The morning mist, usually a tranquil blanket over the Azure Ink Valley, tore apart with a guttural roar. Su Mian, humming a quiet tune as he carefully inspected a dew-kissed leaf of a snow-cabbage, watched in horrified silence as a monstrous, charcoal-furred beast burst through the ancient wisteria gate. Its eyes, burning like miniature solar flares, fixed on his neatly tilled rows. This was no common beast of the Veridian Expanse. This was a Sun-Devouring Mastiff, its immense frame rippling with muscle, each heavy step thundering against the damp soil. “My early winter crop!” Su Mian cried out, his voice a bewildered gasp. The mastiff, oblivious to the small figure in the straw hat, charged. Its mighty paws, tipped with claws like obsidian daggers, churned through the rich soil. Tender, ivory-white heads, tended for months with painstaking care, were flattened into pulpy green smears beneath its furious rampage. Behind the beast, a flurry of movement indicated its pursuers. Three figures, clad in the sleek sky-blue robes of the Skyborne Prefecture, darted through the broken gate. Their faces, usually composed, were etched with a frantic urgency. The lead scout, a man with a sharp, hawkish nose, pointed a trembling finger at the rampaging brute. “Master Yan Zhui will have our heads! That beast has gone mad with the scent of… what even is this place?” The scout's gaze swept over the unassumingly rustic farmstead, his brow creased before he snapped back to the rampaging creature. The beast, having decimated half of Su Mian’s prized patch, now sniffed at the air, its nostrils flaring. It seemed to be searching for something, a low growl rumbling in its chest, vibrating the ground beneath Su Mian’s worn boots. Su Mian, however, was not thinking of the beast’s mysterious quest. He was staring at the mangled remains of his finest crop, sorrow hollow in his belly. His gaze landed on a discarded scrap of parchment near his painting easel – a hasty, charcoal-brushed sketch of distant ridges, rendered in bold, sweeping strokes. The ink, still subtly damp, seemed to hum with an arcane energy, though Su Mian simply saw it as a wasted sheet. An idea, simple and pure, bloomed in his mind. “Excuse me, big fellow,” Su Mian said, stepping cautiously towards the creature, which paused its destruction to eye him with a wary, sun-fire glare. “You’re making quite a mess. Perhaps you’d like something more… engaging?” With nimble fingers, Su Mian folded the blackened parchment. Crease after precise crease, the discarded sketch transformed. The sharp angles of the painted peaks became the elegant curves of wings, the deep valleys the intricate folds of a tail. In moments, a simple, perfect paper crane rested in his palm, its form holding the silent breadth of the crags it once depicted. The beast let out a warning snarl, its massive head lowering, preparing to charge. Su Mian, unfazed, gently tossed the paper crane into the air. It fluttered, caught an invisible current, and then, with a silent beat of its paper wings, ascended. It didn’t just float; it flew. Not with the jerky movements of paper, but with the fluid grace of a living bird, its shadow dancing across the ruined patch. The celestial scouts, who had been attempting to corner the hound with energy nets that dissolved upon contact with its hide, froze. Zhun Lei’s mouth dropped open. “A… a paper bird?” he whispered, disbelief painting his face. The fiery tyrant's pet hound, renowned for its impenetrable hide and boundless ferocity, seemed taken aback. It barked, a sound like grinding boulders, and lunged at the ascending crane. But the paper bird, light and impossibly swift, weaved through its snapping jaws, dipping and soaring with an almost playful elegance. The beast, accustomed to brute force, found its immense power useless against such an ephemeral, yet uncatchable, target. It leapt, clawed, and roared, tearing up more of the valley floor in its frustration. The paper crane, meanwhile, ascended higher, circling once above the bewildered beast. Then, with a sudden, decisive plunge, it dove. It didn’t strike the hound directly. Instead, as it descended, the brushed ridges on its wings seemed to ripple, to expand. The air around it grew heavy, thick with the silent immensity of stone. It grew, not in physical size, but in sheer, unyielding presence, bearing down with an ancient density. The paper crane settled on the hound’s broad, muscular back. But it wasn’t merely a paper toy resting there. It was a phantom summit, a crushing precipice of granite and earth, its painted slopes solidified into an unbearable burden. The monstrous beast, which had shrugged off elemental attacks and martial blows from masters of the Celestial Ascension stage, buckled. Its legs, thick as tree trunks, trembled. A pained whimper escaped its throat, a sound utterly out of place for such a formidable creature. It struggled, trying to rise, but the burden, invisible yet absolute, pinned it to the soil like an iron spike. Zhun Lei and his fellow scouts stared, their faces pale beneath their sect marks. “Impossible…” one breathed, “A spirit technique? No, this… this defies all known cultivation principles!” Su Mian let out a steady sigh. He walked over to the pinned hound, whose burning eyes stared in pure bafflement. He gently nudged a still-intact winter leaf with his boot. “Well, at least some survived,” he murmured, more to himself than the beast. He glanced at the now-quiet paper crane, which pulsed faintly atop the beast's spine, then back at the bewildered scouts. Just as Zhun Lei took a hesitant step forward, a new sound cut through the stunned silence – a ragged gasp. A figure stumbled through the broken wisteria gate, her robes torn and spotted with crimson. It was a woman, her dark hair a tangled mess around a face streaked with dirt and pain. Her gaze, sharp even in distress, found Su Mian. With a surge of desperate strength, she lunged forward, thrusting a small, glowing vial of golden liquid into his hands. “Run! Take this… the Golden Dew… run, Su Mian!” she choked out, her voice barely a whisper, before her legs gave out, and she collapsed into the trampled dirt of the vegetable beds, her eyes rolling back in her head.

The Paper Crane and the Mastiff