Tsem checked his preparations carefully. Everything was ready. There wasn’t much to get ready, of course. This time the plan was straightforward. Bait the gold pinfish onto dry land and fight it. Simple, simpler than Tsem would have liked. He wished he had a better strategy, but his hunting manual didn’t include this demonic beast, and his observations hadn’t gleaned any information that would let him trap it. He’d just have to kill it with his own two talons.

  The breeze was auspicious, the kind that made for a good hunt. Clear weather, good visibility. His spear was freshly sharpened, his net attached to his arm in ‘shield mode’, a net of needleroot woven in double layers held against the leather. It was his best chance of blocking the beast’s pins.

  Tsem watched the stream as he walked. Gradually, it turned to rapids again. The gold pinfish wasn’t guaranteed to be in the same spot, so Tsem kept his head on a swivel. He was always nervous, venturing away from his usual territory, and today was no exception. He moved with even more caution than usual, watching the trees. There could be other demonic beasts around. Valesin had warned him of extremely powerful divine beasts on the mountain itself, and Tsem knew the demonic beasts there were to be feared as well.

  When he didn’t find the pinfish where he expected, he was forced to keep walking, to keep searching. Eventually, maybe a mile or so beyond where he’d seen the beast, he realized he’d set foot on the mountain itself. Mount Ghalri was so large that it was difficult to define where it started and where the surrounding forest began. He could probably have argued that he’d already been on the mountain near Valesin’s lair, but standing here, that felt wrong.

  Here, the whole world felt saturated with qi. It made Tsem nervous. He was about to turn around when he caught sight of a flash of gold in the stream. He rolled his shoulders, easing the nerves out. He was ready for this. He’d been fighting relentlessly, he had a decent understanding of the spear, and his net felt almost like an extension of himself. Most importantly though, just last night he’d finished purifying the small intestine meridian. With three meridians open, he was stronger than ever before and had qi ready to be burnt.

  He stepped out of the tree line and onto the rocks that made up the stream’s shores here. It didn’t take much to get the gold pinfish’s attention. Two clacks of his spear against a stone and the beast reared around, fast as a nestling after their first taste of sap.

  Tsem’s aim was simple to start the fight. Stay alive, stay out of reach. That was easier said than done. Once it had closed to a few yards, the pinfish started burning a lot of qi. Four weeks ago, Tsem wouldn’t have had a chance of reacting. Now, though? Tsem immediately matched the qi his opponent burned with his own, stepping back swiftly through the rocks, avoiding each, making sure to make note of all the terrain around him. One slip against a slick patch could mean death. One heel misplaced, meeting rock, and he’d be flailing on his back, as good as dead.

  The initial burst wore off as the pinfish realized it wouldn’t catch him off guard, but Tsem didn’t stop burning his own qi, instead moving to the outermost edge of his spear’s range. He switched to strength and thrust his spear forward, feinting for the beast’s left shoulder. It flinched to the right. Tsem pulled his feint, pointing his spear directly at an eye.

  For all his training, the pinfish was no interella or ghalri raptor. It moved its head again, leaving Tsem’s spear to cut a narrow trail of blood along the side of its eye socket. Superficial harm.

  A rapid burst of qi let the pinfish burst around Tsem’s side, flanking. He knew this move. It was the same movement he’d seen the pinfish injure his old ‘friend’ the bladebear with. It was about to launch the pins in its back at him. Burn strength, spin the net.

  With the thick net moved between him and the beast, the pinfish seemed to adjust its strategy at the last moment, angling differently than Tsem remembered. In a moment of intuition, Tsem moved his net to cover him from above. It was a challenging maneuver, and not one he’d ever really practiced. Again, it was his training that saved him. A slight adjustment on the fly to where he provided the strength from his burning qi, a change in his finger position to account for the difference in angle. It wasn’t that big a deal having lived in battle for the past few weeks.

  Pins rained down on him from above, piercing the needleroot in places, but all were eventually thrown aside, kept at bay by the high-quality leather and the strength of his spinning motion. Yet, the fight was not over, or even the clash.

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  The moment it had shot its pins, the pinfish had moved, burning qi for the speed to cover the short distance between them. In that moment, Tsem could only stumble back slowly, forced to keep burning qi for strength, to spin the net. He couldn’t move away fast enough.

  Jaws snapped down, latching onto his hunting leathers and managing to pierce through in places, causing little drops of blood to begin flowing down his leg. Not good. The beast had a grip on him. Tsem burnt qi for more strength, twisting his spear down at one of the holes left behind by a fired pin. The pins themselves were already regenerating, being made from some gold-aspected qi unique to the demonic beast. This was still a low grade 2 demonic beast though. Sure, it could recreate its pins far faster than a bladebear might regrow one of their claw sheaths, but a few instants was not enough time.

  Tsem’s blade dug into the beast’s back, hitting something soft. It yowled but didn’t let go of his leg. That wasn’t entirely unexpected, this was a demonic beast after all. Still, the spear gave him an extra bit of leverage, and helped keep the beast in check.

