Level-Three Red-Maned Wolf Pack

When the first level-three Red-Maned Wolf stepped on the chain, it did not fall.

It lowered its head and bit the chain, dragging the wooden stake hidden behind the slope out instead.

Helian Yuan lay behind a collapsed wall in the old camp. When he saw this, he knew the pack had discovered the trap. The alpha had not shown itself, instead sending a young wolf ahead to test the path; three other pairs of eyes were spread out in the mist, waiting for the hunter to change positions after the trap failed.

Unlike the level-three Ironmane Bear, the pack would take his adjustments into account.

Helian Yuan did not try to save the chain.

The young Red-Maned Wolf backed away, dragging the stake. The links struck the stone ground with a series of sharp clinks. The sound drew two other wolves into the middle of the stone path, but also brought them closer together.

Helian Yuan picked up a grease-soaked rag that was burning and threw it from the other side of the collapsed wall.

The firelight landed to the right of the pack.

All three wolves dodged left at once, going straight between two rows of collapsed fences in the old camp. The passage was narrow, with only enough room for one wolf to pass through head-on.

This was the narrow path Helian Yuan had been waiting for.

He emerged from behind the wall and shot his first arrow at the wolf in the rear. The arrow failed to pierce the level-three magical beast's shoulder bone, but forced it to push forward. The young wolf in front was still dragging the stake, and the wolves collided, their formation squeezed into a line.

At that moment, the alpha sprang out from behind Helian Yuan.

It had never been in the mist.

It had circled the old camp and approached the back of the collapsed wall from downwind.

Helian Yuan heard Tiger Shadow turn its head first. With no time to turn all the way around, he could only sweep his short spear behind him. The alpha bit down on the shaft, its teeth scraping against the iron sheathing with a piercing sound.

It did not pull against him. Once it had the shaft in its jaws, it gave a violent toss of its head.

Helian Yuan let go.

The short spear flew more than a dozen paces and landed in the passage between the fences. Taking advantage of his loss of weapon, the alpha struck straight for his throat with its foreclaws.

Helian Yuan fell backward into a shallow pit.

There were no sharpened stakes at the bottom, only the other end of the old chain from the bear's den. The stake the young wolf had dragged away had pulled the chain taut, lifting it half a foot above the edge of the pit.

As the alpha pounced over the pit, its belly struck the taut chain.

Its body jerked to a halt.

Helian Yuan grabbed the chain and rolled to the side, pulling the alpha off course as it fell. Its claws grazed his shoulder and tore his cloak, but missed his throat.

The other wolves had already squeezed out of the passage between the fences.

Helian Yuan had no time to retrieve his spear. Gripping one end of the chain, he looped it halfway around the stake and the edge of the pit, winding it around the alpha's right hind leg.

"Come!"

Tiger Shadow took shape behind him.

On the first breath, Helian Yuan pulled the chain taut.

On the second breath, the alpha snapped the stake, but lost its balance with its hind leg restrained.

On the third breath, Helian Yuan rushed to the short spear and kicked the shaft up with his foot.

On the fourth breath, the spear point entered the alpha's open lower jaw.

He did not wait for the fifth breath. He immediately withdrew the shadow, pulled out the spear, and retreated into the narrow passage between the fences.

After the alpha fell, the three remaining Red-Maned Wolves did not immediately flee like ordinary beasts. They gathered outside the passage, growling. One tried to jump in over the collapsed wall, while another bit at the chain wrapped around the alpha.

Helian Yuan kicked the burning oilcloth into the mouth of the passage.

The fire was small, but it sealed off the narrow entrance. With their alpha gone and no way to rush in together, the wolves finally began to retreat.

Before the last wolf left, it carried away half of the stake the young wolf had dragged out. It was not so frightened that it cared only about fleeing; it was still taking away something that bore its companion's scent.

Helian Yuan did not pursue them.

If he chased them into the mist, hunter and prey would switch places again.

