After the meeting, everyone split into three groups.
Li Jinghua led Dugu Fu and some of the others into the Misty Forest to scout a route.
With a minor wound on his back, Zhang Feng stayed behind to care for the injured and prepare supplies for entering the forest. Gao Cuilan, Ma Wencai, the Five-Person Group, and the others stayed to help.
Chen Xiaojun and his companions went out with Chu Bo Han and Feng Min to gather stranded Soul Masters.
North of the camp, the terrain was complex and varied. Six or seven winding roads had naturally formed around its contours, stretching into the unknown like veins running through the earth.
The road Chen Xiaojun's party was on lay farthest west, right along the edge of the Misty Forest. From time to time, they could glimpse the outlines of distant mountains, appearing and disappearing in the morning mist and evening glow.
Over the past few days, Chen Xiaojun's party had been like sprites darting through the woods, moving nimbly between these roads. They made especially frequent rescue trips to the broader roads in the middle, which were equally fraught with danger.
In a valley, a party of six or seven Soul Masters was fleeing for their lives. Nearly two hundred Wolf Bandits pursued them relentlessly, their howls mingling with battle cries and sending the birds and beasts in the woods scattering in terror.
The Soul Masters wore ragged clothes and were covered in wounds, clearly having endured a long period of flight and fighting.
"Faster! Move faster!" their leader, Dean Isaac, roared.
Yet even as they pushed themselves to the limit, the Wolf Bandits clung to them like shadows, racing after them as though intent on swallowing the entire squad into darkness.
Suddenly, a streak of blue light