"So it's finally time, eh, Laddie?" Merakk sat on top of a boulder just at the end of the downward slope of the mountain range they had descended.

Teng stood at the edge of the plain. It was bizarre. From above, it seemed as if the grass was on fire, golden, but it turned out to be yellow and orange, like willow trees in before the cold season.

"Your grasp on the mirage lore is rudimentary at best." the old man kindly pointed out. "But even a tiger can fall to a monkey's stone throw, however unlikely."

"Thanks," the young man replied dryly.

The old man smiled. "Hand over my sac before you leave. It would be a waste for the remains of one of the azure swarm to go into the hands of such filth if you were to fail."

"The bones and feathers are mine."

Merakk laughed his rich laugh. "Don't worry, I won't steal them. But if you do die, think of it as repaid gratitude. Or would you rather the outsiders who stole your sleeping guardian get these treasures, too?"

Teng thought for a moment before shrugging and throwing it over.

If Merakk wanted to take his things for himself, it was a very roundabout manner to do it in.

During their three days of companionship through the mountain pass, Merakk had shown the young man how strong he was. The panther had tried to attack him yesterday, and the old man had simply vanished from his position and reappeared with the lithe thing pinched by its scruff as if it were a cub.

They ate well that night, and the old man had explained to Teng that he needed to eat much more essence-rich meat than he'd done previously if he ever wished to infuse his body to the limit. It was not enough to eat when hungry; a cultivator needed to increase his ability to eat and constantly eat more.

"Good luck, Laddie."

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Thin strands of grass pricked the soles of Teng's feet as he slowly edged forward. He could hear them now, the outsiders, with their boisterous laughter, loud jesting, and clapping hands, and it made him both nervous and excited. The group sat around three small fires, drinking from the rinsed skulls of various beasts and eating the sinewy meat of mountain goat roasting over a fire.

Using his ability to listen to the wind, Teng could smell the lobs of fat from the meager meat sizzling over the heat, burning away as they fell into the hot flames. What they were drinking was far from anything he'd ever seen or heard of– at first, he thought it was water, but then his senses told him otherwise. Teng felt a tingle on his tongue, a whiff in his nostrils, and a burn to his throat. The taste was sweet and spicy simultaneously, and he detected some fruit hints.

As the men drank, their cheeks flushed ever brighter, their speech slurred as if tired. Yet they were not exhausted; they seemed the opposite. They were more lively and invigorated the more they clanked their skulls together, yelled, laughed, and drank.

The young man decided not to act until he knew more of what was happening. He used the new technique, or lore, as Merakk called it, to blend into his surroundings. The mirage lore didn't precisely turn one invisible, but it dulled the senses of those who looked upon it to believe it wasn't there.

Merakk explained that a proper cultivator would see through it directly from essence fluctuations, whatever that was. He doubted these men were the kind Merakk had warned him about. As such, he crept closer, using the cover of the night and the mirage lore to come within hearing distance.

"Another round, you bastards!" a big fellow raised his beast skull.

"To think we find a bone like this in a place like that. It will be sweet profit from the Tiger halls, even if we didn't find what the golden-haired man was after." a short man mused, twirling his skull.

"Let's just tell him we couldn't find it." a lanky, long-haired man pointed out.

"Profit to spend on fur warmers and firebrew!" the big fellow from before interrupted.

The men smiled at each other and raised their skulls. "To fur warmers and firebrew!"

Teng listened, perplexed, and shook his head. These outsiders were very strange. Fur warmers and firebrew? They also said something about a golden-haired man. The dregs of a memory from long ago resurfaced, of the bird and a golden-haired man in a battle in the skies. Did they mean the same man? Did the attack on the village have anything to do with the remains of the azure swarm? He'd always thought that was just a dream. Maybe it wasn't.

The young man wanted to listen more, but the threat his village was under without the bone seemed genuine, from what both Merakk and the villagers told him. The paragon worked as a deterrent for beasts, and without it, beasts such as the infant snow troll would flock into the valley, which, according to Merakk, was rather essence-rich for beasts. He could not risk the chance of him retrieving the bone being wasted.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Sometime later, after many swigs from his beast skull, the big fellow was breathing heavily but steadily, fast asleep. Teng made as little noise as possible as he crept into the camp. The jutting bone of the sleeping paragon lay by the fire where three men were still awake and talking. He could sneak in when they were all sleeping, but there was no way to tell if some wouldn't be awake the whole night. He could wait for a better opportunity, but at least now he could hide in the mountain range if they followed him.

Teng thought quickly, stepped over the big guy, and grabbed a log from the fire burning beside him. Two others were at his fire, and they, too, were asleep. Maybe it was that strange drink. The heat of the piece of wood burned his hand, but he withstood it as he laid it against the man's fur wrap. It was the same as the older man, covering the whole of his legs. Teng then tip-toed around the fire until he was close to the fire, where the three men sat talking.

