After hours of resisting, Viessa's strength finally failed her. Age and grief weighed heavy on her frail body; her sobs had turned hoarse, her struggles weak. At last, she collapsed, unconscious in the villagers' arms.
Two men lifted her gently and carried her back toward her home, their faces drawn with quiet pity.
With her departure, the crowd at the forest's edge began to thin. Murmurs faded into silence, footsteps retreating one by one, until the night reclaimed the village. By midnight, all was still.
That was when Lioren began to move.
He crept closer to the village, letting the moonlight grow stronger with each step.
When he finally stepped beyond the treeline, the air felt cleaner, sharper, stripped of the damp rot that clung to the forest behind. Unbroken moonlight spilled across the grass in a silver wash, carrying with it the faint scent of dry earth and wildflowers, yet all his gaze settled on were the tattered prayer flags.
"Those flags…" His eyes narrowed. "A formation created using layers of bau and essences, strong enough to repel and terrify any beast below Tier 4 core. Back when I was a Hollow Snake, I couldn't even get within twenty paces before the crushing pressure forced my body to coil and retreat. But now, possessing a human body, I can walk beneath their fluttering edges without the slightest resistance."
He stepped forward, the dull knife gripped in his right hand, and slashed at the tattered flags. Not a single cut marked the pole, nor even the faintest scratch marred the silk. They stood firm, unyielding, as if mocking his efforts.
His mind shifted to another idea, dig beneath the pole, tear it out from its base. But the thought was discarded as quickly as it came. This was a Bau Master's formation; the pole's roots would be layered with protections, buried deep into the earth. In his current frail, child's body, he didn't have the strength to dig even a fraction of the way.
His stomach twisted with a deep, gnawing hunger, each step making his body feel weaker and more unsteady.
"For now, this formation is beyond my capability. My strength is ebbing; even walking feels like dragging stone. Feeding this body comes first… once I recover, I'll find a way to destroy it." he calculated coldly.
He slowly moved past the tattered flags, drawing closer to the village.
It was his first time seeing the village up close, and to his mild surprise, it was far more developed than he had expected for a village in this world. Most houses were built from solid stone masonry, their roofs laid with neat rows of orange granite tiles that caught the moonlight. Farms stretched along the outskirts, with animal pens tucked into their corners, and even a rudimentary sewage system of clay pipes carried wastewater away.
Lioren could guess the reason for its quiet prosperity.
Its remote location, far from trade routes and rich resources, made it an unappealing target for thieves or ambitious Bau Masters seeking plunder. And with the formation sealing off the shadowed forest, the village was shielded from beasts, granting it the safety to grow and develop at its own slow, steady pace.
Among the rows of stone houses, a few buildings stood out for their size. One was a modest smithy, its chimney stained black from years of smoke and flame, cold now in the deep hours of night. Another bore a large wooden sign, the letters carved in Ura, one of the common tongues of this world. It read: Apothecary, a mortal healer's house where wounds were mended and ailments driven out.
"There's must be potent toxins in there!" he thought, a faint glint in his eyes. But without the Widow Fang spider's venom sac, they'd be useless for forging the Withering Venom Bau.
He stopped by a small window on one of the houses, its frame barred with a metal lattice, narrow enough to block anything larger than a hand. The shutters were open to let in the night air, but even his frail five-year-old body couldn't squeeze through. The bars were spaced precisely, wide enough for ventilation, too narrow for intrusion.
But he had no such concerns, he possessed a core, and within it, a bau!
With the faintest thought, his will surged through his core, stirring the power slumbering inside.
Hollow Snake Bau.
It lay dormant in the pond within his core, eyes shut in a tranquil rest beneath the transparent black aura. Then, at his silent command, it stirred, awakened in an instant. Its eyes snapping open as it drank greedily from the flowing essence, a pulse of peculiar energy rippled out from its coiled form, threading through the dark waters of the pond before surging outward, leaving the core behind.
