028 Balance

“How dare you!?” screamed the old man. “I WILL KILL YOU!”

I moved the moment his rage broke loose, activating the movement ability called Nature’s Stride.

The forest folded around me as if I were slipping between breaths rather than space. In one swift motion, I tore Zhen Ai from his grasp, his fingers closing on empty air as I reappeared beside the stone outcrop near the lake. I lowered her gently, careful despite the urgency, letting her rest against the cool surface of the rock. Her eyes remained vacant, her body unresponsive, as though whatever bound her had hollowed out everything that made her… her.

Behind me, the air distorted.

I did not need to turn to know he was already upon me.

“You insolent, verminous cur! You think killing a few dogs of mine grants you the right to bare your fangs at me?” his voice roared, no longer composed, no longer restrained. “I will flay your soul, grind your bones into powder, and scatter your ashes across ten thousand miles! Not even your ancestors will escape the consequences of your stupidity! You dare touch what belongs to my sect? Your end will not stop at death, boy. I will make sure your entire existence is erased!”

His sword came down in a blur.

I dismissed my current Wild Shape instantly in favor of another.

“Wild Shape: Butterfly.”

The world expanded.

Or rather, I shrank within it.

The blade that would have split me in two became a passing storm, its edge carving through empty air as I fluttered aside. The shift in scale granted me an entirely different perspective, every motion exaggerated, every fluctuation in qi laid bare before me. I weaved through the afterimages of his strikes, drifting just beyond his reach before slipping behind him.

I canceled the Wild Shape at once.

Mass, weight, and control returned.

Every transformation reallocated my stats, and while Butterfly granted agility and evasion, it lacked what I needed most at this moment.

Power.

“Entanglement.”

Roots burst forth, thicker and faster than before, coiling toward him with violent intent.

“Ironwood Spike,” I finished, driving hardened growth upward to skewer his position.

The old man vanished.

He reappeared above me, exactly as expected.

I had already learned that lesson once from another Nascent Soul.

“Cascading Sword Flurry,” he declared.

My Druidic Insight responded immediately, feeding me the nature of the technique. Continuous damage. Layered strikes. No singular impact to negate.

So Primal Nature Elemental would not save me here.

Still, it was a mistake for him to attack me from above. The Thorn Whips lashed from everywhere, violent tendrils snapping toward him to intercept, but he disappeared again, reappearing just ahead of me with precise control, his expression twisted with fury.

“Let’s try that again, shall we?” he said, voice low and seething. “Cascading Sword Flurry.”

The storm descended as steel met… leaves.

My body collapsed into a scatter of withered foliage, branches, and fragments breaking apart beneath the relentless barrage as the decoy absorbed the entirety of his technique.

The Shedding ability was triggered in ways that would normally have been impossible.

It was something I learned by fooling with Roo around. What had once been governed by percentage chance had become something I could force into existence through sheer mental exertion. The cost was steep, qi draining in noticeable amounts, but within this forest, that limitation felt… distant.

The land fed me with more qi as I activated Shedding relentlessly.

The roots beneath the soil pulsed with quiet acknowledgment, an unspoken exchange that had long since been established. I stepped forward from behind him, unharmed. Leaves crunched softly under my feet. His strikes continued for their full duration, cutting through nothing but remnants of what I had left behind.

“What—” His voice faltered, disbelief breaking through his rage. “Why does my sword not find purchase on your flesh?!”

I did not answer.

There was nothing to explain.

For every strike he unleashed, I simply advanced, closing the distance as though his technique held no meaning. More withered leaves fell in my wake, silent evidence of what had been discarded in my place.

Three seconds passed.

That was all it took.

I caught his wrist.

His qi shifted instantly, trying to escape through teleportation.

Sadly, it wouldn’t go the way he expected. I had learned to recognize the subtle distortion, the gathering intent before displacement. This was all thanks to my experience of fighting another Nascent Soul cultivator before.

“Entanglement.”

This time, I did not hold back.

Qi surged through me in a torrent, flooding into the spell as I forced more into it than I ever had before. The roots that answered were no longer merely restraints. They were something denser, heavier, infused with an overwhelming vitality that bordered on oppressive.

They erupted around his arm, his torso, the very space he intended to escape into.

If abilities could be strengthened through will, then so could spells.

That realization had come slowly.

Now, I embraced it fully.

“Wild Shape: Primal Nature Elemental.”

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The transformation surged through me once more, silvered wood replacing flesh, green light pulsing beneath the surface as my connection to the forest deepened to its peak. The already empowered roots thickened further.

“Now, begins your punishment.”

Phytokinesis answered like an eager accomplice.

The Thorn Whips above did not remain idle. At my command, they descended and wove themselves into the existing entrapment, layering over the roots that had already coiled around him. What had begun as restraint became something closer to burial. The roots thickened, twisted, and then, at my will, drove inward.

They pierced flesh, burrowed into them.

The old man’s body jerked as the living wood forced its way beneath skin and into muscle, anchoring him in place in a way that teleportation could not easily escape. His qi fluctuated wildly, the technique he had prepared collapsing under the disruption.

For a moment, our eyes met.

The fury that had once dominated his expression fractured.

Something else took its place.

It was sheer terror.

I felt something rise in me, something sharp and bright, curling at the edges of my thoughts.

A strange, unwelcome… delight.

I steadied my breathing, recalling fragments of what Old Black and Xing Ning had taught me. Concepts I had only half understood before now settled into place with unsettling clarity.

“I’m going to take your cultivation now,” I said.

His reaction was immediate.

“Wait! Stop! You cannot—no, no, do not do this!” His voice broke, the earlier arrogance gone entirely. “We can speak! I will compensate you, treasures, techniques, anything you desire! The woman! The woman! You can have her! Just release me! Do not destroy my foundation, I beg of you!”

I did not stop.

The Thorn Whips shifted, several of them driving toward his abdomen with precise intent.

Cultivators guarded that place above all else.

So I targeted it.

The vines pierced through, forcing their way into his dantian. Through my Spiritual Sense, I perceived it clearly for the first time not as an abstract concept, but as something tangible.

A golden core.

Radiant. Condensed. The very essence of his cultivation.

I crushed it.

The moment it fractured, the reaction was violent.

His body convulsed, a raw, broken scream tearing from his throat as the light within him shattered into chaotic fragments.

“AAAGHHH—! My core! My golden core! My nascent soul!” Tears spilled freely from his eyes, his face contorting in absolute agony. “You monster! You vile, wretched monster! You dare cripple me?! You are no different from demons! No, worse! You are a villain wearing a mortal’s skin!”

I watched, feeling detached.