It had been a few months since Gluttonfang disappeared into the depths of the fog, and the forest had never felt quieter. The morning dew clung to the leaves of the Verdant Wilds, thick and heavy, as if the entire land itself bore the weight of longing.
"He just left us!" the eldest boar, Gruffsnout, grunted with a stomp that made a pebble bounce off a nearby log. "After everything we did, all the plans we schemed, all the berries we shared... he vanished without a squeal of goodbye!"
Snortle, the youngest of the boar brothers, sniffled, a comically large tear rolling down his snout. "He said we were a team."
"Maybe he just needed time to digest that monster grasshopper," muttered Pigsy, adjusting the crooked headband he wore to seem smarter. "You saw how wrecked he was... Maybe he didn't abandon us. Maybe he's... meditating?"
"Meditating my butt!" Gruffsnout snapped. "You don't vanish for months unless you're dead, kidnapped, or…"
"...or a main character," Snortle whispered dramatically.
The boars sighed as one. Despite their many schemes, betrayals, and ridiculous wine-fueled meetings, they had truly begun to see Gluttonfang as one of their own. Even if he had far too many eyes and mouths for comfort.
Meanwhile, high atop the jagged cliffside where the wind howled and birds feared to fly, Skyrazor the hawk let loose a triumphant screech.
"I told you! I told you that cursed wolf would self-destruct one day!"
Beside him, Bronze Kong sat with a giant jug of fermented fig wine, nodding smugly.
"Good riddance. I was getting real tired of those smug shoulder-mouths. Always muttering things."
"And eating everything," Skyrazor added. "Even the jade lily petals! Who does that? They're not even edible!"
"And remember how he kept chewing on your feathers for 'texture'?"
The hawk fluffed his plumage indignantly. "Feather conditioner is expensive, alright?"
Bronze Kong raised his cup. "To peaceful days. No more many-mouthed weirdos. No more random lightning strikes from that beast flame. Just a good old-fashioned power struggle over territory like the good days."
They clinked jug and talon together, laughing.
In contrast, the Steel Jaw Hippo's den by the mangrove lake felt heavy with quiet. The great beast sat in the middle of the water, his eyes reflecting the moonlight, his expression unreadable.
"He was a menace," said his son, Jawlin, trying to lighten the mood. "A menace with too much hunger."
"Yes," the hippo replied. "But he was our menace."
Nearby, tribe members whispered among themselves.
"He saved the younglings from that human..."
"And gave us the idea to ferment swamp grapes. Our economy doubled."
"He insulted me every day but always gave me half his share afterward."
The hippos shared a communal sigh, the lake rippling slightly with the sound. Even if the wolf was strange, chaotic, and occasionally horrifying, he had left a presence that now felt hollow.
Across the Mistspine Mountains, in the human half of the continent, the Nail Strom Sect carried on.
Lao Ping stood atop the sect's outer arena, his robes dramatically fluttering in the wind. He raised a finger to the sky. "This is it! This arc, my true powers shall be revealed!"
From behind, a passing senior disciple tripped and bumped into him, knocking him face-first into a cart full of spiritual radishes.
Laughter echoed from the watching juniors.
"I call this arc... the humiliation one," he grumbled, spitting out a radish.
Elder Sun Jin remained deep in seclusion, hidden within the Cradle of Flames, a cavern of molten rock and fire Qi veins. Rumors said he hadn't moved in months, meditating with his flame technique resonating like a heartbeat.
Some said he was preparing to advance.
Some said he was stewing in regret.
Others, mostly tea-loving gossips, said he was just napping like a toad on a lava rock.
Sect Leader Zaruk who had gone to the north after not being able to find the wolf, had returned from the far north, having negotiated a temporary ceasefire with the Jade Root Pavilion over territorial disputes involving a frozen glacier filled with beast bone remnants.
"I leave for a few weeks and everything devolves into cabbage thefts and radish brawls," he muttered while inspecting the damage to the outer sect gate.
The elders gathered for a meeting that afternoon.
"Where's Elder Sun Jin?" asked Zhuchen.
"Still in seclusion."
"Figures."
"Did we ever figure out who left those burnt craters near the outer herb gardens last month?"
"No, but Elder Mei Mei thinks it was someone experimenting with flame techniques to grow the widow sunflower faster."
"Nonsense," snorted Elder Ryu. "
They all paused.
The sect life returned to its rhythm. Outer disciples gossiped, inner disciples competed for missions, and core disciples prepared for the annual inter-sect conference.
Somewhere in the lecture halls, a teacher droned on about the history of Qi mutation.
"You see, children, when elemental Qi of conflicting nature merges successfully, it does not simply coexist. It transcends..."
