Lightweight Arrows

The three people fighting had both speed and strength that Ling Wuyuan, in his normal state, could never hope to reach.

They stood roughly two hundred meters apart.

By rights, Ling Wuyuan should have been able to take in everything on the battlefield with his advantages in distance and elevation. Like spectators watching a football match from the stands, though their speed and strength might be far inferior to the athletes on the field, their positional advantage often let them easily survey the entire game.

However.

The disparity in strength between the three combatants and Ling Wuyuan undoubtedly outweighed the benefits brought by that geographical advantage.

Even standing high and far away, Ling Wuyuan still could not make out what exactly was happening in the fight between the three of them.

Thus.

He chose to adjust his reaction speed, thinking speed, dynamic visual tracking ability...

Onefold.

Nothing changed.

He still could not see clearly.

Twofold.

Same result.

Threefold.

At last, he could relatively clearly catch traces of the three men's battle.

Fourfold...

Fivefold...

Like something being steadily advanced.

Once Ling Wuyuan reached sixfold acceleration, the every movement of the three people fiercely fighting no longer felt impossible to observe in his eyes.

He could clearly see every move and stance they used, and judge their targets and intentions.

Moreover, as time passed, he gained an increasingly clear understanding of their combat intensity and fighting styles. At the same time, he began to make certain predictions about the battle's eventual outcome.

Because he could see very clearly that one of the three was finding it harder and harder to withstand the attacks of the other two.

If those two had not been locked in such an inextricable struggle with each other, making it inconvenient to deal with him, he would likely have been defeated and killed long ago.

However.

As the conflict continued, with the other two accumulating more and more injuries, they would probably soon launch their final strike against him.

After all, if their injuries became too severe, one misstep might truly let the weakest of the three reap the benefits. Eliminating the weakest one first to reduce the risk was a very necessary move—like removing an extra negative factor...

And the result was indeed as Ling Wuyuan had expected. Once the weakest man noticed that the other two both intended to finish him off early, even joining forces against him to a certain degree, his instinctive attempt to flee proved futile.

First, his throat was sealed by a sword.

Then, his entire head was chopped off by a blade.

In that instant, the blood in his body spurted from the wounds like a high-pressure water cannon.

The two who had ended him slowed their respective attack rhythms. While glaring darkly at each other, their gazes repeatedly swept through the surrounding forest.

Although they had previously killed more than ten wolves, the wolf king and the remaining dozen or so wolves had suffered no real injuries.

Therefore.

If they kept fighting, then once either of them was too badly wounded, those beasts could very well become the deciding factor in victory or defeat.

Yet to their disappointment, after searching around, they found no trace of the wolf pack.

Only the severed limbs left on the ground proved that a wolf pack had indeed been active nearby.

"Did they get scared out of their wits?"

The two made that puzzled guess.

Soon, they once more focused all their attention on each other.

The two understood that the wolf pack was only secondary. As long as they could eliminate their opponent at a tolerable cost, it would not matter even if the wolf pack had truly not left; a couple of casual moves would be enough to clear them out.

Thus, when their gazes met once again, battle swiftly erupted anew...

In response.

Ling Wuyuan silently crouched atop the tree and continued observing the remaining two from the shadows, repeatedly comparing himself with his enemies in his mind.

He constantly estimated what level of attack he would need to use to effectively hit them and inflict meaningful damage.

Then, he glanced at a nearby mountaintop.

Though the two fighters could not see it, Ling Wuyuan, with his positional advantage, could faintly make out signs of the wolf pack moving about in that area.

Clearly.

Despite suffering tremendous losses, the wolf pack had ultimately not chosen to retreat. Instead, they had hidden in the distant forest and watched everything in secret.

After all, for them, simply waiting until the two combatants determined a winner, then coming over to eat the corpses, would already be a major victory.

They might even seize the chance to surround and kill the remaining survivor.

Naturally, the wolf pack would not withdraw so easily.

Watching those wild wolves lie motionlessly in the grass, Ling Wuyuan could only silently shake his head.

"The beasts in this world probably possess the intelligence of many three- or four-year-old children..."

Though the intelligence of a three- or four-year-old child did not sound high, it was already enough to relatively simply understand strategy and possess fairly complete logical thinking. They could learn to open doors, close doors, and understand basic commands.

With the intelligence of a five- or six-year-old child, they could barely learn to use things like mobile phones and computers.

Beasts at that level were relatively rare even in this world.

Perhaps the wolf king within the pack, or the apes of this world, possessed intelligence of that level.

At present, just as the two fighting men worried that the wolf pack might affect the final outcome, Ling Wuyuan also harbored some concern over the wolf pack's presence.

After thinking briefly, he put the special arrow in his hand back into his quiver and instead took out a lightweight arrow specially meant for hunting small animals.

This kind of arrow was generally used to catch pheasants, wild rabbits, birds...

It could preserve the fur of small prey very well.

But against large beasts, it was difficult for it to be lethal.

However.

At this moment, Ling Wuyuan needed precisely its inability to kill easily.

The next instant.

He nocked the arrow onto his bowstring and silently aimed at the wolf pack lurking in the grass roughly three hundred meters away.

Then, he adjusted his acceleration to sevenfold. At the instant the distant combatants were about to clash at close quarters once more, he decisively released the bowstring!

At that moment.

Bang!!

The tremendous impact perfectly concealed the whistling sound of the arrow cutting through the air.

As dust billowed into the sky, that lightweight arrow traced a perfect arc and flew with unerring accuracy into the grass, piercing through an adult wolf's left foreleg before continuing into the ground.

Though it had not struck any bones, that vital part suddenly suffering such a heavy blow still made the wolf instinctively let out a shrill howl.

That howl startled the already extremely tense wolf pack, causing them to instinctively burst from the grass in quick succession.

Faced with that commotion, the two people fighting immediately noticed the wild wolves that had suddenly sprung out...