The sound of Su Mei’s ribs snapping against the ancient oak was a dry, hollow crack that seemed to echo for an eternity in the sudden silence of the clearing.

Long Zhan stood over her, his chest heaving, his violet eyes no longer reflecting the light of the world, but rather the cold, abyssal hunger of a predator that had been pushed past the point of reason.

"Where is she?" he hissed again. The air around him was beginning to warp. The grass at his feet didn’t just flatten; it turned to ash, scorched by the sheer intensity of the draconic energy radiating from his skin.

"I will ask you one last time, fox. Why can I not find her scent? What did you use to mask her?"

Su Mei lay crumpled against the roots, her white fur stained with dirt and the dark crimson of her own blood. She tried to laugh, but it came out as a wet, bubbling wheeze.

Her eyes were glazed with pain, yet a flicker of that same venomous triumph remained. "You... you will never... find her," she managed to gasp, her voice barely a thread. "The Whispering Woods... they don’t just take the body. They also eat the soul. By now... she is part of the trees. So, her scent is gone... because there is nothing left to smell."

The sheer audacity of her words snapped the final thread of Long Zhan’s control. He surged forward, his hand once again closing around her throat, lifting her battered frame until her toes barely scraped the dirt.

His grip was a vice, his thumb pressing into her windpipe with lethal precision. He didn’t care about the laws of the tribe. He didn’t care about the Heavenly Dao’s retribution for slaying a female.

In that moment, the only thing that mattered was the void in his chest where Lin Wan’s presence was always in.

"My Lord, stop!"

The voice was sharp and commanding. Davy stepped into the clearing, his own face set in a grim mask of concern. He saw the way Long Zhan’s arm was trembling with the urge to crush the life out of the fox. He saw the golden scales beginning to ripple across his master’s knuckles.

"Move, Davy," Long Zhan warned, his voice sounding like two tectonic plates grinding together.

"Look at the sky, my Lord," Davy said, his voice dropping to a low, urgent whisper. "Look at what you are summoning."

Long Zhan’s gaze flickered upward. The sky, which had been a clear, post-fire blue, had curdled into a bruised, sickly purple. Massive, unnatural clouds were swirling directly above the clearing, rotating in a violent vortex.

A sudden, bone-shaking boom of lightning tore through the atmosphere, though there was no rain. The air tasted of ozone and ancient judgment.

The Heavenly Dao was reacting to the intent of a High-Ranked Sovereign to commit an unlawful slaughter.

Su Mei’s eyes rolled back, turning a terrifying, opaque white as she began to seize in his grip. Whether it was the suffocation or the proximity to the Dao’s wrath, she was slipping away.

With a roar of pure frustration, Long Zhan flung her away. She hit the ground like a broken doll, sliding several feet until she lay still. He didn’t spare her another glance. He turned his face toward the dark, looming silhouette of the Whispering Woods, his nostrils flaring.

"She is in there," he whispered, more to himself than to his men. "I can feel the resonance of my own essence, but it’s fading. It’s being muffled by the wood’s evil malice, I cannot be here while she’s in there alone and helpless."

He took a single step toward the treeline, and with every inch his body moved, it changed. The transformation was not the slow, painful process of a lower-tier beastman; it was the instantaneous unfolding of a god.

His back arched as two massive, leathery wings—bright, blood-red and shimmering with metallic luster—burst from his shoulder blades, unfurling with a sound like a ship’s sails catching a gale.

A sharp, obsidian horn spiraled from his forehead, glowing with an internal heat, and his fingernails elongated into talons that could rend mountain stone.

He was no longer the man who walked among the Orycto. He was the ’Dragon Sovereign’.

The tribesmen who had gathered at a distance fell to their knees, burying their faces in the dirt. They had never seen a transformation of this caliber. To them, Long Zhan was no longer a guest; he was a catastrophe.

Davy and the other Dragon warriors stepped forward, their own weapons drawn, ready to follow their leader into the abyss of the woods.

"Stay back!" Long Zhan’s voice boomed, amplified by his draconic vocal cords. It echoed off the mountainsides, shaking the remaining leaves from the trees.

Davy paused, his foot hovering over the threshold of the woods. "My Lord, it is a dead zone. Your senses will be hampered."

"Precisely why you must stay," Long Zhan countered, turning his head to look at his men one last time. His violet eyes were now vertical slits of fire. "I led you to this lower realm in pursuit of fables. I have already risked your lives enough. If this forest is a soul-eater, it will not feast on my kin today. Stay here. Guard the perimeter. If she... if she comes out on her own, or if Su Mei’s lackeys try to interfere, handle it."

