The valley burned.

There was no escape.

Where was Jake supposed to run? The edge of the cage? There's as much forest out there as here.

Those trees aren't unique. There is nothing special about them. They must be catching fire just as quickly as the forest on the other side of the lake.

Shit, if Jake was a judge of the situation, the edges of the cage will burn sooner than Jake's garden.

The black flames, which Jake felt a palpable hunger and need to destroy everything from, were swallowing the valley?

Do you know what the fire could not burn?

The lake.

It was the only reason why Jake's Land was still intact.

The black flames burned everything.

The slopes of the valley ran with lava.

Ash and soot made from the burning trees and brush filled the air, drifting on the wind.

And in the air along the borders of Jake's Land at the far side of the valley, a battle raged. A battle Jake was losing.

Badly.

Less than an hour had passed since the pillar had first made its fiery appearance, and Jake had finally accepted he needed to make some hard decisions if he and his Land were going to survive.

When his Land first exploded in Qi, it had pushed back the flames.

It confused Jake at first why that was the case, but it made sense after he once he took a moment and looked with his Qi senses.

The black, all-consuming flames were comprised of black Qi.

That literal shit Jake ignored because it was an excellent fertilizer. Apparently, the source decided to explode and consume Jake's little world. Great call on that one fucking genius.

Jake had a few things going for him.

Whatever hell-spawned source of death and destruction that made up the flame pillar's base must have exploded.

Within the first few minutes, Jake could track dozens of trails of smoke and flickering flame marring the sky as burning debris flew out of the valley, which was great because it remained the case for everything that followed.

Or so Jake thought.

The waves of Qi coming off his Land were funneled down the valley and were able to fight back the black Qi at the narrow borders of his Land and the fire. With nothing getting past the frontlines, all he had to do was wait until the source of black Qi stopped.

Except it didn't.

As it continued to expel more and more black flames, the black Qi in the air only grew, putting more pressure on Jake and his Land.

Then a torrent of flame came erupting over the right side of the mountain range, cutting off half the valley on that side.

The flames spread several hundred feet closer to Jake and his garden before Jake got his mind back in the game and pushed out a new wave of Qi to hold back the flames.

As the two sides clashed together, it was one of the most beautiful sights Jake had ever witnessed.

If only he could enjoy it without an impending fear of death.

The opposing Qis hit at the ground level and then climbed into the sky as they clashed. The greenish-brown Qi of his land was grappling, pushing, and wrapping around tendrils of black-red flame Qi before his Qi surged over the top of the clashing forces, only to be consumed and lept over in turn.

It is a fact that the most beautiful things in the world are some of the most deadly and dangerous, and this was no exception.

Staring at the display of opposing forces, Jake tried to understand where the flame came from. When another burning ball of flame, screeching the death of his Land, passed overhead, he understood. He should have seen it earlier if he was thinking right.

"Everything will burn," Jake whispered.

The barriers of Qi Jake was guiding on behalf of his Land were only working because the distance between the slopes of the mountain, where there was little to burn beside stone, and the lake was so limited.

Jake already saw the flame eating into the rocky slopes, making its way around his defensive line, but it would take little effort to stop that advance.

The flame could not grow as intense when burning on bare stone compared to trees.

Jake still had not fully processed he had to be concerned with a fire able to sustain itself on rocks, but that was a problem for another time.

It probably had something to do with the density of Qi, but Jake had neither the time nor desire to find out which it was.

Jake's Land could hold off the pillar of flame and the fire that sprang forth from it, spreading along the shores of the lake, for a time. That time was quickly coming to a close, but that was neither here nor there.

It was impossible for Jake and his land to hold off the black fire burning across the valley floor while also defending against the flame leaping over the mountain peaks.

Squinting through the ash and smoke-filled air at the valley around him, Jake stood before his stone thrown.

Fluffy, streaks of soot crossing his body, huddled by his feet.

Bobbing a few feet off shore where the rock dropped off, the rainbow trout continuously surfaced then submerged only to surface again as it glanced around with wild bulging eyes.

