The smell of blood filled the forest. It was not as sweet as the smell of berries. But it was food for nature, without a doubt.

Hao tested the Drinking-Stone on the body of the Rabbit-eyed man first.

The stone did as Hao thought it would, just as a few minutes ago it devoured the blood spilled from the body.

Now it was taking his moisture from him, a dirty mist pulled from the corpse as it closed.

A good amount of World Energy assimilated into the air. Leaving Hao just a murky gold crystal.

The rabbit-eyed man became a mummified corpse, skinnier, and dry without any decay.

Anyone who knew the man could still recognize him. Extremely pale and wrinkled, but a distinct face was still there.

I had no grudge against this man. Hao had his thought interrupted, a lucky interruption.

Hao noticed something early when he first brought rabbit-eyes back to the pound, his body lying next to his bosses’.

Hoa thought it was just his imagination, a haunting paranoia of sorts.

Axe’s chest was moving up and down.

Axe was indeed breathing, his chest moving in uneven patterns, his eyes remaining closed.

Hao prodded, poked, shook, and shouted to no response. Only his eye moved when Hao held it open.

He cared little for Axe’s plight, the man’s intentions were vile beyond murder, and his words would make devils recoil.

Even if Axe was alive enough to breathe, Hao took his life; he was unresponsive while on an Immortal mountain, his chosen enemy looking down at him.

Hao thought he should feel more guilty; perhaps it hasn’t dawned on me yet.

Hao wouldn’t let the change pass by with an enemy unable to resist in front of him—A man his father’s age who wanted to kill him and raid his home.

Hao couldn’t hold himself back, his teeth became grindstones. He spoke while holding open the one eyelid of the half-alive man.

“What would you have done, huh? Slaughter the men who only know how to find food to survive. What of the women, the mothers, the grandmothers, and widows that help the wives butcher their husbands’ catch? What of the Elders that taught me? What of the kids who count shells in the mudflats?”

“What of my father—what would you have done to my mother!” Hao yelled, the trees raging with him in the wind.

The blood in Hao’s body was rushing through his heart, the same heart that was calm and cold during the hunt. It was turning into a pool of flaming hate.

There was no longer a need to calculate how to best hunt the beasts, so his mind turned to a flood.

Hao raised his foot in the air, wanting to stomp on Axe’s legs.

That would only be self-satisfaction.

Hao put his foot back down, standing there looking at the man, Hao pulled himself back.

His normal self returned, perhaps a facade, the warmth of the morning and the cold of the night resting his heart, dissolving as his eyes turned to abyssal wells. Pits of near emptiness, it was impossible to know what lay within their depths.

“It seems I was the one to get benefits in the end?” Hao said, unsure how far he would take what he would do next.

Fate has given him a gift in a sense. I wonder what the two treasures do to a living person.

Hao put the mummified body in the bag, the gold crystal with it. The body went in easier than Hao thought it would. Hao didn’t know what he was expecting. He already put far more blood and meat in the bag. How would a corpse resist just because it was human?

He had already got his clothing fully on. He did so after rabbit-eyes faded away.

He cleaned up the rest of the area, leaving nothing behind; all things he wanted and did not want, went into the bag.

He cleaned the areas again to be sure after returning to Axe.

Before trying to Axe in the bag, Hao had other things he wanted to try.

Hao placed the Drinking-Stone against the man. No effect. Only grabbing some blood and other liquids that dribbled onto the ground from either Axe’s nose or mouth.

He pinched down on the large man’s skin; the skin was tough. Hao was not sure if Axe reached the Third Layer of Reclamation or not. He didn’t have much of a chance to fight back.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The skin split with a bit of effort, and a little pool of blood started to gather around the wound.

Hao pushed the stone close, but nothing happened until the pool of blood formed a drop, falling away.

The droplet touched the ground, and the orb drank too little to form everything. Another drop with the same result, the wound stopped after three.

I can’t take the blood from anything living, or still using the liquid? It was the best guess Hao could form; he was too weak to bind the treasure, and he didn’t even know the stone’s real name.

