The Man in the Spire: Book 1, Chapter 2—A Casual Stroll through the Woods
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Credit to BulletBarrista for editorial assistance
If you like to see what Troy looks like, check him out here!
Book 1: Chapter 2
A Casual Stroll through the Woods
Troy Rechlin
Shit! Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Shit! Fuck!
He tore through the forest, every fiber of his being screaming. His boots slammed the wet ground, leaping over mossy roots slick with moss. The air howled behind him. A blast erupted, the shockwave hot and sharp on his back. Bark exploded as shrapnel of splinters stung his face.
“Return to us, mortal!”
“We grant you this chance to speak before us! Do not squander it!”
These bitches weren’t here to talk.
Troy ran, every step pounding against the forest floor, leaves and ash snapping underfoot. His HUD screamed red warnings that hostiles were closing fast. A glance over his shoulder caught them in motion: two figures darting between the trees, flickers of fire trailing their fists like molten streaks of light. Each burst of flame detonated with a crack that shook the earth and sent sparks into the canopy above.
Another blast struck dangerously close, and Troy was lifted off his feet, tumbling down a steep, leaf-strewn slope. Branches lashed at him, scratching arms and face, and roots snagged boots. He rolled, twisted mid-fall, and barely kept from slamming into jagged rocks. He only stopped when he reached the bottom, hitting it hard, scrambling to his feet.
“Careful!” A sharp voice rang out from above. “We want fun, not death! You know how fragile mortals are!”
He glanced up at the ridge he fell from. Mei, black-furred and crimson-dressed, glared at her white-furred and blue-dressed companion, Liu. They moved with terrifying grace, balancing speed and control, like hunters surveying prey. Troy forced his legs forward again, sprinting across uneven terrain, vaulting over a fallen log, and sliding down a muddy incline.
“Ah, see! It’s fine!” Liu’s voice rang, laughter bright and cruel. “Look how he runs!”
“Hmph,” Mei replied, her gaze returning to Troy, calculating, patient.
Both dropped from the ridge in a single motion, landing without a sound. They moved like phantoms, weaving between trees, darting over roots and rocks, every motion fluid and deadly. Sparks flickered in the air as their fire collided with foliage, setting it alight in erratic bursts.
Wizards! Actual, goddamn wizards! Except they don't use wands and speak gibberish to conjure spells! No, that would be too normal! Instead they use their fists! Fistful of fire!
Punch wizards!
A blast exploded behind him, the heat scorching the nape of his neck. Troy skidded sideways, narrowly avoiding a thrown streak of molten light that vaporized a brush. He spun and pressed his back to a massive oak.
Let's see how they like MY firepower! He thought, raising his machine gun and pulling the trigger.
***
Ying Liu
What a splendid day for the sun to bathe the Empire in radiance.
The rogue spirit beast had fallen by her hand, its blood consecrating her initiation. And now, fortune favored her once again, a mythical interloper, cornered within their ancestral woods.
Liu’s lips curved into a predatory smile, exhilaration flooding her meridians like liquid fire. Each heartbeat pounded with the thrill of the chase. The man crashed through the forest like a startled deer, breaking branches beneath his frantic strides.
With but a thought, flames blossomed in her palm, the sphere of fire swelling and pulsing with refined Ki, searing the very air around it, and she loosed it with a sharp flick of her wrist. It whistled past him, struck the earth, and erupted in a thunderous bloom—roots split, earth quaked, and an ancient pine toppled in a burning ruin.
She had not aimed to end him. Death squandered the treasure he was. No, prey was sweetest when it knew it was hunted. Let him run. Let his fear ferment the marrow of the moment.
Despite herself, she respected his stride. For a man bereft of Ki, he cut through the wilds with surprising force, evading pitfalls and deadfall alike. Admirable, but futile. She and Ying Mei could close the distance in a breath if the thrill no longer pleased them.
Her gaze slid to her sister. Mei’s golden eyes burned with a steady, unblinking gaze, her presence taut with watchful restraint. Always the vigilant one, always tethering her excess. Liu chuckled softly. So be it. This was Liu’s quarry, her triumph to seize.
Her gaze returned forward, her grin sharpened like a blade. The mortal stopped and turned. In his hand was a strange black talisman, knuckles white with desperate resolve. His stance was trembling defiance. Pitiful yet bold.
