The northern sky was on fire.
Not with flame—at least, not yet—but with something worse. Feral eyes glinted from the treeline, dozens at first, then hundreds, flickering between branches like embers spat from an unseen forge. The mist was thicker tonight, settling low to the ground, muffling every breath and footfall. The trees swayed, though no wind moved.
Green Pine Village stood behind a thin, hastily reinforced wall—little more than palisade stakes, rope, and scavenged scrap from old barns. There were no soldiers. No cultivators. Just farmers, fishers, and woodcutters clenching tools meant for earth, not war.
Li Yao stood with Uncle Wei at the north gate. Behind them stretched a jagged, crooked line of villagers clutching pitchforks, cleavers, rusted axes. Some bore torches, others old bows with mismatched arrows. Most had never drawn blood in their lives.
No one spoke.
Then the growls came.
Low and layered, like drums echoing from deep inside the forest. Leaves rustled where nothing moved. Bark cracked as if something enormous pressed against the trunks, waiting for the signal to strike.
The first beast broke cover without warning.
It was thick-limbed, black-furred, with four red eyes and a humped back that twitched as it ran. Bone spurs jutted from its shoulders like broken wings. It barreled into the clearing on all fours, mouth frothing, claws tearing gouges in the earth.
Uncle Wei moved with grim efficiency. His axe came down hard, splitting its skull with a wet crunch. The beast spasmed once, then collapsed.
But two more leapt out behind it. Then four more. Then the forest poured.
Dozens of creatures, all malformed and twisted—too big, too fast, too hungry. Some bore tusks like spears, others had ridged backs or bony tails that lashed like whips. None were natural. Spirit beasts—low-rank, perhaps—but still faster, meaner, and more determined than anything a farmer should ever face.
The line broke almost immediately.
One of the younger men—Lan from the mill—screamed and fell, a beast clamping onto his shoulder with a sound like tearing cloth. His cries turned to gurgles. Auntie Mu stabbed the creature in the eye with a butcher's knife, not stopping even when its skull caved in under her weight. Her face was blank. Her hands soaked.
Li Yao moved without a word.
He ducked beneath a leaping beast, slicing low under its ribs, then drove his shoulder into its side to throw it off balance. It crashed into a palisade post. Before it could recover, he was on it—blade plunging into the gap beneath its jaw, twisting. He didn't wait for it to die.
Another beast charged, tusks gleaming in the torchlight. Li Yao sidestepped, catching it with the flat of the blade and guiding its momentum toward a narrow corridor between two stacked barrels.
"Left, now!" he shouted.
Two boys—Jin and Tao, trembling behind a rain barrel—kicked loose the rope lashings as Li Yao vaulted up onto the ledge.
A thick log, bound high above by a counterweight and winch, snapped free and plummeted down. The beast never saw it coming.
The sound was like a tree splitting in a storm. Bones cracked. Flesh ruptured. The thing crumpled mid-run.
Jin stared in shock. Tao dropped to his knees and vomited.
"That trap's done," Li Yao muttered. He kicked the remains out of the way and rejoined the fray.
Every movement was measured, tactical. He had set five traps earlier that day—none meant to kill outright, but to stagger and disorient. He had marked their locations in his mind, mapped the angles of approach, and even now guided the beasts toward them with the precision of a shepherd herding wolves.
A snare caught a low-skulking beast and yanked it skyward, thrashing. Li Yao drove his blade into its neck before it could free itself. A deadfall cracked the leg of another, slowing it long enough for Old Nan to deliver the killing blow with a rusted hoe.
The villagers didn't cheer. They didn't even speak.
The only sounds were grunts, the crunch of bodies hitting earth, and the wheeze of torn lungs.
By the time the moon reached its highest point, the beasts had pulled back. Not vanished—merely withdrew, dragging their wounded into the mist. Li Yao watched the forest ripple, the glowing eyes receding like the tide before a second wave.
He wiped blood from his face with the back of his wrist. His blade—no longer spotless—throbbed faintly in his grip.
He frowned.
It wasn't heat. It wasn't friction. It was... resonance.
Whenever he struck, especially with intent—when his emotions flared—the blade responded. The hum, the pressure, the faint warmth that pulsed through the hilt into his hand... it was as if the metal drank his will.
He hadn't noticed it before. But it had grown more obvious with each kill.
He looked down at the weapon. It still looked plain. Unadorned. Forged by a blacksmith who had barely looked him in the eye. But something inside it wasn't ordinary.
And it wasn't finished yet.
A groan pulled his attention back. Lan, the mill boy, was dead. Others were wounded. Two more had fallen, one crushed, the other torn apart by jaws too wide to belong to any normal beast.
Auntie Mu sat by the well with a cleaver still in her grip, blood trailing down her cheek. She didn't notice it. Her eyes were open but unfocused.
Uncle Wei was wounded—his left arm shredded to the bone—but he still stood, breathing hard, axe hanging from his good hand.
"Still standing," he said to Li Yao, voice rough as gravel.
"For now."
The old man nodded. "Won't be the last wave. They were testing us. First drum only."
Li Yao looked past the walls, to the treeline where the mist thickened again. The night hadn't lifted. The beasts hadn't left.
They had only paused.
As if waiting for a signal.
As if something deeper in the forest had yet to speak.