Since the explosion of fire at the far end of the lake, it stayed as close as possible to Jake while remaining in the water. The thing knew Jake would be the to its survival.

A casual glance out into the lake would tell you that.

The flames might not be able to burn the lake's surface any more than normal flames, but the fire could contaminate it.

Usually, this would mean the water was being flooded with ash and soot, which it was.

That type of thing is a problem for your average Earth fish, but Qi enhanced fish swimming in that water would only be uncomfortable.

Soot and ash were not the only things entering the water from the flames. The water on the far side of the lake looked oily and had this kind of film within it.

It was not like oil poured into the water and then collected into blobs on its surface. The water itself looked like it was changing.

Altering in the same way the black-red fire was already different from an ordinary campfire.

The water was, and was continuing to be, contaminated by the black Qi.

At least until one got about halfway through the lake. At that point, it looked better, like an unending torrent of sewage was being dumped into the water.

Jake would never jump into the middle of the lake for anything other than life and death situations, but he wouldn't be worried about walking out of the water with a sixth finger on his hand and an extra lump in his nutsack, like the water on the far side of the lake.

It was only when one got to the water a hundred or so feet around his garden did he see untainted water. Well, no more taint than the ash and soot clouding the waters.

There are always those skeptical people who need to have the truth shoved in their face for a chance to believe in something new.

They might say, "The water's still fine. It just looks a little weird, is all."

To them, which would make it abundantly clear why the fish was hanging around Jake, he would point it to the things bobbing around the surface of the lake on the far shore.

"It's just a fish, right?" skeptical person A would ask, "And how am I supposed to see them?" When they turned around to look, what would follow would be something along the lines of, "Ohh m—! What in God's name is that... Abomination!"

That would be the only word for it.

It was a multi-story mass of flesh, with fins and fish tails sticking out of it at all angles, that was burning from the fire while it tried to collect more mutated dead fish floating on the tainted water's surface with its tendrils of flesh.

It was nightmare fodder.

Other creatures would occasionally lap against the surface or jump out of the water as they thrashed around.

The fish was not going anywhere any time soon.

Not that it would matter.

Jake did not have the Qi to protect his Land from every direction.

And as he lost land to the fire, he would lose access to the land. When he tried to send his senses to areas consumed in fire, he would hit a mental wall and have his mind bounce back.

Whether it was permanent or not would require Jake retaking the land and was not something that was happening any time soon.

The column of flames showed no signs of stopping, and even if it did, Jake would soon be set upon from all sides as the rest of the cage burned and the fire spread.

"I can't hold the land..." Jake muttered to himself, looking out over the lake. "I could-- NO!" the venom and disgust that rose up within him at the thought of abandoning his land by swimming to the bottom of the lake surprised Jake.

He did not realize how attached to the land he was. He would rather die here, on this small... clump of... land, than... leave. It. Shit.

Jake could not save his Land. Not all of it.

But he could save some—the core of his Land, his Garden.

How do I... a moat. I need to make a moat.

Already, Jake's garden was flanked on two sides by water. So now he just needed to make a canal more than a mile long around his garden.

While making it deep and wide enough, the fire could not leap across or clog the river. Twenty feet? Jake thought, glancing up at the sides of the surrounding mountains.

In the haze and past the flames, Jake could make out the red cherry glow of rivers of molten stone. "Better make it thirty," said Jake.

A hiss began to underscore the roar of the flames throughout the valley as rivers of lava reached the lake's edge, "Forty sounds better. Maybe fifty. Let's make it as wide and fucking-deep as we can." Jake muttered under his breath.

Head whipping up as the fish surfaced again. He shouted, "Hey! Fish! Can you control water?"

The fish rolled and flopped around, turning to face Jake. For a moment, nothing happened, and Jake started to worry it really was just a large fish that could use Qi and was not aware like Fluffy. If that was the case, Jake was not sure his plan would work.

