Chapter 24 – The Breathing Earth
The night on the northern plains was a thing of unease.
The air hung thick, the color of dying embers bleeding into a horizon that never seemed to end. The trio had set up camp at the crater's lower rim, the fire crackling softly within a ring of black stones. Even the flames looked wrong — too green, too alive — as if it were burning the breath of the land itself.
Vaibhav sat cross-legged beside the fire, his eyes narrowed. The temperature didn't feel right. It wasn't warmth but pressure — every breath heavier than the last, every heartbeat echoing faintly beneath the earth.
Across from him, Shin gnawed on a dried ration bar, muttering, "Tastes like beast piss… and despair."
Alicia didn't even glance up. She was watching her scanner, the small glass display flickering with unreadable data. "Qi fluctuation patterns are looping again," she said quietly. "Negative to infinite. It's impossible. Something down there is rewriting the flow itself."
The ground gave a subtle shudder — a heartbeat-like tremor.
Shin looked up, expression tightening. "Please tell me that's just indigestion."
The fire hissed. The green glow pulsed once, then twice.
Shadows spilled outward, long and bending like tendrils.
And then, from the fissures in the earth, they began to crawl out.
The Night Attack
The first one was barely recognizable as a beast.
Its limbs were twisted into wrong angles, flesh peeled away to reveal glowing threads of Qi pulsating through open veins. It dragged itself forward, bone scraping against obsidian, its eyes two glassy orbs leaking red vapor.
Alicia's voice dropped to a whisper. "Scavengers… but mutated. Their neural Qi is exposed."
More came after. Dozens — crawling, limping, twitching in spasms as if something invisible pulled their bodies like broken puppets.
"Formation!" Vaibhav snapped, drawing his blade. His Qi flared around him in faint silver arcs, grounding the distortion near their camp.
Shin was already in motion, his gauntlets igniting in orange light. "On it, bossman."
The first scavenger lunged — faster than its broken frame should've allowed. Vaibhav's blade sang through the air, severing its neck in one fluid strike.
The head hit the ground and rolled, but the body kept twitching, crawling toward him on its hands.
Shin crushed it with a kick, the impact leaving a crater. "You sure that's dead?"
Vaibhav didn't answer. His gaze swept the horizon — silhouettes in the mist, closing fast.
The earth itself groaned beneath the weight of their movement.
Alicia slammed her hand on her stabilizer pad, a faint blue dome erupting around the trio. "Field active! The Qi around us won't go wild — just don't step out!"
The next wave hit like rain.
Claws scraping stone, air vibrating with unnatural hums. Vaibhav met them head-on, sword weaving arcs of metallic light. Shin fought beside him, fists like falling meteors, each punch scattering chunks of crystallized flesh.
But even as they fell, the corpses twitched. Their eyes flared again, jerking upright before collapsing into spasms.
Alicia's brow furrowed. "They're still moving even after death… their Qi link isn't severed!"
Vaibhav sliced another beast in half, shouting, "Then sever it harder!"
The battle stretched through the night — chaotic, relentless, yet perfectly choreographed between the three.
Shin's laughter echoed between the strikes. "Oi, Vaibhav — remind me again, are we exterminators or part-time necromancers?!"
"Shut up and punch!" Vaibhav barked.
By the time the final beast fell, the crater rim was littered with twitching corpses that refused to die quietly. The night had gone still, but it wasn't peace — it was the silence that came before something worse.
Shin kicked one of the corpses over, panting. "Ugly bastards… what the f*ck even mutated them like that?"
Vaibhav crouched beside a larger carcass. The creature's chest was split open from his strike — inside, faint red-gold veins pulsed like dying embers.
Something caught the light.
Alicia leaned in. "Wait— don't touch it yet—"
Vaibhav ignored her. He sliced open the flesh carefully. A crystal shard the size of a fist gleamed within — faintly pulsing, alive with concentrated energy.
