I’ve always been more of a cat person. I had nothing against dogs, of course. I just preferred the way that cats didn’t chase me and try to bite a hole in my neck.

Usually.

Snarl!

“LEAVE ME ALONE!”

My legs moved with a newfound speed as the bramble dog chased behind me.

That’s what I had decided to call the dumb, bloodthirsty demons: bramble demons. If it looked like a dog, it was a bramble dog. If it looked like a bat, then it was a bramble bat. Or maybe, a fleshpecker?

“GO AWAY!” I shouted again, but the chasing bramble dog ignored me.

When I looked back, the bramble dog was leaping with its sharp claws, headed straight towards me. I hurried to twist around, and instead of my back being raked, the claws pierced through my sleeves and left gashes on my arms.

“AGH!” I screamed in agony as the bramble dog pinned me to the ground, and its maw snapped at my face.

I screamed again as my left forearm stuffed itself into the back of the bramble dog’s jaw, keeping it from sinking its fangs into my neck, but at the cost of my arm getting a painful crushing as the bramble dog tried to close its mouth.

The pain and adrenaline coursing through me twisted my mind apart, and I felt the fear blocking my mind from making rational decisions part aside. Instead, it replaced itself with a violent rage that made my heart beat twice.

Grandma Sylvie had been somewhat of a Buddhist her entire life. She would catch the flies that attacked her fruit and release them outside instead of swatting them down. I wanted to be that way too. A kind soul that didn’t kill.

But at this moment, something in me snapped.

I had been hit, dragged, and abused for the past however long, and it was stopping now with this damned bramble dog.

“DIE!” I shouted as I twisted loose my right arm just enough to swing it.

As my fist travelled through the air, the violet dirt particle inside me released a pulse, like it was responding to my will. The pulse didn’t expand out; instead, it echoed through my arm and pulled in the ambient violet mist as my fist contacted the bramble dog’s face.

Crunch!

The violet mist dispersed as my fist crumpled in the dog’s eye socket. Then, the wind left my stomach as the bramble dog suddenly collapsed onto my sternum. After a few solid minutes of effort, I finally threw the bramble dog off me.

“AHHH!” I wailed in triumph, and as the adrenaline slowly faded, my heavy breathing returned.

Huff. Huff. Wheeze.

Little pains started returning to me as I looked between my aching fist and the indented skull of the bramble dog.

“Did I just…?” I started.

Yeah, I did. My fist just caved in a bramble dog’s skull. I was able to kill these things now.

Somehow.

My brows whisked together as my thoughts tried to reason out how I had managed to kill the bramble dog. I had been angry, and when that released itself into a punch–

“Ack!”

Before I could think much more, a jolt of pain rocked my senses as I flexed my fist, reminding me of my wounded arms. Evidently, the battle between me and a bramble dog was anything but even. I may have won against one, but who knew how many others were down here?

I looked around with a hint of fear, but all I could see was the luminescent violet mist that shrouded everything but the Mars-like ground.

Grunt.

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The painful sensation made me focus back on my arms, and that's when I noticed it. I watched as the ambient violet mist floated toward my arms and seeped into them.

“Is it… healing me?” Minutes passed as I confirmed the slow healing rate the violet mist provided my battered arms. The bleeding had stopped, and it was beginning to close naturally. The pace was far below the violet pool, but it would be enough for survival.

“Wait.” My face slackened as I quickly looked around the area.

“No, no, no, NO!” My body quivered as I had another terrible realization.

I was lost.

The stupid bramble dog had chased me into the violet mist, and with it being so dark down here and with minimal landmarks…

“...Damnit!”

I gave the bramble dog a swift kick in rage, then some more until my breathing grew ragged again. Then, as my anger hit a peak, I felt a pulse from inside me echo into my leg and watched as violet mist collected on my foot.

Crunch.

My expression calmed as I heaved air into my nose, and my eyes watched the violet mist return to its ambient state like nothing had ever happened. But I knew better now; the violet mist reacted to the violet dirt particle inside me and lent me power beyond what I could usually use.

Whew.

“You must remain rational in survival times like these, Louie.”

