The fox stood over the corpse.
It lowered its head and **licked the blood from its maw**, slow and deliberate—not out of hunger, but habit. The taste told it everything it needed to know: fear, desperation, the exact moment hope had snapped.
Its ears flicked.
Footsteps.
Panicked breathing.
Qi surges pulling away from the clearing.
The fox straightened.
"…No," it said quietly, voice low and cold. "That won't do."
Its gaze lifted toward the forest, where shadows were already breaking formation—where some had begun to **run**.
"If even one of you escapes," the fox continued, tone almost conversational, "the story changes."
Its tails spread slightly, stirring the air.
"Rumors form. Names spread. Greed grows teeth."
A pause.
"And then this becomes *annoying*."
The fox turned its head slightly, speaking not aloud this time, but through **voice transmission**, calm and precise.
*None of them leave.*
The forest answered.
The ground shuddered as **earth snakes burst up again**, not clean or elegant, but **wild**, twisting and crashing through roots and stone alike. They struck without pattern—slamming into trees, coiling around cultivators mid-sprint, forcing others to turn back into the chaos.
From the shadows, a cultivator screamed as the ground seized his ankle and dragged him under.
Another leapt skyward—only to be smashed aside as the fox's spear snapped back into its grip and was **thrown again**, not to kill, but to cut off retreat.
The fox moved.
Fast.
**Inevitable.**
Each step sent pressure rippling through the ground, its presence heavy enough that even those who couldn't see it felt something ancient and predatory closing in.
"Run," the fox said softly, almost kindly. "It makes this easier."
Somewhere unseen, moving low through the grass, guided by scent and chaos rather than sight, the lizard shifted position—quiet, invisible, and ready.
Because this was no longer an ambush.
It was a **cull**.
And none of the prey understood yet that the forest itself had already chosen a side.
The ground **answered again**—but not only to the lizard.
A cultivator near the edge of the clearing slammed both palms into the soil, teeth bared as qi roared out of control.
"Die—!"
The earth convulsed.
Jagged **stone lances** erupted upward in a wide fan, tearing through roots and moss as they shot toward anything that moved. One earth snake was impaled clean through the head, its body shuddering before collapsing into rubble.
Another cultivator followed.
Then another.
Suddenly, the battlefield **shifted**.
The forest floor became a warzone of competing wills—earth surging upward, collapsing, reshaping, cracking again under overlapping techniques. No longer a single dominant force, but **many hands tearing at the same body**.
From above, boulders ripped free from the ground and hovered, trembling under strained control before being hurled sideways—sometimes at enemies, sometimes blindly into the chaos.
A masked cultivator snarled, eyes bloodshot.
"Who's doing it?! Who's controlling the ground?!"
No answer came.
Because there wasn't one.
The lizard crouched low, invisible, claws pressed to the soil. Feedback surged through its body—resistance, interference, **foreign qi** scraping against its control.
*…So I am not alone another is controlling the earth as well.*
Not surprise.
Recognition.
The earth rippled.
Not violently.
Not explosively.
But **wrong**.
The fox felt it a heartbeat later—the pressure beneath its feet shifting in a way that didn't belong to the lizard's wild constructs.
"…Hm?"
Its ears snapped downward.
Too late.
The soil **parted silently**, not bursting but *opening*, and a cultivator emerged from beneath the fox's shadow like a ghost rising from water. His body was half-phased, coated in yellow-brown qi, eyes sharp with panic and calculation.
**Earth Escape Art.**
The fox clicked its tongue.
"So you *do* have someone competent."
The cultivator didn't answer.
He struck.
A blade of compressed earth shot upward—not at the fox's torso, but its **legs**, precise and ruthless, meant to cripple and pin.
The fox twisted, tails snapping outward as a barrier flared. The blade grazed fur, carving a shallow trench before shattering.
*I just killed one… and another shows up immediately,* the fox thought coolly.
*Lucky the first one didn't seem to know Earth Escape.*
Before the thought fully settled, the soil near the clearing **collapsed inward**, then **erupted upward** as the cultivator burst out again, cloaked in yellow-brown qi. His body was half-solid, half-phased as he completed another Earth Escape mid-motion.
He didn't surface fully.
He **lunged from below**.
A spear of hardened stone shot upward toward another cultivator's back—one who had been fighting an earth snake, completely unaware.
The stone spear punched through his protective qi with a wet *crack*.
The cultivator screamed.
Then the ground swallowed him whole.
Chaos spiked instantly.
"Someone's underground!"
"Earth escape—watch your feet!"
Too late.
The soil turned hostile.
Hands.
Spikes.
Jaws of stone.
Not all of them were the lizard's.
Multiple cultivators began using **earth-based arts**, desperate and panicked, attacking anything that moved—or anything they *thought* moved.
One tunneled beneath another and erupted directly under him in a geyser of dirt and stone.
Another slammed both palms down, triggering a localized quake that shattered roots and knocked allies off balance.
The clearing became a **three-dimensional battlefield**—above ground, on ground, and **within** it.
The fox laughed.
Not loudly.
Just once.
A sharp, satisfied sound.
"Since you've decided to dig like rats," it said, spinning its spear and planting it into the soil.
"Then you can die like one."
Its qi poured downward.
Not refined.
**Heavy.**
The ground screamed.
A shockwave rippled through the earth, disrupting escape paths, forcing two half-phased cultivators violently back to the surface—their bodies tearing free in sprays of dirt and blood as their techniques collapsed.
They hit the ground coughing, bones cracked.
The rat-headed cultivator snarled, finally moving in earnest.
"Idiots!" he barked. "Hold the ground—don't—"
He stopped.
Because something else moved underground.
Something **wrong**.
The lizard crouched, paw pressed lightly to the soil.
It didn't try to control the earth neatly anymore.
It didn't need elegance.
It **let go**.
The earth snakes below lost cohesion—then **multiplied**, distorting, shifting from shaped constructs into **roving disturbances**. The soil buckled and surged unpredictably, like something alive thrashing beneath the surface.
Tunnels collapsed.
Qi pathways destabilized.
Earth escape became **lethal**.
One cultivator tried to dive back underground—
—and screamed as the soil **rejected him**, crushing inward instead of yielding.
The lizard tilted its head.
*…They're using the earth like a limb.*
A pause.
It pressed its claw deeper.
The ground surged again.
Above, the fox moved through the chaos like a shadow with weight—spear flashing, illusions snapping in and out, never committing fully, always forcing mistakes.
Below, the earth churned with betrayal.
No safe direction.
No clean retreat.
The forest had turned on them.
And it was only getting worse.