Black smoke billows from the collapsing roof as ever more flames whip across the evening sky. The building can't take much more of this punishment, it will collapse.

  Aching pain rattles up Ren's legs as he forces himself into motion. Flailing limbs trigger fuzzy pins and needles all across his skin, his body lurching into wakefulness as adrenaline pounds in his ears. Heart drumming like a well-paid percussionist, Ren grinds teeth as his options grow slimmer with every belabored breath.

  The roof is a no-go, the fire qi surging to ever greater intensities makes sure of that, and the window is too small to fit through, which leaves the hallway as Ren's only option.

  Bursting through his door, Ren stumbles into the hall just as a length of flame-ridden timber impales his bed. Worried faces fill the hallway as doors fling open and Ren's neighbors flood from their rooms.

  "What's going on?" A woman, slender in frame and round in face, asks as she steps beside Ren. A younger girl—a sister?—peers from around the woman, her eyes wider than saucers.

  "I-I don't kno-" A bloody scream splits the air, cutting Ren's words off at the root, before a sudden gurgling croak cuts it off in turn. The far end of the hallway explodes with fire as the stairs vanish from flame and smoke.

  From the smoke emerges a lithe shape shrouded in cloth-like flames. The long snout of a fox greets the terrified disciples with a smile born of pain-derived pleasure. Claw-clad paws clink against the hardwood floors, the only warning before death rears its wicked head.

  Blood sprays as the fox monster splits a man from neck to navel, his sizzling fluids splattering against a wall. A woman screams, first in fear, then in gut-wrenching agony as the fox vomits flames all across her flesh. Healthy skin turns charcoal black in an instant as the fire qi bites deep, the woman's suffering ending with merciful swiftness.

  Ren stares, mouth dry, as the smoke stings his eyes. Another death tears him from his stupor, sobs filling the air soon silenced as chaos descends upon the hallway. Disciples turn on disciples as they rush away from the beast happily slaughtering those too slow or too stupid to run. Hands press against faces as both their owners fall to the gluttonous flames.

  Bursting into motion, Ren's thoughts are a blur as instinct drives his actions. His hand whips out, engulfing the stunned woman's with a sudden swiftness, as he pulls her along in his wake.

  Mind racing a mile a minute, Ren's eyes lock to the wide window at the end of the hall, opposite the fox mowing through scrambling disciples like the farmer's scythe through wheat. Blood slicks the floor as bones snap like twigs; last gasped screams carve themselves stroke by bloody stroke into permanent memory.

  Qi-strengthened stride carries Ren and the woman to the window and qi-enhanced muscles bash through the shutters. Ren casts one last look over his shoulder, limbs freezing in place as he balances at the precipice, and a hollow hand takes hold of his heart.

  Twin embers, empty of all save the primal pleasures of carnage, burn like brotherly suns as they stain Ren's memory. The fox smiles, the disciples' dormitory left a charnel house with its flame-bearing passage, as a torch-lighting snort flees its snout as if even it is desperate to escape its master's clutches. The snort-flung flames splash against the rug-topped floors, igniting it in a ravenous blaze.

  The fox holds Ren's gaze for half an eternity, more than enough to make its intentions clear. It wants Ren to escape, and it wants him to know it allowed his flight.

  Lessons from a lifetime ago resurface as Ren refuses the gift horse's maw. Pulling the catatonic woman to his chest, his feet leave the ground as he dives backwards through the bashed-open window.

  Pain stabs through Ren as his tailbone takes the brunt of the fall. He writhes on the brick-paved street, pain stiff muscles clapping teeth shut. Free of his grasp, the woman babbles half-conscious words as she staggers to her feet.

  "Gotta," she wheezes through bruised lungs as she sways forward on shaky feet, "gotta save Hong!"

  The sister!

  Ren's eyes snap wide as he rolls to his forearms, force of clenching teeth focusing his mind and carrying him through the aching pain. He reaches out, his cry lost to smoky inhalation, as the woman stumbles back into the flame-wracked building.

