It took another month, but when Boneroot succeeded in using the Sunless Stride a single time, he felt like he’d achieved something significant. Every aspect of his cultivation seemed to benefit from his practice with the technique. He immediately dove into cultivation, sensing his Void ki with a new-found clarity. The culmination of his work was even more satisfying than refining his Radiant Claw.

He had chosen this particular method of performing the technique out of boyish arrogance and a sense of camaraderie with Kuroki. When he was just beginning to learn the skill, however, he had started to lose faith in his ability to properly make use it. It was too complex and Void ki too elusive. Little by little, he built the technique up. First, gathering enough Void ki. Then, manipulating the Void ki to make a funnel, then extending it outwards, then moving through it. Despite his initial trepidation, he eventually succeeded.

Though more weeks would pass before he could use the Sunless Stride in conjunction with other techniques, he felt true pride in his accomplishment. Perhaps that was why, after the passing of those weeks, Kroshieshi made the announcement.

“Good enough. Now we can spar.”

His student was taken aback by the declaration. While he knew, in the back of his mind, that this was coming, he had been so focused on actually improving the mechanics of his techniques he’d had little time to wonder how they would hold up in battle. After a moment, though, he felt excitement well up in his chest.

In Boneroot’s village, sparring was a daily sight. The hunters of the Shaded Spear art had a training grounds of their own on the outskirts of the village, though it lacked the size and magical dummies of the one in which he now stood. One of the reasons he had looked forward to awakening so much was, aside from the obvious, the ability to participate in these fights. He had tried so many times to get some of the Village’s hunters to spar with him, but they were insistent that it was too dangerous for anyone without qi reinforcing their body.

Boneroot had spent quite a bit of time watching the men and women of the Village practice. Usually, this took the form of spear fighting. The two opponents would slowly work through the forms of their art in a mock exchange of blows, ramping up in speed until the fight began in earnest.

To an unawakened child, or teenager even, these fights were tough to make sense of once they got going. Now, with the prospect of fighting an overwhelming opponent looming over him, he just wished he’d taken something from those spectacles. In the short time before Kroshieshi continued speaking, Boneroot was unable to gather any insight into how the spar to come might play out. He could only listen and hope for the best.

“Obviously, I am well above your level of cultivation. I won’t use any techniques, merely the natural strength my qi affords me. Still, you will never win. The purpose of these spars is to familiarize yourself with how a cultivator fights.”

Kroshieshi’s expression was even more stern than usual, as if daring Boneroot to adopt his usual glibness.

“More than that, though, it is important to understand what a fight to the death feels like. While I have no intention of killing you, if only to not waste the last couple months, but it’s still a possibility. Hopefully that is enough to instill in you the proper care and caution you must bring to a fight with another cultivator. Such battles can reward a moment’s lapse in focus with death. If you do not know this now, you certainly will in time. Prepare yourself.”

Each word Kroshieshi spoke sent Boneroot’s head into a tailspin until, eventually, he had no choice but to ready himself for the coming fight. He tensed ten feet away from his teacher-turned-opponent. He couldn’t even settle on a stance to take.

The luxury of stealth had spoiled him. Furthermore, the little hares he hunted couldn’t fight back if even if they noticed him. Now, in front of an opponent with the overwhelming advantage, Boneroot felt at a loss. For better or worse, though, he was not given the time to obsess over it.

“Begin.”

The hellecat launched himself forwards. His speed without a technique eclipsed Boneroot’s ability to even conjure enough ki to use his Sunless Stride. When the cat appeared in front of him, Boneroot could do little more than brace for the attack. Unfortunately, he anticipated damage to his arms or torso, so that’s where he focused his qi circulation.

Before the boy knew what was happening, he felt a claw-sized chunk being dislodged from his leg. Just as the tsovar leapt backwards, the pain registered. Boneroot fell to one knee, gasping. His opponent allowed him less than a second to overcome the shock.

Then, he leapt forward once more. This time, Boneroot managed to hurl himself backwards, but he was followed all too easily. Just as he landed in a heap, another patch of his flesh was torn off his body, this time from a forearm.

Boneroot looked up, unable to stand. He stared at the apex predator he’d tried so long to emulate. Every close call with the tsovars in his past had done nothing to prepare him for the prospect of actually fighting one. A tremor went down the boy’s spine.

He was in more pain than he could have ever imagined and it wasn’t even over. The fight was still going. He wanted to cry. Or run. But these were not options afforded to one locked in a hellecat’s sights. Kroshieshi darted forward, slamming his forehead into his student’s chest.

Boneroot rocketed backwards, bouncing twice off the ground before he hit the gnarled roots that marked the edge of the training field. Somehow, he was still lucid enough to recognize the impact as something that would have killed him prior to his breakthrough to the Red realm. This knowledge did nothing to ease the terrible pain that now throbbed in his back.

When he opened his eyes a minute later, he saw Kroshieshi crouched lazily in front of him.

