The world narrowed to a rush of dark fur and yellowed tusks.
A primal scream locked in Yang Kai's throat. His body was a statue of pure terror, his mind a white-hot void. The charging boar was an avalanche of brute force, its hot, snorting breath a promise of a swift, brutal end.
I am going to die.
The thought was not a fear; it was a simple, final fact.
Then, something else took over. Not courage. Not strategy. Muscle memory. The hundreds of hours spent in the crumbling courtyard, drilling the same basic movements until they were etched into his very tendons.
His fear-locked legs unlocked.
He didn't dodge. He stumbled, his body twisting in a clumsy, desperate imitation of the Flowing Water Step. His foot caught on a thick root, and he fell sideways, landing hard on his shoulder.
The boar thundered past the space where he had been a heartbeat before.
CRACK!
The sound was a sickening crunch of wood and bone. The beast, unable to stop its momentum, slammed head-first into a massive, iron-barked tree. It let out a high, pained squeal and collapsed into a heap, stunned and shuddering.
Yang Kai lay on the damp leaves, gasping, his heart a wild drum against the earth. He had survived. Through sheer, dumb luck.
A low growl reminded him he was not alone.
The second boar stood ten paces away, its small, red eyes fixed on him. It had seen its mate fall. It was not charging blindly. It was watching. Waiting. Its intelligence was simple, but its malice was profound.
He pushed himself up, his stolen kitchen knife held in a trembling, white-knuckled grip. The distance between them was a killing field. He was a boy with a dull piece of metal. It was a beast of muscle and rage.
There was no victory here. Only survival.
His eyes darted around the clearing. The trees. The damp earth. The massive, rotting log where he had first hidden.
An idea sparked in the terror-stricken void of his mind. A desperate, foolish idea.
He bent down, his hand closing around a loose, sharp-edged rock. He hurled it, not at the boar, but at a tree a few feet to its left. The rock struck the bark with a sharp thwack.
The boar flinched, its head snapping towards the sound.
It was enough. A flicker of distraction.
"Here!" Yang Kai shouted, his voice a reedy, cracking sound.
The beast's red eyes locked back onto him. It lowered its head, pawing the earth, and charged.
He didn't wait. He scrambled backwards, his feet finding purchase in the mud. He used the Flowing Water Step again, not as an elegant evasion, but as a series of controlled stumbles, leading the beast on a path directly towards the rotting log.
The boar was faster. Its hot breath was on his heels. He could feel the ground shake with its thundering hooves.
He reached the log and threw himself over it in a graceless, sprawling dive, landing hard in the wet leaves on the other side.
A sound like a collapsing wall echoed through the clearing.
The rotten log, weakened by decades of decay, shattered under the boar's immense impact. The beast let out a scream of fury and pain as its front leg plunged through the soft, mulching wood, the jagged splinters digging deep into its flesh. It was trapped, its charge broken, its leg hopelessly entangled in the ruin of the log.
High in the branches of an ancient, black-barked tree, a figure blended so perfectly with the shadows that he was all but invisible. Feng An, a scout of the Feng Clan, watched the scene unfold with the detached interest of a professional.
His master, Feng Xiao, had ordered him to observe the Yang Clan's second son. A boring assignment. The target was a known cripple, a famous fool. Feng An had expected to report nothing more than a few furtive trips to the library or perhaps a pathetic attempt to buy cheap wine in the Dregs.
When the target had snuck into the forest, Feng An had prepared to report a simple death by misadventure. He had seen the boars emerge and had already drafted the report in his mind: Target cornered by two Feral Boars. Deceased.
Then, the boy had moved.
The first dodge, Feng An, had dismissed as pure, animal luck. A terrified stumble that happened to be in the right direction. But the second encounter… that was different.
He used a distraction, Feng An thought, his eyes narrowing. He threw the rock to draw its attention, then used his own voice as bait. It was a crude tactic, but an effective one.
