The crevice yawned at the base of the cliff, half-choked by loose stone and dried moss.
Dark. Narrow. Familiar.
From the outside at least.
Riven did not move.
The wind scraped along the rock face above him, carrying grit and the faint, bitter tang of poison. He let it pass. Let the sound settle. His gaze remained fixed on the opening.
He'd been here before.
He knew the pattern.
During the day, the nest emptied itself. The lesser scorpions fanned out across the lands in search of prey, leaving only the Greater Feral behind to guard the lair. It was territorial. Patient. Confident in its size and venom.
A ruler that didn't need to chase.
He waited anyway.
Time stretched.
Gravel shifted faintly near the crevice mouth. A chitter echoed from within, low and rhythmic. Then another. A pair of small shapes slipped out, hugging the stone before skittering downslope, stingers arched, bodies low.
Riven did not follow them with his eyes.
Another minute passed.
Then another.
More movement. A cluster this time. Four. Five. They poured from the gap in a loose line, claws clicking softly against stone before vanishing into the wind-worn gullies beyond.
The cliffside felt… lighter.
More and more scorpions left.
Riven waited until the last ripple of sound faded completely.
Only then did he step forward.
He stopped just short of the crevice and rested his hand briefly against his chest.
The ring lay hidden beneath cloth. Cold metal against skin.
Just once, his fingers pressed against it.
Then he lowered his hand.
His eyes hardened as he leaned toward the crevice.
Riven stepped inside.
The temperature dropped almost instantly. Wind died the moment he crossed the threshold, replaced by still, stagnant air that tasted faintly of poison and old blood.
The passage narrowed after only a few steps.
Stone pressed in on both sides, jagged and uneven, the walls close enough that his shoulder brushed rock as he moved. Loose gravel shifted underfoot, crunching softly before he adjusted his weight and slowed, placing each step with care.
Then he saw the light.
It wasn't strong. Barely more than a dim glow threading through the darkness. Faint points of pale blue and sickly green dotted the floor ahead, scattered irregularly along the stone.
Flowers.
Small. Low to the ground. Their petals were thin and translucent, like stretched membrane rather than plant matter, veins glowing faintly from within. They grew straight out of cracks in the rock, roots embedded in bare stone where no soil should have existed.
Riven frowned slightly.
He didn't recognize them.
But suddenly, the nest made far more sense.
Scorpions weren't blind, but they weren't night hunters either. They relied on motion and contrast. Daylight creatures.
These flowers lit the lair just enough to navigate by.
He moved deeper.
The glow grew stronger as the tunnel sloped downward, the walls tightening further.
Stone scraped against his clothes. Fabric snagged once, tearing with a quiet rip before he twisted free. The sound echoed faintly, swallowed quickly by the passage.
What remained of his clothes suffered for it—though at this point, calling them clothes was generous at best.
The smell thickened.
Familiar now.
Bitter venom. Dried ichor. Old death.
Fragments littered the ground now—shed chitin plates, broken stingers, cracked husks stripped clean of flesh. Some were old enough to have dulled and flaked apart. Others still glistened faintly in the dim light.
The lair wasn't just a home.
It was a grave.
They seemed to prefer their companions close—and their enemies closer.
Riven kept his breathing slow and controlled, senses stretched tight. Every movement echoed too loudly in his mind, every scrape of stone feeling like a warning.
The passage twisted once more.
Then widened.
The pressure eased suddenly as the tunnel opened into a broader chamber. Not vast—but wide enough that the walls pulled back, forming a rough, uneven dome of stone.
The flowers grew thicker here, clustering along the edges, their glow painting the chamber in muted hues of blue and green.
At its center—
Something moved.
A massive shape lay coiled near the far wall, grey carapace catching the faint light in jagged highlights. Thick plates overlapped along its body, scarred and chipped, each segment heavier than the last. Its tail was curled close, stinger resting against stone like a loaded weapon at ease.