The current raced along his veins, swift and precise, until it reached the destination he had chosen, his hand. There, guided by nothing more than the image in his mind, the energy began to twist and shape itself, taking form.
It slowly took shape in his hands: a small gray rabbit, no larger than his palm, with a single white horn curling elegantly from its forehead. Fifteen seconds passed before the illusion solidified, and in that short span, it had already consumed three percent of his essence. The Hollow Snake stopped drinking from the pond, its energy fading as it shut its eyes once more, sinking back into the black pond, now shallower.
The creature felt almost alive, its warmth pressed against his skin, the faint weight settling in his palm, the softness of its fur almost felt real. But there lingered an emptiness beneath the surface, a hollowness that betrayed its true nature. It could fool most beasts in the forest without issue, but any human with intelligence and a sharp eye would sense that something was wrong.
"Its form will hold for fifteen minutes at most." he calculated silently, "But every passing minute will drain another one percent of my essence. I can't afford to let my core run dry, without essence, my body can't strengthen, and exhaustion from hunger and weakness will claim me. If not for the essence reinforcing my body, I would have collapsed in the hallow long ago. six minutes… that's the most I can sustain it while one percent enough reinforce my body."
Lioren slipped the small rabbit through the narrow gap in the window's lattice, its illusory body sliding inside with ease.
He focused his mind, letting a strand of aura unwind from his fingers, so thin it was like a thread of spider silk, stretching outward until it wove into the rabbit. The moment the link fused, the rabbit movement shifted to his will; with a single thought, he could make it move, and through its eyes, the world inside the house unfolded before him.
A Bau Master could command the essence within their core as easily as moving a limb, unleashing it outward as an oppressive aura to cow weaker foes, or channeling it inward to feed the bau, unlocking its abilities. The uses were many, from enhancing one's body to shaping the bau's power into precise forms.
Right now, Lioren's will reached into his core, issuing a silent command to the Hollow Snake bau. Instantly, the bau drank from his core and unleashed its power. With practiced precision, he shaped that power into the form he desired, then extended a filament of essence, thin as a spider's thread, to bind it to him. Through this link, he could control it as if it were part of his own body.
For most new Bau Masters, weaving such a threadlike aura would require years of grueling training. But Lioren was no novice, he had walked this world for over three centuries and carried a core for most of that time. For him, such control was effortless.
Through the rabbit's eyes, the dim interior took shape in Lioren's mind. The living room was quiet and still, the firepit in the wall filled with cold wood and charcoal, untouched for hours. Simple wooden benches flanked a rough table, and a few shelves along the wall held a handful of old books. Everything spoke of a modest villager's life, orderly, practical, unadorned.
He guided the rabbit in silence, letting it wander the around the house as he listened for the faintest sign of movement. There were two other rooms in the house and a narrow storage space, but his attention first turned to a closed door.
Through the gap beneath, he glimpsed a middle-aged couple asleep in their bed, the blankets drawn up to their chins, their breathing deep and even. Without lingering, he shifted the rabbit toward the second room. Inside, two children lay bundled beneath thick blankets, sleeping without a care in the world. One murmured something in their dreams before falling silent again.
After making sure no one would wake, Lioren steered the rabbit straight toward the storage room.
The storage room door was open, revealing the dim clutter within. Wooden crates, pots and squat barrels lined the walls, heavy with grain that filled the air with a faint, dusty scent. A small wicker basket sat in the corner with a few wilted vegetables and three coarse loaves of bread wrapped in rough cloth. Farming tools leaned against the wall in neat stacks, their metal heads well-maintained despite their age, while the shelves above lay thick with undisturbed dust.
The rabbit hopped to the basket first, nosing at the wicker edge before making a few awkward attempts to jump in. Its movements were precise but slightly unnatural, too controlled, lacking the random fidgets of living creatures. On the third try, it landed inside with a soft thud. It went straight for the bread, three coarse loaves wrapped in cloth, though the fabric didn't quite hide them all. After tugging and pawing for a while, it managed to loosen the wrap.
