The Way: The Whisper of Kūkan-no-Ki To calm the restless mind, Woolah sat at the cliff’s edge, eyes closed, breathing slow and deliberate. His small frame was still, save for the faint rise of his chest and the gentle twitch of fingers worn from war. Around him, the first white snows chilled the high peaks, the cold whispering secrets of winter's arrival. A breeze, thin and sharp, skipped down the mountainside, brushing the cedar groves, raking the open fields, and reaching the sun-warmed air near the plateau where he sat.
The two airs met — cold and warm — and in their swirling spiral, the wind sang.
And Woolah listened.
In the quiet, beneath the silence, within the stillness of that space — he felt it.
Kūkan-no-Ki.
The energy of the void, the breath between worlds. It was not a power you wielded but one you welcomed, one you made peace with.
It weaved around him like smoke, warm despite the chill. And it touched the fury in his blood.
Woolah, the Berserker.
Woolah, student of the mountain.
Balanced, barely — but balanced still.
He reached deeper into that emptiness. His mind fought, as it always did.
The rage was not gone, only quieted. His sensei had once said:
"Even storms rest within the eye. Find your center, Woolah, and stand there."
Far below, where the cedar forests thickened and the light filtered like gold dust through the canopy, Enchanter Tengukensei walked a narrow path. His crimson face turned slightly as he passed beneath the boughs, ancient and dripping with dew. The scent of damp bark, moss, and the soft rot of forest floor rose around him. It was a perfume older than men. And it filled his lungs with peace.
This mountain had been his punishment — now it was his sanctum.
It had taught him to breathe again.
Tengukensei felt the whisper of Woolah’s meditation above — not as words, but as a subtle shift in the air. Like a ripple in still water. He smiled.
The Mountain spoke.
And he, who had once failed the heavens, now served the land.
The letter in his sleeve felt heavier than parchment should. A message from beyond the Kirama peaks.
Change was coming.
He would need to leave soon.
And yet — he would carry the mountain with him.
Kūkan-no-Ki flowed through them both.
A pathless way.
A breathless song.
And when the time came, both Woolah and Tengukensei would answer —
For the Kaiju Clan never turned from fate.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
Chapter: The Breath Between Storms
Woolah's Vision
That morning, Woolah sat in meditation longer than usual. The wind was quiet. The heath beyond the hills seemed peaceful in its distance — untouched, golden, low-sweeping and endless. The breath of the mountain wrapped around him like a prayer.
But peace, this time, was a lie.
In stillness, something moved.
His vision swam.
The cedars faded.
The mountain evaporated.
In its place — a quiet heath — rolling green and grey beneath a sallow sun. Mist drifted low and slow, curling around skeletal trees. The sky seemed thinner there. Woolah felt calm, momentarily lulled by the rustle of tall grasses, the hush of wind. Then—
Pain.
Darkness.
Not his own. Not entirely.
Something clawed at his soul — infected breath, wheezing lungs, skin like paper.
Teeth.
Too many teeth.
Eyes sunk deep into weeping pits.
The vision broke into black ash. And from it, a glimpse — a child, skin covered in veiny bruises, mouth full of darkness.
Woolah snapped awake.
The wind was gone.
The air, thin.
And dread — deep, ancient, personal — weighed upon him like a shroud.
Tengukensei and the Letter
Below, under the filtered light of the cedar forest, Tengukensei stopped walking.
He had felt it — the break in Woolah’s meditation. A wound in the spiritual current of the mountain. He leaned against the smooth bark of an elder tree, his eyes half-closed, listening.
The forest was quieter now.
He reached into his sleeve and unfolded the letter again. The paper was rough, hand-pressed, smelling of salt and ash. Ink bled into the fibers in places where the Evoker had clearly trembled.
Tengukensei read the words slowly, allowing them to settle like storm clouds in his chest.
The Letter from Evoker Kalo of the Heathlands:
To the Kaiju Clan,
To the Wandering Tengu of Mt. Kirama,I write with trembling fingers, and a heart that has seen too much rot.
The plague we now call Gloomfang is no ordinary affliction. It does not hunger for the body alone — it gnaws at memory, at spirit, at the soul's quiet corners. The sick dream of teeth, and in the mornings, they are no longer themselves.
We have tried fire. We have tried prayer. We have buried our loved ones in salt-lined graves, only to see them rise again under moonless skies.
I remember the stories of the Kaiju Clan, whispered to me as a boy by the fire. Stories of warriors who walked with the wind. Of the Tengu who fell from heaven to teach us stillness. Of a mountain that watches all.
The Heath is calling. The land itself recoils in fear.
Please.
If you still walk this world, if the Void has not claimed you, come.
Not to save us — it is too late for that.
But to stop what stirs beneath us from spreading to the rest of the Runiverse.I have sealed this letter with windroot and crowbone. If it finds you, it is fate.
— Evoker Kalo, Dreadward of the Heath
Tengukensei closed the letter.
The wind moved again, faint but sure, and his fan twitched at his side. The mountain had taught him patience. But now, it whispered urgency.
He turned toward Sakana Cove.
It was time to gather the clan.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
