The bandit, a man named Kael who had survived a dozen ambushes by being a light, paranoid sleeper, slowly rose from his roughspun mattress.

  The familiar, drunken snores and crude jokes that usually filled the night were absent.

  A profound, unnatural quiet had fallen over the camp, a silence so deep it felt like a physical pressure against his eardrums.

  "Usually those bastards are getting drunk by now," he whispered, his own breath loud in the stillness.

  "Why are they so quiet…?"

  He grabbed the hilt of his dagger, the worn leather a familiar comfort in his sweating palm.

  He crept to the entrance of his tent, parting the leather flap just enough to peer out. His eyes widened.

  The central bonfire had burned down to a pile of sullen, dying embers, and sprawled around it were the still, contorted shapes of his comrades.

  "W-what…" His legs shook, a single, involuntary step taking him back into the shadows of his tent.

  He was about to burst out, to scream, to alert the others, but his gaze fell upon the neighboring tents.

  From beneath the flaps of each one, a dark, viscous trail of blood had begun to seep into the thirsty earth.

  "N-No," he gasped, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs.

  "I… I must alert… him."

  His only hope, the camp's last line of defense, was the captain.

  Kael moved like a ghost, his footsteps silent on the blood-soaked ground as he threaded between the tents of the dead.

  He reached the largest tent, set slightly apart from the others, and slipped through the heavy leather flap.

  The captain was there, a mountain of a man asleep on a pile of furs, his deep snores a thunderous counterpoint to the silence outside.

  A wave of profound relief washed over Kael.

  He was about to rush forward, to shake the man awake, when a blade pressed against his throat, its edge impossibly cold.

  "D-Don't move… or utter a word, or else I'll… k-kill you…"

  The voice was a girl’s, young and shaky, her hand trembling so violently that the edge of the dagger skittered nervously against his skin.

  Kael froze, a single bead of sweat tracing a path down his temple.

  He could feel her fear, a palpable thing, and in this world of predators and prey, fear was a scent that invited attack.

  His own bloodshot eyes, starved for sleep, narrowed with a desperate cunning.

  "You're bluffing," he rasped, his voice a low, dangerous whisper.

  "You don't have the guts, do you, little girl?" He could feel it, the critical hesitation, the war waging within her. He tensed his muscles, ready to gamble everything on that single moment of weakness.

  "Huh…? Why is this tent empty?" Re Jui crouched low, his eyes sweeping over the cold, abandoned bedroll of the bandit Kael.

  A knot of worry tightened in his gut. He stepped back out into the open, his gaze frantically searching the camp. "Where's Sister Mei…?"

  Mi Shui and Ran Ji emerged from their final, bloody work, their expressions grim but satisfied.

  They saw the look of dawning horror on Re Jui’s face and their own guards snapped back up.

  "Hold on, where is she…?" Mi Shui groaned, her hand instinctively going to the hilt of her dagger.

  Ran Ji pointed a trembling finger. Re Jui spun around. The captain’s tent.

  "D-Don't tell me…"

  "I said… don't move…" Ming Mei repeated, trying to force a steel she did not feel into her voice.

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  The bandit took one last, deep breath.

  "You're bluffing!" he roared, his voice cracking with desperation.

  "WAKE UP! WE'VE BEEN ATTACKE—"

  A silver-grey blur of motion was the only warning.

  A hiss of steel cut through the air, and Kael’s head flew from his shoulders in a spray of arterial blood, landing with a soft, wet thud near the sleeping captain.

  The captain's eyes snapped open, his gaze locking instantly onto the severed head of his henchman, his face a mask of pure, murderous rage.

  "S-Shit…" Re Jui breathed, pulling his longsword back, his face pale.

  He had been forced to act, and now he had woken the beast.

  The captain let out a roar, a primal, guttural sound of fury that seemed to shake the very ground.

  He grabbed a massive, spike-studded bat from beside his furs as Re Jui seized Ming Mei’s arm, pulling her back and out into the open.

  As they cleared the entrance, the tent behind them exploded outwards, torn apart by the sheer, concussive force of the captain’s awakened Body Tempering aura.

  Ran Ji and Mi Shui instinctively took their positions, their blades drawn.

  "You fools," the captain bellowed, his voice a low, terrifying rumble as he rose from the wreckage. "You dare kill my men?!"

  "So what if he’s a Body Tempering brute?" Ran Ji growled, though a new sheen of sweat was beading on his forehead.

  "There’s four of us!"

