A tether grew close, a warning from one of Tsem’s many divine formations. Setting them up in the basin was easier than breathing. The whole place was highly sensitive to the divine sea. Every tree, every boulder made a good spot to anchor a formation. He’d taken advantage, layering his nest in a dozen different formations. He’d used demonic beast hair, claws, teeth, feathers. Any sample he could get his hands on. None of them were that effective though. No, his most effective formation used a simple bur from a common, and particularly annoying spiritual herb.

  Tsem watched the demonic beast wander around from above, perched in a tree, his spear in one hand, the double woven needleroot net in the other. High grade 1. It was hard to tell a beast’s strength in the pervasive environmental qi, but he’d gotten better in the past week or so he’d been trapped here. It was a matter of life and death.

  The beast wasn’t one Tsem recognized, looking like a horse, or rather a donkey. That part wasn’t what drew the eye though. It was the tentacles that grew from its back. In comparison to the rest of the beast, they looked out of place. So much so that Tsem wondered if they were actually part of the creature or if he was looking at a host and a parasite. It didn’t matter.

  Tsem had to kill the beast. It had wandered into his territory, and he couldn’t allow that. He jumped from his perch, swooping down on the unsuspecting demonic beast, burying his spear in its neck. Tentacles lashed out as he landed, but Tsem burnt qi, evading in time.

  A moment later, the horse portion collapsed to the ground, stilled. The tentacles in the back still rampaged though. Tsem kept his weapons at the ready, wondering if the parasite—he was pretty sure about that now—would attack him or if it would die with its host.

  It turned out to be the latter. As the tentacles became still, Tsem moved in, taking what materials seemed useful from the corpses and disposing of it a distance away from his nest.

  It had been a long week, one that had not treated Tsem well. Oh, his cultivation was advancing well. He was close to finishing the purification of his fourth meridian. He’d taken on more injuries than he cared for though. They’d all healed within hours, a benefit of his improved body. There was something wrong with his body though. One of those wounds must have been infected with some strange disease.

  His body was sprouting feathers from random places. His arm, his jawline, his back. It wasn’t just that either. He spent what little downtime he got between demonic beast attacks and cultivating just curled up. His guts had betrayed him, feeling like they were warping.

  Tsem needed to escape this place. He needed to return to Sumoon city, to visit the Da clan healer. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going away on its own. He’d hoped he might beat it through further cultivation, but so far, that hadn’t worked and Tsem was already pushing himself as far as he dared on that front.

  He returned to his project. Amidst a pile of demonic beast parts he’d gathered, a large stone sat, a hole partially drilled through the middle of it. Tsem returned to his work, taking up a second stone and scraping away at the hole. Every few minutes, he picked up a relatively straight branch which he’d hardened in the fire, fitting it into the hole.

  It was difficult work, but all through the morning, Tsem persisted, ignoring his body’s protests, or rather using them as fuel to keep working. He was close. He needed to finish this hammer. It was a weapon that he could use against the skeletons in the ruins. It would break their bones, hopefully kill them or whatever it was that happened to undead when they lost whatever let them move.

  He finished in the late afternoon, his hands scraped raw from the repeated motion. It was a more primitive weapon than Tsem had been hoping for, effectively just a big rock attached to the end of a stick. It made him respect Lyung, Esa, and their fellow craftsman all the more. It was hard to make things of any decent quality.

  Tsem shouldered the hammer, taking his net with him but leaving his spear. It wouldn’t do him any good anyway. He walked off, leaving his nest behind. It was a risk to attempt the ruins again, but he didn’t feel he had a choice. He needed to escape and his best bet was the ruins. He didn’t know for certain that his solution lay there, but he knew it wasn’t anywhere else. Besides, he’d endured night after night of the fool’s whisper insistently calling him to their top. He needed to know what was there.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  The ruins were not in the same state as he’d left them. After about a day, the skeletons had disappeared, the tiles they’d broken through somehow renewed, as if they’d never been broken in the first place. Tsem hadn’t seen it happen. He had no idea what had caused the change, but he was certain the skeletons would burst forth again the moment he set foot in the entrance hall. He’d pulled back then, letting his leather net just sit there waiting.

  No longer though. Tsem stepped through the entrance, making a dash for his net. Before he had taken more than two steps, a cacophony of shattered tiles echoed through the room, including the one he was racing across.

  Tsem growled low, widening his stance to maintain balance on the unstable ground. As the skeleton-monster near him emerged, he burned qi and struck with his hammer. It was a wild blow, completely devoid of even the mild skill he had grasped with his spear, but a big rock swung with force hit hard, even if the swinger staggered through afterward.