A student raised her hand.
"But wouldn't that kill the person?"
"Exactly!" the teacher said, eyes gleaming. "And yet, sometimes, miracles are born from chaos."
In a quiet courtyard, a young alchemist turned to her friend.
"Hey, did you ever wonder what happened to that weird wolf Lao Ping was talking about? The one who ate everything?"
"I thought he made that part up."
"Yeah... probably."
The world moved forward, as it always did. Forests grew, beasts roared, cultivators schemed, and life unfolded its next chapters.
Yet for those who had known Gluttonfang, truly known him, there was an emptiness.
A space between breaths.
A moment of silence after the storm.
And far away, in a place no one was watching, green light quietly pulsed within a body that still breathed.
The air flowed ever so calmly.
The silver tree sang intermittently, its ethereal melody resonating through the floating archipelago like the whisper of an ancient deity. The floating rocks shifted positions sporadically, sometimes converging like a family reunion, other times drifting apart like estranged companions. Amidst this surreal landscape lay a wolf—a being that defied the very rules of this dimension.
Gluttonfang.
He reclined on a floating rock, an anomaly in this realm. Occasionally, he retrieved a silver flower from his space ring, feeding it to the mouth on his palm. Rarely, he consumed roots, mindful not to deplete the tree's life force. The tree's song maintained the dimension's rhythm; without it, the realm would stagnate, trapping him in an endless loop with no hope of escape.
Weeks had passed since the emergence of his Verdant Fang Qi—a fusion of his golden and silver qi. This new, light green qi possessed healing properties intertwined with his innate lightning attribute. His body, once battered, had healed and strengthened over time.
During this period, Gluttonfang explored the floating islands extensively. He discovered numerous large islands adorned with silver flowers, cascading waterfalls, and stones, but devoid of life—no creatures, no other trees. Just barren, floating landmasses suspended in an endless sky.
Post-fusion, he no longer succumbed to the dimension's draining effects. His body recovered swiftly, yet he remained bound by the realm's temporal loop. He discerned a pattern: the tree sang for ten minutes every three and a half hours. Outside this window, time seemed to halt, rendering movement impossible.
Despite his resilience, monotony plagued him. His days consisted of lying on rocks, consuming silver flowers to sustain himself and enhance his qi's healing effect. Unlike before, the silver qi no longer caused pain upon merging; it integrated seamlessly with the Verdant Fang Qi, amplifying its restorative capabilities. However, the realm's ambient qi was dwindling, threatening his survival.
Months slipped by in this monotonous existence.
One day, while lounging on an unfamiliar rock, he noticed something unusual—a pond. Unlike the others he'd encountered, this one shimmered with pure silver and lacked any feeding waterfall. Intrigued, he awaited the tree's song.
As the melody commenced, he dashed toward the pond, barely reaching it before the song ceased. Submerging himself, he felt an overwhelming sense of relief, akin to a warrior resting after a grueling battle. His body, save for his head, immersed in the silver liquid, while the mouths on his lower body sipped the fluid.
A potent energy surged through him, purging impurities and refining his physique. The sensation was euphoric. He consumed more, and soon, cracks appeared on his body—a sign of body reconstruction, a rare and perilous transformation in cultivation. His old skin shed, revealing a larger, more robust form. His fur darkened, his stature increased to five meters, and his claws and mouths grew in size.
After the transformation, the pond lost its luster. Driven by greed, he stored the entire pond island in his spatial ring, noting its smaller size compared to others.
Returning to his favored rock near the silver tree, he felt a renewed sense of purpose. The tree's song now held a pattern he was determined to decipher. With his enhanced body and qi, he was ready to unravel the mysteries of this dimension and seek his escape.
Turns out, finding that silver pond had drained every last drop of his karmic fortune.
Gluttonfang learned this the hard way.
For weeks after that transformative discovery, he wandered the floating archipelago like a ghost chasing whispers. Silver flowers? Plucked them all. Floating rocks? Sat on each one. Hidden caves? There were none. Waterfalls? As dry as an old turtle's cough. Nothing remained to explore, taste, or provoke.
Weeks became months. Months merged into years. Time passed not like the slow, patient river of cultivation, but like a hawk that had just relieved itself mid-flight and was now fleeing the scene.
And the wolf was the one left with the poop on his head.
At first, he coped. He'd always been solitary, strange, and at odds with the natural flow. But the silence gnawed at him. A month after the pond incident, frustration found its footing. He howled into the void. No answer. Not even an echo. The next month, he vented by slamming into a nearby island, sending it crumbling into scattered debris. The month after that, in a fit of rage, he launched himself at the silver tree—his former source of comfort.
