Xiang was used to facing down malicious intent. By their very nature, cultivators tended to impress their desires and will on the world around them, and the more powerful the cultivator, the more apparent this became.

  However, before this, the worst suppression Xiang had ever suffered had been when that Foundation devil had chased him in the hidden realm. Being a whole major realm above him, Xiang had felt like a boulder had been placed on his shoulders, and it had taken all of his willpower plus his desperate desire to live that had allowed him to power through it.

  But compared to the mere presence of the woman before him, Xiang couldn't help but realize that, just like him, that devil cultivator had ultimately been an utter nobody, because the difference was beyond what mere words could describe.

  "Oh my, that look on your face..." The woman giggled, her claw-like nails digging into his face as she turned it this way and that. "You're quite scared, aren't you? I can almost smell it..." She sighed, reaching up with her other hand to gently pat his cheek while the many tails sprouting from her back swished back and forth in a tellingly excited manner.

  Her smile widened even further in a deceptively predatory way as she watched the boy tense up further at the contact. Letting out another giggle, she finally released him, allowing him to collapse before her feet.

  Moments later, she began circling him, her every movement inhumanly graceful as she eyed him like a particularly fascinating dessert. "Hah... You'll make a lovely toy, I can already tell." She murmured, letting out another giggle as Xiang futilely tried to get up, only to fail miserably as the monster before him allowed just the slightest bit more of her presence to leak out, smashing Xiang back into the cold, hard floor.

  "Now, now... Toy... No need to be so wistful..." She laughed mockingly as Xiang gasped painfully, struggling to so much as breathe under her oppressive aura. "After all, my dear... We haven't even begun yet. Do try to save your struggles for later, child. Unresponsive toys are so dreadfully boring, after all."

  Gritting his teeth and feeling his master's feather-light and wordless encouragement brush against his mind, Xiang forced himself to speak, each word feeling as if it had to be torn out from his throat using hooks and barbs. "Y.... Y-your... Your Majesty..." He gasped out, "I... I can... can bargain..."

  "Hmm?" The woman hummed, tilting her head in an almost owlish manner. "Bargain? Oh my, my... How wonderfully naive you are."

  With a flick of one of her tails, the woman resumed walking in circles around him, hands clasped behind her back as she spoke. "Child, I think you misunderstand your situation. You, a mere human, dared step into my claimed territory, and worse yet, dared to do so at one of my most valued cultivation sites."

  She came to a stop right before his head, crouching down and resting her cheeks in her hands as her slitted eyes stared right into his soul. "Not even your precious Sage, damn his name, could save you now, child. After all, as dictated by the agreement between him and us Beast Kings, any human that dares intrude into our core territories without explicit permission... Is ours to do with as we please."

  Xiang's teeth ground together hard enough to cause him genuine pain, and with another titanic effort of will, he spoke again. "Didn't... Didn't know... This was your territory... Your Majesty..." He choked out. "Secret... Exit, to the... Hidden realm. I can... Show you."

  His words came out stuttered and halted, but nonetheless did come out. Unfortunately, the response they were given was less than positive, as the fox woman before him threw her head back and laughed.

  "Oh, you're funny." She eventually managed to say after a good dozen seconds of howling laughter, her voice still full of mirth as she reached down and gave his cheek a few mocking pats. "Brat... How do you think my underlings found you so quickly? I'll answer for you: It's because I ordered them to guard that exit just in case fools like you stumbled out of it. The game was rigged from the start, you naive fool."

  Xiang blinked in astonishment at her words, and despite his master still hiding himself away, he could've sworn he heard the man let out a frustrated sound at the revelation.

  "Really, it's a win-win no matter what." The woman mused as she stood back up, not even looking at him as she ranted freely and openly.

  "Thanks to it, not only can I cultivate so much faster and more because of the leaked high-quality Qi, but when it opens, little walking treasure bags like you sometimes stumble out of it, bringing me all sorts of wonderful little presents without me even having to lift a finger! Truly, I am blessed by the heavens, aren't I?"