Lowering its head, the rabbit angled its single white horn toward one loaf and drove it forward until the bread was skewered deep, the round crust now resting like a crooked crown on its head.
With effort, it lifted the load and hopped out of the basket, landing with a soft thud that seemed too loud in the sleeping house. Step by step, it made its way toward the latticed window it had entered from. When it reached the opening, pressing itself between the narrow gaps, Lioren's hands slipped through from outside, plucking the bread from the rabbit's horn. Without hesitation, he severed the thin thread of aura linking him to the illusion.
Lioren sat back against the stone wall and began eating, slow and steady. The bread was coarser than he remembered from his original life, dense with grain and grit, but it was sustenance. Each bite eased the hollow ache in his stomach, though his mind was elsewhere, turning over cold calculations.
"Five minutes… and eight essences gone. Three to form the rabbit, five to move it, leaving only two essences in my core. At this pace, it takes seven minutes to recover a single essence." He exhaled sharply through his nose, a faint sigh that misted in the cooling air.
For Lioren, burning eight essences for a single loaf was an absurd waste. Back in his Hollow Snake body, hunger was a distant thing, one good hunt a month was enough, and even the smallest prey could keep him sated for weeks. This human form was body inefficient.
He swallowed the last bite, the meager meal barely taking the edge off. Still, it would suffice for now. As his core pulsed faintly, gathering energy, a third essence coalesced within the black pond.
Behind him, in the window framed by iron lattice, the gray rabbit still lingered. Its body flickered at the edges, fading in and out of sight, the illusion's time nearly spent.
His body felt lighter than before, the faint strength from the bread just enough to push him forward. He rose to his feet, brushing crumbs from his bloodstained clothes, his next destination already clear in his mind.
"The Apothecary… there's a chance I'll find something there, herbs, poisons, anything I can use to forge another bau. In my current state, even hunger could be the death of me. I need more power, no matter the cost."
Lioren moved through the shadows between houses, their windows mostly dark, only a few glowing weakly with the ember-light of dying hearths. He moved like a ghost, each footstep deliberate and silent, barely disturbing the grass beneath his feet. The village slept around him, unaware of the shadow walking among their homes.
He reached the Apothecary, its walls built from sturdy masonry stone reinforced with thick beams of oak. It stood larger and taller than the neighboring houses, its orange granite roof catching the moonlight in muted gleams. The front door was massive compared to Lioren's small body, crafted from polished hardwood and metals that spoke of wealth and status.
To Lioren, every detail spoke of quiet prosperity and deep resources. A person who could afford such a building in this remote village could surely afford to keep rare and valuable ingredients, perhaps even a bau, locked away inside. And if fortune favored him tonight, those would soon be his.
He circled the apothecary in silence, scanning for a way in. Every door was locked, every window shut tight behind iron lattice set higher than his reach. Even standing on his toes, his fingertips couldn't touch the windowsills. The walls were solid stone, the frame sturdy. There were no openings, no weaknesses to exploit.
His original plan had been simple, use his essence to map the inside of the keyhole, then use Hollow Snake Bau to shape a key to open the door. But the Apothecary's door had no keyhole at all, locked from within.
"This place is locked from every side… I can't break the glass without making noise, and if someone checks, it'll raise suspicion and could lead to a search for the culprit. Even if I manage to open a window, I'd only have six minutes, and I can't even reach them. And if the rabbit went in, how would it get back out? The windows are too high.I could create a distraction to draw the owner out and slip in while they're distracted, but the risk is far too high,if I'm caught, it's over. The chimney? Too narrow for me. The rabbit could fit, but the high fall might shatter it. Even if it survived, the chances of it opening a door are almost none, the doors are massive, and the locks might be set high. And I can only move it for six minutes at most…" His mind thought of plan after plan, yet each was riddled with flaws. Time slipped by, and after half an hour the choices left were few and all had high risk, and dawn wouldn't wait for him.
