It Shouldn't Be in the Outer Zone

Lin Che noticed it too and asked in a low voice, "What killed it?"

Lu Yuan did not answer immediately. Instead, he reexamined the traces left around the Azure-Horned Deer.

The Azure-Horned Deer had clearly been startled before it died. The hoofprints nearby were a mess, yet there were strangely few traces belonging to another Spirit Beast. The three searched the surrounding area and finally found several fresh claw marks more than a dozen yards away. Half a blurry footprint had also been left in the hard mud nearby. Beyond that, there was nothing more to see.

Qin Yue compared the depth of the claw marks against a tree trunk. "Anything capable of leaving marks like these won't be weak."

"At the very least, it isn't an ordinary three-hundred-year Spirit Beast."

Lu Yuan noted the location but did not continue following the trail inward. They did not even know what they were dealing with, so there was no point in pursuing it. It was not completely impossible for a high-year Spirit Beast to occasionally wander into the outer zone from another area.

Lin Che asked, "Should we send a signal and call the patrol officer?"

"Not yet. We don't even know where it is." Lu Yuan rose and glanced around. "Let's leave this area first."

The three immediately detoured westward.

Yet in less than an hour, things began to feel even more wrong.

The beast tracks along the way were noticeably denser than before. Several types of Spirit Beasts normally had no overlap in their ranges, yet most of the tracks they had left now extended southward.

Using the speed of his Azure-Feather Falcon Martial Soul, Lin Che scouted ahead. He quickly returned from the front. "I saw two Red-Tailed Deer and an Iron-Backed Badger ahead. They were heading south too, and they were running in a hurry."

Qin Yue lowered his head to inspect the nearby tracks. "They don't look like they're searching for something. It's more like something drove them out."

Lu Yuan also looked north, the direction where they had found the Azure-Horned Deer's corpse.

Qin Yue asked, "Keep heading west?"

"Northwest, but stay away from the area where the northern tracks are concentrated." Lu Yuan raised a hand and pointed. "Those Spirit Beasts are all retreating south. The northwestern outer zone is probably empty instead, so we'll move sideways along the edge."

Qin Yue understood immediately. "The Spirit Beasts may have run off, but the copper tokens placed there beforehand won't run away with them."

"That's exactly it."

The copper tokens in this assessment had all been placed in advance. Some were hidden in ordinary areas, while others had deliberately been placed where Spirit Beasts often roamed. The harder a location was to reach, the more tokens were usually placed nearby. In the end, only the total number each group brought back mattered.

The three adjusted their route, but they kept their distance from the abnormal northern area and did not deliberately approach the source of danger just to collect tokens.

Sure enough, the journey became much quieter.

Near dusk, Lin Che dropped down from a tree ahead and signaled for the other two to slow down. "There's a Stone-Armored Rhino ahead, nearly four hundred years old. Three copper tokens are hanging from the tree beside it, but that thing is acting strange. It keeps pacing around nearby, like it wants to leave."

After the three approached, they soon saw the Stone-Armored Rhino as well.

Thick stone armor covered its back. Under normal circumstances, Stone-Armored Rhinos were extremely territorial, but this one was clearly restless. It kept flicking its tail, walking to the edge of the woods several times before retreating again.

Three copper tokens were tied together with a thin string on a low branch of a thick tree nearby, swaying gently in the wind.

After watching for a while, Qin Yue suddenly said, "It refuses to go north."

Lu Yuan had noticed it too.

Something in the north had made the nearby low-year Spirit Beasts uneasy. This Stone-Armored Rhino clearly sensed it as well, but they happened to be standing on the side it wanted to leave through, preventing it from fleeing directly.

"We won't fight it head-on." After observing from the perimeter for a moment, Lu Yuan quickly chose a direction. "We'll approach from the south and leave the west open."

Lin Che immediately understood. "Let it leave on its own?"

"Let's try."

The three did not immediately release any Soul Skills. They merely spread out slightly and gradually closed in from the Stone-Armored Rhino's south and southeast.

The already agitated Stone-Armored Rhino quickly noticed people approaching. It lowered its head and let out a warning-like muffled roar. Qin Yue activated his Iron-Backed Battle Ape Martial Soul and pressed forward a few steps, but he did not truly collide with it. Lin Che used his speed to create a disturbance from the other side.

The Stone-Armored Rhino turned back and forth twice. When it realized no one was blocking the west, it finally gave up on the area, turned, and ran into the woods in that direction.

