Wang Tao's eyes widened as he saw a bloodied hand grip his foot. His gaze traveled up the arm to meet the face of a man lying on the ground covered in blood.

"You fool! How many times do I have to tell you to always pay attention to your surroundings?" The man coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"E-elder?" Wang Tao stammered, rushing to the elder's side. His focus, however, was on their surroundings. While the small garden remained intact, the rest of the compound lay in ruins. Rubble and clouds of dust painted the scenery. In the distance, an orange glow of fire lit up the sky.

"Elder, what happened?" His voice trembled. The last time he'd opened his eyes, everything had been fine.

"Spirit beasts are attacking us!" The elder, a man hundreds of years old with white hair and wrinkled skin, coughed up more blood as he answered. One of his eyes was clouded with cataracts, and the lower half of his face was soaked in red.

Wang Tao suddenly remembered the pills he had. He tried to shove them into the elder's mouth, but the old man refused. "I'm already dead. My cultivation is broken, and I used the last of it to come here and wake you from your concentration!"

"I'm sorry, Elder!" Tears threatened to fall from Wang Tao's eyes. It was so sudden; he didn't have time to comprehend what had happened. The fact that the elder, who had been kind to him and whom he considered a father, would die made his heart ache. "I'll get you to safety!"

He scanned their surroundings, trying to figure out where the spirit beasts were and where to run.

As Wang Tao reached for the elder, the old man waved him off. "No, just run. These spirit beasts are stronger than all of us. Don't burden yourself with me." The elder rolled onto his back, facing the sky.

A sinister laugh echoed through the air, accompanied by desperate cries and shouts. Wang Tao's heart raced as he wondered what kind of spirit beasts dared to attack the Wang clan and succeed.

"Listen carefully; we don't have much time," the elder said urgently. "I want you to run. Run as fast and as far as you can. Don't stop for anything. Even if you see a naked woman with her legs spread and a bewitching smile, ignore her. Just run, run, and run. These spirit beasts are dangerous. They are stronger than me!" The elder coughed up another mouthful of blood.

Wang Tao's heart ached, and his eyes burned with unshed tears, but he took a deep breath and centered himself. He began to accept reality and nodded. He would run. He would hide. The elder was at the Core Splitting seventh core. Anything that could kill the elder could easily crush him.

"Now, about your father, he is actually—"

Before the elder could finish, something hurtled toward them. It was too fast for Wang Tao to dodge, but the elder moved suddenly, standing right in front of him and blocked it with his body.

The object hurling toward them wasn't a thing—it was a person. It was the gardener! He had probably been thrown by a spirit beast. The gardener's bald head now jutted out from the elder's stomach as if it were the blade of a spear. His entire head was red with blood, and the scene before Wang Tao was so absurd that he felt he must be dreaming.

"Go now!" The elder coughed several times. "Just go!"

Wang Tao's body trembled, but he nodded and began to run as fast as he could. As he ran, he turned his head to see the elder and the gardener fall together, their bodies tangled.

He felt sadness seeing his elder die, but the most dominant feeling in his heart was fear. Fear of whatever had hurled the gardener with such force.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Why?" he muttered. Why had this suddenly happened to him? Wasn't he a genius favored by heavens? Shouldn't his life be smooth sailing from here on out?

As these thoughts raced through his mind, tears began to fall from his eyes. While he didn't really love his clan members, they were still family, and he vowed to someday kill whatever had annihilated his clan and killed his elder.

Wang Tao had been running for some time, his feet carrying him far from the devastation of his clan compound. The dense forest outside the compound surrounded him, and its shadows offering a false sense of security.

Suddenly, a whistling sound came from behind and Wang Tao turned his head to see a black blur shooting toward him like an arrow. His eyes widened in terror, and he instinctively jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding the mysterious projectile.

A loud crash echoed through the forest, followed by the groaning of a tree and a bigger crash accompanied by the rustle of leaves. Wang Tao snapped his head toward the sound, seeing a massive tree now fallen to the side. But his eyes focused on the disgusting and terrifying spirit beast that had felled the tree.

Its skin was brown as mud, its right ear was one giant grape, while the left was a yellow chili. It had white teeth and smiled so wide as if a beggar saw a pile of gold. Tied around its neck was a yellow cloth with a flower pattern. It had a human torso, but its four limbs were yellow snakes with red dots.

Wang Tao's heart pounded in his chest. He could feel the qi emanating from this spirit beast—it was overwhelmingly strong. It was like drowning in some kind of malevolent yet powerful water. It was even stronger than the elder, which meant this thing could kill him as easily as a child stomping on ants. His body and teeth trembled, his back drenched with cold sweat, and he felt his lungs suddenly turn to iron, unable to pump air. But his self-preservation instinct was alive and kicking, and it roared at him to run away.

Wang Tao stood up hastily, cycled his qi to strengthen his feet and body, and bolted like an arrow. He prayed that this thing wouldn't chase him. He was just a mere ant. Surely something that strong wouldn't lower itself to chase an ant.

He turned his head and saw that the spirit beast was standing near the fallen tree. For a moment, he felt relief, but this relief vanished when his body hit something solid. He fell onto his backside and looked up to see what he had hit.

When he could clearly see what it was, the blood drained from his face, leaving him as pale as a candle. What he had hit was another spirit beast. It had blue snakes as limbs, pale skin, apples for ears, and a smirking face. He felt a wind ripple at his side and saw another similar spirit beast land nearby. This one had pitch-black snakes, yellow skin, red potatoes for ears, and an angry face.

More and more spirit beasts landed around him. They were on the ground, in the tree branches, hovering in the sky, standing on shimmering platforms—some even came out of the ground like moles.

Wang Tao looked around, instinctively trying to count the total number of enemies.

"O-one, t-two, t-three," he counted with a trembling voice. When he reached ten, despair filled his heart. At twenty, he realized there was no way he would survive. And when he hit thirty, anger took over.

He shouldn't die now. He should live, advance, become strong, and rule the world.

Wang Tao stood up, his face scrunching into a bestial expression.

One of the spirit beasts began to laugh. Its laugh was ugly, like a child with lung problems. Then another ugly laugh sounded, and more and more spirit beasts joined in, their laughter reverberating through the air.

"Don't laugh!" Wang Tao screamed. "I, Wang Tao, declare you all as my enemy! Whether in this life or the next, I will remember all of you! I will tear off your snake limbs, chop off your heads, eat your hearts, and refine pills from all of you!"

A spirit beast with pitch-black skin and green coconuts for ears struck the air with its snake limb, and a golden ball in the shape of a tiger's head shot toward him.

Wang Tao screamed and tried to punch this attack. His eyes were red and glistening as if he wanted to cry. When his punch connected with the golden tiger head, his hand exploded like a popping balloon. A red mist spread around him, and unbearable pain shot through his body. This pain made him close his eyes for a moment, and every spirit beast surrounding him—whether standing on branches, on the ground, floating, or atop a platform—came rushing at him as if he were the most delicious meat in the middle of a pack of hungry dogs.

Before he opened his eyes again, his limbs were torn off, his head chomped, his stomach and torso bitten as if he were the most delicious cookie in the world.

The only thing that made him grateful was that while his death was brutal, heavens still had mercy on him because everything turned dark before he could register the pain.

He was dead, as were most of the Wang clan, the surrounding clans, and the nearby towns, cities, and provinces.

And this was not an isolated event. Throughout the Twelve Sun Empire, the same thing was happening through the night.