Ye Zan’s ears perked up. Something was moving in the foliage coming his way.

“You got it?” Huang Yimun said.

“Yeah.” Ye Zan propped his spear against a nearby tree and strung his bow.

A few weeks ago, he might have been nervous about facing a spirit beast without backup from either Senior Brother or Senior Sister. Of course, a few weeks ago, he hadn’t been killing an average of two to three of the creatures per day.

Master said that both the quantity and quality of the beasts would increase as the time for the tide grew closer. He’d been right. Hardly a day went by when the guards didn’t see a rank three. Rank twos were as common as field mice.

Part of the large amount was their location. The Orange Vigor Spirit Wood did seem to attract the critters. The village and the sect grounds had seen elevated levels but not to nearly the extent of where the harvesters worked.

“Be prepared to blow the whistle just in case,” Ye Zan said. “It sounds big.”

Larger size didn’t automatically mean higher rank, but it was an indicator.

Huang Yimun raised his hand, showing that he held the shiny metal ready. “Got it.”

In addition to making lots of noise, the beast was also quite slow. Minutes passed as its footfalls drew closer and closer.

Finally, a golden-furred figure taller than a man and twice as heavy came into view.

“What the heck is that?” Ye Zan said.

“Giant ground sloth, I believe.”

“It’s big. Think it’s a four?”

“Won’t know until you hit it.”

“True.” Ye Zan nocked an arrow. Though he’d been practicing for weeks, he’d yet to advance the weapon to Small Success. He hadn’t even managed to hit an actual live target yet. A big, slow creature was a perfect chance for him to turn his streak around.

Channeling his inner Yang Xiu, he pulled back the bowstring and loosed. The arrow flew. And … hit. Not a good hit. The stomach. He’d been aiming for the chest.

But the arrow stuck.

“Definitely not rank four,” Ye Zan said.

“Nope.”

Ye Zan dropped the bow and grabbed the spear he’d leaned against the tree. A rank three he could handle. A big, slow rank three was even better.

He charged.

The sloth anticipated his arrival and swiped, but its sedate pace simply could not connect. Ye Zan ducked under the claw and simultaneously thrust his spear at the middle of its chest.

He wasn’t an expert on that particular animal, but he was well acquainted with beasts in general by that point. The spot where he aimed was the heart’s location in most mammals they’d encountered.

Including, it turned out, the sloth.

The spirit beast collapsed to the ground and bled out.

While Huang Yimun dragged the corpse to throw on the pile with the rest for Master to retrieve later, Ye Zan sunk into a lotus position and meditated on the fight, particularly on the arrow sinking into the sloth’s stomach.

Steady the bow. Smooth stroke to pull back the string. Calm. Not breathing. Aim. Release. Thunk.

He visualized his motions again and again and again until, after about the tenth time, something clicked.

“Yi’er! I did it! Small Success!”

“It’s about time.”

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Yang Ru was about halfway through a cycle, circulating qi through the well-established pathways between his meridians, when he was interrupted, ruining the effort he’d put in to get to that point. He wasn’t angry, though. The village guards wouldn’t disturb him without need.

That was, after all, why he was cultivating in the village plaza—to be available when a spirit beast attacked.

“Senior Brother! Senior Brother!”

It was Xiang Qiao, the first person Yang Ru had ever met from Prosperous Gray Forest Village all those months ago. From wary stranger to sect brother, the transition was somewhat disconcerting, especially since the man, who was in his mid-twenties, referred to Yang Ru as senior.

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“What is it?” Yang Ru said.

He refused to refer to the older man as junior. That would have just felt too weird.

“Movement outside the wall, northeast quadrant, Senior Brother. It’s big.”

Yang Ru hoped it was only another rank three. He’d faced two other rank fours since the jaguar those many nights ago. They all made him feel … useless.

Oh, he served his purpose, distracting the beast from squishier targets until Master could get there, but that role didn’t make him feel like much of a protector.

Well, that wasn’t quite right. He was definitely protecting his sect mates, even to the extent of having to consume two of Master’s Healing Pills.

Standing between danger and his brothers and sisters was important. But destroying the thing causing that danger was important, too.

He sprinted to the wall, leaving Xiang Qiao behind, and leaped up to the walkway at the top that Master called an allure. From there, he could see and hear the surroundings outside.

Sure enough, something big was approaching.

Xiang Qiao and two other guards joined Yang Ru in watching until, finally, the spirit beast stepped into sight. A gorilla.

Yang Ru hoped it was a rank three because the creature looked like it would be a challenging fight. It would purely suck if his only role was to kite it until Master arrived.

Again, Yang Ru was struck by a dissonance between his expectations of what his adult life would be like and the reality. He was the second strongest cultivator in an up-and-coming sect—not that he’d make that claim with Yang Xiu in earshot; he’d never hear the end of it—using strange words that no one had ever heard until spoken by Master but that seemed so commonplace in the village, and preparing to charge a massive gorilla with only a spear.

