Chapter 5: Live Bait
The Star Dou Great Forest did not welcome intruders. As soon as Mame stepped past the ancient tree line, the temperature dropped, and the canopy above grew so thick that the afternoon sun was reduced to a sickly, green twilight. Massive, twisted roots the size of houses jutted out of the damp earth, and the air hummed with the unseen clicks and chitters of deadly insects.
Mame walked in the center of the formation. Gao took the lead, hacking through thick vines with a machete, while Li and Chen trailed behind.
For the first hour, it was quiet. But Gao was a survivor, a man who had lived this long on the frontier by never taking unnecessary risks. He needed to be absolutely sure this walking bag of silver wasn't bait for a bigger trap.
"So, Mame," Gao called back over his shoulder, his tone casual, almost friendly. "That's a lot of heavy coin for a kid. Your clan must be pretty well-off to fund a solo trip like this."
"I don't have a clan," Mame answered honestly, keeping his eyes on the shifting shadows in the brush. "I earned it. Working the lumber yards."
Li snorted from behind him. "A kid your size working timber? Sure."
"Nuoding City, right?" Gao pressed, ignoring his partner. "What about an academy? Usually, a teacher brings their students out for their first ring. Ain't there some Grandmaster or Dean gonna come hunting for us if you get a scratch on you?"
At the mention of the Grandmaster, Mame's chest tightened. His dark eyes hardened into chips of obsidian. "I was expelled. They took everything from me. My mother died in their prison. I have no teachers. I have no family. I have no one."
Silence fell over the group, save for the crunch of their boots on the leaves. Gao glanced back at Li and Chen. A slow, greasy smile spread across Gao's scarred face. No noble backers. No furious teachers. Just a forgotten slum rat with a fortune in his pocket.
"Tragic, kid. Truly," Gao lied smoothly. "Well, you're with us now. We'll get you that ring."
They trekked deeper until the sun fully set. The forest plunged into a suffocating, pitch-black darkness. The ambient noises of the woods changed; the birds stopped singing, replaced by low, vibrating growls that vibrated in Mame's chest.
Gao suddenly held up a fist, signaling them to stop. They were standing at the edge of a sunken, bowl-shaped clearing filled with knee-high, rotting ferns.
"Listen, kid. We've been walking for hours and haven't seen a single decent beast," Gao whispered, crouching down to Mame's level. "You know why? It's my Spirit Power. A Level 23 Grandmaster's aura is too intimidating for the ten-year beasts. They're smelling us and running."
Mame frowned. "Then how do I get my ring?"
Gao reached into his pouch and pulled out a small, heavy burlap sack. It dripped with a thick, foul-smelling sap that made Mame's stomach turn.
"This is beast-lure," Gao explained, handing it to the boy. "It mimics the scent of an injured low-level animal. Here's the plan: me and the boys are going to suppress our auras and hide up in the canopy. You walk into the center of that clearing and open the bag. Once a ten-year beast steps out to investigate, we drop down, break its legs, and let you deliver the final blow. Easy."
Mame looked at the bag, then up at the dark, terrifying canopy. He was scared, but the memory of Yu Xiaogang's mocking face pushed the fear down. He nodded. "Okay."
"Good lad. Go on."
Gao, Li, and Chen effortlessly scaled the massive trunks, disappearing into the dark foliage. Left completely alone, Mame took a deep breath, clutching the burlap sack, and waded into the center of the sunken clearing. The ferns brushed against his waist.
He untied the coarse rope around the sack and pulled it open. The stench of rotting marrow and blood instantly permeated the damp air.
He waited. One minute. Two minutes.
Then, the ferns began to rustle. It wasn't the clumsy, light footfalls of a small ten-year beast. It was a heavy, continuous hissing sound, accompanied by the slithering of something massive parting the grass.
The temperature plummeted. A pair of glowing, sickly-yellow eyes the size of dinner plates rose from the brush. A massive serpent, thick as a tree trunk and covered in scales that shimmered like dark emeralds, reared up. Venom dripped from its fangs, sizzling as it hit the wet earth.
It wasn't a ten-year beast. Judging by the intricate, ghostly crest on its hood, it was at least a hundred-year-old Ghost-Marked Viper.
"Gao!" Mame yelled, his voice cracking with panic. He dropped the bag and backed up. "Gao, help! It's too big!"
From the branches high above, there was no sound of a rescue. Instead, Mame heard laughter.
"Holy heavens, look at the size of that crest!" Chen's voice drifted down, giddy with excitement.
"A Hundred-Year Ghost-Marked Viper," Gao laughed, his voice dripping with cruel delight. "The venom sac alone is worth fifty gold coins on the black market. The skin is worth another twenty! We struck gold, boys!"
"Help me!" Mame screamed, turning to run.
The Viper lunged. It moved like a lightning bolt, its jaws unhinging.
Mame's grueling months at the lumber yard saved his life in that split second. His incredibly dense muscles fired, allowing him to throw himself violently to the side. The snake's jaws snapped shut on empty air, its massive body crashing into the mud where Mame had just been standing.
"Whoa! Did you see that?" Li chuckled from the trees. "The little rat is fast!"
"Let him tire it out," Gao ordered coldly. "Wait for it to strike him. Once its fangs are sunk in, it'll be anchored. Then we drop the net."
Mame scrambled to his feet, terror flooding his veins. He looked up at the trees, seeing the faint silhouettes of the men just watching him. They had never intended to help him. He was just the bait.
The Viper recovered instantly. Enraged that its prey had dodged, its tail whipped out, slamming into Mame's ribs with the force of a battering ram. The eight-year-old boy was sent flying through the air, crashing hard into the thick roots of a tree.