When confronted by a superior being such as her, all mortals attempt a final act. As if—
BRRRRRRT!
The roar split the forest like thunder, a sound too violent for the mortal realm.
Instinct saved her. She twisted aside as the ground where she stood disintegrated in a geyser of dirt and splinters. The black object spat rapid, strobing fury, tearing the air apart with invisible teeth.
Fortune did not smile on Mei, though. She cried out and spun violently across the ground. The stranger had barely leapt aside in time to avoid being bowled over before crashing into the tree trunk with a dull crack.
The human aimed the black rod again. Its shape was plain, almost crude, yet her senses screamed danger as if she faced the edge of a god-forged sword. Its hollow mouth pointed at her chest with promised annihilation.
She dove behind a trunk as roars split the grove as bark burst and splinters rained on her. The tree itself quivered under the strike, as though even rooted wood feared this weapon. Her lips peeled back in a snarl, eyelids sharpened thin with brows furrowed.
A mortal weapon that rends stone and splits trees? she thought, teeth bared. Impossible! Is it a stolen artifact or his own creation?
Her Qi surged through her veins with fire. Flame pooled into her palm that seared the air. She stepped from cover, ready to test her fire against this unholy matter—
—but the mortal was gone.
She kept her fire at the ready. Silence suffocated the grove, thick and oppressive. Mist coiled like spirits over the ground, swallowing every trace of him. No broken twig, no disturbed breath. Only the memory of thunder lingered in her ears.
“It flees with the weapon. Coward. Thief. Heretic.”
It mattered not. That black rod did not belong in mortal hands but there was no running from her. Sooner or later, she would pluck him from his hole, rip that weapon for her own, and drag him to the magistrate as a prize.
She sprinted across the broken earth, boots grinding into the soil, and knelt beside her sister’s fallen body. Hands trembled, then steadied as her qi swept over Ying Mei, searching every channel, every thread of life-force.
Relief poured through her like cool rain. Her sister’s essence flickered, bruised yet unbroken. Stubborn, as ever. As all good Amberwood Sect members were.
“Still with me?” Liu murmured under her breath.
Ying Mie’s eyes snapped open, blazing with fury. She reached for her belt, fingers curling around her knife.
“Spare your worry,” she hissed. Her hand moved steadily as she drove the knife into her own flesh, as if pain itself dared not touch her.
Liu clenched her jaw but stayed silent as her sister worked. Mei’s hands, conditioned through countless repetitions, moved with each motion practiced a thousand times. Steel met flesh in clean, merciless cuts as she traced the wound.
With a measured tug, Mei plucked a shard free and flicked it aside. Liu snatched it before the object could hit the ground, holding the bloody remains to the light for study.
Liu’s eyes narrowed. This. This is what sent her reeling? What downed her sister? The thing was nothing—no Qi, no inscription, no resonance of spirit. Just crude metal, twisted and deformed from piercing her sister’s body. It lacked the weight of a proper weapon, no rune or jade core, not even the faintest whisper of intent. A child’s toy compared to the artifacts they trained with.
And yet… that toy had forced her into cover. That insect’s trick had struck Mei down in a single heartbeat.
Her lip curled, rage simmering low and molten. “Pathetic,” she muttered, melting the chunk of metal into slag. “Unforgivable.”
“Then bring him to heel.” Mei snarled, bandaging her wound.
Liu rose, her senses widening, drinking in every trembling leaf and disturbed pebble. The grove had fallen into a terrible hush after the thunderous noise of that weapon. No bird dared sing, no beast dared stir. Even the air itself seemed cautious.
She hunted in silence: the faint scuff of soil, the tilt of a broken fern, and the brushed edge of a damp trunk where his hand had steadied. A mortal’s movements, clumsy and unrefined, yet persistent enough to elude her divine sense. Without Qi to betray him, he was a shadow, outlined by the marks he left behind.
Her fingers flexed, Qi sparking faintly between them, crackling like the promise of stormfire. He had proven himself a threat. One lucky strike was enough to disgrace them if they faltered again.
No. She would not allow it. She would never allow it.
She was still only an Outer Disciple of the Amberwood Sect, while her sister stood among the Inner Court. If Liu faltered, should they return shamed by defeat at the hands of a mortal wielding a child’s trinket, their names would rot in ridicule for decades. Her path to ascension would wither with whispers of weakness.