Realizing time was slipping away, he conceded, breaking into the apothecary was beyond his current strength. His thoughts shifted toward plundering other houses that might hold resources of value, all while the image of the tattered prayer flags lingered in his mind, along with the inevitable arrival of Bau Masters from Vieta.
As his gaze turned inward to the core, watching the nearly empty pond slowly swell with essence, a sudden spark flared in his mind, an idea to bring down the formation!
"This is it… I can use this to tear down the formation, raze the village, and take everything before the Bau Masters arrive." He cast one last glance at the apothecary, then slipped away, retracing his path in silence.
Passing the house he had stolen bread from, he noticed the window was empty, the rabbit's form had dissolved into nothing, its time expired. He didn't slow, slipping past the tattered flags and crossing into the treeline, swallowed once more by the darkness.
The ancient trees' canopies overhead blotted out the sky, letting only slivers of moonlight seep through to dapple the forest floor. Still, he pressed forward, analyzing the terrain around him with predatory focus. His destination was close, he could hear them already.
He didn't go far this time. When the sound of growls and restless howling reached his ears, he stopped and slipped behind the trunk of an ancient tree, its girth wide enough to swallow his small body from sight. The bark was rough against his back, scored with old claw marks from territory disputes.
Stalking forward just enough to peer around the bark, he spotted a massive boulder in the clearing ahead. A nest crowned its peak, draped in shadow, with only thin slivers of moonlight piercing the canopy above. He could see them clearly now.
Gloom Wolves.
A whole pack, their striking blue fur shimmering faintly in the dark, each pair of eyes glinting like cold embers. all of them were hungry, restless, their low growls rumbling through the night.
"From what I remember, this pack once held at least fifty gloom wolves, but hunger has claimed nearly half. They've scoured this area for years, striking at anything that breathes, unless it possesses a core. Perfect for my plan."
He weighed the thought in his mind before sending out his will. It surged into his core, awakening the Hollow Snake from its slumber in the black pond. Its serpentine eyes snapped open as it drank greedily from the flowing essence, unleashing its stored energy as malleable aura.
The power flowed outward from his core, racing through his veins until it reached his waiting hand. There, guided by the image crystallizing in his mind, the energy began to twist and take form, a small gray rabbit with a single white horn curling from its forehead. In fifteen seconds, it solidified completely, costing Lioren three percent of his precious essence reserves.
After the rabbit assumed its full form, the Hollow Snake ceased its feeding, its energy fading as it shut its eyes and slipped back into slumber beneath the dark waters.
He let a filament of aura slip from his core, so fine it was almost invisible, seen only by his own trained perception. It slid through the air like a thread of silk, winding forward until it connected to the rabbit cradled in his hands. The link pulsed once, establishing the connection, and suddenly he was seeing through two sets of eyes.
He guided the rabbit as if it were part of his own body, its vision merging seamlessly with his. Dropping it to the ground, he sent it moving away from his position, drawing it closer to the gloom wolves' den. Its movements were fluid but slightly too perfect, no random pauses to sniff or scratch, no instinctive caution that would mark a real creature.
One of the gloom wolves caught the faint rustle of movement nearby. Its head snapped toward the sound, ears pricked forward, eyes locking onto the gray, horned rabbit. A deep growl rumbled from its throat before it let out a sharp, hungry howl that cut through the night air and charged straight for the illusion.
The other gloom wolves caught his growl and caught sight of the rabbit, their eyes flaring with hunger. In an instant, they lunged from the nest, each trying to outpace the others, desperate to snatch the meal for themselves.
The den emptied in seconds, even the half-grown cubs tumbling out in clumsy pursuit.
The pack erupted into a frenzied charge, snapping and shoving as they trampled over one another. Each growl dripped with desperation and the raw edge of hunger that had been gnawing at them for weeks. This wasn't a hunt, it was barely controlled madness.
