A cold wind whistled through the dry leaves, carrying the breath of the great wilderness but devoid of life.
The thick, metallic stench of the selection camp was finally left behind. In its place was the smell of decaying damp earth, of moss and things decomposing under eternal shadows. Tian Cang stepped out of the ruins, his feet pounding the mulch in a steady rhythm, as silent as a man who had learned that noise is what kills you before the enemy even strikes.
He walked forward.
Whatever lay behind—betrayal, purges, or the mad experiments of the man in dark clothes—belonged to a chapter already turned. The current Tian Cang was a monster newly escaped from its cage, carrying wounds yet to heal and a soul calculating the next move.
Before him lay a sparse forest. Light from the grey sky of the Firmament filtered through the half-fallen canopy, casting pale streaks across the leaf-littered ground. The trees here were ancient and tall, their wood dark and damp from the lack of wind.
But the silence made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
No birds chirped. Not a single insect called out. Even the smallest creatures seemed to have abandoned this place long before he arrived, evacuated by the collective instinct they shared when something dangerous set foot in their territory.
It was so quiet that Tian Cang could clearly hear the blood rushing through his own veins.
He stopped. His body instinctively lowered its center of gravity, his heart rate slowed, and his breath became as thin as mist. This was the state of a predator sensing the presence of another nearby, though from which direction, he could not tell.
He stood there, waiting.
SWISH!
A cold streak of light tore through the air from the right, so fast it left only a blur in his vision. Tian Cang tilted his head by instinct, but his body remained heavy from the ordeal in the warehouse.
SLASH!
A clean cut appeared on his shoulder. Blood sprayed, soaking his tattered shirt already discolored by dust and old gore. Tian Cang took a step back, his glowing red eyes scanning the ancient branches above, searching with the instinct of a man who had fought archers enough times to know where they liked to perch.
A slender figure stood firmly on a high branch, her body so light that the branch beneath seemed mere decoration. In her hand was a longbow of strange design, its intricate carvings radiating a somber and cold mana—a pressure felt rather than seen.
An archer. No heavy armor, no faction emblems he recognized. Elevated position, panoramic view, total range control.
"Decent reflexes," the woman's voice was clear but cold as ice—the voice of one who had long ago discarded warmth from her tone. "I thought you'd have left your corpse in those ruins along with the rest of the mongrels."
Tian Cang did not answer. He observed her the way he observed anyone with a weapon aimed at him: patiently and thoroughly, gathering information before deciding on a course of action.
She was lean and wiry, the kind of person who didn't need bulk to be dangerous; all her strength was concentrated in precision. The way she stood on the branch, her weight distributed so naturally that he couldn't predict which way she would leap if pressed. Her eyes were sharp and patient—the patience of one accustomed to waiting in silence until the prey revealed something worth shooting.
She was dangerous in a very different sense from what he had encountered today.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
Three arrows flew out simultaneously, tracing three different trajectories in the air, locking down every retreat in a carefully calculated formation. Tian Cang moved in a weaving pattern instead of dodging each individually, cutting through the gaps between the trajectories.
Two arrows thudded deep into a tree trunk behind him, vibrating violently.
The third buried itself in his left thigh.
Tian Cang faltered, his brow furrowing. She had intentionally shot his leg; the arrow was deep enough to hinder him but not to take him down—the choice of someone wanting to deliver a clear message with an arrowhead rather than words.
I can kill you whenever I wish.
The woman lowered her bow, stepping lightly from branch to branch as she descended. Each footfall shifted weight so perfectly that not a single creak echoed. She landed on the dry leaves with almost no sound, maintaining a distance between them that would require three strides from him to reach her, while she needed only a single beat to notch an arrow.
Calculated distance, not coincidence.
"Alright," she said, arching an eyebrow at him. "You're not the easy-to-kill type."
"Who are you?" Tian Cang's voice was low. His hand rested naturally near the wound on his thigh, fingers inches from the flesh—close enough to activate Blood Devour within a heartbeat if necessary.
She tilted her head, observing his demeanor like someone gauging whether he knew he was being gauged.
"Strange. People who walk out of that place usually don't have the breath to ask such questions." She paused for a beat. "Your name first."
"Tian Cang."
The name rang out in the quiet forest, lonely and real in the way true names often are. The woman allowed the sound to settle before answering.