  The blow cracked the creature’s skull, and Tsem could sense qi and some small amount of something else escape from the fractured bone. It lay still. He grinned. He could do this. He could destroy these undead now.

  The victory was short-lived. These undead monsters had never been too dangerous alone. The problem was their numbers and their coordination. Two of them leapt at him, and Tsem ducked and wove, coming at a third behind them. He swung his hammer, breaking bone and dispersing qi into the air.

  A step to the side ensured he could take in his opponents in full, keep them all in front of him. There were ten still moving in total, at least for the moment. There were still hundreds of intact tiles. If there was an undead monster under every tile, he’d be facing down a small army. He needed to keep moving, get to his net then the cranks in the back.

  Tsem moved forward, bashing with his hammer where he could, blocking or throwing kicks where he couldn’t. He burned qi for strength the entire time, relying on his ability to send the lighter monsters flying, keeping the area around him from becoming too clogged with enemies.

  He was partially successful, enough to stoop down and hastily grab his net at least. As he did, he used his left hand to spin the net, keeping everything on that side of his body at bay. It was awkward wielding the hammer with a single hand, but the strength gifted him by his qi helped. One. Two. Three. Tsem plodded forward, managing to crush an undead monster every step or so, but sending far more sailing through the air where they hooked onto pillars or each other, moving back into the battle quickly.

  More and more tiles broke free and Tsem increased his pace across the floor, accepting minor cuts in his rush. He managed to make it pretty far, maybe a little less than halfway to the cranks when he made a mistake. He whiffed with his hammer, too focused on another monster he was kicking away.

  Its claw, seemingly one from a demonic beast that had actually had the appendage in life, drove at his armpit, a spot unprotected by his leathers. There was nothing he could do. There was no time to switch his cycling breath and burn qi for durability. The bone claw slipped in, piercing his skin.

  Tsem managed to throw it off, but the damage had been done. Every motion of his right arm slowed, pained by the injury. Soon enough, another got past his weapon, dragging a red line across the side of his hip. His leathers protected his vitals, and it didn’t seem the undead could easily get through, but they aimed for the gaps. He was still able to crush two or three for every one that got to him, but that was a poor ratio with more climbing free from tiles every second.

  Tsem made his retreat, falling back. He wasn’t going to succeed today. He’d have to fall back, to heal and try again, maybe after practicing a little more with his hammer he’d have a better shot.

  Tsem’s body had other ideas. His guts rolled and where he’d been hurt near the armpit, a dozen feathers grew themselves in an instant. He stumbled, and the skeletons bore him to the ground, more piling onto him each second, fueled by the success. A sudden spiteful, alien urge ran down his spine, and with it, an unknown strength. More undead monsters leapt on top of him, burying him. He fought with all he had, burning qi, but they pressed back, a wall he couldn’t overcome.

  That urge ran down his spine again, more insistent. Tsem ignored it, pressing forward with his own strength. Whatever that feeling was, he knew he’d be beyond recovery if he gave into it. His strength wasn’t enough though. His strength was pushed back and then some. Tsem reached for more qi to burn, but his qi, just like the rest of his body was in chaos, moving in and out of his purified meridians at will.

  Bone limbs ripped and tore at him, his hunting leathers took the runt of it, but already, they were being destroyed, shredded. Tsem had nothing left, so, he gave that urge a foothold, hoping it might do something.

  His qi ran even more out of his control, tugging his body in different directions, tearing muscles and restructuring them, forcefully growing, bulking with qi. Tsem tried to scream, but nothing came out. None of this made any sense to him. He wasn’t doing this. Except he was. He could feel his inner core, his very self, acting, tugging at his body with a will of its own, a will he had no part in.

  Fear gripped Tsem, a feeling of powerlessness in his own body. His inner self guided his qi, using it as a tool to help it remodel his body to the shape it believed defined him. His inner-self was so warped though, parts of it feeling completely foreign.

  The result was chaos. Some muscles were made far too big, some too lean. Some bones were hollowed, some fingers elongated and partially melded with others. In his back, bones moved against each other, forming two useless lumps. Then there were the feathers. So many feathers. Wherever his inner-self touched his skin, wherever it warped it, it grew clumps of feathers.

  While the changes happened, Tsem was briefly aware of his body throwing strikes, rampaging against the undead that held him, crushing them beneath too-large muscles, fighting with nothing but bare hands, a primal force. His body fought like a demonic beast.

  Last of all, his inner-self came for the mind. Tsem tried desperately to retake control, but there was nothing to retake. He already had control. He was doing this to himself. It was just that his mind hadn’t realized it was him just yet. His mind was still entirely Tsem…until it wasn’t.