“One death.” The hellecat produced a drum of yellow salve, seemingly out of thin air. He applied the thick paste to the open wounds he had inflicted just minutes ago. “Cycle your qi to repair the damage, then replenish your energy reserves. Then, we go again.”

Boneroot didn’t even pause long enough to dread the impending second round. There was no hesitation between the reminder he could do something for his pain and then actually doing it. As he began to cultivate, not bothering to move an inch away from the roots at his back, he was dismayed to find the damage to his body impeding his ability to cycle his energies.

With increasing desperation, he struggled to steady the wildly fluctuating stream of essence within him. The salve was helping to close his wounds, but they still sucked greedily at the flow of his qi, which destabilized the delicate tangle of qi and ki. Eventually, though, he was able to repair the most egregious damage and get his body back into something resembling fighting shape.

Not a moment after Boneroot finished cultivating, Kroshieshi barked out the preparation phase of the next fight and he lurched to his feet. His shaky march to the middle of the training grounds instilled neither confidence in Boneroot, nor sympathy in his teacher. With each pain-laden step he took, the boy reflected on just how far he was from even resembling a competent fighter.

He could not afford to wait for his opponent to attack, as he did not have the speed, senses, or strength to counter. Instead, he would need something resembling a plan. At the very least, a vague notion of what he wanted to do when the fight began. If Kroshieshi noticed the boy slowing down his limp to the middle of the stage, he didn’t say anything. By the time Boneroot reached the center of the training grounds, he had succeeded in forming the seed of a plan.

So, the moment Kroshieshi signalled the beginning of the fight, Boneroot sprang into action. He willed his body to move in spite of the pain and the tremor in his energies. Quickly hopping to the side, Boneroot aimed a Radiant Claw in front of the area where he’d just been standing. For a brief moment, hope rang out in his head as he saw his master appear in the very spot he was targeting. That hope was quick to fade.

The instability of the boy’s ki was reflected in the Spatial technique. The claw failed to materialize in full and a single, talon-like shimmer of space scratched at the tsovar’s face. Kroshieshi didn’t even need to dodge. The meager technique failed to so much as sheer off a strand of the cat’s fur. As the half-formed claw faded away, Kroshieshi powered forward toward the boy.

The moment he used the technique, though, Boneroot knew it would fail. So, he wasted no time in scrambling away and preparing his Sunless Stride. Unfortunately, his unsteady ki had an even tougher time manipulating Void ki than Spatial ki. The technique failed before it even began. He didn’t need to turn around to know that Kroshieshi was at his back now.

As soon he felt the ripple of wind behind him, he began to channel Light ki into his fingers. The hellecat’s paw broke a rib as soon as it made contact with Boneroot’s torso, rocking him violently off to the side. Shrouded by the dust of his landing, barely clinging to consciousness, Boneroot unleashed his technique. Of the ten Light beams he prepared at the tips of his fingers, three managed to actually fire. Of those three, one was pointed in the right direction.

Just as Kroshieshi began to announce the results which really needed no announcement, a bright ray of energy shot toward his chest. While it would have done little more than singe the top of his fur, the old tsovar dodged. Whether he did so out of instinct, or pity, Boneroot didn’t care.

“Two de— well. Not bad. It seems you’ve at least been using your individual practice time for something. Two deaths, nonetheless. Replenish your ki.”

Lying in the dirt, limbs splayed at terrible angles, pain overwhelming his senses, and consciousness threatening to slip away, Boneroot allowed himself a small smirk in between frantic gasps for air.

The day’s sparring ended a mere one hour, three fights, later, when Boneroot was physically incapable of continuing. He was sprawled out in a small crater near the edge of the training grounds. Kroshieshi trotted over to his broken form, breathing steadily and looking no different than he had before their fight. He stood at the rim of the crater he’d created with his last attack.

“From now on, we’ll be sparring nine out of ten days, after your cultivation and individual training. If you’re recovery quickens, we can spar on that tenth day, too. As for today, I’ll admit you did better than expected. That’s only because my expectations were low, though. You’d lose to all but the weakest of the mid Red realm cultivators at the Brightmoon Sect. Before I leave, explain to me your Light technique. Why not concentrate them into one beam? Why ten?”

“Easier,” the young cultivator panted. “Don’t know. Why. Just easier.”

He angled his eyes up to the edge of the crater, but his teacher had already left. It would be some time before Boneroot dragged himself out of the training grounds.

That night, he lay in his bed, the collective pain of the his wounds reduced to a singular throb pounding against his entire body. He recalled the neutral expression on Kroshieshi’s face as he rent the flesh from the boy’s body over and over again. Thoughts of his family invaded the memory, sent by some loathsome corner of his psyche. He wondered if they’d seen something similar before their disappearance.

The physical and mental damage of the day was too much. He broke down in heaving sobs, sputtering and choking on each ragged breath. It took forty minutes for him to calm down enough to meditate. He cycled his energies with fervor, desperate to rid his mind of conscious thought and more desperate, still, to gain the strength he’d need to survive.