Golden eyes opened.
Slowly.
They fixed on him without surprise.
The Greater Feral Gale Scorpion did not rise.
It did not hiss.
It simply watched.
As if it had known he was coming.
The scorpion's body shifted.
Just slightly.
The coils loosened a fraction. One leg scraped against stone, claws adjusting their grip. The tail lifted a hair's breadth from the ground, stinger angling—not in attack, but reassessment.
Then its golden eyes narrowed.
Recognition.
Riven felt it then.
Not fear.
Not hunger.
Confusion.
The beast remembered him.
If it hadn't been surprised at seeing an intruder, now it certainly was.
It had watched him jump into the black lake of death.
And now he stood there again.
Whole.
Too whole.
Riven didn't give it time to finish that thought.
He reached inward.
Not in desperation.
Not in panic.
Deliberately.
His focus brushed the five-petaled blossom anchored in his soul.
The response was immediate.
A second pulse slid beneath his heartbeat—out of rhythm at first, then aligning. Heat followed, spreading through his chest and down his spine, not wild, but precise.
Controlled.
Grey qi stirred around him, drawn inward instead of flaring outward. His posture shifted without conscious command, weight settling differently across his feet, spine straightening just so.
Balanced.
His breathing changed.
Shallow. Even. Measured.
The kind used before a clean cut.
White bled into his elongating hair strand by strand, color draining away until pale silver caught the flowerlight. His frame tightened subtly, excess tension carving itself away, movements sharpening into something leaner, more deliberate.
Pressure bloomed at his right shoulder.
Air warped.
Grey light gathered, condensed, shaped—an arm unfolding from nothing, slender and pale, seamless where it joined his body. Fingers flexed once, long and elegant.
Riven did not stare.
He lifted the arm as one might test the weight of a blade.
It felt right.
Even though it shouldn't.
His stance settled fully now, hips angled, shoulders aligned—not his usual way of standing.
Hers.
A thought passed through him, calm and cold.
If you're trapped in me… then watch.
The scorpion moved.
The stone beneath it cracked as it lunged.
Riven's body reacted before his thoughts could catch up. His feet slid, weight shifting in a smooth diagonal step that barely disturbed the gravel. The stinger screamed past where his head had been, close enough that the air itself seemed to shear.
Fast.
Too fast.
His initial estimate shattered immediately.
He'd thought it somewhere between Mid and Late Inner Condensation in threat—dangerous, but manageable.
This wasn't that.
The weight behind the strike, the compression in the movement, the way stone fractured beneath its bulk—
This thing's threat was deep into the Late stage.
And it hadn't even committed yet.
The tail snapped back, poison condensing tightly along the barb. Not sprayed. Not wasted. A faint mist bled outward, restrained and deliberate.
Riven twisted, breath cutting short as his own qi surged—blue and green light flooding his meridians, forcing air from his lungs before the venom could settle. The vapor still burned, sharp and metallic, clinging to his throat.
The lesser ferals had always been cautious with their venom. But this one didn't hesitate.
The Greater Feral didn't seem limited in the same way.
It surged forward, bulk scraping stone as wind gathered beneath overlapping plates.
Riven reached to his chest.
A thread of soul force brushed the ring.
Yue Lin's dagger slid into his right hand.
The weight settled perfectly.
His grip adjusted without thought. Balance shifted. Timing aligned.
Grey qi flowed along the blade—hers, not his—thin and precise, a sheen that did not flicker or bleed.
Riven slashed.
The grey edge passed through the scorpion's outer plate without resistance, carving a line so clean it looked unreal.
For a fraction of a breath, the cut could have been fatal.
Then the scorpion twisted.
Wind detonated outward as the severed plate was shed, torn free from the body before the separation could propagate deeper. The chunk of chitin crashed into the wall while the scorpion surged back, newly exposed but alive.
Riven's eyes narrowed.