Before Mame could even gasp for breath, the Viper was on him.
The beast's massive jaws clamped down on Mame's right thigh. The boy let out an agonizing, blood-curdling scream as fangs the size of daggers tore through his flesh, injecting a lethal dose of necrotic, burning venom straight into his bloodstream.
"Now!" Gao shouted.
The three Spirit Masters dropped from the canopy. Two yellow Spirit Rings flared around Gao's spear. While the Viper was completely focused on pumping its venom into the screaming boy, Gao drove his spear straight through the thickest part of the snake's tail, pinning it to the earth. Li and Chen threw a heavy, Spirit-infused iron net over its head, completely neutralizing the beast in seconds.
Mame lay in the mud, his vision swimming in a haze of red and black. The venom felt like liquid fire melting his veins from the inside out. His lungs constricted. He couldn't breathe.
Gao walked over, wiping snake blood off his boots. He looked down at the dying, paralyzed boy. He didn't look remorseful. He just looked greedy. He reached down and casually plucked Mame's coin pouch from the boy's belt.
"Thanks for the meal, kid," Gao sneered, tossing the pouch to weigh the gold inside. "Your coins and this snake... best haul we've had in months. Try to die quietly. You'll attract more beasts."
Gao turned his back, barking orders at his men to start caging the Viper.
Left to rot in the mud, the cold seeping into his bones, Mame's heart began to slow. The venom was stopping his organs. The betrayal, the agony, the utter unfairness of this world—it all condensed into a single, suffocating point of pressure in his chest.
He remembered the Grandmaster's sneer. He remembered Tang San's cold eyes. He remembered his mother dying in a dark cell for a crime she didn't commit. And now, he was dying as live bait for three nameless thugs.
No.
As his heart gave its final, struggling beat, the deepest, most ancient part of his soul violently tore open. The Saiyan Zenkai awakened.
And the forest began to shake.
The heavy crunch of Gao's boots faded into the thick underbrush, followed by the muffled grunts of Li and Chen hauling the caged Ghost-Marked Viper. They didn't even look back. To them, Mame was already a corpse, just another piece of rotting meat left for the scavengers of the Star Dou Great Forest.
Alone in the ruined clearing, Mame lay paralyzed in the mud. The Viper's venom was a localized nightmare. It felt like molten iron was being pumped through his right leg, slowly creeping up his abdomen toward his heart. His breathing grew shallow, turning into wet, ragged gasps. The edges of his vision flickered with black static.
This was it. All the suffering, all the grueling labor, all the promises he made to his mother—ending in a muddy ditch, betrayed by grinning thieves.
The utter, cosmic unfairness of it tore at his soul. A profound, world-ending rage began to build in his chest, fighting against the numbing cold of death.
He forced his heavy eyelids open, staring up through the gap in the forest canopy that the Viper had smashed during its ambush. The storm clouds had parted.
Hanging in the center of the pitch-black sky, unobscured by the ancient trees, was a massive, brilliant silver moon. It was perfectly full, shining down like a cold, indifferent beacon.
As the moonlight hit his eyes, something inside Mame's biology snapped.
It wasn't a conscious command. It was a primal, cellular reaction deeply embedded in a forgotten, alien bloodline. His heart gave a violent, unnatural thump that echoed in his ears like a war drum.
Without him channeling a single drop of Spirit Power, his Martial Soul ripped itself out of his body. The scrawny Brown Monkey materialized in the mud beside him. But it didn't cower. It didn't squeak.
The spirit looked up at the full moon, its fur standing on end. Its eyes, normally a dull brown, ignited into a piercing, savage crimson. The monkey threw its head back and let out a deafening, chest-rattling roar that completely shattered the silence of the forest.
Instead of hovering beside him, the spirit turned and launched itself directly back into Mame's chest, violently convulsing as it forcefully merged with his physical body.
Agony unlike anything he had ever felt erupted through his veins. It wasn't just the venom anymore. A terrifying, golden heat exploded outward from his heart, clashing violently with the necrotic poison. His bones popped and cracked, his muscles bulging and tearing as the sheer, unadulterated rage forced an impossible evolution.
But as his body began to warp, something else tore open inside his mind.
A dam broke. A barrier that had been sealed for eight long years completely shattered, flooding his dying brain with memories of towering glass cities, glowing screens, and a completely different life.
And then, a voice echoed in the cavern of his skull. It wasn't his mother's voice. It wasn't the Grandmaster's.
It was his own voice, but older, echoing with absolute, panicked hysteria.
"WTF ARE YOU DOING?!" the voice screamed in his mind, echoing with modern, terrified disbelief. "THEY WERE OBVIOUSLY SUS, MAN! WHY DID I GET STUCK IN HERE WITH THIS KID? I FINALLY GET ISEKAI'D TO SOUL LAND, AND I'VE BEEN STUCK IN THE BACK OF THIS KID'S HEAD FOR EIGHT YEARS! AM I SERIOUSLY GONNA DIE AGAIN?!"
The sheer absurdity of the screaming voice clashed violently with the primal, world-ending rage of the Oozaru awakening. The two souls—the traumatized, furious eight-year-old boy, and the panicked, modern transmigrator who had been trapped as a silent passenger—violently collided as the golden Ki reached a critical mass.
Mame's eyes rolled back. His body began to rapidly expand, his teeth lengthening into sharp, predatory fangs as thick, dark fur began to sprout along his arms.
Before he could comprehend the voice, the pain, or the blinding light of the moon, his consciousness completely shattered.
Everything went pitch black.