Mystic Eyes: My Eyes Steal the Laws of Cultivation

The wolf was a top predator, rare and territorial. The wave of possessed beasts must have displaced it or enraged it, and now it saw Kyrian and his horse as intruders in its aerial domain or as defiant prey.

Kyrian’s black horse stopped beating its wings, hovering in the air. A low whinny escaped its throat, not of fear, but of a recognized challenge.

Kyrian felt the change in the beast between his legs. It was not terror, but a small, belligerent excitement, the horse’s bestial instinct finding an opponent.

’Interesting.’ Kyrian thought. He ran his hand along the horse’s sweaty neck, nodding.

"Very well. Go ahead."

As if it understood the words, the black horse let out a powerful snort and shot upward, toward the winged wolf.

The Gray Wolf answered with a snarl that made the air vibrate. It did not wait.

With a fluid movement of its wings, it launched its first assault. Not a physical attack, but a storm of Cutting Wind Claws. Dozens of semi-transparent blades of Qi, sharp as razors, were created by the beating of its wings and fired in a deadly arc, hissing through the air with the sound of tearing fabric.

Kyrian watched, curious to see how his horse would handle it. He did not have to wait long.

From the horse’s forehead, where before there had been only hide, a pattern of dark runes glowed for an instant. Then a black Qi barrier arose, not as a flat shield, but as a fluid shell that enveloped the horse and Kyrian.

It was opaque and seemed to absorb light, emanating an unshakable solidity.

’BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!’

The Wind Claws struck the black barrier. The sound was that of giant hammers striking a forge. Each impact threw the horse back several meters in the air, forcing Kyrian to hold on tightly.

But when the storm passed, the barrier remained intact, without a single scratch. The horse snorted, more irritated than injured.

Kyrian was genuinely impressed. The horse’s defense was monstrous. He had read about Winged Night Horses, extremely rare beasts from the shadowy plains of the North. They were known for being difficult to tame because of their resistance and also for a single, devastating offensive attack. And that attack was about to be revealed.

While the Winged Wolf, surprised by the resilience, prepared for another attack, something began to change on the black horse’s head. Where the runes had glowed, bone and hide stretched, elongating. In seconds, a long, spiraled horn of obsidian grew from the horse’s forehead.

It was not a simple appendage, it looked sculpted from dark glass, and it pulsed with a heavy, black energy that made Kyrian feel the pressure in the surrounding air.

The Winged Wolf sensed the danger. Its yellow eyes widened, and it tried to pull away, beating its wings to retreat.

But it was too late.

The black horse focused. The black obsidian horn glowed with a deep inner light, and then, without a sound other than a sudden ’whoosh’ of air being torn, a beam of destructive black energy fired.

It was not fast like lightning, but fast enough that Kyrian would have extreme difficulty dodging it.

It was a ray of pure black energy, as thin as a needle and darker than night. It crossed the distance between them. There was no time for the wolf to dodge or to block.

The beam struck the Winged Gray Wolf directly in the center of its forehead, between the blazing yellow eyes. There was no explosion, no spray of blood. Only a small, clean hole, the size of a coin.

The light in the wolf’s eyes went out instantly. All the life, all the fury, all the energy that sustained its flight was extinguished.

The magnificent body of the wolf became an inert weight. Its wings folded in, and it began to fall, spinning slowly, a statue of silver and gray plummeting from the sky toward the ravaged lands below.

The black horse let out a triumphant, short, satisfied whinny. The obsidian horn retracted, dissolving back into its forehead until it disappeared, leaving only the rune pattern, which soon also faded.

Kyrian gave a few firm, praising pats on the beast’s neck.

"As expected." Kyrian murmured with a hint of satisfaction in his cold voice. He had not needed to intervene in any way.

The black horse was not just a means of transportation but also a weapon and a living shield.

It was a considerable investment. Kyrian wondered if he should feed the horse even more spirit stones in the future.

Kyrian then noticed that, suddenly, the horse seemed to be losing altitude, and not only that, it was also breathing heavily.

’Looks like it’s reached its limit...’

"Come on, go down and rest a bit." Kyrian ordered, pulling on the reins.

The horse whinnied in response.

The horse then landed on the edge of a rocky pit, its heavy wings beating one last time before folding in with an audible sigh of fatigue.

The air there was colder and thinner, and the view was desolate. From the mountain, the wave of beasts looked like a river of furious ants darkening the valley, an incessant and sinister flow toward the Screaming Cliffs, which were now distant.

The roar was a continuous, muffled sound, like a sea in an endless storm.

Kyrian dismounted and, without ceremony, took out a generous handful of mid-grade spirit stones from his ring. He placed them on the ground before the horse.

"Recover. You earned it."

The intelligent beast began to devour and absorb the energy from the stones avidly, its body trembling slightly as Qi flowed, repairing strained muscles and replenishing its core. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

While his transport rested, Kyrian walked to the edge of the precipice.

The wind howled around him, stirring his hair and the crimson tunic. His eyes, which had suddenly returned to their deep crimson color, began to change slightly.

The iris expanded, becoming a vast crimson field, while in place of the pupils, the red dissolved into a liquid red sea.

Kyrian’s perception suddenly entered full operation. His absolute perception transcended flesh and saw the very flow of blood.

From his elevated position, he looked down at the valley flooded with beasts. And the world changed.

They were no longer the furry or feathered bodies from when he looked with the pair of ice eyes. There were thousands, tens of thousands of shimmering networks of crimson light, each one a complex map of arteries, veins, and hearts beating at accelerated rhythms.

It was a river of living, pulsing blood, moving with an insane collective will. The sight was at once beautiful and deeply disturbing.

Kyrian focused. He searched for a flaw in the pattern, for a knot of darkness or abnormality, for a point where the vital flow was interrupted, contaminated, or distorted in some way.

The black mass was not a being of blood and bone, it was an entity of pure spiritual hostility. Perhaps he could find something different amid so many beasts with his eyes.

To command so many beasts, the field of influence of the mass of hostility was definitely enormous. But it could not be infinite.

Perhaps it was anchored in the midst of the crowd of beasts, exerting its influence.

For long minutes, he examined. He saw the pattern of movement of the beasts. But nothing more.

With a slight sigh, Kyrian let his eyes return to normal. The weight of the intense vision disappeared. The method was not infallible, but it was worth the attempt.

From the map he had formed in his mind after seeing the scroll earlier, there was still about a day left until the lowlands, the probable point of origin. He would have to follow the physical trail.

He looked at the horse. The beast had already consumed the stones and now rested lying down, its breathing deep and regular.

Its dark eyes watched Kyrian with a silent intelligence.

"Once more." Kyrian said, his voice carried by the wind.

"We need to reach the source before it disappears or moves."

The horse stood up, stretching its wings with a snap of tendons. The rest had been brief, but the spirit stones had made a noticeable difference. The fatigue was still there, but no longer exhaustion.

Kyrian mounted again. This time, he would not force maximum speed. Instead, a sustainable pace that allowed the horse to recover while flying was more efficient in the long run.

They took off, leaving the solitary peak behind. This time Kyrian maintained a medium altitude, following the course of the main valley where the wave had passed.

The devastation below was a clear guide. A swath of ravaged land kilometers wide, marked by broken trees and the occasional remains of a village or camp that had not managed to escape in time.

As the hours passed, the nature of the wave began to change subtly. The density of beasts did not diminish, but the bodies he saw on the ground, those that had fallen during the march, began to show different signs.

It seemed that these bodies had had all their energies suddenly drained. Drying out on the ground shortly after falling.

Instead of just battle wounds, many bodies seemed... withered. Leaving behind dried, brittle carcasses.