The wind shifted as Ash stepped into the eastern waste—a vast, dying plain scorched by residual flame energy, where nothing green dared grow. Cracked earth stretched into the haze, dotted with jagged black stones and half-melted trees.
Somewhere in this dead zone lurked a Flame-Twisted Beast—once a normal creature, now corrupted by wild elemental energy and rumored to have slain three mercenaries this month alone.
Most would've gone in sword-first, guts blazing.
Ash came with a plan.
The Hunt Begins
Before he moved into the wild, Ash circled the edge of the territory, eyes scanning the environment.
He dropped to one knee beside a patch of scorched earth and pressed two fingers to the ground.
"High concentration of carbon ash… irregular paw prints. This thing isn't walking—it's staggering."
He moved west, tracing burn patterns like reading a map. Every ten steps, he marked a stone with a chalk-like resin and left small carved talismans.
"This feels familiar," the serpent murmured. "You're acting like a scout, not a cultivator."
"I was both," Ash replied, tying a length of high-tension thread between two trees. "Old habits die hard."
The Earthborn Tactician
Over the next hour, he mapped the terrain.
He used subtle environmental cues—bird flight paths, heat shimmer angles, and even shifting ash trails—to triangulate the beast's path. It was circling a deep ravine, possibly nesting inside during the day.
Ash prepared accordingly.
Three snare traps using tension-loaded bone-spring rigs scavenged from nearby skeletons.
A trigger mine, crafted from his flame essence channeled into a rune disk wrapped in crushed sulfur berries.
And a heat lure, a fake fire signature pulsing from a crystal shard to bait the beast.
He worked with the efficiency of a soldier in enemy territory, each move calculated, silent, and tight.
"You're wasting your gifts," the serpent said. "A true cultivator would storm in with power."
Ash chuckled, placing a final pressure plate into the ravine entrance.
"A true soldier lets the enemy burn itself first."
The Beast Emerges
Nightfall.
Ash crouched on a rocky ledge, breath steady, eyes locked on the valley mouth.
The wind howled, dry and sulfurous.
Then—crack.
A shimmer in the heat.
The Flame-Twisted Beast emerged like a nightmare stitched from ash and lava. It resembled a massive bear, but molten cracks ran across its fur like magma veins. Its eyes glowed dimly, as if blind, but the creature sniffed the air and growled—drawn by the heat lure.
It lunged.
Trigger one: Snap trap.
Steel-like bone clamps locked around its hind leg. The beast roared, rearing back in pain.
Trigger two: Rune mine.
The explosion caught it in the jaw, searing off part of its molten fur. Flame burst upward, throwing dirt and smoke into the air.
It staggered.
Ash struck.
Precision Strike
He moved like a wraith—low, silent, fast. He launched the Crimson Spiral Pulse, his new flame technique, straight into the beast's shoulder. The spiraling burst drilled into the corrupted energy field, bypassing its natural defenses and scorching into its essence.
The beast howled, its flame energy faltering in flickering bursts.
It swiped blindly.
Ash ducked under the arm and stabbed a flame-tipped dagger into its throat—crafted not for damage, but to deliver a shockburst of paralyzing fire Qi. The beast collapsed to one side, legs buckling.
He didn't gloat.
He finished it.
One last Spiral Pulse—fired point-blank into the creature's core.
It fell still, and the corrupted flames hissed into silence.
Victory—and Mystery
Ash knelt beside the beast's remains and inspected the core.
It pulsed strangely. Unlike normal flame beasts, this one's core carried a faint branding seal, half-erased.
A mark of ownership.
"It was released… or discarded," Ash muttered.
"Or tested," the serpent said darkly. "You may not be the only one being watched."
Ash crushed the core and absorbed a portion of its fire energy, his Soul Flame pulsing in response.
Then he stood.
A Warning in Smoke
By sunrise, Ash returned to Blackflame City and dropped the beast's blackened claws at the Mercenary Guild's front desk. The clerk barely glanced up before waving a stamp and recording the kill.
But as Ash turned to leave, a small scroll was slipped into his palm.
Unmarked.
Again.
He unrolled it outside.
"Next time, we won't let you walk away. The city burns for the Yin."
Ash burned the note to ash and turned toward the city's northern edge, where new bounties were posted on rusted walls.
He smiled coldly.
"Then let it burn."
End of Chapter 9