First Blood

The final three days of their journey were a slog through a damp, oppressive landscape. The solid dirt roads of the south had given way to the sucking mud of the bogs, and the air grew thick with the cloying smell of decay and stagnant water. A perpetual, clammy mist clung to the gnarled, leafless trees, muffling all sound and painting the world in disorienting shades of grey.

"We're entering the Whispering Fen," Lily announced on the seventh morning, her voice a low hush that was quickly swallowed by the fog. "From here on, no talking unless it's an emergency. Watch your footing. Watch the trees. Watch the water. Watch everything."

They moved in a tight diamond formation: Jay at the front, his hand resting on the hilt of his sabre; Lily and Elara on the flanks, their senses sharp; and Alex in the rear, his heart hammering a nervous rhythm against his ribs. The endless training, the confidence from his new realm, it all felt distant now. This was no training platform. This was a predator's territory.

Jay was the first to find a sign. He held up a fist, bringing the group to a halt. Kneeling, he pointed to a set of deep, three-toed tracks pressed into the mud near a pool of black, glassy water. "It's big," he whispered, the sound barely carrying. "And fresh. The water's still seeping back in."

The trail led them deeper into the fen, to a small, rocky outcropping that rose from the murky water like the spine of a dead leviathan. The area was eerily silent, the usual drone of swamp insects noticeably absent.

"This is it," Lily mouthed, pointing her chin towards a dark crevice in the rocks. "It's lair."

They readied themselves. Elara drew her cutlass, its blade gleaming even in the dim light. Jay's knuckles went white on the grip as he pulled his sabre, its edge gleaming with a faint earthen light. Lily's whip was a coiled serpent in her hand. Alex took his stance, forcing his breathing to steady.

They waited. One minute. Two minutes.

Jay gave a slow shake of his head and motioned forward. "Maybe it's not home."

The moment he took a step, the placid pool of black water beside them exploded.

It wasn't that the beast was hiding in the water; the beast was the water. Its mottled green and brown scales had allowed it to sink just below the surface, its form perfectly obscured by the dark, reflective pool. Now, it rose—a three-meter-tall behemoth of muscle and malice, spraying them with foul-smelling water. Its reptilian head swiveled, yellow, slitted eyes fixing on them with cold intelligence. The long, venomous spines on its back rattled, a sound like dry bones scraping against each other.

"Isn't this way bigger than a wolf, Lily?" Jay asked, barely able to overcome his immediate terror.

Lily, confused and scared herself, shouted back, "I'm not sure what's going on, it's way bigger than what was reported in the quest posting.

Before anyone could fully process the ambush, its back arched, and a volley of black, barbed quills shot through the air.

"Wall!" Jay roared with pure defensive instinct. He slammed his free palm onto the ground. A thick, curved wall of solid earth erupted from the bog, intercepting the deadly volley, stopping the quills but crumbling from the impact. And Jay erected another wall, preparing for the next attack.

The wall protected them, but it also blinded them. "Jay, I'm cut off!" Lily yelled in frustration from the other side. As she was trying to find an opening to attack.

The Marshlurker, a creature of cunning, exploited their momentary confusion. It lunged around the wall, its razor-sharp claws aimed directly at Alex.

"Alex, move!" Elara cried, her cutlass flashing as she moved to intercept. She coated the blade in shimmering water Qi, her strike a fluid, curving an arc through the air meant to deflect the beast's charge.

Alex dodged, but his footwork, honed on flat stone, failed him in the thick, sucking mud. He slipped, stumbling backward as he tried to regain his balance. The beast ignored Elara's attack, shrugging off the blow to its thick scales, and corrected its course, its gaping maw closing in on the off-balance Alex.

In that split second, Jay moved. He abandoned his wall and threw himself in front of Alex, his sabre held in a defensive stance as a bronze sheen coated his skin. He met the beast's charge head-on.

The impact was brutal. Jay was thrown back several feet, a pained grunt forced from his lips as he landed hard in the mud. He was already pushing himself up, his earthen defense holding firm, but a single, black-tipped quill was embedded deep in his shoulder. "I'm hit!" he yelled, his voice strained. "Poison!"

"Hold it off!" Elara commanded, her expression hardening with focus. She rushed to Jay's side, pulling an antidote vial from her pouch.

Lily's whip cracked like lightning, wrapping around the Marshlurker's leg, trying to slow its rampage. Alex saw his opening and charged, aiming a punch at its exposed flank. He poured all his strength into the blow, feeling his newly formed Ironbones resonate. The punch landed with the force of a battering ram, just barely staggering the colossal creature. But in his charge, he had gotten too close.

The beast whipped its massive tail around, catching him square in the chest and sending him flying into the rock wall of the outcropping. The air rushed from his lungs, pain flaring across his back. His reforged sturdy body had saved him from shattered bones, but the concussive force was still immense.