Yang Ru hopped down from the wall, using the force of his momentum on hitting the ground to propel him forward, something he would not have been able to do before becoming a cultivator. By the time he’d taken three steps, he had already built up quite a bit of power.

The gorilla roared and beat its fists against its chest.

Yang Ru lowered his shoulder and thrust out his spear.

The gorilla set its stance. Yang Ru thundered forward.

Just before impact, Yang Ru triggered his stone skin. He internally charged qi into his arms and legs, stabbing forward with all his might.

And suddenly found himself on his butt. The gorilla hadn’t moved an inch.

“It’s a four!” Yang Ru yelled. “Sound the alarm!”

There was nothing more frustrating than building up that much momentum and just bouncing off. He had to reach Foundation Establishment before the beast tide. He had to. Otherwise, he’d be nearly useless.

Objectively, he knew his cultivation was flying by. Guang Yin had said that reaching the ninth minor realm in a little over seven months was ridiculous.

But with more and more rank four beasts showing up, it felt like the tide was imminent, and at best, he was only a third of the way through the final minor realm of Qi Gathering. He had at least another two months of cultivating just to reach the peak. And not everyone broke through instantly. It could be many months before it happened.

Before Xiang Qiao could ring the gong, someone yelled from inside below the wall. “Alert! There’s a big gorilla at the southwest wall. Sound the alarm!”

Two of them?

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Yang Xiu walked slowly through the forest, all five of her senses charged with qi and extended to their limits. No beasts were in range, but that was okay. She was much more interested in getting her perception technique to Mastery than she was hunting.

Something felt off, though. Very off.

Her instincts were telling her to run. No. Not to run. To defend herself.

Master told her to always trust her gut. She didn’t think she’d truly understood what he meant until that moment.

Yang Xiu ran to the nearest tall tree and hastily climbed it, positioning herself against the trunk standing on a thick upper branch.

What had triggered her instincts like that?

She stood exceptionally still, barely breathing, trying to sense something, anything, that could endanger her.

But there was nothing.

Everything she saw was just as it should be. The only motion was leaves and limbs dancing in the wind that she could feel on her skin. The only sounds were made by those same leaves and limbs. The only smells those of plants, both live and decaying.

A thought struck her. What wasn’t there?

No. That made no sense.

What wasn’t in a particular place, maybe?

That was closer.

Yes. Sounds of leaves and limbs rustling were absent in one particular area, and that area, that zone of silence, was moving through the trees, growing closer to her.

Alert to where it was, she focused her eyes on the area with the entirety of her concentration.

There. She could see it. Barely.

A giant snake slithered toward her. Its skin exactly mimicked the scenery behind it. Even tracking it precisely, she couldn’t see all its contours.

That snake was no rank three. She wasn’t even sure it was a four. Since that moment Master saved her from Fang Wei, she had felt safe. Nothing could harm her, first due to Master and lately due to her own strength.

That surety fled. She was in danger.

The beast was going to kill her. Consume her. She had no chance to fight it. No chance to escape.

She raised her whistle to her lips.

Just before she blew, her enhanced hearing picked up something. A gong. The village was under attack. Then, another gong. Two different quadrants of the village were under attack.

She hoped that Master chose her to save first, otherwise he was going to be down one disciple.

With all her breath, she blew, channeling all her fear and urgency into the blast.

The snake sped its path to her, knowing that the whistle’s warble portended bad things for it.

How long would it take Master to—

He appeared mid-step. One moment, he wasn’t there. The next, he was.

Yang Xiu had seen him use his Quickstep before, obviously, but that was a matter of feet. She was sure he hadn’t been anywhere near her, not within hundreds of yards, maybe miles.

“Our first rank five,” he said. “Good job spotting it.”

She was too surprised to say anything.

He raised his bow, nocking an arrow and pointing it in the direction of the snake. Then, he lowered the bow again.

“We don’t have a lot of time, but I just had an idea I want to try,” he said. “You shoot the snake. Aim for the neck. The fangs are valuable.”

There seemed to be little point in doing as he ordered. Her arrows did absolutely nothing against a rank four. They’d be even less effective against a rank five.

But as her master commanded so she did, regardless of how silly it seemed.

She instantly raised her bow, and in one smooth motion, pulled the string and loosed. The arrow flew true, striking the beast’s neck as she’d been instructed.

Contrary to her expectations, light exploded from the arrow’s tip as it impacted the snake’s qi shield, and an instant later, the head and body of the snake fell separately to the ground. Of the neck and the arrow, there wasn’t a trace left behind.

“Neat,” Master said. “I suspected my technique would work with any arrow, not just one I shot, and it did! Now, take my hand. We need to get to the village. Two rank fours are attacking.”

Two rank fours?

Yang Ru!