"Tila mentioned feral beasts moving through the West. More activity than usual. The road we were going to take passes close to that area." He looked at Wang. "If we go around. It adds half a day, but it’s safer that way."

Wang nodded.

Lin Wan looked between them, then at the rain.

"How long until the rain stops?" she asked.

"An hour," Qin Mo said. "Maybe two."

Lin Wan pulled her knees to her chest and looked at the entrance.

Two days to Beast City.

She just hopes nothing more unexpected happens.

. . .

It had been raining for more than five hours now, and there was no sign of it relenting. If anything, the heavens had opened up with a renewed, violent fury.

What had begun as a rhythmic drizzle had transformed into a vertical ocean, a grey and relentless wall of water that blurred the world into a smudge of charcoal and slate. Outside the cave, the earth was no longer solid; it had become a shivering, running sheet of liquid mud that swallowed the light.

The roar of the downpour was deafening, filling every jagged crevice of their shallow shelter like a heavy, suffocating presence.

Lin Wan huddled in the shadows, her damp clothes clinging to her skin with a persistent chill. She pulled her knees tight against her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins until her knuckles turned white. Her gaze was fixed on the cave floor, where a thin, dark tongue of water was licked its way across the stone, inching closer to their boots.

’That’s strange,’ she thought, a cold knot of dread tightening in her stomach. Alarm bells began to chime in the back of her mind, sharp and insistent.

"The floor is wet," she said, her voice small against the thunderous backdrop.

Qin Mo didn’t move his head, but his golden eyes tracked the encroaching water with a lethal sort of focus. "I see it," he replied, his tone clipped, vibrating with a tension he couldn’t quite hide.

Beside them, Wang was already a blur of motion. He surged to his feet, his broad shoulders blocking the fading light as he moved toward the entrance. He moved with the predatory grace of a male who had lived his entire life reading the moods of the wild, his head tilted as he scanned the chaos outside. His nostrils flared, scenting the air, his entire frame coiled like a spring.

"The slope above us," Wang called back, his voice deep and gravelly. He didn’t look at them; his eyes were glued to the cliffside. "The soil is getting soaked by water. It’s giving way."

As if the mountain had been waiting for his cue, the ground above them groaned—a low, grinding shudder that Lin Wan felt in her teeth. It wasn’t just a sound; it was a physical vibration of the earth admitting defeat.

Then, the world collapsed.

The entrance didn’t disappear entirely, but a heavy curtain of mud, tangled roots, and jagged rock folded downward with a sickening thud.

The impact cut the grey light in half, plunging the back of the cave into a murky twilight. A sudden, violent surge of brown water hissed across the floor, reaching for their ankles.

Lin Wan scrambled to her feet instantly, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She snatched her bag from the mud, slinging it over her shoulder with trembling hands.

"Everyone out! Quickly!" Qin Mo’s voice cracked like a whip, leaving no room for hesitation. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The group moved as one. Qin Mo didn’t wait for the debris to settle; he threw his shoulder into the partially blocked opening, the muscles in his back bunching and straining under his shirt as he forced a gap through the slurry of rocks. He gritted his teeth, his jaw set in a hard, uncompromising line as he shoved the weight aside.

Wang reached back, his fingers locking around Lin Wan’s arm with a grip that was firm but careful. He didn’t say a word, but the intensity in his eyes told her everything. He hauled her through the narrow opening, followed closely by Keal and Da Jun.

Stepping out was like stepping into a nightmare.

The path they had spent days following had vanished. In its place was a churning, waist-deep current of debris-filled water that moved with terrifying speed. The trail leading back was already a lost cause, submerged under a rising brown river that hissed as it ate away at the banks.

"There’s no way we can go back!" Keal shouted over the roar, his face pale, his eyes darting frantically toward the submerged path.

Wang’s expression didn’t flicker. He turned his face toward the rising slope, the rain matting his hair to his forehead. "Then we move forward."

They pushed into the storm. Every step was a battle against the suction of the mud and the weight of their sodden gear.

They had been struggling through the deluge for barely ten minutes when the very foundation of the forest began to vibrate. It wasn’t the rhythmic thrum of thunder or the chaotic shifting of the mud. This was different, a deep, rhythmic impact that traveled through the soles of Lin Wan’s feet, vibrating in her marrow.

She looked sharply at Wang. His body had gone completely rigid. The silver leopard within him seemed to be pacing just beneath his skin; his muscles were tensed to the point of trembling, his eyes narrowing into slits.

Qin Mo was standing perfectly still, his gaze fixed toward the west, ignoring the rain that lashed his face.

At the far edge of their path, the massive ancient trees shook violently once. Then again. On the third impact, the sound of splintering wood echoed like a gunshot. Every bird within a hundred-tree radius took flight at once, a panicked, black cloud of wings screaming against the oppressive grey sky.

Then, the treeline simply exploded.

Lin Wan’s mind scrambled for a name, a category, a description, but her brain rejected every thought. It was too large to be real.

The creature was gargantuan. Its body was armored in dull, grey-brown plates that looked like ancient stone, shedding water in massive sheets as it moved.

It had four legs as thick as the trunks of thousand-year-old oaks. Its neck rose high above the forest canopy, a long, serpentine column that curved down toward them with terrifying grace.

Its head alone was the size of a small house, flat, broad, and prehistoric. It possessed eyes that were like dark pits, reflecting no light, seeing only the obstacles in its path. It stood at least seventeen feet at the shoulder, a living mountain of scales and muscle.

But the phantom beast was only the beginning.

Behind it, pouring through the shattered trees like a secondary flood, came a dark tide of feral beasts. They were smaller, faster, a scattered and panicked mass of fur and claws.

They weren’t hunting; their eyes were wide with a blind, primal terror. They were being driven east by the sheer presence of the behemoth behind them.

And Lin Wan’s group was standing directly in the middle of their escape route.

"Stay close to me!" Wang roared.

Before the words had even left his mouth, his form blurred. The shift was instantaneous. Where the man had stood, a massive silver leopard now occupied the space, landing in the muck with a heavy splash. He positioned himself like a living shield between Lin Wan and the oncoming wave of teeth.

Qin Mo stepped to her other side, his hand momentarily hovering near her shoulder as if to steady her, his face a mask of grim determination.

The first wave of feral beasts hit them like a physical current. Wang was a whirlwind of silver fur and claws, sweeping two attackers aside with a single, powerful swipe that sent them tumbling into the rising water. Keal caught a mid-sized beast mid-leap, his fingers digging into its throat as he drove it into the saturated earth.

Da Jun planted his feet, his chest heaving. He took the impact of two charging beasts at once, his feet didn’t slide an inch. With a roar of effort, he hurled them back with a level of raw power that proved his strength had surged far beyond his old limits.

Lin Wan pressed her back against a shelf of rock, her eyes wide as she tracked the gaps in their defense. She tried to make herself as small as possible, staying exactly where Wang and Qin Mo could see her.

But the phantom beast was still coming.

It wasn’t attacking them, it didn’t need to. It was simply moving, and they were insignificant specks in its path.

To something that size, a group of humans and shifters was no different than the mud or the fallen trees. Its next step landed twenty feet to their left, and the shockwave of the impact sent a wall of mud and water flying into the air.

The ground buckled. Lin Wan staggered, her boots sliding in the slush.