The cultivator remained half-submerged in the soil, only his head exposed, breath slow, qi coiled tightly around him. A thin layer of earth slid over his shoulders, blending him into the churned ground like a stone among stones.
His eyes darted.
Fire.
Screams.
Qi surging, tearing the clearing apart.
*Good… good…* he thought, pulse steadying. *Let them kill each other.*
They were doing exactly that.
He pressed two fingers together beneath the earth, activating the **concealment talismans** sewn into his sleeves. The qi around him folded inward, dulling his presence, smearing his scent, hiding even the rhythm of his breath.
*They won't notice me,* he reassured himself. *Not in this chaos.*
He watched a cultivator dragged screaming into the soil.
Another was split open by the fox's spear.
The rat-headed man roared orders, ignored entirely.
The cultivator's lips curved faintly.
*When it's over… I'll rip the remains.*
Then—
Something **shifted** behind him.
Not qi.
Not sound.
Pressure.
Warm. Close.
The cultivator froze.
A breath brushed the back of his neck.
His concealment talismans were useless.
They hid qi.
They hid sight.
They hid sound.
They did **not** hide **scent**.
Behind him, unseen, the grass parted without a whisper.
The lizard had been there the entire time.
Invisible.
Still.
Patient.
Its jaws opened wide.
No roar. No warning.
Just inevitability.
The cultivator realized it a heartbeat too late. Pupils shrinking as instinct screamed—he tried to dive back into the earth, qi flaring in panic—
—but the soil **did not yield**.
Something else had already claimed it.
The lizard lunged.
Its fangs sank into the cultivator's skull with a wet, final *crack*.
No scream escaped.
The jaws tightened once. Then again.
The body went slack.
The lizard held still, head lowered, jaws locked, ensuring there was no movement left. Then it released the corpse, letting it slump back into the torn earth.
Blood seeped into the soil.
The lizard lifted its head.
Blank gaze. Calm breath.
---
**Moments before…**
The forest had not yet erupted.
No screams. No chaos. Only tension, stretched thin, like a string about to snap.
The lizard was already there.
Crouched low. Invisible. Paw resting lightly against the earth, feeling the subtle currents of qi moving through soil and stone. It wasn't *attacking* yet—just listening.
Then—
Something touched the earth wrong.
A hollow. A displacement.
The ground in front of it **shifted**.
Slowly.
Carefully.
A **head** emerged.
Human. Male. Eyes sharp, cautious, scanning the clearing above.
The cultivator was using an **Earth Escape Art**, rising just enough to observe without exposing himself.
He did not see the lizard.
Could not.
But the lizard felt him instantly.
Not with sight. Not with smell.
With **the earth itself**.
The soil around that head felt… *busy*. Stretched. Forced.
The lizard froze.
Blank eyes stared forward, unblinking.
*…Hma.*
Not fear. Not alarm. Just **curiosity**.
*What is this?*
It tilted its head, studying the phenomenon the way it studied techniques—without prejudice, without emotion.
The cultivator below shifted his gaze, gathering qi.
The earth around his neck tightened as he prepared to **strike upward**, shaping stone into a blade meant to erupt from below.
The lizard sensed the intent.
Not danger.
**Action.**
Its mind connected the dots instantly.
*…its the one also using the earth to attack.*
A pause.
*The earth does not resist him.*
Another pause.
*But it can.*
The lizard did not move. It did not strike.
It simply watched, paw still pressed against the soil, mind quiet as it observed the technique forming.
*…Interesting.*
The cultivator's qi surged. The earth began to harden.
And in that single heartbeat—before the battle truly began—the lizard learned something new:
*Earth escape is not hiding.*
*It is entering the same space as the earth.*
The flashback ended there.
Because the next moment…
The lizard had already decided.
It crouched beside the fallen cultivator, jaws still glistening with blood. Its tongue flicked out, tasting the crimson smear from its maw.
The body lay twisted, half the skull mangled beyond recognition. Concealment talismans hadn't saved him. His careful planning, his patience, his belief that he could hide… all meaningless.
The lizard's gaze remained outwardly blank, yet inside it catalogued everything: the scent of fear, the texture of the earth where the cultivator had tried to vanish, the subtle disturbances left behind even while hidden.
*…Watching does not save you.*
Its claws pressed lightly into the soil. Tail twitched once. Quiet. Calm. Methodical.
It sniffed the air, detecting traces of the remaining cultivators—some still alive, some already injured, some unaware of the threat beneath them.
The lizard rose slightly, standing over the corpse. Its jaws parted briefly—not in roar, not in triumph, but in **calculation**. Every dead body, every failed technique, every misstep was data.
It lowered its head again, letting the scent and qi of the clearing settle around it. Then, invisibly, it melted back into the grass, poised, patient, waiting for the next mistake.
The fox's voice came through transmission, calm and steady:
"Good. One less to worry about."
The lizard flicked its tail once in acknowledgment, mind already scanning the ground, the air, and the faint tremors of remaining cultivators. The hunt had only just begun.