Trying to figure out its function is like a newborn trying to build a clock in the middle of a battlefield.

The blood dried, the sun taking over a tenth of the sky as Hao pondered.

Is there really time to be sitting here? A rhetorical question for himself. The answer was no; he killed two people and was bothered by how little it bothered him.

Hao mocked the voice on the path of stone pillars, ‘They have returned to the stream, you are walking a thread above them’. Hao half believed it.

He felt a separation from the two of them despite the fact they were human like him.

He felt more pity for the beast whose meat he ate and shared.

Perhaps I just don’t like them. Perhaps they deserve it.

Hao wasn’t sure anything deserved to die. Dying is never about deserving or feelings. Death is nature, as natural as life itself.

They were words repeated to him as he drained the ‘rabbit’ in the butcher’s hall.

Hao had one last thing to try before going back up the mountain, putting Axe into the Spirit-Holding bag.

Hao put his hand on his chest, trying to pull the man inside, but Axe didn’t budge.

He noticed something pulling away from the bag as Hao was pulling in.

A force diverting the invisible hand Hao used when he was grabbing things he wanted to place in the bag.

Hao tried a few times but got a similar feeling. Hao slid his hand under his messily put-on robe.

His fingers wrapped around the gem that was bound to the bag.

Hao pressed his hardest, far harder than his first time using the bag.

World Energy surged through his body, the World Energy he was familiar with, moving through unfamiliar channels.

It passed through him, going into the ruby. The ruby took all the World Energy in his body as he collected it from the air.

The other energy in his body, what Hao thought was also World Energy, traveled with his blood pumping through his veins. The amount was never going down, only up when he ate the beast’s meat.

The harder Hao pushed, the more Energy the ruby took, something like this had never happened before, nor had anything ever fought going into the bag.

Axe’s eyes were moving rapidly under his eyelids. Then his eyelids flashed rapidly open and closed. Hao could see it all, but his focus was elsewhere.

Hao pulled until he felt a snap. The resistance from Axe’s body stopped all movements. Axe’s face was twisted in pain, and blood shot from Axe’s mouth just before Hao pulled his body into the bag.

Hao would check if Axe was still alive later, to see if anything living could go inside the bag.

The snap did the same damage to Hao as it did to Axe. Hao spat blood, a pain beyond pain traveled somewhere to depths in him he did not know. It had his head reeled and spun, his vision only half working.

Another thing to distract him while his head swam through a sea of thoughts. The pain was slow to go away. Hao sat in meditation until he could move, the sensation of the needle dancing inside his head.

The sun was taking half the sky, halfway to noon.

He returned up the mountain, bodies and treasures in his bag, new things added since he woke up.

Other things had changed, like the way people stared as he walked by—more stares than he was expecting, more than he wanted.

Perhaps now they knew who rang the bell.

They wore robes like his, the same color, just as clean. As Hao passed by there were pointing, squinting, and words of things that described him, islander origin, and mixed hair.

No one ever approached. Some even curved away from him in their walk, a gap like the ones separating the three moons.

The walk was long. The people did not follow him, but their eyes never left his back. Stares trailed him until he reached the slope up to the old courtyard, now a servant’s quarters.

A long walk he had taken for the first time himself.

At the top, a flattened area sat around more hills and peaks, jagged slopes almost vertical—an ugly spot carved out for ugly houses.

Empty and quiet except for a grunt and crack.

The woman just outside the courtyard was a welcome sight. Older than Hao’s mother, she was swimming an axe far thicker than her arm down on a stump. A rough cut uneven wood sitting on it.

A crack rang out off the walls of the mountain.

She placed another and swung down again.

Her strength was easy to underestimate, her appearance delicate, but the wood split, flying to either side, two small piles of firewood already gathered.

She had not been at it for long. Beads of sweat only started to form.

Hao could see each droplet of sweat from his current distance, less than twenty paces until he reached the end of the path. Everything was more detailed than before.

