Inkshadow Leopard

On the road back, the atmosphere was far more relaxed than it had been on the way there.

Eleven Earth Gnawers—every one of them fat and sturdy, with thick hides and enough meat to go around.

The prey weighed heavily on the tribesmen's shoulders, yet everyone's steps were lighter than before.

Someone began humming an old tune passed down through the tribe, broken and intermittent, like the mournful whistling of wind through a tree hollow, yet it somehow put their hearts at ease.

Mang walked at the very front. The Earth Gnawer on his shoulder made his already solid frame seem a little shorter, but he wore a smile, turning back now and then to trade a few jokes with the others.

Even Biao's shoulders had relaxed.

The hands that had been clenched around his knife hilt finally loosened. He shook out his wrists, turned to Lin Yi, and said, "This trip will give the tribe room to breathe. That spear of yours—"

His words abruptly caught in his throat.

A black shadow shot out from the dense forest to the left of the group! It moved so fast it did not seem to be moving at all, but rather appearing out of thin air. One moment it had been deep in the canopy dozens of meters away; the next, it had pounced before Lin Yi on a gust of cold, bloody wind!

Sharp claws shot forth, their pitch-black tips flashing under the sunlight as they drove straight at Lin Yi's face.

Too fast.

The smiles had not even fully faded from everyone's faces, and the trailing note of Biao's praise still hung in the air.

By the time Biao's pupils contracted and he thought to draw his blade, that black shadow was already nearly pressed against Lin Yi.

Lin Yi himself could not react in time.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a blurry black shape crashing into his field of vision. Before his brain could issue a single command, those claws had already arrived.

They were only ten centimeters from his face.

The sinister gleam on the sharp claw tips had already reflected in his eyes.

At that instant, an explosive boom suddenly erupted deep within Lin Yi's mind!

The sound was both piercing and heavy, as though something stretched taut for ages had finally been pulled to its limit and snapped with a crack.

A current both icy and scorching surged violently upward from the base of his skull, exploding down his spine and into every limb and bone, faster than consciousness itself could travel.

His body moved on its own.

Without thought or judgment, Lin Yi's waist and back bent like a hard bow suddenly drawn and then violently released. His entire body arched backward at an almost impossible angle, his spine curving into an exaggerated arc, his upper body tilting back until it was nearly horizontal. The claws brushed past the tip of his nose, and the airflow they stirred sliced off several loose strands of hair from his forehead.

Then, riding the motion, he spun and leaped more than three meters backward. The moment he landed, he was already crouched low in a defensive stance.

The entire sequence was as clean as if he had rehearsed it countless times.

Lin Yi's heart pounded wildly in his chest. Cold sweat seeped out across his back layer by layer, instantly soaking through his inner clothes.

Only then did he belatedly realize what had happened. At the edge of life and death, his body had moved by itself.

An instinct beyond conscious thought had taken over his limbs faster than his mind.

The sensation was unprecedented. He could not tell whether his brain's flash of brilliance had been projected into his body, or whether this flesh, tempered several times over, had developed memories of its own.

But this was no time to investigate.

Having missed with its first strike, the black shadow landed lightly on a bluestone three or four zhang away and did not pursue at once.

Sunlight slanted down through gaps in the canopy, illuminating the black figure clearly. Its entire body was ink-black, its short, dense fur smooth as satin and clinging tightly to sleek, powerful muscles.

Its limbs were long and strong, its tail thick and lengthy like a whip, slowly swaying behind it.

Its dark green eyes stared unblinking at Lin Yi. Its pupils had narrowed into needle-thin slits, holding the calm, almost indifferent gaze of a hunter.

Biao finally reacted. He yanked the great blade from his back and stepped sideways in front of Lin Yi.

The other hunting team members closed in at the same time. Everyone stood back to back in a circular defensive formation, weapons uniformly pointed at the black figure.

After seeing the creature in full, Biao's pupils suddenly shrank, and even his breathing paused for a beat.

"Inkshadow Leopard... How could it be one of these..."

His voice was extremely low, carrying a gravity Lin Yi had never seen from him before.

The muscles in Biao's cheeks tightened until they were hard. His Adam's apple bobbed once before he forced out the rest of his words. "This thing is on par with the Dragonlike Blood-Qi Realm. We... have run into terrible luck."

