A herd of wild boars raced through the valley.
They crossed rugged mountain paths, leaped into a stream, waded through the water, and climbed onto the bank.
"Stop."
The lead boar grunted.
All the boars immediately stopped, staring warily into the dense forest.
A gray shadow leaped out of the woods and landed before them.
-it was a striped tiger!
"Follow me."
The tiger growled.
The boars all hesitated.
The tiger said impatiently, "At a time like this, you're still worrying that I'll eat you?"
It roared toward the woods.
Immediately.
The cries of foxes, wolves, leopards, peacocks, and bears rang out together.
But the boars remained on guard.
"The token."
The boar leader spoke.
"Look!" The tiger had no choice but to produce a token and show it to the boars.
"It really is General Wang's token-good, lads, follow me!" the boar leader shouted behind it.
Only then did the boars move forward, following the tiger into the woods.
The tiger nodded inwardly.
If these pig demons wouldn't even follow the rule of checking the token, it would eat them, rather than let them disobey orders on the battlefield and disrupt morale when it killed them then.
It glanced back and asked in surprise:
"Pig demons, why is there a duck among you?"
"We picked him up along the way-he's a demon duck, and an eloquent one," the boar leader said.
The duck crouched on a boar's back. At this, he cupped his wings in greeting.
"I am Baxter. My respects, Mountain King."
The tiger looked him over.
Eloquent?
Ordinarily, we could sit and discuss the Way, but what time was it now?
The tiger sighed.
"Duck, it's not that I look down on you, but this battle is extremely important. We need to concentrate our fighting strength and