The footsteps drew closer. Feng Xiaotian clenched his fist, signaling the other three to retreat behind the scattered rocks. Four pairs of eyes watched the direction the sound came from.
A burst of cursing came from outside the poisonous miasma, mixed with heavy panting. Someone was saying, "Those beasts still haven't left," while someone else cursed, "If I'd known, I never would've taken this job." The voices drew closer, filled with the terror of impending death and a reckless madness.
Three blood-soaked figures stumbled into the poisonous miasma. Men from the Snake Fang Mercenary Corps. Their leather armor was in tatters, and one had a wound torn into his leg so deep that bone showed. The other two supported him as they headed farther in. The Soul Beasts outside had not fully dispersed. In their current condition, staying outside meant certain death. Rather than be torn apart by Soul Beasts, they might as well enter the poisonous miasma and try their luck.
The three found a crevice among the rocks and sat down, gasping for breath. They did not notice the four people hiding behind the scattered rocks.
Zhong Yue's fingers tightened slightly against his tortoise shell as he questioned Feng Xiaotian with his eyes. Feng Xiaotian shook his head slightly-the depths of the poisonous miasma behind them were a dead end. To get out, they could only go forward. He gestured ahead. The four slipped silently out from behind the rocks and approached the three men.
They had barely taken a few steps when one of the men abruptly raised his head.
Both sides stopped at once.
The three mercenaries swept their gazes over the four of them-all four were wounded, Bai Yu's leg was still seeping blood, and Zhong Yue's tortoise-shell phantom was already covered in cracks. The three mercenaries exchanged glances, and the fear in their eyes slowly turned into something else. They had watched their companions being torn apart on the slope, and the sound of the bearded man's spine snapping still clung to their ears. Before them stood four youths who were likewise wounded-not at their peak, but certainly no lambs waiting for slaughter. Fear and greed flickered in turn in the three men's eyes. In the end, greed gained the upper hand.
Feng Xiaotian recognized that look. In the forest, wounded prey was most likely to draw not sympathy, but those who would loot a burning house.
Before he could speak, the three behind him moved at once. Feng Lingtian's feather blades sealed off the lead man's left flank, Zhong Yue's tortoise shell slammed toward the man in the middle, and Bai Yu's bell tones pierced the last man's perception at the very same instant.
The corner of Feng Xiaotian's mouth moved almost imperceptibly. He swept past with Gale Flash Step and delivered a backhand wind blade-the blade sliced across the neck of the man Bai Yu had restrained.
Three figures fell almost simultaneously.
Silence settled within the poisonous miasma.
Bai Yu lowered her head and looked at her hands. She had not hesitated when ringing her bell just now, but her fingers were still trembling. Bai Yu said a single sentence to herself, just four words-I have killed someone. Then she clenched her hand and released it. Clenched it and released it. The third time she clenched it, her fingers finally steadied.
Zhong Yue sat beside Bai Yu and, for once, did not look at her. Ordinarily, he would notice even a twitch of her fingers, but this time he stared at the faintly trembling patterns of light on his tortoise shell without so much as a glance to the side. He had put all his strength into that collision-if the man had not been knocked away, Bai Yu would have been in danger. Zhong Yue dared not imagine that outcome. Nor did he dare ask himself why he had not looked at Bai Yu first.
Feng Lingtian leaned against the rock wall with his eyes closed. His transmigrator's soul had made him consider this moment earlier than others his age-in this world, killing did not mean becoming evil. It only meant staying alive. He had reasoned that through, but the stifling feeling in his chest still took a long time to fade.
Feng Xiaotian wiped the blood from his fingertips, his face expressionless. But he wiped very slowly, far more slowly than usual.
Bai Yu was the first to stand. The wound on her leg was still seeping blood. She glanced down at it and paid it no mind. She wiped her dagger clean, slipped it back at her waist, and walked over to Zhong Yue. Zhong Yue raised his head, and their eyes met for a second. Bai Yu offered him the waterskin in her hand. Zhong Yue took it and drank a mouthful. As he handed it back, their fingertips brushed. Neither spoke, but Bai Yu's eyes were no longer red.
When Feng Lingtian opened his eyes, Feng Xiaotian was standing before him. He did not reach out to pull him up, only looked down and waited for him to stand on his own. Feng Lingtian braced a hand against the ground and rose steadily to his feet. Feng Xiaotian passed him the waterskin, and Feng Lingtian tipped his head back and drank a mouthful. The water was warm, heated by body warmth. Feng Xiaotian took the waterskin back and put it away. His expression was as cool as ever, but his movements as he stowed it were much gentler than usual.
Only when the wind outside the poisonous miasma picked up did the Soul Beasts gathered around its edges gradually disperse. The scent of the pill grew fainter and fainter in the wind, and the Soul Beasts that had lost patience turned away one after another and vanished into the dense forest.
Feng Xiaotian raised his head, glanced at the bodies on the ground, then looked toward the slope. A thought flashed through his mind-earlier, on the slope, the Soul Beasts had killed three mercenaries. Together with the three who had just died here, that made six. The Snake Fang Mercenary Corps still had one last man left.
The thought lingered for only an instant. The Soul Beasts had only just dispersed, and the medicine protecting them from the poisonous miasma was nearly at its limit. This was not the time to investigate. Feng Xiaotian wiped the blood from his hands and said quietly, "Let's go."
The four walked out of the poisonous miasma. The canopy overhead blocked most of the moonlight, leaving only a scattering of cold white spots on the dead leaves beneath their feet. The night wind blew from the slope, carrying a lingering smell of blood. No one spoke. There was only the rustle of footsteps on dead leaves and the occasional howl of a Soul Beast in the distance.
Behind them, the three bodies lay quietly among the dead leaves at the edge of the poisonous miasma. Soon, the forest would digest them-just like the mercenaries on the slope. Sunset Forest would not remember tonight. But the four of them would.
Feng Xiaotian did not spare another glance and headed straight toward the forest's outskirts. The other three followed behind him, their steps much heavier than when they had come, but every footfall was steady.
Feng Xiaotian glanced toward Godwind Academy in the distance and quickened his pace.
At the edge of Sunset Forest, behind an old dead tree, a pair of eyes watched those four retreating figures through the branches. The man was covered in blood, his left arm hanging at a grotesque angle by his side-plainly broken. From the slope to the poisonous miasma, he had evaded the Soul Beasts and those youths alike. Of the Snake Fang Mercenary Corps' seven members, he was now the only one left.
He committed the one walking at the front to memory. A wolf-shaped phantom, swift winds coiling around him. He also remembered the one who used feather wind blades, the one with a tortoise shell on his back, and the one who rang a bell.
He did not pursue them. With one arm broken, he could no longer defeat those four. His right hand dug into the dead tree's bark. His nails split, and blood seeped down the dry grooves in the wood. It did not matter. He had a lifetime to remember those four receding figures.
The four walked out of Sunset Forest without looking back.
Behind that old dead tree, those eyes were still staring. Bloodshot and unblinking.