Fate Form: Flying Tiger

West of Cloudscreen Wall, mountains stretched in unbroken ranks, peaks piled upon peaks. The deeper one went, the denser the forest became, branches and leaves interweaving to blot out the sky. Only a few scattered rays of light filtered through gaps in the foliage, casting mottled patches of light and shadow across the forest floor.

Murky mist wound between the trunks like countless gray-white gauze curtains, drifting slowly with the wind, sometimes gathering together, sometimes dispersing.

Lu Chen crouched behind a bluestone, holding his breath.

His heart hammered wildly, the thud-thud-thud echoing against his eardrums and nearly drowning out every other sound in the forest. He clenched the medicinal hoe in his hand until his knuckles turned white, his palms slick with cold sweat.

That giant tiger had not caught up.

He cautiously poked half his head out and looked back the way he had come. Dense shrubbery blocked his view, and there was no sign of that white-browed, hanging-eyed tiger.

He waited a while longer. Only after confirming there was no movement did he let out a long breath, his whole body going limp as he leaned against the bluestone and gasped for air.

For that instant just now, he had truly thought he was going to die. He still remembered that tiger's glance with perfect clarity: amber vertical pupils, cold and indifferent, as though it were looking at a piece of meat that could move.

He had seen that look before. The Cloud Clan children of the Upper City often looked at people from the Lower City that way. Only, the tiger's gaze had been even purer, utterly undisguised.

Lu Chen wiped the sweat from his face and stood up. His legs were still weak, but there was no time to care about that.

That giant tiger might