Then, light started rippling up and down the fish's scales, causing the water around him to vibrate.

The result was a rather melodic, soft, and lingering voice that radiated from around the fish more than originating from any particular source before it faded. "Yes, I can control water~."

"Good," Jake sighed in relief before he straightened his back and locked eyes with the fish, "you know me and my land are the only things standing between life and death for you, right?"

When the fish bobbed in the water, Jake took it as a show of agreement.

"Then I need your help. Will you give it?"

"Yes~," the fish responded.

Jake nodded once before turning to Fluffy, "Show Flash a part of the land thirty or more feet from the edge of the garden, them have him spray a concentrated blast of water into the shore. We need to dig away the ground and make a canal--"

"You can do that, right?" Jake quickly asked the fish to make sure his plan was plausible, getting a bob in return.

"Good, good," Jake muttered as his mind continued to race before his head snapped back to Fluffy. "Make sure Flash stays on course and clear the banks of the new canal and as far out as you can of plant life. We need a fire brake."

"Yes, Master." The rabbit responded, ears perking up in hope.

Running through his plane one more time, Jake nodded, then waved the rabbit off to get to work. A lot needed to be done, and they had little time.

Turning his back on the rabbit scurrying off along the shore of the lake mirrored by the leaping fish, Jake walked over to his stone throne and sat down.

If they were going to finish, Jake would need to buy them as much time as possible.

Closing his eyes, Jake let his Land consume his senses.

Jake tried to stifle the groans escaping his lips as the pain hit him.

He did not fully succeed. Instead, it turned into some death gurgle in the back of his throat.

It was appropriate. The land was dying.

The edges were being burned while the rest was being swamped under waves of black Qi trying to worm its way into everything.

Too much of anything is bad. In small quantities, Jake could use the black Qi as a fertilizer. Pour it down in endless sheets, and it kills the land. Or twists it into something else, like the water and fish. Jake shuddered at the thought.

Pushing past the distractions and pain, Jake began drawing as much Qi from the lands surrounding his garden as he could without killing the plants outright. It was a fine line he failed more often than not.

A tear rolled down Jake's cheek as he continued to draw Qi from the land, cannibalizing it for time.

It hurt to do, like jabbing himself with a thousand needles, one for every dying plant, but Jake could ignore it.

Deep down, though, Jake felt like he was betraying the plants. Betraying his purpose. He was failing them as he stole everything from the plants.

He knew he could rip all of the Qi from the plants, but he never did. Jake never even felt the desire to hoard and collect the Qi. He had only ever taken a little from everything when he needed Qi, but Jake had accepted the truth. The only part of his Land that could survive was the small core of his garden.

And if he did not take the Qi from the plants now, the fire would feed on it later, growing stronger.

So Jake did what needed to be done.

Around the edges of his land, Jake began to build wall after wall of Qi anchored in a strip of vibrant plants. They were not thick or particularly powerful, and they were not meant to be. Jake made them so they would slow down the flames, not stop them cold as he did before.

Stopping the raging flames with Qi took a constant flow while slowing the flames down only took a burst of Qi that was able to splash the black fire back onto itself.

Jake wanted to be like the reactive armor on tanks that stopped an explosive projectile by exploding into it.

That was the idea, anyway. If it didn't work, Jake would try something else. He had other things to do.

Have you ever seen the pictures of miners during the gold rush? It was probably some dirty bearded men standing by a sleuth box, river, or hole. Not really relevant to Jake.

What is relevant to Jake are the pictures of dirty bearded men standing next to what is essentially an enormous power washer. It had some name like hydro or hydraulic mining.

The process had been around since the Romans but was brought into its modern form during the California Gold Rush.

It was simple, put water, the most destructive natural force, under high pressure and spray it at a mountainside. Unless the entire mountainside is one enormous boulder, the water will eventually wash everything away. Miners washed away entire mountains with this method, which is probably why it became illegal.

Jake was the ruler of his Land, so he made it legal again.