Through the rabbit's eyes, Lioren watched the chaos as if he were there himself, feeling the thunder of paws against earth, seeing the foam-slick muzzles and wild eyes of thirty starving beasts thundering toward him. He moved the rabbit's body in a sharp turn and bolted, darting away from the frenzied stampede at his heels.
The rabbit darted into the dark, no more than a flicker beneath the pale veins of moonlight slipping through the canopy above.
The silent forest exploded into chaos. Paws slammed against earth, claws tearing through damp soil and rotting leaves. Breath steamed in the cold air, visible in sharp puffs. Snarls overlapped, deep and guttural, until the night seemed to vibrate with their collective hunger.
Around thirty gloom wolves surged after it, thin, starved bodies moving like one writhing shadow.
Lioren guided the rabbit through the undergrowth, slipping it between roots and stones. A root thick as his leg split the ground ahead. The rabbit veered hard, darting through the gap between two leaning boulders.
The first wolves smashed into the stone with wet, bone-deep impacts. Teeth scraped against rock, sparking briefly in the moonlight. Others vaulted over them without breaking stride, jaws snapping so close to the rabbit's form that Lioren could feel the displacement of air through their link.
The horned rabbit was tiny, far slower than the hunger-maddened gloom wolves at its back, but its size gave it an edge, slipping through gaps and narrow spaces where snapping jaws could not follow.
One wolf lunged too wide and struck a massive trunk with a sickening crack. Its body crumpled, neck twisted at an unnatural angle, but the pack didn't slow. They trampled over their fallen packmate, mouths foaming, eyes locked on the small horned silhouette dancing just ahead of their reach.
The rabbit slid into the hollow of a fallen tree, bark scraping against its sides as it squeezed through the tight opening. Behind it, wolves slammed into the log like a living wave, splintering the ancient tree. Claws tore at the opening, gouging deep furrows, as they forced their way through. Their snarls echoed through the hollow space like thunder trapped in a tunnel.
A blur of fur flashed past the rabbit's side, one wolf, leaner and faster than the rest, had broken ahead, lunging through a second opening in the log. Its jaws closed on empty air as the rabbit twisted sharply away, the snap loud enough to make Lioren's grip on the aura-thread tighten.
Too close.
The pack funneled into a narrow gap between jagged stones, shoulders scraping against rock, bodies shoving and biting at each other in their frenzy. The faster ones tore ahead, leaving the slower to be kicked aside or crushed beneath the press of bodies. Yelps of pain mixed with growls of hunger as pack hierarchy dissolved into pure, desperate need.
Through the rabbit's eyes, Lioren saw the closest wolf no more than three paces away, its hot breath washing over the back of the illusion's neck like a furnace blast. Foam dripped from its muzzle, and its eyes had gone completely wild, no intelligence left, only the driving need to kill and feed.
Seeing the wolf closing in, Lioren unleashed more essence from his core into the thin thread linking him to the rabbit. The gossamer strand of aura flared, pulsing brighter in his sight, and the rabbit's body surged with power at once, its muscles coiling, its leaps stretching farther, faster. In his core, the black pond sank sharply, essence draining in a swift, steady pull.
The rabbit leapt over a low creek in a blur of movement, landing light as a feather while the wolves splashed through behind it, sending sheets of water flying in all directions. One lost its footing entirely, dragged under by the current and the weight of others trampling over it, but no one looked back. The pack had tunnel vision now, only food mattered.
They crashed through the rotting carcass of an enormous tree, the air thick with the stench of its hollowed heart and the fungi that fed on its decay. The rabbit darted through a gap in the trunk so narrow that bark scraped away illusory fur. Wolves crashed into the opening from all sides, their combined weight making the ancient wood groan and crack under the assault.
The chase became a storm of motion and sound, snapping jaws that caught only air, splintering branches, labored breath, and raw, desperate hunger given form and fury. Their noise tore through the silent forest, drawing the eyes of other predators in the dark.