He waited until the wolves' howls had completely faded before walking over to the alpha's corpse. His shoulder had only a flesh wound, but his right arm had gone numb again from pulling the chain. The old chain was covered in wolf blood. Blood had filled the carved strokes of the character "seven," making it darker than before.

The old camp did not become safe immediately after the pack retreated. The smell of blood would attract other magical beasts, and the surviving Red-Maned Wolves might also be waiting outside the mist for him to leave the fences. Helian Yuan first dragged the alpha's corpse into a collapsed house and covered it with a door panel, then divided the burning oilcloth into three small pieces and placed them at different exits.

If the firelight was too concentrated, it would expose his position, but spread out, it made the camp look as though several people were guarding it. Two probing growls came from outside the mist, but neither source actually came close.

Helian Yuan used the time to treat his shoulder wound. The wolf's claws had only torn through his cloak and the surface of his skin, but they had exposed the edge of the iron tag wrapped inside. If the alpha had clawed a little deeper, number seven might have fallen straight onto the battlefield.

He moved the iron tag from his chest to the back of his waist, then hid the record papers separately inside the lining of his quiver. With all his clues in one place, a single mistake would hand them all over.

While examining the alpha's teeth, he discovered fine marks on its right canine left by biting iron over a long period. The pack might have often roamed near the stone house and chains, and the alpha might even have tried to gnaw through its restraints. Its choice to circle behind him and test the trap was not just wilderness experience; it might also have been a response learned while being held in captivity or captured.

This kept Helian Yuan from underestimating the three remaining wolves because of his victory against the pack. Magical beasts that had survived the numbered facility were not quite the same as others of their kind raised in ordinary hunting grounds.

Helian Yuan wiped the chain clean, but gained no answers from it.

It had once bound a level-three Ironmane Bear, and now he had used it to hunt a level-three Red-Maned Wolf. The iron itself did not care whom it bound; only the person using it decided its direction.

He skinned the alpha and carved a fourth hunting mark on the inner side of its hide.

This time, he did not count the previous three kills again. When the knife point stopped, Helian Yuan noted only the most important lessons from this battle: the pack would test traps first, the alpha would circle around behind, and fire could only block a path, not frighten off organized prey.

After rolling up the wolf hide, Helian Yuan followed the surviving pack's retreat route for over a hundred paces. The three wolves had not simply fled into the distance. They had split up outside the mist, and one had circled back to the side of the old camp, trying to confirm the location of the alpha's corpse again.

He did not pursue it, but moved the burning oilcloth onto that route. The wolf retreated when it saw the fire, giving a short howl before it left. Two answering howls soon came from farther away. The group had not immediately scattered after the alpha's death, but was reestablishing distance and order.

That also meant the stone house would not become a safe zone because of this battle. If Helian Yuan stayed inside for long, the remaining Red-Maned Wolves would return through the other cave entrances sooner or later. He had to take whatever records he could before they established new coordination, then leave the den to them.

While handling the corpse, he found a small, blackened scrap of paper caught between the alpha's front toes. Sweat and mud had packed it in tightly. It did not look like natural debris from a wolf's den; the wolf had probably stepped on it near the old camp, lodging it between its toes.

Only one complete word remained on it.

"Record."

On the back of the scrap was a red arrow pointing deeper into Blackwater Ravine.

The pack had not passed through the old camp by chance.

Their den was very likely near the numbered facility.

Extremely fine rust also clung to the edge of the scrap. Its pattern did not look like the result of accidental contact, but more like the paper had been held beneath an iron ring or a tag frame for a long time. If he could find a groove of the same width, he could determine which record it had originally belonged to, rather than blindly following the arrow.

Helian Yuan put the scrap away and followed the drops of blood left by the retreating pack for a dozen or so paces. In the mist, the drag marks left by the last wolf carrying away the stake pointed toward the other side of the cave entrance in the cliff.

It was a route he had not explored before.

The fourth hunting mark had only just been carved, and the next lead had already emerged from between the dead alpha's toes.