Forst and Fury

The frost came first.

Shen woke to the crunch of silver-edged grass beneath his bare feet, his breath misting in air too cold for early autumn. The chill clung to his skin like the touch of a corpse, unnatural and invasive. Across the field, the leaves of the Seed of Possibility shivered, their edges rimed with ice that hadn't been there the night before.

Ling stood rigid beside him, her three tails flared like battle standards, the intricate markings along them glowing faintly against the unnatural cold. Her lips peeled back in a silent snarl, revealing fangs that gleamed with a thin layer of frost.

They're here.

The thought came not as words, but as a deep, resonant certainty—the land itself whispering through the roots beneath his feet.

Magistrate Gao arrived at midday with a delegation of five.

Four wore the plain grey robes of Imperial tax assessors, their belts cinched tight, their hands hovering near hidden weapon sheaths. Their eyes swept the fields with the sharp, assessing gaze of hunters rather than bureaucrats.

The fifth was a woman.

She stood slightly apart from the others, her ice-pale hair braided tight against her scalp, not a single strand out of place. Her robes were a shade lighter than the rest, the fabric so finely woven it seemed to shimmer like frozen mist in the sunlight. Her smile was pleasant, practiced—and never once touched her glacier-blue eyes.

"Farmer Shen!" Gao's voice boomed across the field, too loud, too cheerful. "The Inspector sends his regards! These good men are here to reassess your land's tax status."

Shen leaned on his hoe, his grip tightening imperceptibly. The recently awakened boundary stones hummed beneath his feet, their energy threading through the soil like veins of molten gold.

"My taxes were settled last week, Magistrate."

Gao's smile hardened. "New regulations," he said, spreading his hands in a mockery of apology. "The Inspector insists all spiritually anomalous croplands require—"

The pale-haired woman's boot scuffed the earth near the first boundary stone.

Frost crackled outward in jagged lines—then sizzled into steam as the stone's carved spiral flared emerald-bright.

Her smile didn't waver. But her eyes—her eyes burned.

Three things happened at once.

The Ironwood Sapling erupted skyward with a sound like tearing canvas. Its trunk thickened to the width of a barrel, steel-bark branches lashing through the air like whips. One snapped toward the lieutenant, forcing her into a fluid backward flip—but the roots beneath her feet twisted, coiling around her ankles like serpents.

Ling moved. One moment she was at Shen's side, the next she was a streak of silver and copper, her tails blazing with light. The markings along them resolved into perfect replicas of the boundary carvings, and the air around her warped, bending like heat haze. Two charging disciples stumbled as the ground beneath them shifted, their knees buckling as they crashed into each other with a grunt of pain.

Shen's vision tunneled.

The System's final threshold shattered.

Power flooded his meridians—not the brittle, straining energy of his sect days, but something deeper, older. The earth itself breathed through him, its pulse syncing with his own. He could feel the roots beneath the soil, the stones humming with ancient energy, the very air thick with the land's fury.

He pulled.

The lieutenant's ice daggers formed in her hands with a sound like cracking glass. She lunged, blades flashing—only for them to shatter against a suddenly rising berm of packed earth.

Where her Qi touched the soil, Shen felt it like a brand—cold and invasive. But the land remembered this assault. The same frozen blades had pierced its heart centuries ago.

"Pathetic farmer tricks!" she snarled, her breath frosting the air. She formed an ice-spear, its tip gleaming like a shard of winter sky, and thrust.

Shen didn't dodge.

He stamped.

The ground beneath her feet liquefied, swallowing her to the knees. Ironwood roots erupted from the mire, coiling up her legs like shackles, their edges serrated enough to bite through fabric and flesh alike. She hissed, her Qi flaring as frost spread in desperate, jagged patterns—but the roots only tightened.

Magistrate Gao shrieked as Ling herded the fleeing disciples into a bramble patch that hadn't been there moments before.

The lieutenant spat blood onto Shen's freshly tilled soil. Her braid had come undone, her fine robes torn and muddied. But her glare was still sharp enough to flay skin.

"This changes nothing," she hissed. "The Frozen Blade—"

"Wants the Maw," Shen finished. He crouched, meeting her gaze. "Tell your Patriarch this: the land remembers who wounded it. And it chooses its guardians now."

As they dragged her away, Old Tan emerged from the treeline, his gnarled hands clasped behind his back. He surveyed the battlefield—the churned earth, the frost melting under the sun's renewed warmth, the Ironwood's roots slowly retracting—and grinned toothlessly.

"Not bad for your first fight, boy." He tossed Shen a rusted iron key, its teeth worn smooth by time. "But next time, use the real boundary stones. The last four are underground."

Ling sneezed frost onto the key, her tails flicking dismissively.

Shen pocketed it, watching the horizon where storm clouds gathered.

The real battle was coming.

End of Chapter