"A Beast Shard," Shin muttered. "Exalted tier."
He plucked it out with gloved fingers and tossed it lazily toward Vaibhav. "Jackpot. You earned it."
Vaibhav hesitated for a moment — then let the shard sink into his palm. The energy surged like liquid lightning through his veins, spreading warmth into his limbs.
A faint flicker of text shimmered in the air before his eyes:
[+4 Mutated Exalted Power Points Gained]
But then something else happened.
One of the scavengers nearby gave a low, rattling hiss. Its body collapsed fully — but from its heart cavity, a faint green glow rose like vapor. The Life Force.
It floated toward Vaibhav naturally, like mist drawn to a storm.
When it touched his skin, the air stilled.
His breath slowed, steadied — syncing, unconsciously, with the faint rhythm under the ground.
A pulse. A beat. The earth was breathing.
Alicia watched him carefully. "You just absorbed… life essence."
Vaibhav opened his eyes slowly. They gleamed faintly, but not black — only reflecting the campfire's ghostly green. "It feels… old. Like something beneath us is dreaming."
The night bled into hours of silent hunting.
They didn't rest — couldn't. More mutated beasts came in waves, drawn to the distortions. The trio fought like phantoms, movements honed, wordless coordination built through instinct and survival.
Shin's fists shattered a Mutated Exalted-class beast's skull; Alicia's pulse rifle vaporized another's crystalline spine. Vaibhav moved between them, cutting precise arcs through the chaos, every kill feeding that steady rhythm within him.
Between fights, Shin wiped sweat from his brow and checked his display. "Status time, baby."
[Power Screen: Shin]
Name: Shinosuke Nohara
Age: 17
Height: 179 cm
Weight: 68kg
Lifespan: 250 years
Ordinary: 100/100
Mutated Ordinary: 25/100
Exalted: 100/100
Mutated Exalted: 18/100
Mythic: 29/100
Mutated Mythic: 3/100
Transcendent: 4/100
Mutated Transcendent: 0/100
He whistled. "Not bad, huh? My stats finally look less pathetic."
Alicia arched a brow, still firing small stabilizer bursts into the ground. "That's your takeaway after nearly dying twice?"
Shin grinned. "Hey, if you're not tracking your power levels, are you even living the main-character life?"
Vaibhav glanced at him, expression flat. "If this is the main-character life, I want a refund."
Shin laughed mid-fight as another beast lunged at him. "Oi, Vaibhav — be honest. You're some kinda Xianxia protagonist, right? First week here, you piss off enemies. Next thing, beasts line up to evolve you. That's xianxia MC behavior."
He ducked under a claw, counter-punching with a flare of Qi that crushed its skull.
He continued talking. "Wait—shit, that makes me the best friend who dies first, huh?"
A pause. He froze mid-movement, face blank.
Then he shouted, "Nah! No way I'm dying so soon — I'm still a virgin! I haven't even gone on a date with Nanao onee-san!"
Even Alicia — usually the calmest among them — choked back a laugh. "Focus, you idiot!"
For a fleeting second, the tension cracked. The dread lifted.
It almost felt human again.
By the time dawn brushed faint light over the crater rim, the battlefield was unrecognizable. The ground was scorched and uneven; the bodies of beasts had dissolved into red dust, seeping into the earth like blood absorbed by soil.
Alicia's instruments flickered. She frowned, adjusting the frequency. "The ground's vibrating."
Thud…
Six seconds later — Thud…
Shin felt it too, his grin fading. "That's… not seismic, is it?"
"No." Alicia's voice trembled faintly.
The red dust shimmered under the morning light, sinking deeper into the soil until nothing remained.
And from the center of the crater, a faint breath escaped — a plume of hot air rising like a sigh.
Vaibhav turned toward it, his voice low.
"It's not sleeping anymore."
The wind fell silent. The fire went out.
And for the first time since they entered the crater, the earth exhaled.