"Not today, Satan. Not today," Ethan muttered, his voice shaking slightly less from fear and slightly more from… bewilderment.
He'd been expecting a showdown, sure, a good old-fashioned kung-fu rumble.
But *this*?
This whole "ancient super-powered plant-person" thing was throwing him *way* off his game.
Then, the world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of shimmering fragments.
The last image of the creepy, weasel-faced Master Wei, his greedy eyes gleaming, shattered like a dropped phone screen.
Ethan blinked.
Mia stood before him, a tiny, luminous green sprout extending from her palm, pulsating with a gentle light.
Before he could even process what he was seeing, the sprout shot forward, faster than a caffeinated hummingbird, and *thwacked* him right in the chest, directly over his heart.
It felt… oddly warm.
Like a hot water bottle, but, you know, *inside* him.
*Ding!*
The familiar, yet always jarring, system notification echoed in his mind.
*"Initiating Emergency Link.
Spiritual Core Synchronization commencing.
Time remaining: 30 minutes.
"*
*Emergency Link?
Spiritual Core Synchronization?
What in the fresh hell…*
Suddenly, Mia's memories, hazy and fragmented like a corrupted video file, flooded his consciousness.
He saw Master Wei's true plan, a scheme so convoluted and ridiculously evil, it made his head spin.
This wasn't about some random herb.
Mia was the *key*.
The *Wan Yao Mu's* core was the power source needed to reactivate the Sky-Weaving Pavilion's dreaded Soul Devouring Array.
And weasel-boy planned to use it like some oversized spiritual battery.
*"No freakin' way,"* Ethan growled, the words echoing strangely in both his and Mia's voice.
Just then, the cave entrance exploded inwards in a shower of dust and broken rock.
Master Wei's puppet army, looking like rejected extras from a low-budget wuxia flick, swarmed into the chamber.
They advanced with a chilling, mechanical synchronicity, their lifeless eyes fixed on Mia.
Suddenly, a furry, meatball-shaped blur hurled itself in front of the puppets, letting out a deafening roar.
Sora, Mia's guardian beast, resembling an overgrown panda with anger management issues, had entered the chat.
*Ding!
* *"New Skill Unlocked: Beast Soul Resonance.
Prepare for some serious fuzzy synergy!
"*
Ethan felt a surge of raw power coursing through him.
It was exhilarating, terrifying, and slightly nauseating, all at the same time.
Focusing his will, he channeled the energy into the verdant vines erupting from the ground around Mia.
They snaked outwards, wrapping around the puppets like hungry pythons, effectively halting their advance.
Except… they didn't stop growing.
*"Uh oh.
Too much fertilizer?
"* Ethan mumbled, as the vines continued their relentless expansion, thickening, intertwining, and rapidly filling the cavern.
Mia's soothing medicinal fragrance filled the air, mixing with the slightly acrid scent of the rapidly growing vines.
As her spiritual core intertwined further with Ethan's absurdly chaotic cultivation method, something truly bizarre began to happen.
Ethan felt an almost drunken sense of freedom, a lightness in his steps that defied gravity.
He took a step forward, utilizing the Drunken Immortal's Gait, a technique he'd unlocked purely by accident (and copious amounts of fermented peach juice).
And as his foot touched the ground, a golden lotus bloomed beneath it.
Not a metaphorical lotus, mind you.
A real, honest-to-goodness, shimmering golden lotus flower, radiating a warm, pulsing light.
As the puppet's attacks struck him, they seemed to bounce off him like rubber balls, their force deflected and redirected back towards their source with unsettling accuracy.
"Well, isn't this just…charming?" Master Wei drawled, his voice dripping with false sweetness.
The smug smirk plastered on his weasel face made Ethan want to punch him so hard his ancestors would feel it.
As if on cue, Master Wei flicked his wrist, a barely perceptible movement, yet it sent a ripple through the air.
Suddenly, the golden lotuses, which had been blooming with such flamboyant abandon, *shriveled*.
It wasn't a slow, graceful fading, oh no.
It was like watching a time-lapse of flowers dying in a microwave.
They browned, cracked, and disintegrated into sad little piles of shimmering dust.
The warm, pulsing light vanished, leaving Ethan feeling strangely exposed, like he'd just stepped out of a hot shower into an arctic blizzard.
*Ding!
* The system chimed in with its usual impeccable timing.
*"Warning!
Host detected within Soul Devouring Array radius.
Spiritual energy rapidly depleting.
