Huo chen shot between the massive trees with speed going deeper into the forest , the canopy blocking out most of the sunlight, leaving everything in dim twilight.

  The air turned thick and damp, tasting of rot and earth, with a sharper metallic tang that Huo Chen recognized as demonic Qi.

  "I have to be careful now," he thought, scanning the trees. The entire atmosphere felt dangerous.

  His first real kill came on the second day. Huo Chen was following a game trail when the undergrowth exploded and a Stone-Hide Boar charged straight at him.

  The beast was massive, easily the size of a mountain carriage, with tusks like curved ivory sabers.

  Fifth layer cultivation, its eyes clouded red with territorial fury. He planted his feet and channeled earth-Qi into his right arm, forming compressed stone around his fist. The boar thundered closer, the ground shaking with each step. Twenty paces. Ten.

  Huo Chen stepped forward and drove his fist into the boar's skull mid-charge. The impact cracked like breaking stone and the boar's massive body collapsed into the dirt without even sliding, dead before it hit the ground.

  He stood there breathing slightly, his arm throbbing from the impact. The reinforcement had held—without it, his hand would be paste.

  He knelt and cut into the beast's chest until he found the core. Small, barely worth ten spirit stones, but it was something.

  Over the next three days, he fell into a rhythm of hunting and harvesting.

  He fought Shadow Panthers that moved like ink through water and venomous serpents that dropped from branches without warning. A pack of wolves tried to surround him in a clearing, but he killed the alpha first and the rest scattered.

  Each fight taught him something new about reading combat flow and using his techniques more efficiently. His movements were getting faster and his timing was improving with every encounter.

  On the fourth day, he found spirit herbs growing near a stream—three luminous fruits clinging to a vine and pulsing with concentrated wood-Qi. A sixth-layer serpent coiled in the branches above, watching him with unblinking eyes.

  Huo Chen studied the situation. He could probably win, but he'd take damage and waste Qi in the process.

  There was a smarter way to handle this. He walked to the stream and made a show of filling his waterskin while the serpent's head tracked his movements.

  The moment its attention was fully on him, he willed his earth clone into existence behind the tree. The clone rose silently from the soil, plucked all three fruits, and sank back down before the serpent even noticed.

  Huo Chen walked away with a slight smile. 'Smart beats strong every time.'

  By the fifth day, his storage pouch was heavy with cores and materials—more than enough to justify the trip. But something pulled him to keep going deeper.

  The forest changed as he traveled. The trees became ancient, their trunks so massive that five men couldn't wrap their arms around them. The canopy thickened until sunlight became a memory and shadows pooled between roots like black water.

  'I should probably turn back now,' Huo Chen thought, but his feet kept moving forward anyway. 'Just a bit further.'

  He pushed through a narrow gap between two enormous roots, branches scraping his shoulders as he went. The passage opened into a clearing about thirty paces across where actual sunlight reached the ground, filtered and golden.

  In the center stood a tree unlike anything he'd seen before. Its bark was dark as charcoal and its leaves pulsed deep crimson, radiating heat that pushed back the forest's damp chill. Hanging from the branches were three fruits that glowed like captured embers, their spiritual energy so concentrated that it made the air shimmer. '

  "Blood Flame Purifying Fruits. Huo Chen's eyes widened slightly. 'Those can cleanse impurities from my body and significantly improve my foundation,' he thought, feeling a surge of excitement.

  Then movement at the base of the tree caught his attention. A tiger rose to its feet from the shadows.

  Huo Chen stopped breathing for a moment his mind processing what he was seeing. The beast was massive—twice the size of a normal tiger, with black fur striped with bronze that seemed to glow from within , a Shadow stripe tiger.

  Every muscle was visible beneath its pelt, coiled and ready. Claws longer than daggers dug casually into the earth.

  The spiritual pressure hit him hard. Seventh layer.

  The tiger's head turned slowly toward him and golden eyes locked onto his with clear intelligence.

  This wasn't just animal instinct—this creature was sentient, and it saw him not as prey but as a thief trying to steal what it guarded.