He couldn’t count blades of grass in a field but could tell the number of petals on a flower from a glance.

As Hao got closer, she lifted her head from her last swing. A bead large enough to roll down her forehead swept her smooth cheek. Hao watched it roll around her chin and jaw, down to her neck.

His finer vision made him doubt their self-proclaimed ages more. A mother as smooth as pears, and a grandmother carved from jade. It would be a silly thing to lie about in the circumstance, one without reason.

“Young Master!” Zhengqi shouted. She bowed to Hao, and Hao pulled his head up, only just realizing where his eyes wandered.

“Mother, it’s young master; he has returned,” she called out again, only turning slightly, not leaving her bow.

Meiqi emerged from one of the buildings—not the one Hao had slept in, but one of the others that the servants Taoyi brought up used.

She dragged something along with her, a sheet torn up at the end she held. It bounced on the stones full of garbage, dust, wood chips, and dying flowers, with just a few lively red petals still on them.

Meiqi held squinted eyes and a tilted head until she saw Hao. Dropping the sheet, it flapped as it tried to catch the wind.

She took a few steps forward, reaching a spot closer to Hao, greeting Hao as her eyes scanned behind him. She bowed her head, hands placed on her belly, “Young Master.”

“No one else is here,” Hao said, seeing her eyes half-open, skip between his shoulders.

She stood from her bow, giving a glance to the sky as well.

Hao appreciated the caution. It made her seem more serious and more trustworthy.

At Least she trusts me more than whoever she’s looking out for. Hao knew who, but not the reason.

She approached, maintaining a respectful demeanor.

“What are you doing? No one else is here?” Hao asked, wanting her to stop, wanting to know why they were cleaning these rooms.

“The rooms needed to be cleaned after they were used. It was an order to keep this place tidy for the young master’s eventual return.” Meiqi said, standing a good distance from her Zhengqi, the appearance close for such an age difference.

Meiqi was done checking the surroundings after a few glances at the sky, Zhengqi continued to do so.

Meiqi was quick in her approach to Hao. Hao was slow in his walk forward, “Who… Never mind, if someone gives you an order just remind them you’re currently in my service, it should save you some sweat.” Hao said it felt weird and good to say.

“Young master does not need to worry, there are more important things, is young master injured,” Meiqi said.

She reached up, nearly touching Hao’s face, a gesture right now he would have welcomed.

“We were told the young master was missing. We had to tend to the quarter while you were away anyway; we have little left to do. Just burn what can be burned and scatter the ashes. Zhengqi can tend to you while I finish up.” Hao’s ears perked when she mentioned a fire.

Hao watched her face the entire time she talked. He felt bad for distrusting the woman while she dispelled his worries and showed concern.

They showed him trust, were willing to serve him, and even tried to do a servant ceremony. They were willing to share their secrets and teach him. They were using him as protection, a normal thing he did not mind. They showed him appreciation and respect; they were the first to do so. What more could he ask for?

One last test, there should be no risk. Hao thought.

“I am fine. I’m uninjured.” Hao wanted to call Meiqi by her by her name, “But I may need to use that fire you mentioned… if it’s discrete.” Hao said he started his sentence with confidence, shying near the end, worried about both of their reactions.

Meiqi did flinch a bit, not out of fear but understanding. Zhengqi acted like she didn’t hear. Hao was unsure if she was pretending or not.

“It wasn’t anyone important, was it, Young Master?” Meiqi said her voice was as quiet as Hao.

Hao looked at the woman standing close to him. She was shorter than her daughter, with intense eyes and a few small creases on her face. Her neck was thin like a crane’s. She was not shy with makeup or words. Hao wasn’t sure he ever really looked at her.

How fast she was picking up the clues made his fingers twitch.

“No, no, I doubt that. He could have only joined a few months before me,” Hao said.

She stared at Hao, rubbing her chin with one hand, stopping Hao with the other.

“Don’t say too much, after we have the waste burning we will have other things to finish, you do what you must while we tend to other things, if people have questions just say we burn too much waste at once and things get out of hand.”