There are steps to collect the runoff to sift for gold when gold mining with this method, but Jake did not give a shit if gold was in the ground and was washed out into the lake.

And it was working just like Jake had hoped. Flash was tearing up large chunks of the ground, then breaking them up and washing them away with a focused spray of water.

Give the fish enough time, and the fish could make as big of a canal as Jake would ever want.

They did not have the time.

Jake needed to help the process along a bit. Along the side of his garden, closest to the mountain, were hundreds of trees.

Old fruit trees, each of which had thousands of roots shooting dozens of feet into the ground, were waiting for Jake to feed them Qi.

The ground boiled as hundreds of trees shivered as their roots squirmed with movement. The Qi Jake sent to the trees was used to extend their roots under the area Jake wanted the canal to go.

Once the top layer of roots were a few feet under the ground along the line the canal would travel, the roots split apart and grew as they wrapped around one another, forming a sheet of roots under the ground.

Then the mass flexed.

The ground rumbled and groaned as a deep crack could be heard as the earth rolled back onto itself like a Ho Hos.

When everything stopped, the roots curled up in a berm ten feet wide, eight high, and fifteen feet thick, with the closest tree ten feet away.

Then the rest of the plates of roots Jake set up along the length of the tree line started curling one after another, beginning and finishing the trench along that whole side of the garden within minutes.

One plate was only four feet of dirt, but with layers of roots growing into plates at intervals deeper down and to each side, the trees had removed a section of land forty feet across and thirty deep along the mountain side of the garden. It was not connected to the river yet, but one good hit and the wall separating the canal and the river would collapse.

Trees might not be the fastest, even with Qi, but things came along rather quickly after half an hour of planning and growth.

Which was great because Jake still had to deal with the side Flash was working on.

Flash was great.

Jake could tell he was trying his hardest.

Flash was also a single fish trying to dig a canal half a mile long. Jake's trick with the roots was awesome and worked great. It also used up all of his Qi not already committed to a barrier.

The now withered and barren land was excellent for slowing the fire's progress due to how he killed tens of thousands of plants by sucking them dry of Qi. Most of the dust the plants collapsed into could be picked up by the churning air, and the little that remained did not speed the fire's advance.

And it gained him what? An hour at most and a portion of a plan that might not even work while killing the majority of his land.

Jake breathed deeply of the fetid air, then coughed before opening his eyes. The world was a dusky haze as thick ash clouds blew through the air and coated the ground.

Leaning forward, Jake reached down, scraping his hand along the ground, grabbing what was there, before standing up and turning to face where Flash and Fluffy worked.

Jake walked along the ground kicking up puffs of ash as he knocked over small piles as he headed towards the single whole patch of land connected to his soon-to-be island territory.

He already knew what he would see, but he needed to go and look.

Flash's stomach was facing the sky as he floated in the trench coming from the lake. Every now and then, a burst of water would shoot out from around the fish, blasting into the end of the water logged trench, knocking off a chunk.

Where Flash was once shooting shafts of water the size of Jake's arm, they were now the size of Jake's fingers. The fish was exhausted.

The rabbit wasn't much better off. The fields a hundred feet out from the garden on every side were swept clean and pushed into the lake.

Jake looked at where the rabbit was, and it took a moment for it to register what he was seeing. It was not a fluffy white rabbit. Instead, the rabbit's fur was matted with soot and ash and stained entirely black. At first, Jake thought he was nothing more than another pile of ash before Fluffy moved.

The rabbit lowered its head, bobbed its ears in its typical bow, and rasped out, "Master, I don't think we will make it."

"Not alone," said Jake as he looked out into the field beyond his garden.

Within this prison, it was impossible to miss Jake's Garden. And once you saw it, it was impossible to ignore what it represented.

Hope.

This whole time, the pillar spewed black Qi into the air along with the fire. It was relatively easy to ignore within the first few minutes.

Then everything noticed the taint spreading. The black Qi was digging its way inside of everything and corrupting it.

What rational creature would want this? None, so they all fled to the edges of the barrier.