Then came the retreat. It wasn't a panicked flight. It was clumsy, yes, but it was controlled. The boy was leading the beast. To the log.
He used the terrain, Feng An noted, a flicker of professional respect cutting through his boredom. He identified a weakness in the environment and used the beast's own strength against it.
He recognized the boy's footwork, the low stances. It was a mortal martial art, not a cultivator's technique. Unrefined. Weak. But it was a coherent system. The boy had training. Secrets.
The cripple who had woken from an eleven-year coma was not what he seemed. He was not strong, but he was cunning. He was not powerful, but he was a survivor.
This was a far more interesting report than Feng An had anticipated. His master would be pleased.
Yang Kai lay gasping on the other side of the broken log, his body screaming in protest. He slowly pushed himself up, his limbs trembling. The clearing was filled with the pained, furious squeals of the trapped boar and the low, dazed grunts of the one by the tree.
He was alive.
His fear, which had been a paralyzing force, began to recede, replaced by a cold, predatory clarity.
Tallow.
The word was a mantra in his mind. Meat. Resources.
He got to his feet, the dull knife feeling slightly heavier, slightly more real in his hand. He approached the trapped boar. It thrashed wildly, its tusks gouging deep furrows in the dirt, but its leg was broken, held fast by the splintered wood. It was incapacitated. A perfect target.
He remembered the anatomical charts from the journals. The weak points. The paths to a quick, clean kill.
He moved to the creature's side, dropping into the low, stable Coiled Serpent Stance. He ignored the thrashing head and aimed for the soft, vulnerable spot behind its ear. He held the knife in a reverse grip, put his other hand on the pommel, and drove it downwards with all of his body weight.
The blade, though dull, punched through the thick hide. The boar let out one last, piercing shriek, its body convulsing violently. A torrent of hot, dark blood gushed over his hands.
Then, it was still.
The sudden silence was deafening. The smell of fresh blood was overpowering. Yang Kai stumbled back, his stomach churning. He leaned against a tree and vomited the stale bread he had eaten hours ago onto the forest floor. The reality of what he had just done, the intimacy of the kill, was a brutal, physical shock.
He was still wiping his mouth when a roar of pure fury erupted from across the clearing.
The first boar was back on its feet. It was dazed, a dark line of blood trickling from a gash on its head, but it was enraged. It saw its dead mate, and its small, red eyes fixed on Yang Kai with an unthinking, absolute hatred.
It charged.
This time, there was no trick. No plan. Only survival.
Yang Kai moved, his body responding with the drilled instincts of the Silent Coil. He used the Flowing Water Step, not to flee, but to circle. He kept a thick, iron-barked tree between himself and the charging beast. The boar, its coordination compromised by its head injury, slammed into the tree again, shaking its massive head in confusion.
He darted to another tree as it turned, its movements slower now, more clumsy. He was a gnat, a fly, always just out of reach. He wasn't fighting it. He was letting it defeat itself.
The boar charged again, a blind, furious rush. He sidestepped at the last possible second. The beast thundered past him and, its legs tangled by its own momentum, it stumbled and fell heavily onto its side.
This was his chance.
He lunged forward, all his fear momentarily burned away by a cold, desperate resolve. The boar was struggling to rise, its soft underbelly exposed.
He dropped to his knees, plunging the knife with both hands deep into the soft flesh behind its foreleg, aiming for where the heart should be. He felt a sickening pop as the blade sank to the hilt.
The beast let out a final, gurgling sigh, and the forest fell silent once more.
Yang Kai collapsed beside the massive carcass, his body slick with sweat and blood, his breath coming in ragged, painful sobs. He was surrounded by dead things. He was covered in their gore.
He had won.
He looked at the two massive boars. He did not see riches. Not in jades.
He saw tallow. Enough for a hundred pots of his crude paste. He saw meat, enough to keep him from starving for weeks. He saw a way to keep moving.
He had resources.
And for a boy with nothing, that was a start.
Cycle of the Azure Emperor, Year 3473, 6th Moon, 9th Day