Is It Still Too Late to Draw a Card?

"The space folded back!"

Bai Zhu came to an abrupt stop, cold sweat instantly breaking out across his back.

Ahead should have been the black soil boundary from when they had entered the Oasis.

But now there was no boundary.

No desert.

No military cordon.

Only a stretch of forest that looped back around.

Worse still, the pursuers behind them had closed in again.

A sharp burst of barking exploded from behind the trees. A bone spear flew past Bai Zhu's ear and embedded itself in a tree trunk ahead, its shaft still trembling.

Bai Zhu glanced down.

Blue patterns covered the spearhead.

"Young Master."

"What?"

"When you said it folded back, does that mean we ran straight back into the monster horde?"

Milluki clutched the box, his face so green it looked ready to drip.

"More or less."

Bai Zhu drew a breath.

"Couldn't you put that a little more tactfully?"

"Would tact help right now? Run!"

He did not need the reminder.

The ground bulged again.

Several Black Roots sprang from the mud as if they had been waiting for them to steady themselves. Bai Zhu grabbed Milluki by the back of his collar with his left hand and charged forward.

This time, he stopped worrying about formation.

He pushed his speed to the limit.

Milluki was lifted completely off the ground, like a fallen leaf in Bai Zhu's hand.

"Bai Zhu! I'm warning you! If you keep dragging me like this, I'm going to puke my guts out!"

Bai Zhu did not look back.

"Puke in the box. Don't waste it."

"Are you even human?!"

Another bone spear shot in from behind and to the side.

Bai Zhu shifted sideways. The bone spear stabbed into the mud, its blue markings flashing once as the nearby black soil