"A name unlike those of this land. Fine, call me Raven. A name sufficient enough for us to address each other before one of us goes down."
She took a step forward, the distance between them shrinking just enough for him to see her eyes more clearly. Raven's gaze sharpened as she noticed the glowing red fissures faintly appearing under the skin of Tian Cang's neck—cracks that were darker than during the battle but still there, smoldering like embers under ash.
"Blood not yet dry, killing intent not yet faded, and those deviation fissures." Her voice dropped slightly, carrying a nuance he took a moment to recognize not as curiosity, but genuine caution. "You aren't just a survivor. You are something being hunted by forces not everyone can imagine."
"You are no different from me."
Raven fell silent for a beat. Then she smiled—a thin, cold smile, devoid of warmth but genuine nonetheless.
"True. That is why I am here." She turned her head toward the burning camp in the distance, the red firelight dim under the grey Firmament sky. "I came to see what could drive three major factions into a frenzy enough to level an entire training camp."
She turned back to him.
"I didn't expect it to be something as interesting as you."
The wind blew, swirling dry leaves around them. The space between them tightened as the situation waited for one side to decide.
"What do you want?"
Raven didn't answer immediately. She drew an arrow from the quiver on her back but drove it straight into the ground between them instead of notching it. A clear gesture: this was a boundary, not a weapon.
At least for now.
"I could finish you right now," she said calmly, as if stating a simple fact. "But that is taxing and troublesome, whereas you might be more useful alive."
She looked him straight in the eye.
"Come with me."
"Conditions."
He spoke it as an assertion rather than a question. Raven noted the distinction and gave a slight nod—the nod of one who appreciated that the opponent didn't pretend this was a friendly conversation.
"Not allies, not friends," she said slowly and clearly, word by word. "A temporary cessation of hostilities to achieve a further goal. You need a guide through this land without being surrounded by the three factions before reaching safety. I need your strength for a few plans ahead."
He looked into Raven's eyes for several seconds.
He didn't trust her. It was as clear as day, and she understood that he didn't trust her—perhaps even expected it. Anyone smart enough to survive in the Firmament to this degree wouldn't trust a stranger just because they offered cooperation in the middle of a dead forest.
But he was standing in a forest with three factions hunting him, an arrow in his thigh, and his strength nearly depleted. And she could have killed him three times during this conversation if she had wanted to.
Reality was much simpler than trust.
"Fine."
The two figures stepped into the forest, offset by a thirty-degree angle in a way both understood without needing an agreement. Close enough to assist if ambushed from the outside. Far enough to react if the person walking beside them suddenly turned.
Raven led the way, offset to the left. She moved by placing her feet on firm ground, avoiding mulch and dry branches—the kind of skill possessed only by those who had spent too much time in the woods to even think about it. The bow remained in her hand, not lowered, but the grip had shifted from a ready-to-shoot stance to a travel stance—a small change Tian Cang noted and filed away.
He followed, offset to the right. The arrow was still in his left thigh, but he had snapped the shaft for convenience, leaving the head in the flesh as experienced warriors do when they need to keep moving. Each step created a sharp throb of pain that he filed under the list of things to deal with later and pushed on.
The forest grew darker as they went deeper, the ancient trees standing closer together, their canopy weaving so tightly that the light reaching the ground was reduced to small, moving motes.
In the depths of Tian Cang's mind, a cold and sober thought lay still beneath everything else: If she has any intention of betrayal, I will be the one to strike first.
Not because he wanted to kill her. But because that was the rule he had learned in his past life, through times he had trusted the wrong people and paid with things that could never be reclaimed.
Raven remained silent for a long stretch, merely moving and leading the way, not attempting conversation. That, in a strange sense, made him trust her a fraction more than if she had spoken continuously.
Only a fraction.
Behind them, the Blood Flame selection camp continued to burn—both literally and figuratively. The red firelight and white magical glow flickered through the thinning trees for a while, then were gradually swallowed by the distance and the darkness of the forest.
Tian Cang did not turn back to look.
Ahead of them, the forest grew even more dark and mysterious. But behind that gloom, a larger, more ruthless world of the Firmament was gradually unfolding with every step of the two people temporarily not killing each other.
Tian Cang had escaped a small cage, only to step into a colossal one called the world.