She drew strength from that fact, taking a deep breath, drawing Qi until her limbs thrummed with caged violence. It pooled behind her heels, coiling tight, the way a taut bowstring hums before being released.
Then—release.
The world blurred. Roots, branches, and shadows flew past in smears, yet she wove through as if the forest parted for her passage. Every stride with deadly purpose. The mortal’s trail led ahead, and with each heartbeat, she closed the distance.
She saw her quarry fleeing ahead, like the cowardly rat he was. Her grin sharpened. He turned just in time, and his bastard weapon jerked upward.
Too slow.
The face he made when she drove her knee upward in a brutal arc was delicious. His body folded over her strike; the breath tore from his lungs in a ragged choke before his body collided with a tree trunk in an echoing crack. Leaves spilled in a spiral around his slumped form.
The satisfaction Liu felt in this moment was beneath her. What was this insignificant man to her, after all? A brittle mortal devoid of spirit. And still a smile tugged at her lips as her strength uncoiled.
The strike was cruel but restrained: bones broken, breath emptied, but nothing that couldn’t be mended.
Her lips curved in quiet triumph until her gaze caught on his hand. The creature firmly held the odd dart-thrower, grip unbroken.
She stepped forward to claim the spoils—then froze.
Absurd.
That blow would have splintered pillars and shattered greater beasts. Any mortal would lie sprawled, choking on their breath. Yet this one endured, body rising, weapon still poised to fight.
A flicker of doubt sparked but was quickly smothered out by pride. She blurred into motion, Qi bending the air as she closed the distance. His weapon rose, and she struck it aside with contempt, driving a fist for his head.
And still, his arm rose to bar the way.
Then came his counter—a mere mortal fist of simple flesh. No Qi, no art. Just simple brute force. There was no need to brace for the strike, as no mortal could ever hope to harm a being such as herself. Yet when it smashed against her cheek, it did not feel like a simple blow but rather like a metal club. The sky turned, the earth slammed into her, and the taste of copper was evident.
With a cheek painfully throbbing fiercer than any spar beneath the Sect’s cruelest elders as she lay in the cold earth, her vision blurred. Humiliation twisted her gut, hot and vile. To be struck — no — to be struck down! By one who had not even touched the path? Equal to an insect? Unthinkable! Impossible!
Her mind desperately searching for an explanation, legends whispered of outsiders possessing strange gifts and treasures that could tempt the envy of gods. But none spoke of one who could match a cultivator’s flesh with their own.
Her pride roared in denial as she raised her head, only to find the strange weapon leveled at her brow.
“STAND DOWN!” The man’s voice barked. “I DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU!”
THE WRETCH! She was a cultivator of the Amberwood sect! An outside discipline member, yes, but far beyond the bounds of mortality. The definition of power and strength! Decades of grueling training to ascend on the path of immortality. And this—this—LESSER CREATURE dares give her orders because of a lucky strike?
No!
He was a charlatan! Lies! All of it! His strength was cloaked in falsehoods, and that had slipped past her guard. Whatever fraudulent strength he wielded, it would not shake her! She had been forged in discipline and pain, taught to fight without remorse. She would rather fall here, broken and bleeding, than ever bow to a mortal’s command, especially to a spiritless mortal!
Liu whipped her body around, her leg striking out in a sharp arc. Her foot slammed into his arm, jerking it aside and forcing the weapon to spit fire harmlessly skyward in a spray of darts and a thunderous roar.
Before he recovered, she spun fully upright and lashed out again. Her heel drove into his chest with a solid crack, hurling him backwards.
The human grunted, but rather than fight the force, he rolled away smoothly, widening the gap.
That’s when Liu caught it. The weapon had dropped something metallic from its underside and the mortal twisted the weapon away as if he was preparing to insert something in it.
So it runs dry. A savage grin split her face. Good.
His hand darted to his belt, and her energy flared. She lunged, ready to finish him, only for him to fling a small object her way.
Her reflexes outpaced thought. She plucked it from the air, holding it firm.
A cylinder. Smooth, metallic, foreign. Her grip tightened. It looked like a b—
***
Troy Rechlin
Holy shit! She wasn’t supposed to catc—
On reflex, he snapped his eyes shut and looked away just before the flashbang erupted, light and noise crashing against his sensors in a surge of static, then replaced by a sound far worse. He flinched, terrified of what he’d see when it cleared. The scream was agony given form.
