The sterile air of Sky University's student commissary tasted like recycled dust and synthetic protein. Kun JiaNing hunched over his tray, pushing nutrient-paste disguised as noodles. His black hair was an unruly mess, his ever-present round sunglasses a fragile shield against the intrusive glow of the Mutation Tower feed pulsing on the far wall. The faint, stubborn scent of ozone and pulverized granite clung to him, a phantom limb from Sector Gamma-Delta. Terror, cold and persistent, coiled in his gut, warring with the strange, restless energy humming beneath his skin – the XuKun Beast, a primal engine idling in his bones.
Across the scratched synth-wood table, Bai Li and Tao Ren provided islands of tense normalcy. Bai Li, sharp angles softened only by her perpetual scent of jasmine and damp forest loam, watched him with hawk-like concern. Tao Ren, smelling of sun-baked stone and iron, ate with methodical calm, his gaze occasionally lingering on the unnatural thickness distorting the fabric of JiaNing's sleeves. The memory of the archive tremor – the groaning earth, the shattering servers, the blinding amber script on the Tower – hung heavy between them.
"Anything new?" Bai Li murmured, her voice low, nodding subtly towards JiaNing's concealed forearms.
He flinched, the chopsticks slipping in his slick grip. "Just the usual," he rasped, forcing his voice level. "'Ongoing structural assessment in Gamma-Delta. Unauthorized access restricted.'" The lie tasted like ash. The Tower hadn't lied. Kun JiaNing - XuKun Beast (Groundtouch Phase - Primary Awakening). The angular, archaic script had burned for hours, a beacon declaring his terrifying anomaly to the world. He felt the weight of stares, the hushed conversations dying as he passed. His carefully constructed invisibility was obliterated.
Tao Ren grunted, a sound like shifting bedrock. "Good." The single syllable was layered – relief, warning, and unwavering pragmatism. Keeping JiaNing out of official dissection was the priority.
Desperate for an anchor, JiaNing pulled out his comm-unit. He scrolled past tactical alerts, gen-dynamics analyses, and the ever-present, accusatory Tower feed. His thumb paused over a trending cultural deep-dive flagged by the algorithm: "Pillars of the Primal: The Spirit Beast Guardians and the Sovereign Powers of DongNan Guo."
He tapped it, seeking refuge in abstraction.
The article unfurled with a breathtaking, multi-layered holo-projection. It showcased the staggering spectrum of apex Beast Gens:
Gold Dragon: Scales like molten ingots, radiating an aura of pure, imperial dominance. Sovereign of hoarded might and celestial authority, its roar commanding legions, not ecosystems.
Stone Rhino: Hide resembling enchanted granite mountainside, standing immovable as a continent's core. Sovereign of unyielding mass and tectonic resilience.
Shadow Leopard: A phantom dissolving into liquid twilight, leaving only the scent of ozone and predatory silence. Sovereign of stealth and lethal ambush.
Storm Roc: Wings crackling with contained tempests, eyes blazing with captured lightning. Sovereign of aerial fury and the untamed sky's wrath.
These were the Sovereign Beasts – paragons of raw, often destructive power, apex predators and conquerors whose might was celebrated on the Mutation Towers for its sheer, unadulterated force. Kings and warlords of the beast world, shaping the world through dominance.
Then the projection shifted, the tone deepening into reverence. "Yet," the narrative resonated, "alongside these titans of conquest, stand lineages defined by a sacred covenant. They are the Spirit Beasts, not merely powerful, but intrinsically woven into the living fabric of the world. They are not rulers, but Guardians. Their power is inseparable from their domain, a sacred trust passed through bloodlines."
The focus narrowed, illuminating the Four Celestial Guardians in vivid detail:
White Tiger: Rendered in hyper-realistic detail – snow-white fur etched with swirling golden patterns like wind-carved dunes, muscles coiled with lethal grace beneath. It stood atop a windswept, razor-sharp mountain peak, the very air around it humming with contained gale-force. Its claws, extensions of gleaming, unbreakable orichalcum, seemed to sing as they flexed, shredding stone like paper. Guardian of Cutting Wind and Shattering Claw. Text scrolled: "Manifests the unyielding edge of the storm, the precision of the gale that sculpts mountains and the claws that enforce nature's brutal balance. Where the White Tiger walks, the wind carries the scent of ozone and inevitability."
Vermilion Bird: Not just fire, but conflagration purified. Its plumage was living solar plasma, white-hot at the core bleeding into crimson and gold at the feather-tips. It hovered above a caldera lake of bubbling lava, wings beating waves of cleansing heat that scoured corruption from the air and made the very rock below glow with renewed vitality. Flames danced within its obsidian beak. Guardian of Purifying Flame and Renewing Ash. "Embodies fire's dual nature: the incinerating fury that purges blight and the ember's warmth that nurtures rebirth. Its cry scours disease; its passage leaves fertile ground."
