Xan Li Fang pivoted with desperate agility, his boots losing traction against the slick, moss-covered roots, while his mismatched oculars dilated in sheer terror as the mysterious voice was abruptly punctuated by a violent, kinetic impact. A projectile, fletched with obsidian plumage, buried itself deep into the metallic bronze bark of the Gunsang tree, the shaft quivering mere inches from his visage, sending sharp splinters exploding outward to lacerate his cheek. Paralytic fear, raw and primal, seized his faculties, bypassing rational thought as he scrambled backward to interpose the shimmering, expansive trunk of the tree between himself and the unseen assailant. "Identify yourself! What is your purpose, and why do you assault me without provocation?" Xan bellowed, his voice fracturing under the weight of his rising panic. From the dense, primordial shadows of the ancient forest, a figure materialized, shrouded in a tattered gray vestment that appeared to devour the ambient light, while a featureless mask of dark timber completely obscured his countenance, lending him the ominous semblance of a faceless wraith.
However, it was the weapon grasped in his hand that commanded immediate attention; it was a formidable, menacing spear, its terminus fashioned into a brutal trident forged from metal that glowed with an internal, scorching heat and was engraved with fierce, incandescent symbols resembling the mythical Fiery Fire Bird. The atmosphere surrounding the stranger shimmered with thermal distortion and a suffocating spiritual pressure, causing Xan to tremble as if he were standing in the proximity of an open blast furnace. "Boy, I discovered the Gunsang Tree first," the masked figure declared, his voice metallic, frigid, and utterly devoid of human empathy. "If you allow the tip of your finger to graze even a solitary fruit, do not anticipate any mercy from me." Xan stammered, attempting a nervous laugh that manifested as a dry, pathetic wheeze, "S-sir, I truly became disoriented and arrived here by accident; I possess no knowledge of this location's significance."
"Do you perceive me as an imbecile who would entertain such nonsensical rambling?" the masked man scoffed, advancing with a threatening stride as the trident hummed with lethal resonance. Although Xan was petrified, a sensation more potent than fear clawed at his viscera: a starvation so profound it felt as though his stomach was digesting its own lining, a metabolic consequence of the teleportation that had drained his reserves. "I harbor no interest in your fruit, sir, but I am perishing from hunger," Xan bargained desperately, elevating his hands in a gesture of capitulation. "I require only a dozen fruits—merely ten to satiate my appetite—and the remainder shall be yours; do we have an accord?" The masked man froze, and a fleeting surge of Killing Intent—a dark, psychic wave of malevolence—washed over Xan, causing his left Red Eye to throb with sharp pain in reaction to the hostile energy.
Yet, as rapidly as it had manifested, the killing intent dissipated, for the masked man seemed to assess Xan's eccentric attire, his complete lack of cultivation, and his pathetic desperation, ultimately deeming him unworthy of effort. "You appear to be a decent youth, albeit a foolish one; very well, take them," the man conceded, lowering his spear slightly to dismiss Xan as a threat. Xan did not hesitate; he rushed toward the low-hanging boughs where the Gunsang Fruits were warm to the touch, pulsing with a soft luminescence, and plucked ten of them while inhaling their sweet, floral fragrance. Driven by a maddening, visceral starvation, he thrust the initial fruit into his oral cavity, savoring the incredible sweetness that was immediately followed by a fiery aftertaste which surged through his somatic system. He devoured them with voracious gluttony, swallowing the flesh and rind without proper mastication, consuming one after another in a frenzy.
The masked observer watched him, realizing the gravity of the situation only after the boy had passed the point of no return. "Halt! Cease immediately! That is the Gunsang Heavenly Fruit!" the man below, his tone now laced with genuine horror. "You imbecile! You cannot consume them in such a manner; a single fruit contains sufficient pure Qi to elevate a cultivator by an entire realm, and ingesting such a quantity is instant d—" "But... I have already consumed them!" Xan choked out, wiping the nectar from his chin, his eyes wide and innocent as he swallowed the tenth mouthful. "Why did you not offer a warning earli—?" The inquiry died in his throat as the agony struck. This was not the chronic, dull ache of his terrestrial illness; Rather, it was a cataclysmic internal detonation, a tidal wave of potency intended for divinities slamming violently into the fragile, constricted meridians of a mortal vessel.
Simultaneously, deep within his core, the seal his mother had placed upon his Void Dragon Bloodline reacted defensively to the foreign invasion, causing the two colossal forces—the Holy Qi of the fruit and the Void Qi of his lineage—to reject each other with violent volatility. Xan's heart felt as though it were being compressed by an invisible, titanic fist. Thump-THUMP-CRACK. His physical form became impossibly heavy, as if gravity had increased tenfold, and when he looked down at his extremities, the veins beneath his epidermis turned obsidian and bulged to the point of structural failure. Then, the inevitable rupture occurred; the blood vessels beneath his skin burst instantly, and the vital fluid did not merely leak but sprayed out from his eyes, ears, nose, and every pore, transforming him into a grotesque effigy of a blood-filled sack punctured by a thousand needles.
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!" He screamed, a high, piercing resonance of absolute torture that sliced through the ambient jungle noise. "Fool! The power is dismantling you from the inside out!" the masked man roared, retreating to evade the crimson spray, his voice saturated with shock. Blinded by agony, his vision reduced to a monochromatic wall of red, Xan stumbled backward, losing all spatial orientation; he did not move toward the figure for assistance but staggered drunkenly toward the open air behind the tree, toward the precipice of the floating island. "Boy, retreat from the abyss!" the masked man yelled, urgency replacing his cold demeanor. "If you fall here, you shall plummet to the Mortal Continent below; the distance is insurmountable, and returning to the Supreme Continent will be an impossibility!"
But the warning arrived too late, drowned out by the roaring of rushing blood in Xan's ears. With a final, explosive spasm as yet another wave of volatile Qi ruptured his musculature, Xan Li Fang's footing found only the empty void, and he tumbled helplessly backward over the edge. He screamed as he plummeted, watching the beautiful, deadly light of the Supreme Continent shrink rapidly above him, becoming a distant star until the darkness between worlds swallowed him whole; the last image his blood-soaked eyes registered was the masked man standing on the cliff's edge, the Fiery Humo Trident glinting coldly in the fading light. Reality dissolved into a deep, throbbing ache that penetrated to his very marrow. Xan's consciousness drifted in a sea of agony, bobbing to the surface for fleeting moments where he detected the scent of smoke, aged timber, and damp earth—olfactory signals far removed from the bronze trees and glowing fruits of the high world. He discerned faint, muffled voices hovering above him, rough in timbre and speaking a dialect that was difficult to comprehend. "...The boy fell with great velocity from the sky, crashing directly through the roof of the barn; his injuries are severe..." an elderly voice murmured. "Observe this profuse bleeding... yet his physique is remarkably resilient, for his bones are already knitting together; he will survive this..." another voice replied, sounding astounded. The voices faded as the darkness dragged him back down, yet he realized he was alive; somehow, he had survived the fall, but the soft, rough voices confirmed the masked man's final warning: he was no longer on the Supreme Continent, the domain of gods, but had been cast down to the lower realm, trading one deadly jungle for an even more primitive, isolated fragment of reality.