Raw, animalistic, piercing the forest like the cry of something half-beast, half-human.
Troy slowly opened his eyes. What he saw would have made his stomach lurch.
The woman collapsed to her knees, as though her grip alone could keep her body from coming apart. Her clothes clung in charred tatters, barely clinging to her frame. Half her scorched body was blackened, flesh blistered and split in patches that smoked faintly in the cool forest air. Her hair, wild and clean before, now hung singed and uneven, strands curling from the heat.
But what froze him wasn’t the burns. It was her arm.
It was still whole.
He stared, disbelief clawing up his throat. He knew what a CA-5 flashbang did up close. The grenade was designed for mass crowd control. Training mods had shown what poor throws, or worse, malicious misconduct, could do: hands shredded, flesh flayed, lives snuffed in an instant. At point-blank range, nothing survived. Unless the unfortunate bastard wore armor, and only then did they have a chance.
This creature wore no armor.
He thought it was excessive. Regrettably so, but what was he to do in a fight against the unknown? No choice was perfect in split-second decision-making, only risk reduction and damage control.
Yet here she was.
Alive.
Whole.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “What the hell are you?”
Whatever these things were, they were far from human beings.
Her scorched body slumped, legs collapsing onto the forest floor. Ragged groans slipped free from her trembling lips as tears streamed from her ruined eyes. Each of her breaths slowed, measured, like a ritual.
He exhaled, shaking the static from his head. Logic kicked in—control, assess, survive.
Troy reloaded without thought. Magazine in, chamber racked, fire set to semi. The Mark 9 came up, sights dead center between her tear-streaked eyes.
One shot. No chance to miss. No amount of kung fu or magic bullshit would save her.
His finger rested on the trigger.
His index made contact. Just a little squeeze, and there would be one less problem.
… But he hesitated.
Even in such a state, the creature calmed herself despite being burned, blinded, and broken, clinging to some strange discipline he didn’t understand.
She attacked him. Nearly killed him. She was the offender; he merely reacted. He was alone in hostile territory, and she was hostile and attacked with no provocation. No courts, no prisons; without authorities to contact and holding facilities to contain her, he was the judge and jury, and it was fully within his right to do so.
Cold logic and quick justice synced in harmony. Both agreed to her execution.
But was killing her in such a defenseless state something “he” would do?
…
He lowered his weapon with a careful sigh.
“…I really hope I don’t regret this,” he muttered.
There was no time to regret. Another psycho was out there, and his arm was damaged. He knew something needed fixing, and it was only a matter of time before it would bite him.
“I didn’t want any of this,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else, before turning and pushing deeper into the shadowed woods, away from the burned dog woman.
***
Ying Liu
She couldn’t see.
She couldn’t hear.
Mouth open, throat straining. Screaming— or she thought she was. Yet no sound reached her ears, only that the entirety of her being was in pain. Raw, searing pain unlike anything she had ever endured. It was as if her very flesh had been drenched in fire and acid all at once, burning and eating away her vitality.
She knew pain. Fire was their baptism, a rite of passage in the Amberwood Sect; every initiate endured it to prove their resolve.
But this was different. Her right arm hung limp and useless at her side. She did not need to see it to know it was in ruin. Invoking the Art of Wood Skin in a blink of an eye before the blow was all that saved it from being blown to bits.
Darkness veiled her eyes. Shrill ringing filled her ears, smothering all else.
In the depths of darkness, instinct whispered one command: survive.
Her pride balked at it. Survival at the cost of her ascension? Unthinkable. Yet the alternative was descending into nothingness—slow, meaningless, and shameful.
The spirit orb. Her prize. The fruit of her last victory. She had meant it for glory, to open the gates of the Inner Circle. To finally be with her sister! Now it would be her medicine. Her salvation.
The cost of blindness, deafness, and a ruined arm was too great to bear—a death knell for any cultivator, even if left breathing.
Ying Liu sank into a meditative stance. Her teeth ground together, tears streaked her face, unbidden but unstoppable, as she steadied her breathing. She reached inward, drawing on the spirit orb’s essence, tearing it down into its purest energy.
What should have been her ascension became her salvation; rather than cultivation for the expansion of her spiritual reserves, she funneled its flow into her broken body. Her skin prickled as steam hissed faintly from her arm; charred flesh shed off. Sinew rewoven and vigor rekindled. Flesh knit into being, muscles regrew.