  Wood snaps, walls crumble, and the entire structure comes crashing down.

  Ren stares, arm still outstretched, as the lashing tongues of hungry flames feast upon ashen rubble and broken corpses.

  Somebody sobs, somebody cries, and the street soon fills with Outer Disciples and mortal residents all asking the same question.

  "Where are the Inner Disciples?!" A man yells over the din, his eyes shaky with fear and dilated in terror.

  Another man clambers up onto a stack of crates, his booming, confident voice gathering attention to himself as he waves his arms over the crowd. "We need to ru-" The words go unfinished as the man vanishes in a puff of pink mist, a feat soon repeated by others in the audience as the screams—Heavens, the screams—start up again.

  Down the street slithers a snake, its shovel-like head bigger than an ox cart. Unhinging its jaw, four man-sized fangs flash with green light as water qi bursts out in an invisible blast. One of the screams stops as yet more rise to replace it.

  The snake hisses, its split-tipped tongue tasting the man-mists, and breaks the spell over the horrified crowd. A wave of motion starts from somewhere as, hollowed eyed and slack jawed, Ren moves with the ever-thinning herd's panicked flight. His feet move as if by their own volition, some primordial instinct guiding his actions even as his mind retreats into a shell.

  A glimpse of familiarity catches Ren’s eye as a certain street-facing countertop comes into view. A palm presses against its surface as legs sweep up and over. The backroom's door slams open and shut as Ren slides down the wood and to the floor.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  His legs splaying out before him in the narrow corridor linking the front to the butcher's station in the back, Ren's head falls limp as a long-held breath finally escapes his lungs.

  A momentary respite from the ever-lessening screams grants a chance to think, to plan, and to process. Head clasped between hands, Ren stares at the hard stone floors as he counts the heartbeats hammering in his ears.

  By count five-hundred, his heart rate lessens enough that thinking is again a credible possibility. Working slowly yet steadily, gentle circles rubbed against the jaw muscles loosens the iron-strong clench of clenched teeth. Chest rising and falling at an ever-more-even tempo, Ren releases his head as he tilts his gaze to the ceiling-concealed sky.

  The horrors are far from over, but the majority of casualties in monster attacks happen in the first few minutes. The simple fact that Ren still lives means the odds of his survival have risen dramatically. And survival is the goal—an obvious one, perhaps, but having a certain objective to pursue is always better than vague directions to half heartedly follow.

  With the objective determined, step one of making any plan is over and done with. Time for step two; defining obstacles.

  The sharp sound of a half-grunt half-wet-snort rips Ren from his thoughts, the noise soon followed by the horrid squelchings of a hungry diner. Earth qi cycles at the other end of the walkway, the flow of meridians taking it around and through a faintly-defined orb of pale white color—a monster's core of yang.

  Ears straining to their limits and fear clambering up the base of his spine, Ren creeps forward. Bracing a hand against the retaining wall, he peers around the corner.

  Knees buckle as sudden vomit builds, his stealth kept only by sheer will and the braced hand on the wall. His throat burns as several swallows drive the acidic bile back down to the depths. Pale eyes shake in their sockets as they lock with brown counterparts.

  Fan Gu Chenling stares back at Ren with empty eyes and lips frozen in silent surprise, his killer's head buried deep in piles of intestines greeting the air for the first time as the street watches from a demolished wall. A pig monster stands over Chen, the rolling slabs of fat shake with every cavernous bite and gulping swallow. It chokes down bite after bite; its eyes are far bigger than its mouth, yet it cares not for the effort, for the volume of its meal. All it knows is to feed—to devour.

  Frozen in shock and mind-melting horror, Ren can only stare as the pig continues its gluttonous feast. Hatred swirls in his heart, fiery anger curling fingers into fists. How... How dare he...

  Ren is a failure. This is a conclusion not born of cruel self-deprecating humor nor of the dampest depression, but of simple facts. Ren failed his parents, he failed the Provincial Exam, he failed to follow the path of his life laid out from birth.