Spiritual Core Synchronization duration reduced.
Remaining time: 10 minutes.
"*
Ten minutes?
Ten *freaking* minutes?
Ethan's brain scrambled for solutions, flipping through mental files like a frantic librarian searching for a misplaced book.
*Think, Ethan, think!
* He knew enough about Wei's reputation to know the Soul Devouring Array was his signature move, designed to steal power and energy.
He knew that Mia was the key to counteract it.
Then, a dusty memory surfaced from the depths of his consciousness – a passage from a ridiculously obscure text the system had translated, something about ancient elixirs and…blood?
*"Spiritual herbs require the offering of blood"* the text had stated.
It seemed counterintuitive, weird, and possibly a terrible idea but there was no alternative.
Without a second thought, Ethan reached for the nearest sharp object – a jagged shard of rock he'd been using as a makeshift toothpick – and sliced a shallow cut across his palm.
A bead of crimson blood welled up, glistening in the dim light.
He didn't hesitate.
He lunged towards Mia, gently cupping her chin in his hand, and smeared the blood across her lips.
It wasn't exactly the most romantic moment, given the circumstances (evil weasel-man, puppet army, rapidly approaching doom, the works!
), but Ethan didn't have time to worry about aesthetics.
For a heart-stopping moment, nothing happened.
The air hung thick with tension, the only sound the rhythmic crunching of Sora dismantling puppets with extreme prejudice.
Then, Mia's eyes fluttered open.
They weren't the soft, gentle brown he was used to seeing.
Now, they crackled with an ancient, emerald fire.
"With blood as the binding agent, myriad herbs reborn!" she rasped, her voice hoarse but filled with an undeniable power.
It was the first time Ethan had ever heard her speak.
Goosebumps erupted all over his skin.
He wasn't sure if it was from the mystical mumbo-jumbo or the sheer, unadulterated *badassery* of the moment.
A wave of blinding green light erupted from Mia, engulfing the cavern.
The remaining puppets seized in place and crumbled to dust.
The vines, which had been listlessly drooping after the lotus' demise, surged back to life, thicker and more vibrant than before.
The synchronization between Mia and Ethan felt stronger than ever before.
As the light subsided, Sora stood tall, all of his wounds gone.
The fur bristled with golden lightning.
The air vibrated with raw, untamed energy.
*Ding!
* The system nearly blew out Ethan's eardrums.
*"Beast Soul Resonance Max Level achieved!
Congratulations!
Guardian Beast Sora has undergone True Form Awakening!
"*
With a deafening roar that shook the very foundations of the cavern, Sora began to *grow*.
And grow.
And *grow*.
He was like a furry, four-legged balloon animal being inflated to ludicrous proportions.
Within seconds, he'd transformed from a cuddly panda-esque creature into a *hundred-foot-tall* golden panda.
His eyes glowed with righteous fury, and his massive paws crackled with enough energy to power a small city.
Master Wei's smug expression dissolved into pure, unadulterated terror.
"W-What *is* that thing?!" he stammered, his voice cracking like a pre-teen going through puberty.
Sora didn't answer with words.
Instead, he unleashed a devastating barrage of energy blasts, each one shaped like a tiny, adorable panda paw, but packing the punch of a tactical nuke.
Master Wei shrieked, dodging and weaving with surprising agility, but it was a losing battle.
Finally, one of the panda-paw blasts connected, sending him flying backwards into the cavern wall.
Before Master Wei could recover, Sora unleashed a final, earth-shattering roar.
The sheer force of the sound tore apart the dark energy shrouding Master Wei.
He slammed into the wall and then, he looked upwards.
At that precise moment, the ceiling of the cave *cracked*.
Not just a little crack, mind you.
A massive, gaping fissure that ran the length of the cavern, revealing a patch of sky above.
Moonlight streamed through the opening, bathing the scene in an ethereal glow.
And then Ethan saw it.
Above the cavern, concealed by some clever illusion, was the *Sky-Weaving Pavilion*.
Its gigantic teleportation array, ancient and powerful, was fully activated.
As the dust settled, it was clear the battle was far from over.
They had won this round.
But something much bigger, much more dangerous, was now in play.
Master Wei was not at all important, as he just bought them time.
"Ethan!" Mia cried, her voice laced with urgency.
The opening in the cavern wall widened further.
With one swift motion Sora grabbed Ethan and threw him upwards, towards the opening in the ceiling.
This was all happening too fast for the young man to understand.
He was going up there for some reason.