It might have worked if the pillar had ever stopped, but it didn't. More and more black Qi poured out, and it soon reached those animals that fled.

But even with the world being tainted, there was one part that resisted. One section of land had pure untainted Qi at its core and lessened the effects of the black Qi on its surroundings.

The smart ones must have run then. While they still could. A mad dash around waves of fire and tainted ground, hoping they are not cornered. That they will make it. Most would not have made it.

"Enough did," Jake whispered, "Enough that we all might live."

In the field and surrounding his land were thousands of animals.

The black flames raged their way across the now barren valley. The Qi barriers Jake used to slow their path used up and scattered to the winds.

All that remained between Jake's Garden and the fire were the husks of plant life. What were once vibrant trees hours ago were now fossilized bones as if they had been baked under a relentless sun for years on end.

The fire was coming.

But the animals did not move. Wolves stood over rabbits and next to deer. Hawks, owls, and eagles perched themselves on the backs of pumas and bobcats. Foxes huddled on the ground next to mice while they hid in the shadow of a bear.

A truce had been formed among all of the animals. They knew they would only have one salvation. It was Jake.

He should have realized it sooner. But Jake was too focused on solving the problem with the resources he had, not the ones he could gain.

If he did not rush at the beginning, he might already be done. I would have saved more...

Jake's voice exited his body, but it was not a human's voice, and it was no language, but every creature heard and understood.

It was an oath offed.

"Serve me and my Land. Protect me and my Land. And you will be welcomed to live within my domain and partake of all it has to offer."

Every animal stepped forward, accepting the oath.

They all wanted to live, and they knew they could not kill Jake.

It was not because they could not all rush forward and maul Jake. They could, but Jake suspected most creatures would leap forward in his defense.

Jake was prepared for one to try but sighed in relief as none tried. He knew why there were no takers. But you never prepare for the best if you want to live.

All it took was a cursory sense of the surrounding Qi for every creature to realize the same thing.

Jake was the core of his land, and if he fell, any protection it could offer would vanish. Leaving them to fall soon after.

Animals streamed passed and over Jake. There was no jostling to get to the front and pass into Jake's Land first. The most powerful creatures entered first, claiming their spot, and the lesser, as was proper, followed.

There was no need to communicate. Everything knew what had to be done.

A half dozen fish surfaced next to Flash and started spraying streams of water on the end of the canal.

Where the two sides of the canal would meet, a ten-foot-tall brown bear swiped its paw, and a dump truck load of dirt followed in the paw's wake, creating the start of another berm.

Badgers more than quadrupled in size as they tore into another section of the ground.

Moles began to surface before diving back down, weakening the internal structure of the ground for deers and boars to kick their hind legs, kicking up clumps of dirt.

Foxes, cats, rabbits, and other small, quick animals, extended the fire break around the garden.

Birds perched in trees and slowly flapped in the air, circling the garden and starting to create a cyclone of air to clear it of ash and soot.

Jake stood and watched the progress being made. We are going to make it. It will be enough.

A crack shook the world, shaking Jake to his bones.

Everything looked up at the column of fire, now twice as large as before.

"Don't stop!" Roared Jake. "We have to finish!"

Another earthshaking crack sounded as the creatures got to work. They paused for a moment but kept their heads down and kept doing what they were doing.

They had to finish.

If the world ended, they all would die. If it didn't, they needed a moat for a chance at surviving the fire.

Jake was not working.

He wasn't even paying attention to see if the animals followed his command.

Jake's eyes were locked on the mass traveling up the center of the pillar of black fire, causing the black flames to shoot out to the sides, arching down in a flickering curtain.

The sphere was pure black.

That is not to say it was an extreme black that seemed to suck up light.

Jake thought it was black because it was like an endless black hole floating in the air with the edges glowing in a corona of light. No light touched its center, as the light seemed to reflect and bend away from the thing's surface as if it was the opposite side of a magnet.

As the sphere rose into the air, cracks began to form across its surface, showing a blood-red light from within.

