Massive, knuckled fingers, each as thick as Li Tian's wrist, dug into the rocky ridge above. Gravel and dust rained down, hissing as they hit the powder-dusted ledge. The scarlet mist itself seemed to tremble with the weight of the creature pulling itself up. The ring on Li Tian's finger pulsed again, a sharp, urgent beat against his skin.
If I step wrong, I die.
He didn't freeze. He moved laterally, keeping low, putting distance between himself and the seemingly stable platform. He snatched a stone the size of his fist and tossed it onto the ledge's powdery edge. The stone landed with a soft puff. For a heartbeat, nothing. Then, with a sound like cracking ice, the brittle crust gave way. The stone vanished into the crimson gloom below without an echo. A deadfall. Just as he'd suspected.
A chorus of higher-pitched chest-thumps echoed to his left and right. Two smaller, leaner Scarlet-Furred Apes dropped from the twisted canopy, their eyes glowing with feral intelligence. They didn't charge blindly. They fanned out, trying to herd him, to funnel him toward the treacherous ledge. Their strategy was unnervingly coordinated.
Li Tian refused the funnel. He used the hostile terrain as his ally, putting a thick, thorn-covered trunk between himself and one ape. When the second lunged, he sidestepped behind a jutting tooth of rock. The ape's claws screeched against stone, spraying sparks. In that moment of impact, Li Tian opened a tiny devouring vortex in his palm, siphoning a sliver of the beast's momentum. The energy was wild, burning his meridians like a hot wire. He immediately bled it off, a trickle of grey mist venting from his feet. A thin line of blood dripped from his nose. The cost of survival.
Devour small. Refine clean. Live.
Farther up the slope, hidden by the roiling mist, two robed silhouettes watched. One adjusted a red talisman flag, ensuring it was clearly visible. The other carefully slid a thin, paper-thin explosive talisman under the crust of white powder near the ledge's inner edge. "When he steps near, kick that anchor stone," the first silhouette whispered. "The fall won't kill him, but the apes below will."
Down on the cliff face, Li Tian caught a faint trace on the air—the scent of human sweat and spirit oil, recent and out of place. His eyes darted to the flags. The ink was still glistening. The trap was not just the environment; it had architects. His suspicion hardened into cold certainty.
A deep, resonant roar rolled down from the ridge. This was no mere sound; it was a physical force, a wave of concussive Qi that made the very air vibrate. The two scout apes cowered. Li Tian braced, and in a moment of desperate instinct, he formed a tight devouring vortex over his sternum, trying to shave the power from the sonic assault.
It was a mistake.
Agony exploded through him. It felt like a thousand hot needles were being driven along his meridians simultaneously. His ears rang with a high-pitched buzz, muffling all other sound. He staggered, vision swimming. Never again, he vowed, gritting his teeth against the pain. Never use this against a wide-area force unless I have no other choice.
Enraged by the alpha's command, one of the scout apes recklessly charged onto the unstable rim of the powdered ledge. Seeing his chance, Li Tian threw a sharp-edged shard directly at the ground in front of the beast's feet. Crack. The pre-weakened crust splintered. The ape's momentum carried it forward. With a shriek of surprise, it plunged through the false floor, its scream fading rapidly into the gorge below.
The second scout, seeing its companion fall, charged in a blind rage. Li Tian stood his ground. As the ape swung a heavy arm, he stepped inside its guard, devouring a single, focused thread of Qi from the elbow strike. The backlash was immediate—a stabbing pain in his arm—but he'd stolen enough of the blow's force. He pivoted and drove his own fist, empowered by the hastily refined energy, into the ape's throat. A sickening crunch. The creature gagged, collapsed, and did not move.
There was no time to extract a core. A thin, sharp whistle cut through the ringing in his ears.
Fssst-BOOM!
The explosive talisman hidden under the powder ignited. The seemingly solid ledge fractured like glass, a huge section tilting violently toward the abyss. Li Tian's reflexes saved him. He leaped backward, away from the collapsing platform, his fingers scrambling for purchase on a rocky spur. They caught hold, burning as his weight slammed against the cliff face. Dust and debris blinded him.
From above, a heavy THUMP shook the mountain. The Alpha landed on the remaining, slanting slab of the ledge. It was a monster. A burning scarlet mane framed a face of pure fury, its eyes like molten embers. Its forearms were thicker than Li Tian's thighs, knotted with ironwood muscle. Its weight alone caused the fractured stone to groan and sink lower. It beat its chest, and the sound was a war hammer against the world.
Two doors to the same grave, Li Tian thought, his mind racing. The deadfall or the Alpha.
Then he saw it—a knife-thin fissure in the cliff wall, a dark, narrow crack just to his left. The ring on his finger pulsed, a clear, sharp warmth pointing toward the opening. A chance. He feinted a desperate scramble toward the unstable ledge, then changed direction in a burst of speed, diving for the fissure.
From the slope above, a silhouetted arm flicked. Another talisman, smaller, zipped through the air and struck the mouth of the fissure. Crack! A rain of rocks tumbled down, partially sealing the entrance.
Li Tian threw himself forward as a boulder slammed down, half-sealing the opening and knocking his legs out from under him. The slab under the Alpha sheared off completely. Stone, ape, and debris avalanched toward the gorge.
The world dropped out from under him, and he fell into the roaring crimson dark.