By Core Lake, Xiao Wu guided the last two injured Soft Bone Rabbits into a tree hollow.
More people had been entering the forest in recent days. The Hundred-Year Soul Beasts on the outskirts suffered first. Some were captured to scout the way, while others were cut open and drained of blood, their bodies tossed beside the paths. Da Ming ordered the Soul Beasts of the Lake District to move south, while Er Ming pulled up more than a dozen black iron stakes along the perimeter.
Not all the stakes had been pulled out.
The enemy had buried the rest underground, with barbed chains attached to their shafts. Er Ming feared that tearing them out by force would hurt the Soul Beasts beneath the ground. He could only guard the edge of the Lake District and wait for Da Ming to work out the formation's layout.
Since returning to the forest, Xiao Wu had rarely let herself rest. Soul Masters had discovered several old Soft Bone Rabbit nests, and she had moved the colony twice. A stampede of Soul Beasts had swept through the northern Valley, and she and Er Ming had stood guard for three full days. Tang San's letters lay by the bed in her wooden cabin. She had read the oldest one so many times that its corners had gone soft.
He wrote about the Blue Silver Emperor, training beneath a waterfall, and the date of their reunion after five years. Only the dangerous parts were always brushed aside. Xiao Wu got angry every time she finished a letter, yet she still opened the next one as soon as it arrived. She had planned to go to Heaven Dou to find him once the forest was safe. That was when the Beast-Locking Stakes appeared.
Da Ming would