More and more blood-red jagged lines crisscrossed the sphere's surface until the thing stopped three-fourths of the way up the cage.

For a moment, the sphere did nothing, then it vibrated, and the space around it shuttered. A wave of fire ripped across the top of the cage as the sphere exploded.

The fire was still dancing across the sky as Jake felt a screech. It was a noise filled with endless pain and despair.

Laced and intertwined within the sound were mental projections that bored into Jake's mind. Resolved that turned to horror, horror changed to determination, determination shifted to despair, and despair was consumed by madness.

A madness that was born of hunger and the need for destruction. It tried to stop it. It and its brothers and sisters tried to stop their madness for countless millennia, but all their efforts were futile. And now, it would be the engine of its own destruction.

Jake hacked out blood. He was on his hands and knees, staring at patches of pooled blood.

Slowly Jake leaned back and wiped his face. A glance around him told him that all the animals were in similar or worse states than Jake. Some might even be dead.

That was not a significant concern of Jake's at the moment. He looked up at the slightly smoke obscured form of the giant bat winged, red-skinned, whipcord tail ending in a spade, and horned demon floating in the sky, laughing.

It was not a good laugh.

It was not even really a laugh.

That would imply that the creature found something funny. There was not enough rationale behind the barking chuff to suggest that.

The sound was chilling and grated against Jake's skin.

Jake would have preferred to listen to that sound his whole life if it would have meant the creature did not open its eyes and look at Jake.

There was nothing but death and madness within them.

The demon flashed its teeth at Jake. It was not a smile.

Jumping to the side, Jake whipped out his right hand and then yanked.

The ground where he just was exploded as a crater formed.

Jake did not stop to inspect the area for the cause. He knew the reason. The demon flew from however many miles it was in the sky and slammed into the ground where Jake was standing in less than a second.

Instead, Jake focused on his braided fishing line.

He had coated it in Qi and whipped it out, wrapping it around a fruit tree and assisting his leap to the side by several dozen feet.

Landing, Jake flexed his Qi, untightening the line, and ran as fast as he could out into the cleared land while wrapping his braided line around his arm.

On the bright side, Jake finally learned what the braided fishing line cant cut: Qi.

All he had to do was create a shell around the line, and it worked like a normal fishing line.

Dozens of feet from where his initial leap and pull took him, the instinctual sense of danger that caused him to first move didn't fade. Only grow.

Pushing off at a ninety-degree angle with all his strength, Jake rocketed to the side as the ground cracked.

Jake started rolling head over ass as he lost balance. The fuck, wa-- shit!

As he tumbled, Jake felt a blast of heat and caught snatches of the scorched ruin of a path he was just running on out of the corner of his eye. He also saw the end of the fishing line he had yet to wrap around his arm rapidly burning up in a black flame.

Whipping his arm holding the line to the side, Jake separated the last few feet of his line from the rest as it lashed out. Within one rotation of his tumble, the fire consumed the line hanging in the air.

Getting to his feet at the end of his uncontrolled tumble like it was all intentional, Jake blinked, clearing his eyes. He was facing the lake, and the demon was crouched with its wings out at the water's edge.

Jake could feel a searing line running across his back, making itself known as he tensed in surprise at the creature's sudden appearance.

A flash of insight ran through him as Jake's mind raced. It must have fired off that line of fiery death which caused his line to burn. Then when it noticed the attack would miss, it must have tried to slice Jake in half as he wildly flailed around trying to get back to his feet.

Lashing out and infusing Qi into his fishing line whip, Jake aimed at the monster. A whip that could cut through rock, and Jake was currently enhancing with Qi to be as strong and sharp as possible, did nothing.

It was like Jake was thrashing around with a foam pool noodle for how effective he was.

The line slashed against the demon's bat wing and nudged it slightly. The fuck!

Jake's eyes widened in shock as the creature whipped around, crouching onto all fours.

In desperation, Jake whipped his line back at the demon.