  It was a battle of strength, not an ideal position. Tsem kept himself calm though; he needed to retain focus to keep burning qi. He burnt for durability, doing his best to keep his leg intact. Even with three meridians open, he was no match for the pinfish’s raw ferocity, especially since he couldn’t burn qi for strength and durability at the same time. He still didn’t have that trick down.

  Thinking quick, he tossed his net aside, reaching around in a pocket of his leathers, yanking out the knife that had once been his only lifeline. Facing down the star panther, the day he’d met Kanuk, he hadn’t been able to even reach for it. Already, he realized, he was someone completely different. Already, he had followed his path and become someone who could protect himself.

  Tsem thrust forward with the knife. He had no great skill in using it as a weapon. Fortunately, that didn’t matter. He was too close to miss. The pinfish stubbornly held on, its teeth shredding through leather and leg. Even when Tsem stabbed it in the eye, it hardly flinched. When he went for the second eye though, the goldfish hastily moved away.

  Tsem dropped his knife back in a pocket, burning qi for strength and pulling his net back to him. Speed. Again, the pinfish moved to flank Tsem, but this time it had no pins to launch at him. As he moved, he took the needleroot net and cast it aside. His leg wouldn’t hold out for long, and neither would his qi. He needed to end this fight.

  Tsem threatened with his spear and net alternatively, keeping with great difficulty and cost of qi outside the beast’s striking distance. He was looking for a chance to tangle the beast in his net. He didn’t have the strength to pierce its scales. He needed to thrust directly through an eye or one of the refilling pin holes to deliver a fatal blow. The only way that could happen was if he limited the beast’s mobility with the net.

  Tsem angled to the side of its destroyed eye, trying to remain patient as his qi burnt away, bit by bit. The beast, fed up with his dancing around it, moved forward, jumping at him with increased qi burning all throughout it, its scales seeming to shine brighter than the sun.

  It was a mistake. Tsem recognized the chance, burning more qi himself to step aside and toss the net over. The pinfish’s legs tangled badly as it came down, causing it to fall onto the ground, becoming more ensnared by leather each moment.

  Tsem moved in for the kill, his spear gripped in both hands, his beak curved up in a triumphant smile. He was premature though, the golden qi, those reforming pins, exploded in a pulse that hit him directly in the chest, throwing him back to land painfully across two large rocks.

  Spinning to his feet, wind whipping smoothly past his hair, Tsem moved in again, his spear posed. The gold pinfish was still struggling, confused about how to escape the net. It had managed to gain its feet though, its head completely clear, and those powerful jaws were snapping.

  Tsem didn’t hesitate. This might be his one opportunity, the thread connecting him to his net had slipped off when he’d been thrown back. There would be no second throw.

  Tsem burned qi for a huge burst of strength, and the pinfish roared its defiance, doing the same, pulling at the net with all its might. For a moment, he thought the leather might pull apart, but it held. Its limbs, unable to make further headway, sent the demonic beast into a sprawl. Tsem’s thrust was true, piercing the already wounded eye and going deeper. When he pulled it out, he knew his foe was dead.

  Tsem coughed, his chest flaring with pain. That pulse of qi, as rough as it had been, had done some damage. His leg was still bleeding where he’d been caught as well. He’d need to patch it up before he left. That could wait though. His prize was before his eyes. The beautiful gold scales glimmered in the late-morning light. They’d have fetched a huge pile of contribution points even without the bounty. With it…

  Tsem’s knife went to work. It wasn’t an easy task, the scales were incredibly tough, and he had to put a lot of strength behind the blade. Still, he persevered and before too long, every bit of the valuable material was stashed away in his pack.

  Tsem settled down on a nearby rock, pulling out some basic bandages he’d picked up from the market, a stall near Lyung’s place. He was partially finished with bandaging his leg when he felt a presence nearby. He looked up, grabbing his net and spear, pulling his pack closed and onto his back. He was in no shape to fight again. He’d have to make an escape.

  Before him, silhouetted between him and the treeline was a familiar sight. A massive bear stood, chest out, marked with scars, freshly healed ones on each shoulder and stone sheaths encasing its claws, covered in flecks of dried blood.

  It seemed when the beast had fled, it had done some training of its own. Tsem could feel its strength, its qi felt like a bonfire. Was it bigger too? Not good. He knew with sudden certainty what he was looking at. The bladebear had ascended. No longer was it a low grade 2 beast. High grade 2? Low grade 3? Stronger?

  Whatever it was, Tsem had no chance against it, not even if he were in peak condition. His first thought was to take to the trees again, like he had before. That wouldn’t work though. He’d be dead before he made it. Even if he did, few trees would resist the beast’s strength now.

  A second skull, made from stone qi, wrote itself into existence at the beast’s will, a technique covering its head. The stone skull had two great horns on it, each vicious looking. Tsem turned and ran, not back towards Valesin’s lair as he’d have preferred, not across the stream, but up. Further up the mountain.