  Ren is a failure, there is nothing more to it than that.

  What he is not, what he has never been, is a coward. He wasn't ready for the exams, yet he faced them with head held high and back straight. He wasn't ready to manage a family's finances, yet he bore the consequences like the ox does the plow.

  So why is it now, when he is ready to begin the path to immortality, that he shows cowardice in the face of reality? He ran from the fox, he ran from the snake, he will not run from the pig. Chen deserves better than that. Chen will have better than that.

  To properly kill a pig, one must strike it at a point just above between the eyes. The blow must be strong and precise, else the pig will not be properly stunned and can and will cause injury to the butcher. A blow with correctly applied force will scramble the brains and leave the pig reeling and effectively braindead.

  Unfortunately, the normal methods won't work on a monster. But, as luck would have it, Ren has methods beyond the norm.

  Gathering the qi in his body, Ren forces it through his meridians and into his hand. Instincts guiding his actions, the meridians of his knuckles bulge and swell, the red marks of lashing heat shining just beneath the surface. Flames split skin as a rush of superheated air clouds about his hand. Flesh reddens as crimson droplets sizzle to steam long before they touch the ground.

  Swiping a knife with his free hand, long strides close the distance in an instant. Fist drawing back, a motion practiced in thousands of repetitions, Ren steps into the punch with clenched jaw and furrowed brow. Qi explodes from his hand as it flies, but the pig notices its impending demise far too late.

  Screaming fist greets swine skull with a thunderous crack that singes stringy hair and scorches bone black. The pig goes reeling, glossy eyes spinning in loose sockets as it staggers and flops on a side.

  Ren breathes through gritting teeth as he tackles the pig. Gripping it by the hair, Ren flips the pig onto its back as he raises the knife high. The blade flashes in sunset light as both hands find the hilt and Ren drives it down into thick pig-skin.

  Thick pig-skin that does not yield. A mortal blade forged for mortal flesh could never pierce that of the unmortal. Ren grimaces, but stays the course even as trotter-twitches signal the pig's imminent return to consciousness.

  Shifting to the pig's tusk-bracketed face, Ren moves with swiftness born of long hours spent at the butcher's block. The knife flashes twice, the lazy eyes playing perfect targets, as twin spheres split and squelch like jelly-filled grapes. The blade sinks deep, but the monster yet lives.

  It squeals, consciousness returning in one big rush, as its thrashing tosses Ren aside like a sack of rice. Shocks of pain lance up his spine as Ren collides with the retaining wall, but adrenaline keeps him on his toes as he scrambles to his feet, only for the sudden noise to give him away.

  A second squeal sounds as the pig scrapes its trotters against the ground. Qi surges through its body as it charges. Ren's eyes snap wide as the pig blurs into motion, his reflexes triggering even before his mind registers the threat.

  Leaping into the air, Ren loops a hand around a ceiling beam as he swings himself up and on it. Rolling at the swing's apex, he lands with belly pressed against wood and his breathing turning labored.

  The pig, however, roots around at the ground, its tusks gouging deep wounds in the cold stone floors. Blinded, all it can do is attack... As Ren's eyes drift across the room, he pauses as an idea comes to mind.

  Would dropping the roof on the pig be enough to kill it? Maybe, maybe not. What Ren can be certain of is that it will stop any further desecration of Chen's body.

  Ren draws the blood-slick knife back, his target the load-bearing wall keeping the whole building up. One day, when he's stronger, Ren will return, and he will give Chen a proper burial. This, he vows before the Heavens, before himself, and before the spirit of Chen that surely lurks behind.

  The knife spins through the air, a beautiful throw ruined by the clatter of iron on wood. The pig reacts instantly, twisting about on the spot and rushing the source of the sound with a shrill squeal from its lips. It drives its head against the wall, its tusks cleaving the once-sturdy hardwood into nothing more than kindling.

  The ceiling shakes, falling dust heralds the coming end, and Ren slips away just as it all comes crashing down.