  Her voice grew more and more unhinged the longer she spoke, and when she finally seemed to take notice, she forcefully shook her head, visibly forcing herself to calm down. "Bah, but you don't need to worry about any of that, dear." She said, looking back down at Xiang's collapsed form. "Instead, why don't you help me decide what to do with you?"

  She put a hand under her chin, her voice full of dark amusement as she started listing off all the dark fates that potentially awaited him. "Should I turn you into a cauldron? Maybe skin you alive? Or, heh, I could cook you up and use your stringy little body to make a delicious roast. No, no, maybe I should use you to grow some Jade Jewel Wasps, those are always useful after all... Or maybe I could..."

  As she continued listing off increasingly sadistic and demented fates, her eyes gleaming with excitement as she watched him shiver and break out in a cold sweat, Xiang had to fight an almost impossibly hard battle to prevent the bile rising in his throat from coming out even as he had to contend with the growing animal terror inside of him.

  He wasn't unfamiliar with danger, nor with being threatened with horrible fates. No cultivator worth their name was, although admittedly, he was probably on the higher end when it came to being familiar with such things.

  But even that familiarity had its limits, and for Xiang, being held by a sadistic beast three major realms above him as she excitedly told him how she wanted to skin and cook him alive definitely shattered that limit.

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  It was only thanks to his master's extremely faint presence and the memory of his plan that Xiang was able to hold himself together, and as he watched the monstrous woman before him start to grow impatient, he knew he had to act on that plan now, lest it be too late.

  And so, just as the fox woman's clawed hand started to reach out toward him, Xiang forced himself to speak.

  "Wait," he said, and out of all the difficult things he had done throughout his life, forcing himself to speak through the oppressive aura of a Nascent Soul cultivator definitely ranked amongst the top three. "I have... A tribute, for my life..."

  "Oh? This again?" The fox woman rolled her eyes, clicking her tongue. "Didn't you hear what I said before, child? You are mine, everything you own is mine, and I... I..."

  Her voice trailed off as Xiang, unknowingly aided by his master's impossibly skilled yet subtle aid, managed to retrieve a singular azure-colored pill from his ring's storage space, manifesting it into the real world where it immediately fell to the ground with an almost inaudible 'thud'.

  The fingernail-sized pill rolled a few inches forward before coming to a stop, its deceptively innocent and honestly unassuming shape doing little to contain the overwhelming medicinal aura that immediately erupted from it, filling the prison entrance with a scent so potent it was outright nose-burning.

  But as strong as it might've been for Xiang, it was nothing compared to the effect it had on the fox woman, whose pupils constricted into pinpricks while every hair on her body stood on end, her mouth opening and closing several times as her eyes locked onto the pill before her.

  "This... What is this..." She murmured, her voice hoarse. With a mere thought, the pill flew off from the ground and straight into her hand, and without her even knowing it was happening, drool began to fall from the edges of her mouth.

  "Focus, disciple." His master's voice echoed in Xiang's mind, snapping him out of the trance he had fallen into due to the pill's scent. "You're almost there, you have to push through this last hurdle!"

  Xiang inhaled sharply, his master's words and voice helping stabilize his psyche. "I... I don't know. I found it in the hidden realm. I-" He explained, but before he could even bother offering up a believable story, the fox woman waved her hand, her eyes still locked onto the pill in her hands.

  An impossible force seized control of him, and without him even understanding what happened, he found himself flying back through the prison, bars and cages blurring around him until, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the force dissipated, leaving him back in the cell he'd been in before.

  ?Xiang barely had time to look up before, with a thunderous slam, the door to his cell slammed closed, locking itself a moment after, leaving the boy both stunned and disoriented.

  "Well, that went well, I would say." His master's voice echoed in his mind, and it took Xiang a moment to realize that the monstrous aura suppressing him had vanished. "No lost limbs, no crippled cultivation, and all your skin still where it should be... Yup, I'll call this a win, even if it was a rather close one."

  "Master, please..." Xiang rasped, pushing himself to his feet. His whole body felt terribly weak and drained, his limbs trembling so hard that he had to stumble towards a wall and lean on it just to prevent himself from collapsing back onto the floor. "Not now..."