He struck it with all his might, claws glowing, bodies roaring, mouths snarling.
All he got in return was cracked claws and the quiet, mocking hum of the tree's song as if it hadn't even noticed his tantrum. Despite his reconstructed body, despite the fused qi flowing through his blood like a divine river, he couldn't pierce the bark of the tree. Not even a scratch.
It humbled him.
Two more months passed. Gluttonfang grew quiet. His anger didn't yield any revelations or escape routes. In truth, it only brought exhaustion.
And so, upon a flat, slow-moving rock, he folded his limbs and closed his eyes.
Meditation. The ancient answer.
He let go of all expectations. If there was no one to fight, he would wrestle with concepts. If there was no sky to leap toward, he would leap inward. He would unravel the secrets of the dimension around him—no longer to flee it, but to understand it.
And, perhaps, to understand himself.
The days melted away, their passage marked only by the recurring song of the silver tree. Ten minutes of haunting notes every three and a half hours. He began to listen to them differently. Before, they were simply cues. A system command. Now, he saw nuance—variations in tone, shifts in rhythm. Sometimes the song fluttered at the edges, like a heartbeat catching in the throat. Other times it roared, thunderous beneath its serene notes.
He meditated through it all. Through boredom, through discomfort, through the occasional hunger that silver flowers couldn't soothe. He entered the state known among cultivators as Deep Stillness—where even thoughts pass by like distant clouds.
In this state, he found not answers, but questions.
Why was this dimension bound by a loop?
What principle governed the flow of its energy?
Why did the tree sing?
Was the song a key? A lock? A lament?
He contemplated these things as best a five-year-old monster wolf with many mouths could. Despite his youthful age, he had lived several lifetimes worth of near-death experiences. And those did wonders for one's maturity.
Yet one truth continued to hang over him like a storm cloud: he could not break through.
Not here.
Order Six.
The next stage. The next impossible wall.
To reach it, one needed not only qi, but understanding. A catalyst. A tribulation to challenge the soul, the body, and the laws of heaven.
But this pocket dimension was isolated, starved. The ambient qi here was just barely enough to sustain a sleeping beast. Cultivation was possible in theory, but only barely. Certainly not enough to spark a heavenly tribulation. And without that, ascending to the next Order was no more than a fantasy.
He knew the truth now.
He had reached Order Four largely due to his bloodline. His many mouths, his bizarre internal qi structure—those were traits inherited, not earned. And Order Five? That was dumb luck. Sheer, dumb, glorious luck. He remembered the grasshopper. The chaos. The flame. The sudden spark of tribulation. He remembered thinking he would die, and triggering the breakthrough because death was already assured.
Even then, if that flaming bug hadn't accidentally shielded him, he'd have been burned to ash.
And now, here he sat. Strong, yes. Perhaps stronger than most freshly ascended Order Fives. His body was reconstructed. His qi had mutated. He could shrug off attacks that once forced him to flee.
But in the grand tapestry of the world, strength meant little without mastery.
True Order Five beasts had spent decades, even centuries, cultivating. Sharpening their instincts. Honing their laws. Tempering their essence.
Compared to them, Gluttonfang was a puppy with a fancy collar.
He wasn't blind to that. Nor ashamed.
It was just reality.
And so he focused on something within reach: understanding.
Understanding the dimension.
Understanding himself.
Understanding the path to Order Six.
If he could glimpse even the edge of that truth, then maybe—just maybe—it would shorten the gap. Even by a few decades.
Time passed.
He stopped counting the days. The rock he meditated on was now covered in claw-scratched inscriptions—not words, but symbols of thought. Maps of concepts. Attempted diagrams of spatial fluctuations. Visual notes on the intervals between the tree's songs. Every so often, he would stir, sniff a flower, chew thoughtfully, and return to stillness.
He no longer dreamed of escaping. Not yet.
He dreamed of clarity.
Sometimes, in that quiet place between breaths, he thought he felt the dimension speak back. Not with words. With sensations. The feeling of being nudged gently off course. Of a rock lingering a little longer near him. Of the tree's song shifting pitch ever so slightly when he touched certain patterns in the air.
A communication, perhaps. Or a test.
He didn't know.
But he wanted to know.
And wanting was fuel.
Weeks. Months. Another year slipped into the void.
He did not break through.
He did not find a door.
But he was no longer the same wolf who had leapt into the silver pond like a bored child.
He had grown, not in height, but in weight.
The weight of thought.
The wolf with many mouths—Gluttonfang, breaker of boars, survivor of tribulations, and occasional tree-kicker—had finally begun the journey all cultivators must eventually walk:
The path inward.
To be continued...