  "There's another one?!" Mi Shui shrieked, her earlier confidence shattered.

  Ming Mei, her face ashen, finally found her footing, settling into the defensive stance of the Blooming Lilac Palm.

  Re Jui stepped forward, his blade held steady, its polished surface reflecting the dying flames of the campfire as he faced the hulking, enraged captain.

  The dust and smoke from the captain's explosive entrance swirled in the dim, flickering light of the dying bonfire.

  It slowly cleared, revealing a brute forged from pure rage.

  His eyes were bloodshot, the whites webbed with red from the violent shock of his awakening, and his teeth ground together with a sound like stone on stone.

  "What have you done?!" His gaze swept over his camp, a panorama of slaughter.

  He saw the dark, spreading pools of blood at the entrance of each silent tent, the contorted bodies of his men sprawled near the fire, slain without a chance to even draw their weapons.

  "You..!"

  The full, horrifying truth crashed down on him. Every single one of them. Gone.

  "You measly… cowards…" he whispered, the words a low, guttural rumble of grief and self-loathing.

  His thick, blonde beard, braided with small golden rings, seemed to bristle in the wind as the muscles on his arms and back swelled, the terrifying tattoos inked upon his skin stretching and writhing as if coming to life.

  He had been too lenient, too comfortable. This was his failure. And now, he would pay for it with their blood.

  His enraged eyes finally landed on the four disciples, the culprits of this massacre.

  "I will kill every," he growled, taking a heavy step forward, "single," another step, the ground groaning beneath his weight, "one," a third, his knuckles cracking as he tightened his grip on his massive, spike-studded bat, "of, YOU!"

  He roared, a sound of pure, untamed fury that echoed through the silent forest, a physical wave of sound that vibrated in their bones.

  Ming Mei cried out, her hands flying to cover her ears, the sheer volume a painful assault. Mi Shui, however, simply scowled, rubbing her earlobe with an annoyed finger.

  "For fuck-sake! Shut the hell up!"

  Ran Ji’s heart plummeted.

  The insult was a lit match tossed into a barrel of oil.

  The captain's rage, already a roaring inferno, exploded.

  "I'll make you SHUT UP!" He threw himself into the air, the ground cracking beneath the force of his launch.

  He raised the spiked bat high above his head with two hands, his entire body a descending meteor of death.

  "I'll destroy everything in my way!"

  The bat was aimed not at a single disciple, but at the very ground between them, an attack meant to annihilate them all.

  "Everyone! Get out!" Re Jui screamed, shoving Mei hard out of the blast radius before launching himself to the side.

  Ran Ji, ever the survivalist, was already a blur, having leaped between the tents the moment the captain took to the air.

  Mi Shui, her defiant insult costing her a precious half-second, was too late. "Damn it!" she cursed, trying to leap clear.

  BOOM!

  The bat struck the earth, and the world erupted.

  A massive crater formed where the disciples had been standing, the shockwave a physical wall of force that tore through the camp.

  Tents were ripped from their stakes, collapsing in on themselves as the gust of wind and debris blasted outwards.

  Mi Shui was caught in the edge of the shockwave, a concussive blow that sent her tumbling through the air.

  "Fuck!" she yelped, landing hard on the ground. She pushed herself up, her body a canvas of fresh bruises, a warm trickle of blood already snaking down from her hairline.

  She glared at the captain, her own anger now mingled with a new, chilling respect for his power.

  As the dust from the impact began to settle, revealing the captain’s hulking form standing in the center of his own destruction, Re Jui saw his chance.

  He had landed near the tattered remains of the captain's large tent, and in the swirling dust, his opponent’s back was exposed.

  He grit his teeth. He dug his boots into the packed earth, his Qi flaring as he channeled all his power into his legs.

  With an explosive push that left a small crater in the ground, he launched himself forward, a silver-grey streak of vengeance.

  He crossed the distance in a heartbeat, his longsword already a blur.

  "NGHAAAAH!"

  The blade hit flesh.

  He felt the satisfying, tearing resistance as it bit deep into the captain's thick back muscle.

  He followed through with all his momentum, his body spinning with the force of the cut.

  "GHN!" He landed gracefully, spinning backwards to create distance, his chest heaving as he gathered his bearings and stared intensely at his target, waiting for him to fall.

  The captain stood perfectly still.

  He slowly, deliberately, turned his head, his bloodshot eyes looking over his shoulder at the deep, bleeding gash that ran from his shoulder to his waist.

  He looked at Re Jui. And he smiled.