Chapter 17 – The Primal Instinct
The first thing Alicia felt was heat—thick, suffocating heat.
It rolled off the Boar King in waves, melting the cooled lava back into glowing veins of orange.
Shin's voice cracked. "It can't be… it was dead!"
The creature bellowed, molten drool hissing against the scorched earth. Its chest heaved with fury, each breath shaking ash from the canopy above.
The forest was alive with dread. Even the shadows seemed to retreat.
And in the middle of it all, Vaibhav lay still.
Unmoving.
Vulnerable.
The beast pawed the ground, molten cracks glowing beneath its hooves. Then—
—it charged.
"Vyuk!" Shin screamed.
The air roared as the Boar King hurtled forward, tusks glinting with embered light—
—and stopped.
A shadow passed over them. Not from above, but from within.
Vaibhav's body twitched. His hand, limp moments ago, gripped the earth hard enough to crack the cooled stone.
His head lifted slowly.
The Boar King swung its tusks downward—
—and missed.
A blur passed through the air, silent and clean. The beast's tusk snapped off with a wet crunch.
Shin stumbled back. "W-what the hell…?"
Vaibhav stood between them and the monster, bare-handed, eyes blank and glowing faintly white.
His breathing was steady.
His movements—unnaturally smooth, as if the world around him lagged.
The Boar King recoiled, half in pain, half in confusion. Its molten blood hissed on the ground, eating through the stone.
Alicia whispered, "That… that's not human."
The beast charged again.
Vaibhav turned—not fast, not slow—just right. His palm brushed against the air as the tusk passed inches from his chest.
The air itself seemed to tear.
A sharp crack echoed, and the beast's momentum broke mid-charge. Dust and molten ash spiraled around them in slow motion.
It wasn't just a fight anymore. It was something deeper—like watching nature warp around an idea.
Vaibhav moved like instinct carved into flesh. No stance. No pattern.
His hands traced arcs through the air, black mist trailing faintly behind them.
Each strike wasn't just an attack—it was correction, as if the world itself realigned to his motion.
The Boar King lunged, fury replacing pain.
It struck with a sweeping tusk—
Vaibhav ducked, rolled, and drove his knee upward into its jaw.
A thunderous crack split the silence. The beast's skull jerked sideways, teeth scattering like glowing stones.
Molten blood splashed across his arm, but didn't burn him. It hissed, then evaporated in the air near his skin.
Shin could barely process what he was seeing. "He's not even conscious…"
Alicia shook her head. "No. He's something else now."
The ground trembled as the Boar King regained balance, rage eclipsing reason. It reared back and slammed its hooves down—sending fissures racing across the battlefield.
Vaibhav was gone from sight.
The next moment, his shadow appeared behind the beast. He drove a fist into the back of its leg, shattering bone.
The creature screamed—a deep, metallic sound that made Alicia's ears ring.
Its massive body staggered, knees folding inward.
And still, Vaibhav didn't stop.
He advanced, step by step, every movement sharper than the last. The world bent around him—air twisting, light bending, sound cutting in and out.
Shin could swear he saw two of him for a split second—his shadow lagging behind, mimicking his attacks with an impossible delay.
The forest flickered between real and unreal.
"His shadow… it's moving separately," Shin muttered.
The Boar King roared again, spewing molten bile. It scorched everything in its path, trees turning to black silhouettes in seconds.
Vaibhav raised his hand.
A shockwave erupted outward, not fire nor force, but absence. The molten stream vanished midair—snuffed out by something unseen.
For a heartbeat, there was silence.
Then the beast lunged again.
The clash was brutal, primal—like two instincts colliding.
Vaibhav struck its chest with a flat palm, sending ripples through its molten hide.
The Boar King retaliated, its tusk grazing his ribs, drawing blood that evaporated before it touched the ground.
They exchanged strikes faster than sight could track—each hit like thunder, each movement a blur.
The air cracked and folded around them, pressure rippling outward.
Alicia and Shin were thrown back by the force, rolling over shards of glassed earth.
Alicia coughed, her eyes watering. "He's fighting like a beast… no—worse."
Shin's gaze was fixed on Vaibhav. "Like something that remembers being human."
The fight reached its breaking point.
The Boar King screamed, molten veins flashing violently. Its entire body ignited, transforming into a blazing silhouette of rage.
Vaibhav stopped moving.
His eyes narrowed—two dim, dead moons in the dark.
He took a single step forward. The ground cracked.
Another.
Then he was gone.
A sound like a sonic boom tore through the clearing.
Vaibhav appeared above the Boar King, his knee bent, his body twisting midair. Shadows spiraled around him, forming a whirlpool of void and light.
Time slowed.
The world tilted.
And he kicked.
The impact was silent for an instant—then came the roar.
A wave of compressed air exploded outward, flattening everything within hundreds of meters.
The Boar King's head twisted sideways, half its face vaporized from the sheer pressure.
The shockwave shredded nearby trees, sent molten dust spiraling into the sky like a storm of dying stars.
The beast crashed to the ground, leaving a crater deep enough to swallow half its body.
Vaibhav landed gently, knees bent, eyes still blank. He exhaled once—cold steam rising from his lips.
Then his legs gave out.
He collapsed beside the beast's smoldering corpse.
The void heat around him dissipated, fading like a dream. The cracks in the air sealed, shadows returning to normal.
Shin rushed forward. "Vyuk! Hey! Stay with me!"
Alicia knelt beside them, placing two fingers to his neck. His pulse was weak but steady.
She exhaled shakily. "He's alive."
Shin looked up at her. "Alive? After that—what even was that?"
Alicia's gaze drifted to Vaibhav's hand. Faint grey mist curled between his fingers before fading.
"…what was that?," she whispered.
The Boar King's carcass emitted a faint, rhythmic sound—like breathing, but distant. The molten glow in its chest flickered, then went dark completely.
Only silence remained.
The battlefield was nothing but ruin and ash.
Shin slumped down beside Vaibhav. "You crazy bastard…" he muttered, half in relief, half in awe.
Alicia didn't answer. Her mind was elsewhere.
That power…
It wasn't just Qi. It wasn't fire, or heat, or it's something else.
Something ancient. Something that shouldn't exist in a mortal body.
She stared at Vaibhav's peaceful, unconscious face—so normal now, so human.
But in her chest, a cold realization formed.
Whatever that thing was inside him…
…it hadn't awakened fully yet.