Lioren's essence was running thin, the pond in his core sinking lower with each breath. The aura thread to the rabbit consumed energy fast, and the farther it ranged from him, the more it drank, draining him at an accelerating pace.
The path ahead glimmered with scattered slivers of moonlight, each one growing brighter the farther the rabbit ran. Ahead, a pale, radiant spill of light cut through the dark like a gate to heaven. Behind, the pack closed in, fangs bared, closing the gap with every leap. In Lioren's core, the pond was nearly dry, its last ripples of essence fading fast.
One of the gloom wolves closed to within two paces, muscles bunching under its blue-furred hide. It sprang, jaws gaping wide in a low, guttural snarl, hunger and triumph burning in its eyes.
A single pace ahead, moonlight spilled like molten silver across the ground, the edge of the treeline.
The rabbit broke free of the treeline, leaving the shadowed forest behind, and the gloom wolf came tearing after it.
The moment the rabbit's paws crossed from the shadowed forest into the pale spill of moonlight, the world seemed to shift. Unlike the forest behind, where only thin slivers of moonlight pierced the dense canopy, here the light was everywhere, pouring down unhindered. The air felt cleaner, cooler, carrying the faint scent of grass instead of damp rot. Shadows fell away, replaced by a silver glow that bathed the ground like a calm tide. It was as if the suffocating weight of the forest had been left behind. Ahead, by twenty paces the tattered prayer flags swayed softly in the night breeze.
The instant the formation sensed a beast, it stirred, not with blinding light or roaring sound, but with an unseen boundary that rippled outward, sealing the forest's edge. Within that veil, a crushing pressure erupted, invisible yet suffocating.
The wolf's leap faltered midair. Its pupils shrank to pinpoints, the air seemed to thicken in its lungs, and a primal fear it could not understand tore through its instincts. It hit the ground hard, claws tearing into the dirt as it scrambled to turn away from the unseen force, tail tucking, body trembling.
Lioren moved the rabbit a few paces away from the treeline, halting it between the tattered prayer flags and the shadowed forest. Then, with a sharp, deliberate thought, he severed the long, delicate thread of aura that stretched all the way from his hiding to the the rabbit in the forest's edge. The rabbit froze in place, its single white horn catching a sliver of moonlight, utterly still now without his essence to move it.
Behind it, other gloom wolves, carried forward by their own frenzied momentum, crossed into the formation's range. The moment they did, the same terror seized them, a dread so deep it bypassed thought and struck straight at the marrow. Growls turned to whimpers, snapping jaws stilled, and one by one, they began to recoil, ears flat, eyes wide, desperate to escape the oppressive presence pressing down on their very souls.
With effort, the gloom wolves dragged themselves back into the treeline's cover, vanishing into the shadowed forest. But they did not flee to their nest, they lingered, eyes fixed on the rabbit. Their growls rolled low and deep, howls cutting through the night like jagged glass.
But hunger was a cruel master.
The sight of the rabbit standing still before them only sharpened their frenzy. No wolf would yield its prize after such a chase. Hunger turned inward now, gnawing away at thought, stripping them down to raw, violent instinct. The treeline became a wall of snapping teeth and pressing bodies, shoulders slamming together, muzzles clashing, foam flecking the dark earth.
From afar, it was like demons from hell straining against the edge of their prison, wolves twisting in shadow, eyes burning with hunger, while in the moonlit clearing, beneath the swaying prayer flags, stood a lone gray rabbit, horn gleaming like an angel from heaven.
Again and again, they lunged from the shadows, short, vicious bursts driven by desperation. And each time they broke past the trees, the formation's invisible weight crashed over them, crushing their momentum and shoving them back with primal terror. They retreated, panting, only to circle and try again. Fear clawed at them, but hunger burned hotter, and the moment they sank back into shadow, the madness reclaimed them.
From behind trunk of an ancient tree, Lioren stepped out, his expression unreadable. He spared the chaos only a passing glance, his thoughts already fixed on the next move, and began walking straight toward the now-empty gloom wolves' den.