought.”

  Jiang looked back at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

  Ren hesitated, then shrugged and smiled. “I might have an idea. One that could help you afford what you need – and help me as well.”

  Jiang sighed. He could already tell this was going to be a pain. But did he have any better options?

  “…Go on,” he said at last.

  Ren’s smile widened just a fraction.