The Primal Blood Demonic Dragon

But their reunion didn’t stay peaceful despite the forest had gone quiet.

Too quiet.

Gin crouched in the shadow of a fallen tree, his silver-blue fur matted with dried blood and patches of dirt, the sting of old wounds nagging with every subtle movement. Even without spiritual sense extended, he could feel it. A ripple across the ethereal fabric of the wilderness, like a drumbeat in the roots. Something was coming. And not just one thing.

His ears twitched, instincts honed from countless battles sharpening with each breath. It wasn’t like before. This was different.

"Another wave," Mira-Saira, he corrected himself silently as she murmured with anticipation. She stood calmly, water coiling around her arms like obedient serpents, her eyes sharp and focused.

Wind hummed softly behind her, circling Xingning as her sleeves fluttered from the unseen breeze. She gave no verbal cue, only a subtle tilt of the head. Her lips were sealed, but Gin could read the tension in her shoulders. She felt it too.

And then,

The forest erupted.

From the dense thickets deeper within the wilderness, beasts surged forth like a flood. Dozens at first then hundreds. Gin saw them pouring out from behind gnarled trees and shattered hills, a mixed tide of chaos. Normal beasts mixed with corrupted beasts, all jumbled together in one wave of feral destruction without affecting one another.

The air reeked of blood and rotting essence. Twisted energy radiated from their bodies. Some flickering with remnants of corrupted fire, others twitching unnaturally as if puppeteered.

Jean, still resting lazily on Gin’s back as a small winged lizard, stood up on her hind legs.

"Well, that’s another" she chirped, just before her tiny body began to glow.

In a flash of light and bursting leaves, she morphed. Vines unraveled outward like blooming flowers, moss-laced limbs thickening and twisting until Jean took her full battle form. A sturdy wooden humanoid, formed from wood element and nature itself. Bark coiled into armor, her arms thick like old oak branches.

With a growl, she stepped forward, each movement thudding heavily against the ground.

"Time to get messy."

As the beasts closed the distance, Mira launched first.

Her water coiled outward in ribbons, turning to spears midair. With a crack they launched, skewering two corrupted apes before they even roared. She stepped into the fray with the grace of a dancer and the precision of a trained warrior. Her energy rippled with confidence.

Gin watched her briefly, surprised. She was still wild, still the fearless battle junkie he remembered but there was something different. She wasn’t just focused on the kill. He caught her gaze flickering between Jean and Xingning as they engaged, subtly adjusting her position to cover them. That kind of battlefield awareness of her, he didn’t know before.

Xingning flew past him next, a blur of motion and slicing wind. She had no hesitation, no falter. She darted into the pack, her eyes cold and determined. Twin arcs of wind slashed outward from her fingers, cutting down smaller beasts with ruthless efficiency. Gin saw no trace of the old nervousness in her movements. She fought like she’d shed that timid skin long ago.

But still silent and quiet around him. He remember her like cursing, as not much time passed since he was watching them through him spiritual sense.

’Just like when she used to be around me...’ Gin thought briefly grinning inside.

Jean stepped in last but hit the hardest. Her vine arms coiled back and slammed into the ground, sending beasts flying in chunks. She didn’t dodge. She absorbed every hit with that tough vitality of hers.

Vines tightening around snapped limbs, bark thickening around exposed roots. One of the corrupted rhinos charged her and she caught its horn mid-swing, stopping it cold before throwing it sideways into a tree.

And Gin?

He breathed deep and joined them.

His paws hit the ground softly at first, cautious. Each step was measured, each leap calculated. He felt the wounds on his side protest as he moved, but he pushed through it. This was no situation for resting.

His first strike was against a corrupted leopard that lunged at Xingning’s exposed flank. Gin intercepted it mid-air, jaws snapping shut around its throat, his phee energy flaring in his fangs. The corrupted blood burned against his tongue but he held firm, twisting and throwing it down before delivering the killing blow.

His movements were still stiff, body not fully responding the way he wanted but he adapted. With each beast he fought, with each motion, his body grew faster, more fluid. Pain became rhythm. Instinct replaced inexperience of new body.

The battlefield turned to chaos.

Gin darted between Mira’s waves, Xingning’s blades, Jean’s fists, and the horde’s teeth. He tore through a mutated boar with a spinning leap, then dove to assist Jean, dragging a spider-like beast off her back before it could dig its claws into her bark.

Yet all the while, his soul observed.

He watched Mira as she unleashed an arc of icy water across five beasts, then turned swiftly to check Alice’s position behind her. She did it naturally, automatically. He never knew her to be so mindful of others.

He watched Xingning slice a mutated wolf cleanly, then stop to assess the flow of wind nearby, choosing a better angle of attack rather than blindly charging forward. Strategic. Efficient.

He watched Jean take hit after hit, not out of pride or recklessness but because she knew she could afford to while protecting the others.

And behind them, far from the frontlines, Lucy stood on higher ground with Alice.

Lucy’s eyes moved constantly, tracking them all. Her face never changed but her fingers shifted subtly. Like she was taking mental notes. Every step. Every clash. Every wound. Every save.

Alice however had no eyes for the battlefield.

She only watched him.

Her gaze was gentle and unmoving but intense. Even as beasts howled around them, her eyes never left him.

And somehow... Gin felt it. That warmth.

’She really feels completely a different person.’

While muttering inside he snarled and pounced on another beast, sinking his fangs into its throat. Another wave followed taller beasts, corrupted four legged and warped scorpions now mixed in. He growled, spun, dodged but pain flared up his side. One of the earlier gashes tore wider.

He stumbled, just a little.

A corrupted serpent nearly capitalized on the moment but Mira’s water pierced it from the side just in time.

"Don’t get lazy, wolfy" she barked with a wink, before moving to the next enemy.

Gin gave a huff that sounded half-snarl, half-chuckle.

It seems she has taken the word from Jean’s dictionary.

The battle raged on.

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To Be Continued.