  The tiger didn't move, just stared at him with that piercing gaze. Its tail flicked once, almost lazy, and the boulder five paces to its left exploded into fragments.

  '"Shit,"Huo Chen thought, his throat going dry. His legs wanted to run but he knew the truth, if he turned his back, he was dead. Fighting with all he had was the only option now.

  The tiger's lips pulled back slowly, revealing fangs the length of his palm. A low rumble built deep in its chest, a sound that vibrated through the bedrock beneath his feet.

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  "One layer above me, i can do this," he thought, readying himself for combat.

  The tiger's muscles tensed. Then it roared. The sound shook the trees and sent birds scattering for half a mile, vibrating through the air itself with pure primal fury.

  The force of it hit Huo Chen's chest hard enough to rattle his bones. But his feet didn't move.

  His muscles tensed but his mind stayed focused. He channeled earth-Qi through his body to reinforce his skeleton and formed stone over his fists.

  "Come on" he shouted boosting his courage.

  The tiger launched itself across the clearing and Huo Chen exploded forward to meet it.

  BANG.

  The collision sent Huo Chen flying backward through the air. The sheer mass and power difference was staggering. His back slammed into a tree trunk hard enough to splinter bark and he hit the ground gasping.

  "Damn, what power", he thought, pain shooting through his spine. "I'm really in trouble now"

  The tiger came at him again with terrifying speed, claws extended like spears aimed at his chest. Huo Chen raised his reinforced forearms just in time and the tiger's claws struck his guard with a ringing impact that drove him backward, his feet carving deep trenches through the dirt.

  The moment he stopped moving, Huo Chen stomped hard and earth spikes erupted from the ground in a line toward the tiger. The beast moved like water, leaping and twisting around every spike with fluid precision that made it clear it was reading his attacks on instinct.

  'Too fast,' Huo Chen realized, pushing harder to create more spikes from different angles.

  'It's predicting my attacks efficiently".

  The tiger flowed around them all without effort.

  Then the earth behind the beast suddenly exploded as Huo Chen's clone burst from the ground.

  Stone walls erupted on both sides simultaneously, cutting off escape routes, and the clone slammed its hands down to send compressed earth rolling toward the tiger's legs like a wave. The tiger leaped to escape but the walls boxed it in. It snarled and its tail whipped toward the clone like a steel rod. The clone raised a stone barrier that cracked under the impact, then surged forward with a palm strike aimed at the tiger's ribs.

  The tiger twisted mid-air, claws raking across the clone's shoulder and tearing through compressed earth. But the strike had forced it off-balance and Huo Chen was already moving. He drove his stone-covered fist into the beast's exposed flank.

  The impact sent the tiger stumbling sideways. The beast recovered instantly and charged at Huo Chen, jaws wide. He stomped and a stone wall erupted between them. The tiger smashed through it without slowing, showering him with fragments. Huo Chen rolled aside and the jaws snapped shut on empty air.

  The clone attacked from behind, driving both palms into the tiger's hindquarters. The beast roared and spun, its muscular tail sweeping low like a whip. The clone jumped but the tail caught its legs, sending it crashing into a wall.

  Huo Chen used the opening. Earth spikes erupted beneath the tiger's belly while it was focused on the clone. The beast twisted desperately and one spike grazed its side, drawing blood. It landed hard and immediately lunged at Huo Chen with pure fury.

  Claws came down toward his head. He ducked and drove his fist upward into the tiger's chest. The stone-covered strike connected with a solid impact but the tiger's counter was already coming—its tail whipped around and caught Huo Chen across the ribs, lifting him off his feet.

  He hit the ground rolling and came up to see the clone engaging the tiger again. The clone's palm struck the beast's jaw while Huo Chen sent compressed earth spikes at its legs. The tiger dodged the spikes and its claws raked across the clone's chest, tearing deep gouges. Stone walls rose and fell around them.

  Spikes erupted whenever the tiger tried to create distance. The clone and Huo Chen pressed from different angles, forcing the beast to defend on multiple fronts simultaneously.