As the makeshift whip wrapped around the demon's ankle, Jake changed the Qi infusing the line, making sure at least a portion of the last five feet was trailing on the ground. Jake then severed it from the rest of his fishing line.

The demon rocketed forward, a scythe to claim Jake's life, at least it was before the line pulled taught. A long moment passed as the line held the creature in place before its momentum pulled the entire length of line laying on the ground, and the ground the line was lying on, behind the demon as it continued forward.

Even with the demon still barreling forward, Jake was no longer concerned at the moment. The tension from the line was enough to change the demon's leap enough that it was now face-planted into the soil and was in the process of digging a furrow.

Instead of trying to hurt the beast, which he obviously could not do, Jake attempted to contain the demon.

His desperate plan should not have worked. In that instant, when Jake tried to enchant his braided fishing line to be sticky, he couldn't do it.

Jake had already used up the meager Qi reserves he managed to recover after catching Flash as he communed with the land and fought the demon.

When he reached to push more Qi into the braided fishing line and enchant it again, the line fought him. The line could not contain much more Qi, and if Jake was going to force it, he would have to use a significant amount of Qi to keep it all in balance.

It was an amount Jake did not come close to as he scraped away any speck of Qi remaining in his core.

As Jake pushed the little amount of Qi he had collected out of his body and into the fishing line, his body shuddered, and he felt a resounding Thump run through him.

He needed the line to be sticky, though. He needed it to change. To become something more, so he could survive.

Jake's near empty core cracked as his need and fear grew, and a new energy surged through him into the fishing line. The power threaded through the fishing line, then twisted, altering the enchantments and material.

The end of his line would stick to anything now.

As the energy leaked from his core into the line, it continually altered more and more of his line.

Whipping out with his fishing line, Jake strode forward as more and more of his line was used to bind the demon to the ground.

Its head shifted from side to side as it seemed to inspect the lines attached to it.

Jake's heart beat in a wild chaotic rhythm in time with the energy leaking from his core.

The demon seemed to be letting Jake attach more lines to it. Why is it sitting there?

Whatever the reason was, it did not matter. Jake frantically lashed out at the creature as many tim—

Jake was in a crater.

That was what he believed, at least.

He got that belief when he noticed the indented ground all around him and dirt hitting him.

If it was an accurate assumption, Jake wasn't really sure.

The word "crater" popped into his mind as he opened his eyes and looked around.

"Oww," Jake moaned.

He tried to, at least. What came out was more of a gurgle.

His head flopped down, chin hitting his chest as whatever was holding it up broke free.

It was not a happy occurrence.

Jake could have gone, and almost did, his whole life without the sight of his broken, deformed chest lodging itself in his mind.

His ribs were sticking out on the sides, and he could not tell how deep the crater of his sternum went through the blood. That's not good.

Jake felt something inside of him building up. A force that had no outlet and made him feel bloated.

His instincts reared up, thrumming through Jake and making him tingle with the need to act. I. Will. Survive, Jake thought before he paused as clarity began to trickle back. Wait, that's not--

It was too late. The power filling Jake surged, clamping around and throughout his body, then twisted.

Jake shattered.

A Thump originated deep within Jake, stirring the pieces of his shattered being.

He needed to be faster.

Thump.

Stronger.

Thump.

More durable.

Thump.

He needed weapons.

Thump.

To evolve into something more.

Thump.

Jake's body did not have enough Qi. He needed more to fule the change.

His Land would provide.

More Qi poured into Jake than ever before. More than Jake's Land had to offer.

It was sucking up the tainted Qi from the surroundings and shunting it to Jake.

Jake felt something in the depths of his core thump. It was the only place intact enough to act.

He was pretty sure didn't have a heart at the moment. But it did not matter. His body was flooded with so much energy he could not die from such mundane things as not having a heart.

Thump.

Jake's core opened, swallowing the tainted Qi his land offered. Then his core spat it back to his land, but not all of it.

A fraction of the Qi remained within his body, altering it.

