The sky was never supposed to tear.
Ben Tennyson felt it before he saw it—the Omnitrix screaming against his wrist, a shrill, alien pulse that rattled through his bones. Not an alarm. Not a warning.
Fear.
Space twisted like wet cloth. Stars smeared into lines of burning white, and then everything collapsed inward, dragging Ben with it.
"Whoa—whoa—WAIT—!"
The universe dropped him.
There was no ground. No sky. Just violent descent, air howling like it wanted to flay him alive. Ben flailed, panic clawing up his throat as the Omnitrix glowed a furious, unstable green.
"This is not normal! This is very not normal!"
Then—impact.
The world exploded.
Stone shattered like glass. Trees were ripped from the earth, roots screaming as they were torn free. A crater bloomed in the middle of a mountain slope, dust and debris erupting into the air like a volcanic breath.
Ben didn't scream.
The Omnitrix acted first.
Green light swallowed him whole.
When the dust settled, silence followed.
At the edge of the crater, robed figures stood frozen. Men with long hair tied back, faces hardened by years of violence, eyes wide with disbelief. Their auras flickered—visible pressure rolling off their bodies like heat haze.
Cultivators.
They had been traveling through the mountain pass when the sky split open.
And something fell.
At the center of the crater, a beast crouched low.
It had no eyes—only a wide, bestial head covered in coarse, dark fur. Its claws dug into stone as it inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring.
Wildmutt.
The creature lifted its head and sniffed.
Blood. Fear. Killing intent. Qi—dense, sharp, unnatural energy saturating the air like invisible smoke.
Ben didn't see the cultivators.
He felt them.
Instinct roared.
Danger.
Wildmutt moved.
In a blur of raw animal motion, it leapt out of the crater, claws ripping through stone as if it were soft earth. One heartbeat, it was there—
The next, it was among them.
A scream was cut short.
Claws tore through flesh. Bone snapped. A body was hurled aside, smashing against a tree hard enough to splinter the trunk. Another cultivator barely raised his blade before Wildmutt slammed into him, jaws closing around his shoulder and ripping.
Blood sprayed hot and thick.
The others reacted instantly.
"Demonic beast!"
"Kill it!"
Swords flashed. Qi surged. Blades glowed with murderous light as they struck—
And bounced.
Wildmutt was already gone.
It darted between them, impossibly fast, moving on instinct alone. It didn't fight like a martial artist. It hunted. It tore. It crippled.
In seconds, the mountain path became a slaughterhouse.
Then—stillness.
Wildmutt stood among broken bodies, chest heaving, fur slick with blood.
The Omnitrix pulsed.
Green light yanked Ben back into himself.
Ben collapsed to his knees, gasping, hands shaking as reality slammed back into place.
"Oh—oh man…"
He stared at his hands.
Human hands.
Around him lay corpses.
Not aliens. Not monsters. People. Men in robes, their eyes empty, blood soaking into the dirt.
"I—I didn't mean to—"
His stomach twisted violently. Ben retched, barely turning aside before throwing up onto the cracked stone.
His ears rang. His heart pounded like it wanted to escape his chest.
"I didn't even think," he whispered.
The Omnitrix hummed softly.
Not apologetically.
Analyzing.
Ben staggered to his feet, panic flooding in. "Okay, okay, think. New planet, weird clothes, magic kung fu guys—this is bad, but I've handled bad before. Just need to—"
The ground trembled.
Ben froze.
From deeper within the mountain pass, pressure rolled outward—heavy, crushing, suffocating. The air itself seemed to bow.
A figure approached.
An old man stepped into view, his robe pristine white, his long beard flowing down his chest. His eyes glowed faintly as he looked at the carnage, then at Ben.
His gaze was sharp enough to cut.
"A child," the man said slowly, voice calm—and infinitely dangerous. "Standing unharmed where my disciples were slaughtered."
Ben swallowed. "Hi?"
The old man raised a hand.
Qi gathered.
Ben didn't hesitate.
"Heatblast!"
Green light erupted.
Fire exploded outward.
Not ordinary fire—this was blazing, golden flame, infused with raw Yang Qi that the Omnitrix greedily drank from the world. Heatblast emerged, magma veins glowing across his body as the air warped around him.
The old man's eyes widened—just a fraction.
"A transforming body technique?" he murmured. "No… this is—"
Heatblast hurled a fireball the size of a carriage.
The old man flicked his sleeve.
The flames split in half, dispersing harmlessly around him.
Heatblast staggered as backlash tore through Ben's nerves. Pain lanced through his chest like molten needles.
Too strong.
Way too strong.
The old man stepped forward.
"Interesting artifact," he said. "I will take it."
A crushing force slammed into Ben, pinning him in place. Heatblast's flames flickered wildly, destabilizing.
"Nope—nope—NOPE!"
The Omnitrix flared again.
Emergency adaptation.
Green light flashed—
Diamondhead erupted outward.
Crystalline spikes burst from Ben's arms and shoulders as his body hardened into living diamond. The pressure cracked, splintering against his new form.
Ben didn't attack.
He ran.
Diamond feet slammed against the ground, shattering stone as he bolted down the mountainside. Behind him, the old man laughed softly.
"Run. Let us see how far a monster can flee."
A blade of Qi screamed past Ben's head, carving a canyon into the cliff wall.
Ben skidded, barely keeping his balance, heart hammering.
"What is this place?!" he shouted to no one.
The Omnitrix pulsed again—different this time.
Not warning.
Recognition.
For the first time since arriving, words formed across its surface—not English, not alien, but something ancient, sharp, and heavy with meaning.
Ben didn't understand them.
But somehow…
He felt them.
Cultivation Environment DetectedQi Density: ExtremeHost Status: Anomaly
The watch hummed, deeper now, like something awakening.
Ben looked back up the mountain path, where the old man stood watching, eyes glowing with greedy fascination.
Then Ben ran harder than he ever had in his life.
Behind him, Murim had noticed.
And it would never stop hunting him.