Reverend Insanity - Fate Devourer

Three days dissolved like morning mist. The mid-year exam had arrived.

"Faster, faster! I've drawn it out!" A young voice cracked with urgency as its owner sprinted through the forest.

Twin rings of pale green wind swirled around the youngster's legs, granting him speed beyond his years. Yet with each passing moment, the gap between him and his pursuer shrank.

Shafts of scorching sunlight pierced the forest canopy, catching the wild boar's tusks and making them gleam like paired daggers. The beast's hooves thundered against the earth, gaining ground with terrifying momentum.

"It's coming! Hold the rope steady!" Four hidden figures tensed in the undergrowth, their hands white-knuckled on the rope that stretched across the path like a spider's thread.

The running youth gathered himself and leaped, sailing over the trap with something resembling grace, if one squinted a little bit. 

Behind him, the charging boar hit the rope at full speed.

The massive beast went down hard, its bulk carrying it another five or six meters before coming to rest. But the impact yanked the hidden youths off their feet, sending them sprawling alongside their quarry.

"Strike!" The decoy runner wheeled around, his command cutting through the chaos.

The fallen youngsters scrambled up, moving to surround the downed boar despite their jarred bodies.

*Kacha*

A young tree, caught in the boar's tumble, snapped like a twig. Its crown crashed to the forest floor with a spray of leaves.

'That was too close!' Gu Yue Chi Cheng drew a shaky hand across his sweat-slicked forehead, his heart still racing. 'If I hadn't used the Dragonpill Cricket Gu to jump three meters left, I'd have ended up like that sapling.'

His introspective mood was shattered rather quickly.

"Not bad, guys, not bad..." Qin said with a slight smirk. "Though I think the tree got the worst of our bravery."

Laughter rippled through the group, but Chi Chen's eyes lingered on his friend, worry etching lines around them. He, Qin, and three others had formed a hunting team for the exam - perfectly within the rules, but something felt off.

These past days had seen a disturbing change in Qin. His usually sharp eyes had dulled, his hair was falling out in noticeable patches, skin cracked like sun-baked earth. He looked like a man at the edge of collapse despite visiting a healing Gu master thrice, yet insisted on joining the exam. 

Stranger still, despite his deteriorating appearance, his body moved with unnatural precision.

Chi Chen had other friends, of course - but he'd long suspected they orbited him only for the gravitational pull of his family. Qin was different. Or at least, he wanted to believe so despite what his grandpa kept telling him.

"Where should we head next?" Qin asked, his voice oddly cheerful despite his haggard appearance. "I hear the boars prefer the deeper forest."

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.

.

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From her concealed perch in the canopy, Gu Yue Ming Lian watched the students like a hawk as they kept on butchering boars one after another. Her rank 2 cultivation had earned her this supervisory role, though at twenty one summers old, she was barely their senior. Long black hair was pulled back severely from a face that some called beautiful, but her jade-green eyes held the hardness of one who had seen too much too young.

A flash of light suddenly sparked in the distance, bright as summer lightning. The students' voices rose in confused speculation, but Ming Lian's face darkened with understanding. Her fingers tightened around the branch until bark crumbled.

Her gaze darted between the light's origin and her charges, particularly the Chi family heir. Her duty was clear - protect these students at all costs. But Zhang Wei was guarding the A-grade prodigy in that direction. Zhang Wei, with his gentle smile and calloused hands, who had promised to marry her when winter came.

Love warred with duty in her heart for three agonizing heartbeats before she activated her Rabbit Foot Gu. The rank 2 gu hummed with power as she launched herself toward the disturbing light, leaving her post for the first time in three years of service. 

A willing puppet dragged by unseen threads... because after all, wasn't love itself a form of fate?

"Qin, you coming?" Chi Cheng called out, already moving with the others.

"Of course, of course," Qin's voice carried an edge that none of his companions seemed to notice. "Let's go... I can barely wait..."