Azure Dragon: More than a serpent – a leviathan of living storm. Scales shifted from deep ocean sapphire to crackling cyan lightning, mirroring storm clouds. It coiled through ancient, primordial redwoods taller than Sky University's towers, its passage making leaves vibrate and roots hum. Jagged bolts of natural lightning danced harmlessly along its spine, coalescing around claws like captured thunderbolts. Guardian of Living Wood and Unleashed Lightning. "The spirit of the untamed forest and the sky's fury intertwined. Where ancient trees stand, the Dragon's presence thrums; where storms gather, its power resonates. It is the lightning that splits the deadwood and the sap that heals the wound."
XuanWu: A moving island of profound stillness. Its obsidian carapace, veined with glacial blue, was a continent adrift. The serpentine head, wise and ancient, rose from the shell, tasting the air where hurricane met tidal wave. It rested where a churning, ice-cold ocean current ground against an unyielding continental shelf, the water around it unnaturally calm yet radiating crushing depth. Guardian of Crushing Depths and Unmoving Shore. "Embodies the patient, immense power of deep ocean currents and the bedrock that defies them. Its domain is the interface – the tide that erodes mountains and the shore that endures eternity. Calm above, irresistible force below."
The reverence was palpable. These weren't just powerful beasts; they were fundamental forces personified, protectors of nature's core processes.
Then came the gaping void in this sacred circle. The projection dimmed, adopting a hushed, almost archaeological tone. "Persistent fragments," the narrative murmured, "whisper of a Fifth Guardian. Not celestial in the manner of its brethren, but Primordial. Not tied to a single refined force, but embodying the foundational bedrock upon which all else stands and the vast sky that presses down upon it." A blurred, fragmented image resolved – the unmistakable silhouette: the massive, shadow-furred gorilla torso atop powerful, stag-like legs ending in cloven hooves that seemed to root into the earth, its upper arms glowing with captured, stable light, like sun-warmed stone. The XuKun. The Mountain-Stag Sovereign.
Descriptions scrolled, pieced together from eroded stelae:
"Its tread is the settling of continents, its breath the wind that scours peaks yet carries seeds."
"Guardian of the Solid Ground and the Pressing Sky. Keeper of the roots that bind and the heights that inspire."
"Where mountains grind against the heavens, where deep forest meets open plain, the XuKun walks. It shapes the foundation and bears the weight of the firmament."
"Its white arms are the mountain's bones laid bare, its strength the unyielding resistance of bedrock against celestial weight."
JiaNing's breath seized. His knuckles whitened around the comm-unit. Guardian of the Grounds. The Solid Foundation. The Pressing Sky. It wasn't just a vision; it was a calling. The XuKun within him stirred, a deep rumble like plates shifting, resonating with the description. The Gold Dragon dominated; the XuKun sustained.
The mystery of its disappearance deepened. "Scholars clash. Did its role – guardian of the fundamental interface between earth and sky, the literal grounds of existence – become conceptually diffuse in a world codifying Wind, Flame, Wood, and Deep Water? Was it lost holding the line against a cataclysm that threatened to sunder sky from earth entirely, a battle foundational and thus unrecorded? Or did its lineage, representing the raw, unrefined potential of the world's bones and atmosphere, prove too vast, too intrinsically wild for the structured paths of later Gen cultivation, causing it to fade as guardianship became specialization?" The conclusion was stark: "Whatever the truth, the XuKun vanished into deep time. Its Gen was lost. Its sacred role as Fifth Guardian was excised from orthodox history. Today, 'Spirit Beast' evokes the Four Elemental Guardians. The Fifth is a ghost in the bedrock, a silent testament to the ground beneath our feet and the sky above our heads – the primal stage the others dance upon."
Erased. Forgotten. Guardian of the Stage itself. The words struck JiaNing like physical blows. Resentment, profound kinship, and a crushing sense of responsibility warred within him. He wasn't just anomalous; he was the heir to a deliberately buried cornerstone of existence. He slammed the comm-unit down, the crack echoing in the sudden silence of their corner.
Bai Li and Tao Ren snapped their heads up. "JiaNing?" Bai Li's voice was sharp wire.
"Air," he choked out, shoving his chair back. The commissary walls felt like they were pressing in, the sterile air suffocating. The XuKun roared silently within, demanding the open space, the grounds it was meant to tend. He needed the wild interface.
He fled to the ragged edge where Sky University's manicured order frayed into the Kun Mountain wilderness. Air, sharp with pine resin and the damp chill of altitude, filled his lungs. But beneath the clean scents, JiaNing felt it – a vibration through the soles of his boots, a subtle electric tingle on his skin. Cerulean Claw Beasts. Sovereigns of the High Crags, masters of the sky's fury, not its grounding.
He found them near a thunderous glacial stream carving its path through ancient rock. Three Pressure Stage predators. Cobalt and azure feathers gleamed like polished metal, claws sparking with volatile blue-white energy. They shrieked, not at prey, but at an intruder in their aerial domain. Their scent was ozone, aggression, and high-altitude void.
The XuKun roared through JiaNing. It wasn't sound; it was a deep, subsonic THUMP that vibrated up from the bedrock, shaking pebbles loose on the slope. The beasts flared wings, shrieking defiance, instinctively lifting skyward, away from the disturbing earth-tremor. The Groundtouch power within JiaNing surged – a caged earthquake, the restless energy of the grounds demanding release. He had to answer the challenge to the space where sky met stone.
