Reunion with an Old Friend: Hunter and Hunted (Part 1)

Su Chen did not take the main road.

The Shadow Leopards' sensory chain spread out ahead, with ten streams of information flowing back at once.

He sifted through them for three seconds and picked the shortest route—through a narrow gully between two broken cliffs, over a half-collapsed stone ridge, and straight toward the canyon three kilometers to the northwest.

Mountains on three sides, one entrance.

He had glanced over the terrain when passing through two days ago, without paying it much attention.

Now, he was putting it to use.

"Stay close."

Seven people and fifty soul beasts made no small amount of noise when they moved.

But Su Chen kept their pace tightly controlled.

The Fearclaw Bears took the center, their paws stepping only on bare rock and avoiding soft soil. The Black Tortoises dimmed the sheen of the patterns on their shells and moved close along the foot of the mountains. The Thunder Eagles did not fly; they folded their wings and crouched atop the Fearclaw Bears' backs, eliminating the sound of beating wings.

The Thousand Jun Ants were the easiest to handle. They simply burrowed underground, leaving behind only a faint line of rippling soil.

The Shadow Leopards needed no attention.

They had never made any sound to begin with.

Ling Shuang ran barefoot at the rear of the group. With every step she took, Immortal Vines beneath her feet drilled a little deeper into the soil. Her method of setting up defenses was simple and brutal—every forty meters, she left behind a web of roots pressed flat against the ground, without a single strand emerging above the surface.

"That's the third one," she reported softly.

Chu Yao ran ahead of her. She pulled a thumb-sized porcelain bottle from her sleeve with her right hand, removed the stopper,