Feint to the East, Attack the Camp

Aside from Lu Xingshi, the other four showed varying changes in expression. In the martial world, life and death were unavoidable. If they feared this and that, why venture out at all?

But the missing person was their fellow disciple, which was another matter entirely.

"Let's get through the Tianzhi Mountain Range first. This place is too dangerous to linger in. Once we find the sect leader... we'll come back and avenge ourselves on that pair of beasts!" In the end, Cui Xuan chose not to search for his junior brother's remains or avenge him.

It pained him, but if they really went, unfamiliar as they were with the terrain, and encountered the wolf, the mutant Bei, and the wolf pack again, they would surely die. Especially if those beasts ambushed them—no one would leave the Tianzhi Mountain Range alive.

Hearing this, Lu Xingshi felt some regret as well. He had wanted to test himself against those two mutant creatures. Since he could find no opponent among humans, he could only fight wild beasts.

But finding his master was more important. Those two mutants would not die anytime soon; there would be plenty of chances later.

"If we set off now, will they notice us?" Lu Xingshi asked.

Lu Xingshi was confident he could kill the wolf and the mutant Bei, but killing an entire wolf pack—one that even had tactics—was another matter. He was not confident he could keep Cui Xuan and the others safe.

The Golden Crow Hand Cannon could fire at most once in battle.

As for letting Cui Xuan and the others use it, they could not withstand the recoil. When he forged it, he had considered only its power, not its accuracy or recoil. With his physique, along with the 2,500-point effects of Hidden Weapons and Archery, he could completely ignore its undampened recoil and atrocious accuracy.

If Cui Xuan used the Golden Crow Hand Cannon, whether he could hit the enemy was one question. The moment he fired it, his arm would definitely fracture. Not to mention that Lu Xingshi had forged it from the heaviest, sturdiest metal in Linglang Pavilion; Cui Xuan would struggle just to lift it.

To use the Golden Crow Hand Cannon, one had to be a First-Rate Expert in External Refinement. Yet Cui Xuan and the others had never practiced External Refinement techniques, and the Iron Sword Sect did not specialize in them.

"With fire, they won't dare come close. Besides, there are many of us, so that Bei won't dare act rashly either." Cui Xuan was still confident about this.

Since ancient times, fire had been one of the means used to drive wild beasts away.

No matter how strong or intelligent mutants were, they were still beasts.

And they had Lu Xingshi with them. If the creatures dared show themselves, one Golden Crow Gun would send their way. Even if it did not leave them without a corpse, it would at least leave them barely alive.

As Cui Xuan spoke, the group quickly returned to the camp they had set up earlier.

The once orderly camp was now a complete mess.

"They came here." Cui Xuan knew mutants were intelligent and bold, but he had not expected them to be this bold.

Fortunately, they had all left together. If they had left anyone behind to guard the camp, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

"It was all unimportant luggage and most of our rations."

"We need to leave the Tianzhi Mountain Range as soon as possible."

"Those beasts must be watching us from nearby." A chill ran through Cui Xuan's heart.

Lu Xingshi looked around before saying, "It was the wolf pack, not the wolf and the Bei."

"And they've already gone far away. They were probably afraid we'd turn back." Lu Xingshi could tell that Cui Xuan was genuinely unsettled. Earlier, he had still called them mutants; now, he was directly calling them beasts. His state of mind had clearly changed.

Under the Bei's control, the wolf pack's intelligence had risen considerably. They knew when to advance and when to retreat, and had even withdrawn with the food before the group returned.

Most of their rations were dried meat. Martial artists naturally needed to eat meat.

Even their flatbreads had meat mixed into them, giving off the scent of meat, so they had been taken as well.

"A feint to strike elsewhere. Those beasts weren't only after Sui Shidi—they were after us and our food as well." After taking what they could carry from the wrecked camp, Cui Xuan motioned for everyone to craft more torches.

Since they were leaving in the dark, torches were essential.

They could not only provide light, but also drive away the mutant wolf, the Bei, and the wolf pack.

They did not possess Lu Xingshi's powerful five senses. At most, they had keen hearing and sharp eyesight, while the mutant wolf and Bei possessed the same senses—and far stronger ones.

So if they truly encountered them, they had no advantage whatsoever.

Once they had packed up, the group immediately set off without stopping.

"Great Hero Cui, how many mutants have you encountered?" Lu Xingshi asked along the way.

"Counting this time, this should be the sixth one." Cui Xuan walked at the front while Lu Xingshi guarded the rear, though they were not far apart.

"The first was a Shan Xiao. It ate people and favored women. The sect leader used a scheme to eliminate it. That was fifteen years ago."

"The second and third were encountered at the same time. Two mutants were fighting each other: a Golden Eagle and a Horned Python. I don't know who won. Seeing that things were going badly, I fled."

"The fourth was a Scaled Horse. They say it was a Dragon Horse. I caught only a glimpse of it in Saibei."

Cui Xuan recalled that aside from the Shan Xiao, which had left a deep impression on him, he remembered little about the others. He had not even seen the wolf or the Bei face-to-face.

Fifteen years ago, the sect leader had not yet been the sect leader. They had encountered it while traveling the world together after descending the mountain. Had Cui Xuan been alone, he might not have been able to deal with the Shan Xiao.

At the time, the Iron Sword Sect's sect leader had not yet become a grandmaster, but he was already a First-Rate Expert in the martial world. Even so, he had not dared confront that Shan Xiao head-on.

Lu Xingshi listened with great interest, especially to the account of how they had outwitted the Shan Xiao.

He knew of Shan Xiao. The animal was indeed fierce and brutal, but such creatures existed in reality; unlike the Bei, they were not fictional.

"And the rest of you, great heroes? How many mutants have you seen?" After Cui Xuan finished, Lu Xingshi turned to the others.

From Cui Xuan's account, mutants truly were scarce. Encountering one required luck. Cui Xuan was already over fifty and had only encountered so few, which said enough about their numbers.

Cui Xuan had not spent all his time holed up in the Iron Sword Sect. He had traveled north and south, earning himself the reputation of Breeze Swift Sword, a First-Rate Expert.

The remaining three each mentioned one or two as well. One had seen a three-tailed Spirit Cat, while another had seen a Human-faced Salamander that cried like an infant.

Lu Xingshi memorized the locations where they had encountered those mutants. Later, he would track them down one by one and kill them.

He had no use for the organs of mutants that increased Physical Constitution, but his master could use them. With his master's Physical Constitution, he probably only had three to five points even after cultivating until now, though that already counted as talent.

Time passed, and the sky gradually brightened. At last, the group descended the Tianzhi Mountain Range.

Lu Xingshi sensed something watching him. When he turned back, he saw a wolf pack on one of the Tianzhi Mountain Range's peaks, roughly five kilometers away, staring at them.

The wolf king at their head was as large as an adult tiger, with a strange creature sprawled across its back.

Clearly, since last night, the wolf and the Bei had been leading the pack at a distance behind them, but had failed to find an opportunity to strike.