He didn’t wait for an argument. With a powerful beat of his red wings, he launched himself into the air. The downdraft was so strong it sent several Orycto males tumbling backward.

He became a streak of crimson lightning, plunging over the canopy and disappearing into the thick, unnatural fog of the Whispering Woods.

Davy watched the spot where his Lord vanished for a long moment before his gaze hardened. He turned back to the clearing, where Su Mei’s three mates had finally arrived.

They were low-ranked hunters, their faces a mix of grief and pathetic rage as they saw their female lying broken in the dirt. They began to rush toward her, shouting challenges.

Davy didn’t even draw his sword. He simply stepped in their path, his aura expanding like a wall of cold iron. With a series of blurred movements, he struck.

Three dull thuds followed as he used the pommel of his blade to strike their pressure points, knocking them unconscious before they could even register his movement.

"Take them too," Davy ordered the other Dragon warriors. "And take the fox. Bind them with the heavy-duty reinforced tendons. I want them awake, and I want them terrified."

He looked toward the Chief of the Orycto tribe, who was trembling nearby.

"Investigate," Davy barked, his voice cold and predatory. "Question every male, every female, and every cub in this village. If I find that a single soul knew of Su Mei’s plan and remained silent, their fate will make what happened to that fox look like a mercy. This tribe exists because my Lord allows it. Do not make him regret his kindness."

Deep within the heart of the Whispering Woods, the silence was absolute, save for the wet, rhythmic pulsing of the Soul-Draining Vines.

Lin Wan was suspended in a cocoon of obsidian thorns. Her skin was the color of winter marble, her breath coming in shallow, jagged gasps.

She was barely conscious, her mind drifting in a grey sea where voices from her past blurred with the rustle of the leaves.

[Host! Host, stay with me!] Weiwei’s voice was distorted, crackling like a radio station losing its signal. [System energy levels at critical. I am diverting the last of the auxiliary reserves to your heart and brain...]

Lin Wan’s fingers twitched, brushing against the Leopard-tooth pendant she still clutched against her chest. ’Wang...’ she thought, the name a fading ember in her mind. ’I’m sorry. I couldn’t wait for you.’ 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Suddenly, a strange sensation blossomed in the pit of her stomach. It wasn’t the cold drain of the vines, nor was it the sterile, mechanical hum of Weiwei’s energy. It was a warm, golden heat—a triple heartbeat that suddenly synchronized with her own.

[Wait...] Weiwei’s voice suddenly cleared, vibrating with shock. [Host! I can sense them! The embryonic blockage has cleared due to the essence crisis! There are three... three distinct life-signatures!]

Lin Wan’s eyes fluttered open. Through the gaps in the black vines, she saw nothing but shadows, but inside her, the darkness was being pushed back.

’My babies...’ she whispered internally.

The cubs weren’t just passive passengers anymore. Sensing their mother’s life force fading, the three tiny sparks of divinity within her reached out.

They began to channel their own nascent energy, a raw, untapped power inherited from a lineage of kings, directly into her meridians. It was a surge of pure, unfiltered life.

Lin Wan’s heart gave a powerful, resounding ’thump’. Her eyes, once dull, suddenly flared with an iridescent, pearlescent light.

"Get... off... me," she gritted out, her voice vibrating with a power that wasn’t entirely her own.

The energy exploded outward from her core. It wasn’t a fire, but a wave of absolute ’rejection’. The Spirit-Draining Vines, which had survived for centuries on the essence of the forest, suddenly shriveled.

They didn’t just let go; they retreated into the earth as if scorched, the obsidian thorns crumbling into ash.

Lin Wan fell to the mossy floor, gasping for air. She was weak, her body trembling from the sudden influx of power, but she was free.

Tears pricked her eyes—not of fear, but of a fierce, maternal pride. Even before they were born, her children were fighting for her.

She pushed herself up on shaky hands, her white tunic torn and stained, but her spirit renewed. She had barely taken her first breath of free air when the ground began to tremble.

From the depths of the woods, a sound approached. It wasn’t the flapping of wings, nor the sound of anything she could think of.

It was the sound of something massive, something ancient, moving through the forest with such disregard for the environment that trees were being snapped like toothpicks.

The very air grew heavy with a scent she hadn’t smelled in weeks—the scent of cold rain and mountain snow.

Lin Wan froze, her heart hammering. Something was coming, and it was coming fast.