The owl saw the small mouse on the ground falter.

Seizing the moment, it tucked its wings and dove, a silent missile of feathers and death. Talons spread wide, aiming to crush the rodent’s spine.

Sensing the sudden shift in air pressure behind him, Wu Yuan launched himself into a desperate leap. He dodged the lethal grip, but not entirely—a talon grazed his hind leg, carving a trench through fur and flesh. Hot blood splattered onto the forest floor.

The pain was sharp, stinging like fire, but Wu Yuan refused to yield.

If I am to die, I’ll die on my feet! I will not be taken!

Driven by a sheer, primal will to survive, Wu Yuan twisted his body, evading the owl’s follow-up strike. But the cost was high; fresh scratches marred his flanks.

Then, the heat hit him.

It started in his stomach—not a gentle warmth, but a surging tide of energy. The Moon Spirit Grass was taking effect. The heat flooded his veins, washing away the fatigue, numbing the pain.

I can still make it!

Wu Yuan’s heart pounded against his ribs. A strange, alien power coalesced within him, born from the heat, and surged toward his limbs.

As the energy saturated his muscles, he felt light. Weightless.

He pushed off the ground.

Instead of a scurry, he exploded forward, soaring a full three zhang—nearly ten meters—in a single bound. He was no longer running; he was a streak of shadow skimming the earth, a ghost in the night.

Above him, the owl braked in mid-air. Its round, golden eyes widened with a flicker of distinctly human shock. In all its years of hunting, it had never seen a rat move like that.

That moment of hesitation was all Wu Yuan needed. By the time the owl banked for another pass, the mouse had vanished into the dense underbrush.

Wu Yuan didn’t stop. He ran until his lungs burned and his legs screamed.

Only when he sensed the predator was left far behind—after running for the time it takes to burn half an incense stick—did he finally slow down. Even his jogging pace was now double his previous top speed.

As the warm currents in his body began to recede, he used the last dregs of the energy to sprint back to the safety of his root system.

Safe inside the burrow, the adrenaline crashed over him.

Wu Yuan couldn’t sit still. He skittered in circles, chattering excitedly, slapping his paws against the earthen walls. Dust flew, silencing the crickets outside.

“I survived! I actually did it!”

Amidst the euphoria, he turned his attention inward. He could feel it—a wisp of cold, grey energy circulating through his meridians.

Demon Power.

“Does this make me a monster now?” he wondered, testing the sensation.

He took stock of his new reality.

“Endurance has skyrocketed. I just sprinted over two hundred zhang without stopping, and I’m not even winded.”

He flexed his limbs. “My flesh feels denser. More explosive. And the wounds…” He craned his neck to look at his hind leg. The gash from the owl was already scabbing over. “Rapid regeneration.”

He swiped a claw against the dirt wall, leaving deep gouges in the hard-packed earth. “Claws and teeth are sharper, too.”

Curious, Wu Yuan poked his head out of the tunnel entrance. The forest was pitch black, yet to him, it was painted in vibrant hues.

“Vision is enhanced. No more red-green colorblindness. No more farsightedness.” He twitched his nose. “And the smell… it’s overwhelming. I can smell everything.”

A surge of confidence swelled in his chest.

“I could kill the old me in a heartbeat. Even if that Black Brocade Snake came back, its scales wouldn’t save it. I might actually be able to bite through its throat.”

He retreated into the dark, a satisfied grin on his whiskers.

“Whatever I am now, I’ve taken the first step. I have hope. Hope for a human form. Hope for immortality.”

He curled up in his nesting chamber, whispering a modified slogan from his past life:

“The revolution has not yet succeeded; this little mouse must still strive on!”

Twenty-four hours later.

Wu Yuan sat at the entrance of his burrow, looking at the desolate patch of forest around him with a sense of melancholy.

He had stripped the area clean. Every edible wild fruit, grass seed, and leaf within 30 zhang had been devoured. His appetite had exploded, increasing tenfold.

“Bad news: The food situation is critical. I’m spending half the day just finding enough calories to function.”

“Good news: Eating restores Demon Power. And burning Demon Power strengthens my physique.”

Yesterday, the hunger had hit him like a physical blow. It was a dizzying, ravenous emptiness that forced him to break a cardinal rule of survival: A rabbit doesn’t eat the grass near its own burrow.

By stripping the vegetation around his home, he had drastically reduced its concealment.

“I need to stockpile food before I train with Demon Power next time,” he resolved. “And leaves aren’t cutting it. I need meat.”

He looked down at the prize in his paws.

It was a bird’s egg, half the size of his body, its speckled shell hairline-cracked.

He had just raided a nest to get it. Before his evolution, he never would have dared such a heist. He had tanked pecks from the angry mother bird—attacks that felt like mere pinpricks now—and escaped with only a few lost tufts of fur.

“I ate raw eggs in my past life for gains,” he muttered. “This is no different. It’s just protein.”

Wu Yuan bit off the top of the shell, revealing the translucent, gelatinous white. He buried his snout inside and slurped.

“Oh…”

His eyes lit up.

“Delicious.”

He had expected a fishy, metallic taste, forcing himself to overcome his human gag reflex. Instead, he was met with a rich, mellow creaminess that coated his tongue. It was smooth, savory, and bursting with life energy.

He didn’t know if the egg was high quality or if his rat taste buds just loved it, and he didn’t care.

He drained the shell dry, licking the last drops of yolk. A warm sense of satisfaction filled his belly.

“Finally full.”

Wu Yuan retreated to his simple bed of dried grass. He gazed up through the small ventilation hole he had dug, staring at the patch of sky.

It was the same sky. He was the same rat. But everything felt different.

The misty, oppressive forest seemed brighter. The leaves looked greener, more vibrant.

Wait. Green?

No… Cyan.

Wu Yuan bolted upright.

A new color.

The Causality Bead was reacting. Blue intel had given him Demon Power. What could Cyan possibly bring?

Breath hitching, he focused on the floating text.

[Cyan Intelligence: Tomorrow night at the Hour of Zi, at the Cyan Rock on the mountain summit, a Fox Demon will worship the moon, gathering Lunar Essence.]

Wu Yuan went rigid.

A Fox Demon!

This was the first time the Causality Bead had explicitly named a species of monster. It was undeniable proof: The path to becoming a true Demon existed.

He paced back and forth on his bed, the wood creaking under his agitated steps.

A Fox…

He stopped.

Do Fox Demons eat rats?

Anxiety clawed at his excitement.

The mission for the Spirit Grass had been a desperate gamble by a dying man. He had nothing to lose. But now? Now he had a foothold. He had a longer lifespan. He had something to lose.

The fear of death, which had been dulled by hopelessness, returned in full force.

But the hesitation lasted only a moment.

“I can’t ignore a Cyan lead,” he whispered to the darkness. “Who knows when the next one will appear? If I cower in this hole every time there’s a risk, I’ll die a rat.”

“I have to go. But I need to be prepared.”

The summit was far. It was territory he had never mapped.

“I can’t wait for tomorrow night,” Wu Yuan decided. “I need to scout the route now.”

He didn’t creep out of his hole this time. He didn’t take one step and pause to sniff the air.

Wu Yuan burst from the earth, sprinting toward the mountain peak. With his new speed, only the fastest terrors of the sky could catch him now.