He charged, XuKun instincts overriding fear. He moved with surprising, ground-hugging agility, ducking under a scything talon strike that crackled the air where his head had been. "Mutation Technique: Earth-Sunder Pulse!" He drove a white-furred fist into the rocky ledge. Not a wide blast, but a focused jolt. The rock beneath the lead beast's perch liquefied in a precise circle, then snapped solid into jagged fangs of granite, trapping its talon in a vise-like grip. The beast screamed, a sound of pure sky-rage.
The others reacted with aerial fury. Claws, trailing ionized air, raked across JiaNing's back. Agony flared – hot lines of fire searing through dark fur. He stumbled, the coppery scent of his own blood mixing with the mountain air. Panic surged. He was earth-bound; they were sky-born. He tried another Pulse, but his focus shattered under the blinding pain and the disorienting speed of their dives. He blocked a snapping beak with his thick forearm – CRUNCH – the impact jolting bone, lightning discharge searing his fur. He was being unmade from above.
The panic crystallized: Limitation. The XuKun's power – the grounding force, the foundational strength – was vast but unfocused, straining against its own formless potential. He felt them manifest – the Chains of the Chainbound Phase. Thick, spectral links forged of compressed bedrock and stifled sky-pressure materialized around his spirit, coiling like mountain roots around his core, his limbs, his connection to the XuKun's purpose. Crushing weight. Suffocating confinement. He roared, a sound of anguish and defiance, tearing at phantom chains while sky-talons sought his flesh.
One beast, seeing its trapped kin, hovered and unleashed "Mutation Technique: Sky-Rend Screech!" A focused cone of concussive sound and crackling lightning slammed into JiaNing. He flew backwards, crashing through brittle mountain thorn-brush, the Chains tightening like tectonic plates colliding. Agony – physical from thorns and impact, spiritual from the unbearable confinement. He lay pinned, winded, bleeding. The Groundtouch power raged against its bonds, useless. He was losing the grounds.
The lead beast wrenched its talon free with a sickening tear, joining the others for the kill. Despair, cold as glacial melt, threatened. Then, the article's words resonated: "Guardian of the Solid Ground and the Pressing Sky." "Keeper of the roots that bind and the heights that inspire." The Chains were of earth, binding the sky's potential within him. The XuKun was the interface. Its domain was the tension, the balance.
With a gasp that tasted of blood and dirt, JiaNing stopped fighting the Chains. He focused throughthem. He channeled the XuKun's earth-shaking fury into the spectral links, using them as conduits to direct the power, not contain it. He poured his terror, his rage, his desperate will to hold his ground, to be the foundation against the sky's assault, into the bedrock and pressure of the Chains. "HOLD!" he bellowed, the command imbued with the XuKun's guttural authority over the fundamental.
The Chains didn't shatter. They resonated. The crushing pressure imploded, collapsing inwards in a silent, spiritual detonation that shook JiaNing's soul. For an instant, utter void. Then, power surged back – clean, controlled, focused. The Chains were gone. In their place, profound mastery – understanding the grounds as both anchor and springboard. Chainbound Phase – Achieved.
He surged to his feet. The Cerulean Claws faltered mid-dive, sensing the seismic shift below. JiaNing's golden eyes blazed. He took a stance, feet rooted deep, one white-furred arm slightly raised, palm open towards the sky, not in supplication, but in acknowledgement. "Mutation Technique: Earth-Sunder Pulse – Foundation Lock." He stamped. Not a shockwave, but a rearrangement. The rock beneath the nearest beast flowed upwards like liquid stone, engulfing its legs up to the haunches in seamless, instant granite. Trapped. Immobile. Sky denied.
He moved, not with speed, but with the inevitability of settling stone. Dodging a lightning blast, his white-furred fist lashed out, not striking through air, but compressing it. "Sky-Rend Strike: Pressing Weight!" The air cracked as his fist connected, delivering a localized hammer-blow of amplified atmospheric pressure. Bone shattered; the beast dropped like a stone.
The lead beast, freed but enraged, launched into a shrieking vertical climb for a killing dive. JiaNing looked up, the XuKun's understanding merging with Chainbound control. He raised both white-furred arms, palms facing the diving predator, commanding the space between. "Mutation Technique: Sky-Anchor Gravitas – Ground's Answer!" He slammed his palms together. An invisible wave of hyper-gravity, drawn from the mountain's core and focused through his will as the Guardian of the Grounds, slammed downwards onto the beast. Its shriek became a strangled gasp. Wings faltered. It plummeted, not diving, but crashing, impacting the rocks with bone-breaking force, sky-power broken against unyielding earth.
Silence, heavy and profound, broken only by JiaNing's ragged breaths and the whimpers of the broken Sovereigns of the Sky. He stood, bloodied, fur matted, but radiating an aura of solidified terrain. His white arms gleamed like exposed mountain bone. He had held the line. He had been the foundation. He was Chainbound. The Grounds had answered his call. The path ahead stretched like an unbroken plain beneath an infinite sky – vast, demanding, and intrinsically his to guard. The Fifth Guardian had begun his vigil.