Chapter 262

  Unforgiven (III)

  It was dark.

  Like, dark dark.

  We were now using five lanterns to just barely light a foot of space around us, while I only had five more left in the spatial ring. Though I'd usually resort to childish whining and a bit of good-natured panicking, I forced myself to stay calm. Ordinarily, the kids were an unmoving boulder, with seemingly nothing capable of shaking him, but now...

  They look scared.

  The further in we went, the more corpses there were. At some point, there were no more branches or leaves hanging loosely off of the trunks; it was just creepy, mummified bodies with the exact same serene expression across the board.

  Furthermore, the attacks were relentless; we'd just rebuffed another wave, but it was hardly with the same ease as before. Perhaps the best proof of that was that the kids didn't try to push me back to the center when I stepped out to fight.

  The reason was simple--they were tired. We haven't rested in almost two days, as the howls were extremely frequent, but mostly because the moment we sat down to rest, the army of beasts would attack. Honestly, if it weren't for my unique title helping with their Qi regeneration massively, I think we would have been spent a whole day ago.

  Nobody talked, not beyond simply warning that another attack was coming.

  "Here they come!"

  The weight of Lao Shun's words pressed against everyone as their expressions distorted. There was no time to mull over it, however, as we all got into a battle position. Rayce remained at the center of the circle, using what few Words he had left to support us, alongside Light, who only really contributed once every three battles, as her Qi reserves simply weren't large enough.

  When she did help, the fights would go much smoother, but this time, she was out.

  I drew out the sword and waited--a breath later, a gnarly maw spawned from the darkness, and I cut almost instinctively, severing it. Sounds of the battle whimpered out all around me, as the forest seems to have also had some depressingly silencing quantities--just not with the howl.

  "Ugh!"

  "Help her! I'll take over!"

  I whipped my head back and saw Dai Xiu being pulled into the circle by Rayce while he stepped forward, a shabby sword in hand, taking her place. She tried to stand up and struggle, but Light firmly held her down and started rather awkwardly dressing up an awful-looking wound on her left shoulder.

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  I couldn't afford to look away for any longer, as there were a good six or seven of them coming.

  By now, they were all at least at the peak of Foundation Establishment, with a few being in the Spirit Manifestation Realm. And they were almost enough to break our knees.

  Which begged the question...

  Where was the thing that caused all the other expeditions that were far stronger than us to fail?

  I gnashed my teeth and stopped the distracting thoughts, focusing on the movement of my sword. In spare time, I'd practiced what little I could from the memory, though I still mostly relied on the shadow steps to avoid and strike. However, since I couldn't break the circle, I now relied mostly on my cultivation and the fact that the beasts' attacks, at least individually, couldn't break the flimsy Qi barrier I'd made around me.

  It worked well enough, for now, and I never did give an inch of room, much like Lao Shun and Long Tao.

  The battle finished about six minutes later, the longest one yet, and Xi Zhao, Wan Lan, and Rayce immediately collapsed, gasping for breath. Lao Shun quickly took out a few healing pills, not much else--it was a conscious decision, as most of the 'full recovery' pills came with a hefty drawback: a literal coma for a couple of days, at the very least.

  That was also why he only gave us one Qi-replenishing pill per person for our entire stay here, as any more in such a short span of time would have a lasting negative impact. Miniscule, yes, but he started treating them less so like 'talented kids' and more so like heavenly prodigies, where even the tiniest fault should not be allowed.

  "Let me see." I crouched by Dai Xiu and took her arm as gently as I could, though not gently enough, as she immediately winced. She did try to cover it up, but all it did was make me feel even more guilty.

  "I'm fine, Master! Just a small scratch!"

  "Did you wash out the wound?" I turned toward Light.

  "Hm, yes," she replied. This wasn't the first cut we'd experienced, and even if I didn't really know whether infection would work on a cultivator's body or even if the kinds of things that could infect a cultivator could also be washed out with water, I still insisted that they do it.

  "What do you think?" I turned toward Lao Shun as he set down the lantern and crouched beside me.

  "There are some paralytic aspects in their saliva," he said. "It shouldn't be permanent, but she'll probably struggle to use that arm for at least a day or two."

  Shit.

  I almost wanted to slam my head into the trunk of a tree--this was all my fault. I led us here, thinking that previous successes proved we can tackle 'bigger' challenges.

  "We should move," Long Tao's words nearly made me snap, but I held back. If I lost it right here and now, just as the kids were barely hanging on, I might also snap that last twinge of hope they had. "Xi Zhao, carry her."

  "Senior Brother--"

  "--there'll be one more fight," he said. "But," he added, turning toward us with a faint grin. "You can all merely be cute little spectators."

  Hm?

  Okay, he tried to make that sound like words of comfort, but to me those were some foreboding words. Though, I guess, if the worst comes to pass, I do have a couple of tools to make sure nobody dies.

  As soon as he finished speaking, everyone forced themselves back to their feet, and we resumed the march.

  "AAAAHHHGGHGHGHGHH!!" There was one more roar, though this one was quaint, almost like a whimper. And, more than that, it was... human.

  Like, so human that it made my skin crawl. Like a child, almost, trying to voice pain and misery without knowing the right words for it.

  Almost as soon as we started heading in the roar's direction, changes began to occur; darkness began to lift, the corpses were no more, and even the trees thinned out until there was only one hefty tree at the very center of a massive clearing, a white, misty haze surrounding it almost like a fence.

  And right in front of it, lying on the ground, was a... wolf the size of an elephant.

  With the face of a man.