Only after its massive figure completely vanished did Lin Che leap onto the branch and take down the three copper tokens.

Qin Yue dismissed his Martial Soul and looked in the direction the Stone-Armored Rhino had gone. "That saved us a fight."

"It never wanted to stay in the first place." Lu Yuan took the tokens and put them into a cloth bag. "If we'd fought it head-on, we would've wasted Soul Power for nothing."

With those three copper tokens, their total for the first day rose from seven to ten. As the sky darkened, the three stopped searching for more targets and began looking for a place to rest for the night.

Lin Che quickly found a pool of water.

The terrain around it was flat, and several large boulders happened to block the wind. Based on the wilderness knowledge the academy usually taught, it was indeed a suitable place to spend the night.

Lu Yuan walked around the water's edge once, yet he did not set down his pack for a long time.

Seeing this, Qin Yue asked, "Something wrong?"

"I can't say."

Lu Yuan crouched and touched the beast prints in the mud. "Most of the fresh tracks left today were heading outward. There are hardly any heading toward the water."

By evening, quite a few Spirit Beasts should have been approaching a water source, yet the surroundings were far too quiet.

Lin Che also circled around to inspect the other side and quickly frowned. "When I came over just now, I barely saw any birds nearby either."

None of the strange signs alone meant much, but taken together, there was no reason to insist on staying here for the night.

Qin Yue did not hesitate. "We move."

In the end, the three found a rocky slope a little over half a mile away. Though getting water would be inconvenient, the terrain was higher and the view around them was open, making it easier to notice any disturbance in advance.

The first half of the night remained perfectly calm.

Then, in the latter half of the night, a dull crashing sound suddenly came from afar, followed by several successive cracks of trees breaking.

Lu Yuan, who was on watch, immediately stood up. Qin Yue and Lin Che quickly woke as well.

Before the three could determine what had happened, a scarlet distress signal rose above the distant woods.

Lin Che looked in that direction, and his expression immediately changed. "The pool."

The three quickly packed their things, but they did not rush straight toward the pool. Once they were close enough, Lin Che first used his Azure-Feather Falcon Martial Soul to leap to a high point, then quickly lowered himself and returned to the ground.

"Several Spirit Beasts are charging around near the pool. They're all around two to three hundred years old. I don't see anything bigger for now."

Lu Yuan listened in that direction for a moment. Only after confirming that there were no new major disturbances nearby did he say, "Save the people first. Don't go too deep toward the pool."

Only then did the three approach from the side.

A three-person team was trapped near a field of jagged rocks by several frightened Spirit Beasts. One of them already had blood on his leg, and they had been the ones to release the distress signal.

Qin Yue charged in first. After merging with his Iron-Backed Battle Ape Martial Soul, he directly rammed aside a Black-Maned Beast charging at them, opening an escape route for the group. Lin Che seized the chance to pull the injured student out of the rocky area, while Lu Yuan used the butt of his spear and Shock Edge to block the pursuing Spirit Beasts once, without continuing the engagement.

After being driven back, the remaining Spirit Beasts showed no intention of attacking again. They turned and fled into the woods, not even sparing a second glance at the injured student on the ground.

Watching the direction in which they vanished, Lu Yuan became even more certain of his judgment.

These Spirit Beasts were fleeing as well.

Not long afterward, the patrol officer responsible for the nearby area arrived with two hunting-ground guards. After confirming that the injured student had only suffered a cut to the leg and that his bones and tendons were unharmed, the group went to inspect the area near the pool.

Lin Che and the other two stayed farther away and did not rashly follow.

Soon, the patrol officer who had arrived first stopped beside a large tree that had been smashed apart.

The trunk was as thick as an adult's waist. The break was clearly not something an ordinary collision could have caused, and several deep claw marks remained on it.

One of the hunting-ground guards examined it for a moment, and his expression gradually darkened.

The patrol officer asked in a grave voice, "When was the outer zone last thoroughly inspected?"

"Yesterday."

"Are you certain there were no Spirit Beasts over five hundred years old?"

"Certain." The guard answered quickly. "We conducted another patrol before the assessment began. Every Spirit Beast above the limit was driven into the inner area."

The patrol officer stared at the marks on the trunk for several breaths. Without wasting any more time, he turned and ordered, "Send a signal. Inform the teams on the north side to stop advancing and gather at the nearest outer-zone assembly point."

One of the guards immediately took out a signal tube.

But before the signal could rise into the sky, another low beastly roar came from deep within the dark forest in the distance.

This time, the sound was closer than before.