Suddenly, I grabbed my stomach. It was complaining even more fiercely than before. The violet mist was healing me, but it felt like I got hungrier every time it did so. Even the bramble dog was starting to look like it could be a good meal…

“...No! No, Louie. We are not eating the bramble demon.” I spoke to myself. I was not dying in this hell hole from eating a weird fantasy demon. I could hold off from eating a bit longer and find a plant or something.

“Oh my god, am I a vegetarian now? Don’t think about it, Louie.”

I turned away from the bramble dog and looked around at my options. I needed to distract myself.

The left was more violet mist. The right was more violet mist. Straight ahead was even more violet mist.

Well, right was always the right direction, right?

I patted myself on the back for the excellent joke and headed right, disappearing into the violet mist.

*****

Update: I found food.

A thin violet film covered my fist as it crashed into a swooping, bramble bat. The resulting crunch should have caused the other bramble bats to pause, but they continued their manic dives at me, regardless of the cost.

Second update: Food is scarce here.

Slices opened across my skin as I shielded myself from getting hit in any vitals like the neck or the eyes. By now, the little jolts of pain as the bramble bats’ teeth bit into me weren’t enough to phase me. They were nothing compared to the bramble dog’s raking claws or vicious bites.

As it turns out, the bramble dogs were solitary creatures. However, the bramble bats were the opposite and tended to attack in flocks that accumulated a lot of damage in multiple more minor attacks.

Third update: The bramble demons guard any food like it's their last resort.

I swallowed the glowing mushroom into my mouth and felt its Qi flood my body.

Pulse.

The violet dirt particle let out a joyous pulse as the flood of Qi travelled through my system and gathered around it. Meanwhile, it felt like a thousand needles stabbed into my veins as the violet dirt particle went to work on a critical mission:

It was cleansing the mushroom’s Qi of red-tinted impurities.

Maybe, it was because the mushroom grew from the desolate red ground. After all, it did grow from there. Whatever the impurities were, the violet dirt particle battled against any of them with a burning hatred. It wouldn’t rest until it was gone entirely from my system.

My fist punched through the last of the bramble bats, and I quickly wiped away the bits of blood remaining on my hand.

I initially liked the colour red. Now, I was beginning to hate the colour. The ground was red-toned. The bramble demons had writhing red vines buried into their skin. Even the plants were all tinted with red, like something had turned everything that way.

Huff. Huff. Huff.

I leaned against the twisted tree that initially housed the colony of bramble bats and momentarily closed my eyes. There was an onset of fatigue before my eyes quickly jolted open.

“Do not fall asleep, Louie.” I reminded myself. Leaving myself open to a bramble dog meant certain death for me. Thankfully, a wave of relief flooded my system as the violet dirt particle finished refining the mushroom’s flood of red-tinted Qi. Now, the Qi had condensed into a few more minion violet dirt particles that clumped into a baseball-sized mound.

These new violet dirt particles weren’t like the original. They seemed like they lacked something, but were vital in my cultivation, too.

I closed my eyes and felt the barrier between me and the next Qi Condensation stage puncture like a balloon with a push of my cultivation base. Compared to the difficulty in getting to the first Qi Condensation stage, the second stage was much more manageable and almost impossibly easy.

Was I doing something wrong? I battered the thought away and decided to take a win when I could down here.

“Progress.” I smiled to myself. Then, my nose wrinkled.

The blackened sweat quickly covered my body with a sickening smell that made me want to vomit. Unfortunately, I had no violet water to wash it away this time. I could only try to wipe it all off with the ripped parts of my sleeve.

It didn’t work that well.

But I could feel it. My body was definitely, without a doubt, getting slimmer! Sure, it was only a few centimetres… maybe, only one or two centimetres but— Ok, one centimetre, for sure! You know what, regardless of how little the progress was, it was progress all the same!

“More Qi, more food, less fat.” I chanted to myself as I stood up again. I looked around and didn’t take the right direction this time as I wandered. Maybe it was due to breaking through to the second stage, but I could feel the violet mist better now. It was ebbing and flowing around me like it was trying to guide me somewhere.

I followed that feeling, taking me deeper into the violet mist.