Lightning surged along Jake's nerves, infusing its concept of speed and reaction into Jake's body. His muscles and bones doubled and then tripled in density and strength as the quality and quantity of the Qi they contained shot up, resulting in his body breaking down before reforging itself anew. His blood was filled with so much nature Qi that a drop of blood could sprout a fully grown tree.

That was nothing, though.

Jake's limbs and skin twisted and bulged as he arched in agony, while the very structure that the human body was designed around shifted, becoming more primal.

Finger nails squirmed and rippled as they hardened and lengthened into razor-sharp claws. Thick fur sprouted from his entire body. His mouth extended and shifted into a mussel full of fangs. His hips popped, then pivoted along with his legs and arms, so he could run on all fours as efficiently as two. His eyes and nose sharpened, bringing the world into sharper clarity.

He was more alive.

Strength and vigor radiated off his body like an invisible breeze only affecting him.

Jake needed to act. To move and hunt his prey.

Bounding to his feet, Jake sniffed the air before bearing his fangs and dropping forward.

Shards of stone were kicked back as Jake streaked forward at inhuman speeds.

His claws dug into the ground, leaving slashes in the stone and dirt he kicked off of.

Wind whipping at his fur, Jake made a beeline for the scorched crater to the side of his garden.

Thirty feet down at the bottom, the demon stood with its eyes closed, looking up to the ash-filled sky.

Jake leaped from the crater's edge, his mouth wide with glistening fangs while his claws were stretched out, ready to rend.

His mouth was closing around the demon's throat while his claws were descending, poised to slash into the demon's chest, as his hind legs were flexing to sever its spine.

Jake felt an impact, and then he was flying through the air past his garden towards his mountain. His eyes were still locked on the demon, who was now facing Jake, the back of his left hand raised.

Did I just get bitch slapped? Jake thought before the demon disappeared and his body folded in half.

This was not the good folding of bending over. This was the folding of your back, hitting an immovable object, and snapping as your stomach was bent like a piece of paper around said object.

It was not quite that far, though. Jake's feet didn't hit the back of his head, but that was only because he felt like the rest of his body was wrapped around something large enough to prevent it.

Rolling his head up, Jake looked up at an ancient oak tree.

"Oh, it's you. How've you been doing?" Jake asked and could have sworn the branches rustled in response.

"Well, aren't you a tough bastard?" Said a low guttural gravelly voice that had a slight hiss that was more felt than heard.

It was how you thought a demon should sound.

A few hacking coughs followed by some throat clearing, and something splattering on the ground followed. Then all the noise that could be heard was the hiss of something sizzling.

"Sorry about that," said a completely new, slightly high-pitched voice that was kind of nasally. It also sounded muffled, like Jake wasn't actually hearing him speak. "I haven't spoken in several billion years, throat is a little rough and needs some time."

"Anyway, you're quite the unique life form, aren't cha. Haven't seen this kind of metainformation since... right after creation. Damn, I'm old. But look at you! Survived my warning fine~. I do apologize about that, by the way, I meant to knock you back a bit, not send you flying, but hey, anyone is bound to get a bit rusty if they can't move for billions of years. But you're something else to take a half-hearted attack from me at the core formation realm. Keep this up, and you might even live long enough to get out of here. Shit, you actually got a chance to do your job...

Jake's vision was fading away, with more and more of it being consumed in darkness. He heard the voice, and he knew he could pay attention to what he was saying, but he could not keep his eyes open or mind clear.

A red hairless face with long ears pointed ears and black horns sticking a few inches up appeared above Jake.

Jake felt a tap on his head as power flooded through him, and he heard, "Hey, Warden, we need to talk." But the creature's mouth did not move.

"You wanna talk to me, right?" The thing asked Jake, mouth still not moving.

I'd be a fool to turn down talking to someone who knows what's happening, but I'm so tired... Jake thought as the burst of energy faded, and his vision continued to recede.

Hearing it like it was coming from a long tunnel, Jake listened to the menacing, gravelly voice breathe out, “Great."