The air in the grove was thick with silence.
Xin Ren stirred.
Pain was the first thing that greeted him.. deep, hot pulses across his ribs, his back, his arms. His eyes cracked open and met a sky veiled in thin clouds, barely touched by morning light. He lay beneath the massive roots of an ancient tree, its bark warm and glowing faintly with runes older than history.
He tried to sit up, but his body screamed in protest.
Baixue was already there.
"You're awake," she said softly, her voice unreadable as always.
Xin blinked slowly. "Where…?"
"Far from Mount Qianlan. We had no choice."
He struggled upright with a groan. "What happened?"
"You began to awaken more than one tail. You nearly exploded."
The words hit like stones. He lowered his gaze to his hands. They trembled. His back still burned. His sealed tails… he could feel them again. Faintly humming beneath his skin.
And something else. Something pulsing deeper.
"Where are Liang Wu and Huo Mei?"
"They're gone," Baixue replied. "They stayed behind to cover our escape. You've been entrusted to us now…Zhenlong and I."
His stomach twisted. "They just let me go?"
"They didn't let you go," said another voice. Zhenlong emerged from the edge of the grove, arms folded, eyes gleaming like molten steel. "They let you live. You're not safe with them anymore. And they're not safe around you."
The truth cut sharper than a blade.
Xin Ren looked away.
"But I didn't ask for this…"
"No one ever does," Baixue replied.
And with that, the training began.
The training didn't begin with fighting.
It began with silence.
Baixue took Xin Ren to the river at dawn and told him to kneel.
"For how long?" he asked, still sore and uncertain.
"Until the water stops trembling around you."
"What does that mean?"
"You'll know."
She left him there.
Knees pressed into wet stone. Water brushing his skin like breath. Mist crawling around his body.
He stayed like that for hours.
The cold bit deep. His bones ached. His back screamed.
But more than that—he could feel something writhing beneath the surface of his skin. A second pulse. Feral. Growing louder with every breath.
The tiger.
Zhenlong didn't speak to him much.
He watched. Judged. Occasionally corrected a stance or redirected a flow of Qi.
But his eyes always lingered on Xin Ren's shoulders. Where the tiger tail had first stirred. The strip of skin there was always warmer now. Tense. Alive.
That night, Baixue brought food to the clearing. She didn't speak until he finished eating every grain of rice.
"You're unraveling," she said, sitting beside him.
Xin didn't argue.
"I can feel the second tail. It's trying to burn through me."
"It will, if you don't master it."
He turned to her, fists clenching.
"I never asked for this. Any of it. I didn't choose to be born with horns. I didn't ask to be thrown into rivers or turned into a goddamn weapon."
Her gaze softened..not with pity, but understanding.
"No. You didn't."
She stood.
"But that's what you are now. So you better start acting like it."
That night, he couldn't sleep.
The tiger was in his dreams.
Not as a man. But as a beast.
It stalked him through burning trees, glowing stripes slicing the dark. It growled without moving its mouth. And every time Xin turned to run, it was already in front of him.
When he woke up screaming, the ground beneath him was scorched in the shape of claws.
The second tail… was almost free.
The next morning brought a storm.
Not of rain, but of claws and screams.
Xin Ren had barely managed his stance drills before the ground shook beneath his feet. A sound like tearing silk echoed through the trees, followed by the snap of bones and the howl of something that should not exist.
Baixue's eyes snapped toward the horizon. "They've found us again."
Zhenlong appeared beside her, flames already licking his forearms. "He hasn't stabilized the second tail. He can't move."
"He doesn't have a choice," Baixue hissed.
Xin Ren stood, dizzy, already covered in sweat. "What's coming?"
"Wretches," Zhenlong answered. "Bigger. Meaner. And they want your soul."
He barely had time to breathe before the first one broke through the mist.
It stood twice his height, its body stitched from ash and bone, a crooked blade in one hand and smoke billowing from its mouth like it breathed curses.
Xin raised his hands.
The beast lunged.
He screamed and threw himself to the side, rolling down the slope behind the grove. Pain flared in his shoulder. Another demon barreled after him.
"Fight!" Zhenlong shouted from above. "No more running!"
He grabbed a broken branch from the ground. Not a weapon. But it would have to do.
The demon charged.
Xin ducked low and drove the branch up into the thing's throat. It pierced soft flesh. The beast roared and stumbled back.
Another came from behind. A blur of claws. It raked his back open.
He dropped.
Face first into mud. Gasping. Bleeding.
And then.. something changed.
The pain didn't fade…it sharpened.
The world slowed.
He felt it…hot, heavy, brutal…surging through his spine.
The second tail.
Something cracked inside him. His vision blurred gold. His pulse turned to thunder. The heat in his gut exploded.
He roared.
Not screamed.
Roared.
From his back, a single golden tail erupted…spiked with black stripes, wild and burning. His wounds stopped bleeding. His muscles locked tight.
The demon lunged again.
He caught it by the throat.
And crushed it.
His eyes turned amber.
Another demon charged. He moved…faster than he ever had…ducking low and slamming his elbow into its gut, cracking ribs like glass.
Baixue and Zhenlong watched from above.
"It's begun," Baixue said quietly.
Zhenlong nodded. "The Tiger has arrived."
Xin Ren stood over the corpses, panting, golden tail flickering behind him like a living flame.
But then… his knees buckled.
The tail flickered. Vanished.
He collapsed.
Baixue moved first, catching him before his skull hit stone.
"He awakened too fast," she muttered. "His body can't keep up."
Zhenlong approached slowly. "He's not just unlocking them. He's absorbing them."
Baixue looked down at Xin's face, pale and bloodied but still frowning even in unconsciousness.
"Then he's not just a vessel," she whispered.
"He's becoming something else."
Something terrifying.
Xin Ren awoke to pain.
Not the sharp sting of battle, but the hollow ache of exhaustion that lived in the bones.
He lay beneath the ancient tree again, the canopy of white leaves swaying above him, his body sore and soaked with sweat. But it was different this time.
Something inside him was burning…not with fire, but with clarity.
The second tail was no longer dormant.
It had tasted blood.
Baixue sat nearby, legs crossed, her fingers glowing as she traced icy runes into the ground.
"You pushed too far," she said without looking up. "Next time, you may not wake up."
Xin groaned. "There's going to be a next time?"
Zhenlong approached from the far side of the grove, arms crossed, gaze cool.
"There will always be a next time."
Xin tried to sit, but the ache in his gut dropped him back to the earth.
"What happened to the demons?"
"Dead," Zhenlong replied. "You killed two. Baixue and I handled the rest."
Xin closed his eyes. "I thought I had control."
Baixue finally looked at him. "You don't. Not yet."
He opened his eyes slowly. "Then how do I get it?"
She said nothing.
But Zhenlong answered.
"You listen to the tail. You understand it. You don't just unleash it like a tantrum. You let it grow inside you until it chooses to obey."
"That sounds insane."
"It is," Zhenlong said. "But so is what you are."
Baixue's runes pulsed around them. A protective circle.
"We won't survive another attack like that," she said. "They're coming faster now. Stronger. Your awakening is like a flare. It's calling to every cursed beast in the realm."
"So what do we do?"
Zhenlong looked up at the sky. "We move."
"And where exactly are we going?"
Baixue stood, brushing frost from her robes. "To find the next guardian."
Xin blinked. "What? Already?"
Zhenlong turned toward the edge of the grove.
"The more you awaken, the faster this accelerates. You've drawn the attention of the gods… and the demons. If we wait, we die."
Xin swallowed the lump in his throat.
He wasn't ready.
But readiness was no longer a luxury.
Only survival was.