  Every time it focused on one opponent, the other struck. The tiger's tail whipped constantly, a weapon as dangerous as its claws. It caught Huo Chen across the shoulder, sent the clone sprawling with a body blow, swept low to trip them both.

  The beast was fast, intelligent, aggressive—using every weapon it had. The exchanges were vicious and fast, all three of them bleeding now. The tiger's claw raked across Huo Chen's side and blood ran hot, but his fist connected with the beast's jaw hard enough to chip a fang.

  His clone's strike hit from the opposite side immediately after, and the tiger's counter came as a tail whip that cracked against the clone's ribs.

  The tiger's movements began to slow and its breathing came harsh and wet with blood matting its fur. But Huo Chen's vision was swimming too—every breath sent pain through his ribs and his Qi reserves were dropping fast from maintaining both the reinforcement and the clone.

  'My qi reserves are almost empty,' he thought, gritting his teeth. ' i need to end this now. One more big move and I'm done.'

  The beast's golden eyes burned with fury and something else—understanding. It knew it was losing. The Shadow-Stripe Tiger broke free in one desperate surge, smashing through stone walls like they were paper, and then launched everything at Huo Chen with jaws wide and claws extended while completely ignoring the clone in a all or nothing desperate drive.

  The beast was airborne, committed, no way to change direction mid-leap.

  'Now!' Huo Chen thought.

  He and his clone struck simultaneously. Huo Chen willed and three massive earth spikes erupted from the ground directly in the tiger's path. The clone did the same from its position—two more spikes shooting upward. Five stone pillars pierced the tiger's body mid-air.

  The central spike punched through its chest. The others tore through ribs, belly and shoulder. The combined impact from both directions was devastating.

  The tiger's roar cut off mid-sound and it crashed to the ground hard, momentum sending it rolling before coming to rest on its side. Blood pooled rapidly beneath it. Its flanks heaved with labored breaths.

  Those golden eyes locked onto Huo Chen one last time, still fierce and burning with pride even in death.

  The tiger's final breath was barely a whisper—rage and sorrow mixed together—and then the light faded.

  Silence fell over the clearing.

  Huo Chen stood there swaying, chest heaving as blood ran from his side and arms and cuts he didn't remember getting. His Qi was almost completely depleted, just dregs keeping him upright.

  His clone dissolved and flowed back into his dantian, nearly making his legs give out.

  'I actually won,' he thought,panting hard, hands shaking as the adrenaline crashed. 'Holy shit. I'm alive.' A seventh-layer beast, one full layer above him, and he'd survived.

  He walked to the corpse on unsteady legs and knelt beside it. The tiger was even more massive up close and radiated power even in death.

  He found the core near its heart—large and pulsing with dense seventh-layer Qi that was worth more than a year of normal hunting. He took it carefully, then harvested four of the largest claws, each one sharp enough to cut stone.

  His gaze drifted to the tree where the three Blood Flame Purifying Fruits still hung, radiating their warm crimson light. He harvested them carefully and wrapped each one in cloth before storing them away.

  "This is what I almost died for. Worth every cut."

  Beyond the tree, tucked against the cliff face, was a cave entrance—the tiger's den. Huo Chen examined it and found the air inside was cool with dense spiritual energy.

  'Very good,' he thought. He sat against the back wall of the cave, every muscle screaming in protest. His wounds throbbed and his Qi was nearly dry, but he had everything he needed. The seventh-layer core, the purifying fruits, and a safe place to recover.

  Huo Chen pulled a mid-grade spirit stone from his storage bag and the moment he touched it, rich energy flowed into his depleted meridians.

  The scent of blood outside would draw scavengers soon, but in here he was safe enough. He looked at his harvest laid out before him and closed his eyes.

  'Physical fight's over. Now comes the real work—cultivation and recovery. Let's see what these fruits can do.' He began circulating his Qi carefully, letting the spirit stone's energy slowly refill his depleted reserves while his body started the long process of healing.