After some time, he heard a man groggily groaning and then shouting, which drew the attention of the three men still awake. They stood and hurried over; after that, Teng pulled at the sleeping guardian, lodging it from the ground with some effort, and began to walk away from the camp. He wanted to run; every bone in his body told him to do it. Instead, Teng calmly walked away from the camp. Only when he was some distance away did he start to run. Before he'd gotten halfway across the plain, he heard shouting. His heart had thumped before, but now it was beating against his chest like a bell.

They had discovered the paragon bone was gone.

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Merakk sat perched upon the same boulder he'd rested on when Teng left. He smiled as he saw the young man run for his life, the camp of the low-rank cultivators in disarray, and thought back to his childhood. Had he ever taken such risks at such a level?

"Good thinking, Laddie, starting a fire." he mused. "Still, so naive. You really think they won't go back to your village?"

Merakk stretched out his legs, which had gone stiff. Even a high cultivation couldn't repress age in full.

"I do wonder why the bird didn't destroy its marks."

To encounter one of the azure swarm in a wounded state was luck enough, but to come away with its remarks was a different matter altogether.

No innate lore, no abnormal essence affinity, but there is definitely something. He might be useful to the tribe.

Teng was a mysterious little thing to the old man who had seen much of the world. If nothing else, taking the young man back with him to the tribe might stir up the other youngsters.

"And, of course, it will vex that old bastard," Merakk grinned.

The decision was made, and the old man hopped down from the boulder. He left the pack where it lay, circulated his essence, and applied the mirage lore to its fullest. Then he began to run, each step taking him further than three would an ordinary man. But Merakk was no such man. He was a cultivator at the merge stage; his spirit had grown and evolved.

He came upon the camp just as the ragtag group of disheveled men realized their prize had been taken while they were occupied with rolling the fat cultivator over the ground to stamp out the flames.

A lanky man and a pudgy man stood side by side as the others packed their things into their travel bags.

"It must be them. We should have burned the whole village." The lanky man with a scar across his forehead said.

"No beast would have done this; they won't even get close to the bone. And there's no settlement nearby other than in that valley." his pudgy friend agreed.

"To spurn our kindness like this." the lanky man muttered. "I say we go back and introduce ourselves properly."

The fat man had finally gotten to his feet, his clothes in tatters. Merakk guessed they weren't made from a powerful beast, or fire wouldn't have caught so easily. Probably a bunch of outcasts, the lot of them.

"I say we kill the men and rape the women." the fat man said. "I won't be satisfied with anything else."

"I thought we'd change our ways?" the pudgy man grinned.

"Well," The fat man said with a gap-toothed smile. "What do you say, cruh?"

Curh, the lanky man, shrugged. "We're not in any tribe's territory. Sharp bone must be met with sharp bone."

"About that," Merakk said and stepped forward, allowing his essence to dissolve into his vessel, thereby removing the illusionary effects of the mirage lore.

The three men stepped back, their expressions shifting from surprise to fear as the old man allowed his spirit beast to emerge. The towering form of what had once been a thousand-year-old cave bear, now with wings, thick spikes, and glowing red eyes, appeared around him. Merakk felt power beyond essence course through his body. A smile tugged at his lips as he reveled in the fear he sensed from the lowly outcasts.

"M-merge cultivator." the lanky man stuttered.

"I see you at least have some… education," Merakk said. "Now, laddies, I suggest you don't go back to that village. In fact, I would rather you go back to your master."

"Our master?" the pudgy man echoed. "What master?"

"Weren't you sent here to find something for a golden-haired man?" Merakk asked, though he already knew the answer. He'd heard the old bastard was sending out groups to search for something, which is why he decided to stretch his legs a bit. Only when he'd luckily come upon Teng and the remains of the azure swarm did he realize what the search was about.

The men gulped but nodded.

"I suggest you forget this valley," Merakk said, taking a single step forward and spreading his hands. "I also suggest you find that old bastard and tell him what he searches for belongs to Merakk the bear from now on. Tell him I said hello."

"You'll let us go?" the lanky man asked shakily, his eyes betraying the disbelief he probably felt.

Merakk grinned. "Well, you are quite a group. Maybe you'll travel faster if I… cut the grass a bit."

The old man swiped his hand down. Everything from above the fat man's legs simply vanished. Body parts scattered across the camp, bits of flesh and blood landing upon the other men who stood frozen in shock as they watched what was left of their friend.They started to run, making Merakk laugh and swipe more frenziedly, his spirit beast mimicking his movements.

Soon, only the lanky man and another two were left. They sat huddled in the camp, trembling in horror and painted in blood, their friends but flesh to feed the soil.

"Now, you can go," Merakk said as he let his spirit beast back into slumber and turned.

It was time to find the lucky young man and tell him old Merakk persuaded the outsiders to leave his village alone.