The world inside the Canyon of the Whispering Stones had shrunk to a prison of moonlit rock and rising panic. The triumphant roar of the Azure Cloud soldiers curdled into a cacophony of shouts and curses, their torchlight dancing wildly over the newly-formed wall of stone that sealed the entrance. The air, once filled with the confidence of the hunter, was now thick with the cloying scent of fear.
Officer Jiao stood frozen, his sword hanging limp in his hand. His strategic mind, so adept at planning fortifications and troop movements, scrambled against the sheer, impossible reality of what had just happened. This was not warfare. This was geology wielded as a weapon. This was witchcraft.
"Form ranks!" he bellowed, the command cracking with a strain he couldn't conceal. "To me! The boy is just one! He cannot stand against us all!"
But his men were not listening. The discipline that had been drilled into them shattered against the primal terror of being entombed. They were soldiers, not miners. Their world was one of steel and strategy, not of living mountains that fought back.
Li watched them from the center of the canyon, a statue of calm amidst the chaos. The jade in his hand was no longer a blazing beacon, but a cool, focused lens. The initial, explosive expenditure of power had passed, leaving behind a deep, resonant connection to the stone around him. He could feel every fissure in the canyon walls, every loose pebble, the immense, patient weight of it all. He was not just in the canyon; he was of it.
He took a step forward.
It was a small movement, but it silenced the nearest soldiers. They watched him, their eyes wide, their weapons held in trembling hands. He was no longer a "boy" or a "demon." He was an elemental force.
"You came to my home," Li's voice was quiet, yet it carried through the gorge, amplified by the stone. It was the voice of the valley itself, ancient and unforgiving. "You burned it. You killed its people. You thought you could take its heart."
He took another step. A soldier, younger than the others, let out a terrified cry and lunged forward, his spear aimed at Li's chest.
Li didn't move to parry. He didn't need to.
The ground beneath the soldier's front foot simply gave way. Not into a pit, but into a sucking, grasping mire of churned earth and loose stone that seized his leg up to the knee. The man screamed, dropping his spear and clawing at the ground as he was slowly, inexorably, pulled deeper.
"The mountain holds you now," Li said, his gaze passing over the horrified faces of the other soldiers. "It does not want you here."
He looked at another soldier, one who was edging towards the canyon wall, perhaps seeking shelter. Li focused his will, and a section of the wall, slick with moss and damp, seemed to shift. A cascade of smaller rocks and gravel showered down, not enough to bury him, but enough to send him scrambling back into the center, yelping in fear.
Jiao watched, his mind reeling. This was not a fight. It was a systematic dismantling of his command, a psychological unmaking. The boy wasn't just killing them; he was proving their utter insignificance. He was showing them that their swords and their armor and their training were meaningless against the land itself.
"He's just one!" Jiao screamed again, desperation clawing at his throat. "It's an illusion! Charge him! All of you! Now!"
A few of the braver, or more terrified, soldiers obeyed. A group of five broke from the panicked cluster and charged, their war cries echoing hollowly in the stone chamber.
Li finally moved his spear. It was a simple, almost lazy motion. He didn't thrust or slash. He tapped the ironwood shaft against the ground.
A sharp crack echoed, and a jagged fissure split the stone floor, racing directly towards the charging men. It wasn't a deep chasm, but it was enough. The lead soldier's foot caught in the crack, and he fell with a sickening snap of bone. The others behind him tripped over him, piling into a heap of clattering armor and pained grunts.
Li walked towards the writhing pile. He didn't look at the men. He looked at their fallen weapons. He focused on a steel sword. The jade pulsed. The metal of the sword groaned, then visibly rusted, flaking away into orange dust before their eyes. Another pulse, and a spear shaft splintered as if devoured by termites.
He was unmaking them. Not just their courage, but their very tools.
The remaining soldiers broke. There was no order, no formation. It was a rout of pure, animal terror. They dropped their weapons, the clatter of steel on stone a final admission of defeat. They scrambled over the fallen, clawing at the unyielding stone of the blocked entrance, their screams merging with the mournful whisper of the wind.
Jiao stood alone. His army, his pride, was gone. Reduced to a sobbing, broken mob. He looked at Li, who now stood before him, the jade's soft glow illuminating a face that held no hatred, no rage, only a profound and terrible judgment.
"You… what are you?" Jiao whispered, his voice a broken thing.
"I am the last guardian," Li replied. "And you are a trespasser."
He didn't raise his spear. He didn't need to. He simply looked at the rock wall behind Jiao. A section of it, high up, groaned. A single, large boulder dislodged itself. It didn't fall with destructive force. It dropped with a precise, deliberate finality, landing with a heavy thud directly behind Jiao, boxing him in against the larger wall.
Jiao was trapped, alone, a prisoner in the stone cage his own ambition had built.
Li turned his back on the broken officer and the ruins of his army. He walked to the far end of the canyon, where a narrow, difficult chimney of rock offered a way out for one who knew the land. He did not look back.
Behind him, the Canyon of the Whispering Stones held its new secrets: the echoes of broken men, and the slow, dawning realization in Officer Jiao's mind that he had not been hunting a prize. He had been provoking a god. And the god had answered.