The wind in the ravine carried a damp chill through the cracks in the rock and into the cave, stirring the loose hair over Xiao Yan's forehead. He huddled in a corner with the Heavy Xuan Ruler laid across him, as though clutching his only source of support. Every so often, he peered outside through a crack, his eyes brimming with "terror."
"That scream just now... did someone run into some powerful magical beast?" he muttered, his voice trembling. "This damned place is terrifying. I'd better leave soon..."
Though he spoke of leaving, he remained rooted in place, perfectly portraying a frightened weakling's hesitation in the face of an unknown danger.
Yet the instant his seemingly panicked gaze swept over the area outside, his emperor realm soul had already locked onto two presences approaching from different directions, as precise as the finest radar.
One was roughly a hundred meters to the northwest, its aura slightly weaker, around the sixth stage of Dou Qi. The other was farther away to the southeast, with a steadier aura that should have placed him at the seventh stage of Dou Qi. Both had clearly heard the scream and were cautiously investigating, their steps carrying the sinister rhythm peculiar to members of the Mo Family.
They're a little more cautious than that last idiot, Xiao Yan sneered inwardly. Though the people the Mo Family had sent this time were hardly elite, they at least knew how to coordinate. They clearly intended to pincer him from front and rear to prevent their target from escaping.
He slowly rose, putting on an air of having "made up his mind," and picked up several stones to block the cave entrance, leaving only a narrow gap. Then, with his herb basket on his back, he stooped and slipped through a concealed opening on the other side of the cave—a natural passage he had just discovered with his spiritual perception. Narrow and choked with thorns, it fit perfectly with a panicked escape made without regard for the route.
Once through the opening, he deliberately made some noise and stumbled down the steep mountainside. Thorns tore several gashes in his robe, and the herb basket on his back hung crookedly, looking ready to fall at any moment.
"Rustle, rustle..."
A thin, small figure poked his head out of the bushes to the northwest. It was the Mo Family member at the sixth stage of Dou Qi. Seeing Xiao Yan's fleeing back, a vicious glint flashed in his eyes, and he immediately followed. His movements were light and deft; he was clearly skilled at tracking.
The cultivator at the seventh stage of Dou Qi to the southeast was somewhat more composed. Rather than giving chase at once, he first circled around to the cave and examined the loose stones at its entrance and the steep slope, his brow furrowing slightly. The scream had clearly come from here, yet aside from scattered stones that had rolled down, there were no signs of a fight. It looked more as though someone had lost his footing and fallen.
"Did Third Brother fall on his own?" he murmured, suspicion in his eyes. Third Brother might not have been an elite, but he was still at the seventh stage of Dou Qi. How could he have been so careless?
After a moment's thought, he decided to catch up with his companion ahead. If they captured Xiao Yan, perhaps they could question him. Without further hesitation, he gathered his energy and gave chase toward the northwest.
Xiao Yan "sprinted" onward, deliberately choosing rough, difficult terrain. Every so often, he tripped over a stone and cried out in pain, perfectly maintaining the appearance of a "desperate, stumbling flight." Yet his spiritual perception remained fixed on the pursuers behind him, keeping them roughly a hundred meters away—never allowing them to catch him easily, while always remaining within their sight and keeping them hungry for the chase.
After he passed through a dense grove of low trees, a narrow mountain hollow appeared ahead. Towering rock walls flanked a path barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, with piles of weathered rock fragments scattered along its edges.
Xiao Yan slowed, a look of "despair" appearing on his face, as though he had been driven into a dead end. He turned and leaned against the rock wall, panting heavily as he stared in the direction of his pursuers, his eyes full of "fear."
The sixth-stage cultivator who arrived first broke into a savage grin at the sight. He quickened his pace and charged into the hollow, a short dagger gleaming coldly in his hand. "Xiao Yan, you little bastard! Let's see where you can run now!"
With agile movements, he reached Xiao Yan in a few bounds and thrust the dagger straight at his heart. The attack was vicious; he clearly intended to kill him in one strike.
Xiao Yan raised the Heavy Xuan Ruler to block in "wild panic," his movements clumsy and seemingly far too slow.
Just as the dagger was about to pierce his robe, Xiao Yan lightly tapped the ground with the tip of his foot.
The tap seemed powerless, yet it carried an exquisite spatial fluctuation. An almost imperceptible thread of energy spread through the ground and silently flowed into the pile of weathered rock fragments.
"Rumble—!"
Without warning, the rock wall on the right side of the hollow began to shake. Dozens of head-sized chunks of rock rolled down the slope as though pushed by invisible hands, hurtling toward the Mo Family member with the wind whistling around them.
"What?!" The Mo Family member's expression changed drastically. His thrust at Xiao Yan faltered, and he instinctively raised his arms to block.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!"
Several rocks struck his arms with dull impacts. Though he deflected most of them, one still grazed his shoulder, spraying blood. Worse, the falling rubble triggered a chain reaction. More rocks came crashing down from above, sealing off his retreat in an instant.
Stunned by this sudden "natural disaster," he momentarily forgot to attack and could only dodge the ceaselessly falling stones on instinct.