"Alex!" Lily screamed, regaining her footing as she dodged another swipe of the beast's claws. "Don't just go charging in blindly!"

The battle had descended into chaos. They were four individuals fighting one monster, and their lack of coordination was showing. Elara, now tending to Jay, couldn't provide ranged support. Lily was struggling to control the beast's movements on her own. Jay, gritting his teeth against the creeping paralysis, saw his friends in trouble.

He slammed his hand on the ground again. This time, it wasn't a wall. A series of jagged earth spikes shot up from the mud around the Marshlurker's feet, not to impale it, but to corral it, forcing it away from Elara.

Enraged by the spikes and Lily's stinging whip, the beast let out a piercing roar and charged the most immediate threat: Lily.

Time seemed to slow for Alex. He saw the beast's claws, the grim determination on Lily's face as she braced for the impact, his mind screaming at him to think of a plan, to do something. But there was no time for a plan. There was no time to think.

So he stopped trying. His mind went blank. His body moved.

The frantic energy in his chest calmed, replaced by the quiet hum of pure, unfiltered instinct. The world narrowed to a series of movements, a dance of survival with the beast. It lunged. He slipped left. Its claws passed inches from his head. Alex was now inside its guard.

The teachings of the scroll, the month of relentless sparring, the thousands of dodges and weaves, all coalesced into a series of fluid motion. The beast's weight shifted to its back leg, and it attempted to use its tail again.

He was no longer trying to fight. Alex was simply a body, moving as it was meant to. The Art of the Headless Body had finally, truly, taken over.

Lily, Jay, and Elara watched in stunned silence. Alex was no longer just dodging; he was a phantom, weaving under swipes, flowing around tail whips, staying so close to the beast that its primary weapons were rendered useless. He moved with a grace that was both beautiful and terrifyingly efficient. He flowed under the beast's thrashing head, his gaze locking onto a patch of softer, lighter-colored scales on its throat, a place its spines and scales couldn't fully protect.

He planted his back foot in the mud for leverage, his entire body coiling like a spring. He drew on the deep reserves of his Qi, pouring every bit he could into his fist, the raw power of his newly forged Ironbone cultivation realm, and channeled all of it into a single point at the tip of his knuckles.

He struck upward.

There was a sickening wet crunch. Alex's fist, empowered by his full strength, punched straight through the soft flesh and cartilage of the Marshlurker's throat. The beast froze. Its malevolent yellow eyes went wide with shock, then slowly dimmed. It let out a choked gurgle, its massive body swaying for a moment before it crashed to the ground, twitching once before going utterly still.

Silence descended on the battlefield, broken only by the ragged, panting breaths of the four friends. They stared at the dead monster, then at Alex, who was standing over the corpse, his fist dripping with black blood, a look of pure, dazed disbelief on his face. The adrenaline of the battle began to fade, leaving behind a profound sense of exhaustion and a strange, hollow victory. It was his first kill. He had taken a life, and the reality of it settled in his gut like a cold stone. There was no magical surge of power, no rush of absorbed energy, only the grim finality of his actions.

"Alex," Elara said softly, bringing him back to the present. "Are you alright?"

He looked at his hand, then at the still creature, and gave a slow, deliberate nod. This was the reality of this world. Survival.

"Good," Lily said, her voice sharp but her eyes showing a hint of concern. "Because we have a lot of work to do." She gestured at the massive corpse. "The venom spines, the hide... and more importantly, its heart crystal. If we want to get paid, that's where the real worth is."

She looked at Alex and Jay, imparting a piece of crucial cultivator knowledge. "Remember this. A beast's energy doesn't just flow into you when it dies. Its power is in its materials. You refine its core into pills, you forge its bones into weapons, you tan its hide into armor." She paused, her gaze turning serious. "They say that for the truly ancient and powerful beasts, usually A-Rank and above, there's more. You can absorb its 'Beast Will' directly from its beast core, gaining a piece of its innate abilities and a massive boost to your cultivation. But that's the stuff of legends. For now," she said, pulling out a carving knife, "we do it the old-fashioned way."

---------------------------

The Great Plaza of the Azure Plum Blossom Sect was filled with a sea of disciples, all looking up at the high platform where the sect's most senior figures stood. The air buzzed with anticipation.

Elder Lin stepped forward, his calm voice amplified by his Qi, reaching every corner of the Sect.

"Disciples of the Azure Plum Blossom Sect!" he announced, his gaze sweeping over the crowd. "The time for testing has come once more. Let it be known that the selection for our next Core Disciples is at hand."

A wave of excited murmurs rippled through the inner disciples.

"The tournament," he declared, his voice ringing with finality, "will commence in two weeks."