  "... Haah, as you wish, disciple." His master sighed, his joking tone draining away to be replaced with a more somber, but still encouraging one. "But what I said stands true regardless. Congratulations, disciple, you survived the hardest part. You did it."

  Xiang looked around at his damp, cold, stony prison, finding himself in the same situation he had been in this morning, except now with one less pill to his name. "... As you say, master." He sighed weakly.

  ?He could almost feel the eyeroll his incorporeal master sent him. "I'm serious, disciple. All that's left to do is wait, and then, once that greedy fox is out of the way, all that you'll need to do is run away. Easy, no?"

  ?For a long moment, Xiang said nothing as he took the following minutes to steady his mind and breathing, grimacing as he gingerly poked at his ribs, finding them to be painfully tender after the rough treatment they'd been subjected to.

  Then, once his equilibrium had been reestablished, Xiang quietly spoke. "Master, please be honest with me. What are my real chances of surviving this?" He asked, his voice trembling as he pleaded with the man who had already done more for him than anyone else ever had.

  And, for once, it seemed to work as his master went quiet for what felt like an eternity and a half. "You have a chance, Xiang." His master eventually ended up saying, his voice pained. "That's far more than what most could ever hope to ask for in a situation such as this."

  Xiang exhaled, closing his eyes as he nodded. That was... Fair. Unpleasant to hear, but fair regardless.

  Having felt how even the slightest sliver of that monster's presence had been enough to all but crush him, he knew just how painfully, dreadfully out of his league he was. He was just a fourth-level Qi Refining nobody without a clan to his name nor the talent to make up for it, as many, many people had forcefully reminded him throughout his life.

  In a way, Xiang could at least take comfort in having done something none of those same people could ever hope to replicate: Having survived a Nascent Soul beast's attention for at least a little while.

  ?Then, his master's presence perked up. "It's starting." He warned Xiang, his voice just the slightest bit relieved. "Good, good. For a moment, I feared the worst, but I suppose beasts will always be beasts after all."

  Xiang tensed up, bracing himself despite knowing it would likely do him little good. "Master, are you sure this will work?" He asked, perhaps foolishly so, especially considering it was rather late for regrets.

  His master scoffed. "That greedy, foolish fox just ate a pill I concocted specifically for novice Spirit Sovereigns. If she doesn't just straight up explode, I'll be very surprised. Speaking of, get down, disciple. NOW!"

  Without even thinking about it, Xiang unconsciously did as ordered and fell to the floor, curling up into a protective ball, unaware of the strange, ethereal 'shell' that his master erected around him.

  And then the shockwave of oppressive, explosive aura hit them.

  Xiang's eyes tightened as the world trembled around him, an echoing scream of agony and rage and terror drowning out all other noises and thoughts. The prison trembled, dust falling from the ceiling even as the aura only grew more and more powerful and chaotic with each passing second, just as the screaming grew louder and louder.

  Time passed, minutes crawling by as the world shook and the raging aura grew ever more chaotic and destructive. At one point, he could've sworn he heard two loud, wet 'pops' from some distance away from his cell door, but he was too busy desperately holding himself still to bother thinking about that.

  Then, slowly, the world-shaking screaming began to die off, and with it, so too did the chaotic aura slowly retract, pulling back like a satisfied tsunami that had run its destructive course.

  Seconds passed. Xiang cracked an eye open, finding himself mildly surprised to see that he was still alive. Cautiously, he stretched out his limb, testing that everything was still where it should be, and after confirming such, he slowly pushed himself up to his feet.

  The air felt... Different. Lighter. Warmer. It was a strange change, because to be honest, he'd never even noticed the dark, vile, crawling weight that had pressed down on his shoulders ever since he'd awoken in this prison, but now that it was gone, the difference was impossible to miss.

  "Is it... Is it done?" He hesitantly asked, looking around the cell and idly noting how much dustier it was now, so much so that he had to hold back a sneeze.

  "..." For a long moment, his master didn't answer, and as seconds passed without a response, Xiang found himself growing increasingly concerned.

  Yet, before he could say another word, his master finally broke the silence, and his next words just about caused the boy to have a heart attack.

  "Disciple... I'm sorry."