The tale of the fox and the dragon egg

Chapter 1 - Blood trail

He stared at it. Not believing for many minutes – because who would trust him with this?
His friend must have made a huge mistake. Or he had no other choice. Probably both.
Wei Ying nibbled at his bottom lip, edging and almost drawing blood. Even when he was millenniums old, he felt like a child again. He wished his shijie was here with him. He wished it all the time.
With one long gaze into the night sky he sighed, already accepting. Determined.
The pure white egg before him pulsating with qi was the only thing keeping him from breaking down.
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Wei Ying finds a wounded dragon inside his woods, death already looming above. In its last moments it gifted the fox something precious. An egg, in pure Lan white. The lonely fox had no idea what this egg would bring him. Or who searched and found them both in the process.

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There was a trail of blood inside his woods.

Well, they weren't his woods per say, more so his claimed territory. Which he wished to protect as his home. For many years, he had found a home where nobody wanted to build one. The burial mounds.

The man didn't exactly see the red substance either. His nose was extremely sensitive and caught the scent it in a heartbeat. It was excellent in finding food, trails and stung from his own sweat in times he couldn't find enough safety to wash up.

His silver eyes opened, shining with curiosity and intelligence and he almost thought that he could see the red trail in front of him. A red energy that was barely there, a smell which would lead him to the creature it was coming from. The slits in his eyes dilated as he caught onto it and his feet already made way towards the poor creature.

To his luck, the burial mounds were a large area of woods, protected by trees with thick leaves. Although it meant enough protection from the harsh sun, it meant that he air was almost scorching and made him sweat profusely beneath the fur of his tails.

However, the scorching sun wasn't the only thing making life harder for the creatures living there. Heavy rainstorms terrorised the region, leaving it with constant temperature changes and humid air.

He, however, was long used to such hostile environmental. His bare feet crushed the dark green grass beneath him, but left no further trail. From all the years he remained hidden from other predators, knew how to not make a sound, how to hunt his prey and vanish in the next second. An ability he didn't just learn from wandered around; lost, hurt and insecure.

Again, his nose caught the red trail over the humid temperature, a combination that made him sneeze. He didn't run; it wouldn't do him well to get caught in whatever caused the creature to bleed in the first place. This strong scent let him have a good idea what happened, especially considering the burial mounds by themselves, and there was a lot of the red substance. A lot of blood belonging to a huge creature, possibly wounded by an even larger creature.

Within one second his humanoid form vanished like the last shrouds of clouds in the sky. Where he had stood before was now a rather large fox with black fur and eight tales.

As one of the peak predators in the burial mounds, he could pride himself at how well he maintained himself. That didn't mean that he stood at the peak however. The dark wolves loitering around stood above him in the food chain and he didn't have the intention to change or confront that (even though he could physically overpower them).

Instead, he was proud of his achievements in cultivation. His tails showed his hard work over the many years and his success at keeping himself alive.

Chasing something, repaying, cleansing.