Seizing the chance, Xiao Yan "scrambled and crawled" deeper into the hollow, still remembering to shout, "Heaven protect me! Crush that villain to death!"
Only then did the Mo Family member recover his wits. He roared in fury and tried to give chase, but a larger rock blocked his path. He could only watch Xiao Yan's back vanish at the far end of the hollow, his face livid with rage.
The seventh-stage cultivator who arrived moments later witnessed it all. Standing at the entrance to the hollow, he watched the falling rubble and his companion trapped in the middle, his brow knitting even tighter.
What's going on? These rocks could have fallen at any time. Why now, of all moments? Suspicions crowded his mind, but this was clearly no time to investigate.
"Second Brother! Help me!" the trapped Mo Family member shouted.
The cultivator called Second Brother gritted his teeth and was about to move forward to clear the rubble when an inexplicable dread suddenly seized his heart. He jerked his head up and looked into the depths of the hollow. All was quiet there, save for the wind howling past the rock walls, yet he felt as though a pair of eyes were watching him from the shadows, cold enough to pierce his bones.
Was it his imagination?
He shook his head and suppressed the absurd thought. How could a piece of trash at the third stage of Dou Qi possibly make him feel this way? Third Brother's "accident" must have left him too tense.
He took a deep breath and was just about to start moving the rocks when another sudden change occurred.
On the left wall of the hollow, a boulder the size of a millstone abruptly came loose. Pulled by gravity, it hurtled downward with crushing force—straight toward where he stood!
This was no weathered fragment. An entire slab of rock had broken free, evidently because the earlier tremors had disturbed the already unstable cliff face.
"Damn!"
Second Brother's pupils contracted sharply, his scalp prickling. He could feel the power behind that boulder. With his strength at the seventh stage of Dou Qi, taking it head-on would mean certain death!
At the critical instant, he lunged to the side, narrowly escaping the spot directly beneath the boulder.
"Boom—!"
The boulder slammed into the ground with a deafening crash. Shattered stones flew, and dust billowed. The entire hollow seemed to shudder.
Second Brother lay prone on the ground, his back scraped by flying debris and burning with pain. But he had no time to care about that. Still shaken, he stared at the boulder blocking most of the hollow's entrance, his heart pounding wildly.
For that brief instant, he had even thought he was doomed.
"Second Brother! Are you all right?" his trapped companion cried.
Second Brother snapped furiously, "What a stupid question! Do I look all right to you? There's something damned unnatural about this place. Let's find a way out first!"
He looked at the boulder sealing the entrance, then at his companion trapped by the rubble. Thinking of Xiao Yan, who had long since vanished without a trace, he felt a wave of helplessness rise within him.
These two "accidents" were far too coincidental—so coincidental that they sent a chill down his spine. Yet he simply could not fathom how a piece of trash at the third stage of Dou Qi could cause such upheavals. Had their luck really been so terrible that they had stumbled onto an unstable mountainside?
The dust gradually settled, revealing the wreckage strewn throughout the hollow. Second Brother struggled to his feet and began trying to clear the rubble at the entrance, only to discover that the boulder would not budge. His strength alone was nowhere near enough to move it.
Deep within the hollow, Xiao Yan had already stopped. Leaning behind a large tree, he listened to the furious, frustrated shouts behind him without the slightest ripple of emotion on his face.
Those two rockfalls had naturally been his work. For the first shower of rubble, he had used his spiritual perception to stir the weathered rocks, making it look like an accident. For the second boulder, he had secretly loosened the cracks with his soul power as the other man approached, then used the fluctuations of the man's own aura as the trigger for its fall—everything timed just right, perfectly fitting the appearance of an "accident caused by an unstable mountainside."
As for the sixth-stage cultivator trapped in the middle of the hollow? Xiao Yan had already scanned the area with his spiritual perception. An underground river ran through its depths, its current swift and its stone walls covered in slick, wet moss. Once the man finally cleared a path, he would probably "accidentally" lose his footing and fall into the river, be swept away by the current, and leave not even his bones behind.
"That makes two," Xiao Yan said quietly, his fingertips brushing the patterns on the Heavy Xuan Ruler. "Mo Family... however many you send, I'll take them all."
He straightened his herb basket, picked up the few medicinal herbs he had dropped during his earlier "panic," and put them back in place. Then he checked his bearings and headed toward the Wolf Head Mercenary Group Camp.
According to the memory fragments he had read earlier, that transmigrator seemed to have had contact with the Wolf Head Mercenary Group. Perhaps he could find more clues there.
The setting sun stretched his shadow long. On the surface, he remained the same "trash," Xiao Yan, struggling to survive in the Magical Beast Mountain Range. But deep in the shadows, Death's scythe had already begun to swing silently, reaping every threat that tried to approach.
Far away, at the Mo Family estate in Wutan City, they still did not know that more than half the spies they had sent into the Magical Beast Mountain Range had already been lost. A conspiracy against Xiao Yan had barely begun, yet several of its claws and fangs had already been silently severed in corners no one knew about.
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