Time lost its meaning as she trembled in place, waiting to have her life snap away. She expected the human to finish her, to put an end to her while she was vulnerable. Each heartbeat ticked towards death.
She would have done it if it was her.
But death never came.
Ying Liu’s eyes fluttered open. Vision returned in a painful rush, sunlight lancing through new irises. A wince, a few rapid blinks, and the glare finally eased. Glancing down, she flexed her clawed hand, testing the arm’s range of motion. Whole again, with only faint traces of scarring remaining to mark the ordeal.
For a brief moment, she felt lightheaded with relief, only to be smothered by rage.
Rage that the precious spirit orb was squandered on mere survival. Rage at the pain carved on her. Rage most of all at the mortal who scarred her pride and now fled beyond her reach.
Her roar shook the trees, a sound closer to beast than disciple, carrying her promise of vengeance into the sky to whatever powers would hear her.
Ki flared through her veins, sharp and hot. She leapt forward, dashing through the forest, strides covering great ground, senses fixed for the faintest trace of him. Foliage became a green smear; she slapped aside branches like twigs in her passage. She searched and hunted, ready to tear him apart.
But there was nothing.
Her snarl deepened. She hadn’t been unconscious long enough for him to truly vanish. He couldn’t have gone far. He couldn’t!
No. He owed her blood. Her suffering would be repaid a hundredfold. Only when he lay broken, kneeling at her mercy, would she deliver him to the magistrate for her just reward.
Liu’s furious sprint ended in a jolt as an open palm slammed her chest. The force sent her skidding backward, landing hard on her rear with a sharp grunt.
She looked up, teeth bared in a snarl, only for the anger to falter when she saw who it was.
“Elder Sister…”
Mei loomed over her, leg bound in cloth around the wound. Her black fur bristling, arms crossed, disappointment radiated from her fiery glare that burned deeper than any wound.
“Where is he?” Mei’s voice was low, dangerous.
Liu scrambled upright, words choking in her throat. What could she admit? That she let a mortal escape? That a mortal bested her? That he had hurt her so badly she consumed the prize she’d fought so hard for?
She didn’t need to. Mei’s deadly silence told her she already knew.
The elder sister stepped closer, slow and deliberate. Liu flinched. Words tumbled from her mouth in a desperate rush.
“That mortal is not what he seems, Elder Sister! A trickster, a serpent—he—”
The blow came faster than she could see. Mei’s backhand cracked across her face, hard enough that the surrounding foliage trembled from the force.
“You are a shame to the Amberwood Sect,” Mei said, her voice a low hiss. “I walked this hunt to witness your worth, to see you rise among the Inner Court. Yet as ever, you fall short.” Her gaze cut into Liu’s trembling form, lingering on the faint steam curling from her newly healed arm.
“Worse still,” she said coldly, “you squandered your spirit orb. The token for your ascension.”
“Sister, I beg of you. I had no choice. That human—that THING—He is far more dan–”
“CEASE YOUR JUSTIFICATIONS!” Mei snapped, voice sharp and cold, and energy pulsed through the earth. “Do not stain the air with excuses. This failing is yours and yours alone. You will correct it or remain dust beneath our sect’s feet.”
Mie calmed herself but the sharpness was still in her voice. “Come. If Heaven permits, we will find the prey. Then perhaps you may yet cleanse your disgrace.”
Without another word, the elder sister turned, striding into the forest shadows.
Liu stared after her, teeth gritted, blood trickling down her lip.
Humiliation boiled into something darker.
The human would pay for this.
---
Author Notes:
Hey! Welcome to the start of a brand new series, The Man in the Spire!
This little project original started out as a fan series but quickly grew in to a very fun poject that slowly but surely began to stand on its own two legs with a lot of suppot of good friends.
Due to a full time job, this series will release a chapter every 2 weeks (Every Friday) but if you join my patreon you can see up to 3 chapters in advance as well as fun small side stories and art concepts!
Check me out here! Between the Space Patreon Your support means a lot!
I do hope this grows in to another fun to read books online but for now, please give your thoughts! Thank you!
Credit to BulletBarrista for editorial assistance. Go check out his stuff if you enjoy this work
Special thanks to all the support and assistance getting this project going
Posted Nov 7, 2025, 9:58 PM UTC