"Dragonlike?" Lin Yi's eyes twitched.

"Peak of the Four Blood-Qi Realms—over one hundred thousand jin." Biao spoke rapidly in a low voice. "But an Inkshadow Leopard is more troublesome than an ordinary Dragonlike Realm beast. It has the Mengji Bloodline, and it is born skilled at lurking and ambushes. Its short-range burst speed ranks among the best of all Ferocious Beasts at the same level.

"And it definitely has a Bloodline Divine Ability. We just don't know what kind."

The other hunting team members' faces also darkened the instant they heard the words "Inkshadow Leopard."

Mang tightened his grip on his stone axe until his knuckles turned white, but his feet did not retreat even half a step.

The other team members tensed their muscles and made their breathing as shallow and quiet as possible. Every gaze remained locked onto the black figure atop the bluestone.

Lin Yi met the Inkshadow Leopard's eyes.

Those dark green vertical pupils stared fixedly at him. Its gaze was like two icy streams nailed to his face, shifting slightly with every tiny movement of his body.

Lin Yi noticed that the Inkshadow Leopard had barely looked at anyone else. Nearly all its attention was focused on him alone.

That first strike just now. It had lunged straight at Lin Yi. Fast, accurate, and ruthless, aimed directly at his face.

If this had merely been a chance encounter, then by a hunter's instinct, it should have attacked the nearest or weakest target first.

Yet the Inkshadow Leopard had crossed more than ten zhang, bypassed Mang at the front, leaped over Biao beside him, and precisely pounced on Lin Yi in the middle of the group. This had been planned all along.

Lin Yi's mind rapidly reconstructed the whole picture. The Inkshadow Leopard had been there long ago.

When they hunted the Earth Gnawer herd, it had already been lurking in the shadows. It had watched Lin Yi spear straight through an Earth Gnawer, seen the instant the blood-gold patterns on his body blazed bright, and sensed that burst of one hundred and twenty thousand jin.

To the Inkshadow Leopard, Lin Yi was the only threat in this group.

As long as it killed him first, everyone else would be lambs waiting for slaughter beneath its claws.

Lin Yi's heart sank.

"Brother Biao," Lin Yi said, lowering his voice until only Biao could hear, "take the others and leave first. I'm its target.

"It was there when we hunted the Earth Gnawers. It saw me activate the Savage Bull Diagram and knows my explosive strength can hurt it.

"As long as I stay here, it won't divide its attention to attack anyone else."

Biao's brows instantly knotted. "What the fuck are you talking about? I can't leave you here alone—"

"Listen to me first." Lin Yi cut him off. His gaze remained fixed on the Inkshadow Leopard, but his words came fast and steady.

"It wants to deal with me first, then everyone else.

"So I'll keep it occupied while you retreat. It won't chase you. Once you're gone, I'll have a chance to maneuver around it. Otherwise, if a whole group stays here and it goes mad biting at random, we'll suffer terrible casualties."

Biao's lips pressed into an iron line, the muscles in his jaw taut as steel.

He understood Lin Yi's words. He understood the reasoning behind them. But his feet seemed nailed to the ground, unwilling to move even one step.

"Mang!" Biao suddenly growled. "Take the others and retreat! Go!"

Mang whipped around. "Biao—"

"Don't fucking dawdle like a woman!" Biao kept his voice low, but every word struck the ground like a stone. "If we all die here, the tribe is finished! Go! Get back and find the village chief. Tell him to bring sacrificial offerings and come support us!"

Mang ground his teeth until they creaked.

He looked at Lin Yi, then at Biao. Then he suddenly turned, waved at the others behind him, and shouted, "Go!"

No one hesitated any longer. They pushed off at the same instant and sprinted wildly toward the tribe.

Their figures quickly receded into the forest, soon vanishing amid the rustling of leaves.

The Inkshadow Leopard's dark green eyes flicked between Lin Yi and Biao.

Lin Yi saw its vertical pupils narrow slightly. It had noticed those retreating people. But it did not move.

Once the footsteps of Mang and the others had completely faded away, a long silence fell over the forest.

The wind swept through the grass, stirring the Inkshadow Leopard's short black fur into a faint tremble and making Lin Yi's clothes snap loudly.

Within those dark green vertical pupils, the hunter's patience had run out.

The Inkshadow Leopard's hind legs suddenly sank. It was about to move.