Demon Wolf

“What now?”

Duck.

“Duck my ass. Even if they are braindead, they will know the spear had come from the above, and they will probably search the canopy.”

Run?

“Run sounds better.”

Wolf took a split second before fleeing the scene. He dodged the leaves and sidestepped branches without making a sound. He had covered ten meters before Lena’s mind caught up with reality.

She glanced around. Everyone is just staring at the corpse.

Lena clenched her jaw, her teeth cracking. Rage welled within her. She did not know why she was furious. After living for two decades, she had not found a healthy way to cope with her emotions, and fear was something she only experienced around her mother.

“You stupid bitches! What are you sitting on your asses for! Find her! Some she-whore stalked us all this time, wanting to reap the benefits of our mission. Find her and bring her here, I’ll tear her to shreds.”

Lena’s bellows snapped the stunned Brilliant Gate’s disciples out of their daze. As if yanked by invisible strings, they rose to their feet, and turned around, looking left and right. However, they were at a loss. Lena’s order was useless, induced by rage, and lacking explicit instructions.

Elaine realized her error the moment she caught the blank expressions of confused children one often saw in dumbfounded adults.

“She’s up in the treetops,” she corrected her mistake as reason returned to her, suppressing the humiliation from a moment ago. “Climb up in groups of ten and search for her.”

The new command was clear, easier to follow. Unfortunately, Lena had not divided her followers into predefined groups. While some rushed towards the nearest trees, others sought teammates or shuffled towards massive trunks in pairs and quartets, waiting until they formed a full group of ten.

By the time the first team had climbed the lowest, thickest boughs, which Wolf preferred to tread upon, he was already two hundred meters away, concealed in the third level formed by the much narrower, leafy branches.

I should be safe here. He donned the camouflage cloak and summoned a Sprinting Peacock nugget.

“She has my spear.”

I’ll reclaim it from her cold, dead body.

“I revealed myself, and I still don’t know what they are looking for.”

Yes, yes, I revealed my presence for no good reason. Now, shut up.

“Bodily chemistry really is turning me into a moron.”

Wolf almost snorted at that, but held back. Brilliant Gate’s disciples scoured the treetops, and Lena raged down on the forest floor, realizing her henchmen were too slow and far too incompetent.

She approached the tiger’s body and yanked the boar spear from the ground with a frown. It’s heavy. Which realm has she reached, if she can throw this like a javelin? Third stage? Maybe fourth? But how? Did she rush here right after breaking through?

Lena bit her lip, but there was no use guessing. She stored the spear and snatched the tiger’s nub. She lacked better things to do, so she waited half an hour as her underlings crawled around treetops and failed to find even a hint of the mysterious spear-thrower.

“This is pointless,” she growled. “Thea, recall them.”

Thea, a stern-faced blonde with icy green eyes, nodded and carried out the order.

I knew they couldn’t find her after two minutes of fruitless search, but recalling them immediately would’ve made me look like I don’t know what I’m doing.

Lena sighed. One attacker isn’t an issue. We can kill her with minimal casualties. The real problem is if she has a hundred others reinforcing her.

Based on her realm and power, she probably didn’t track us. She must’ve cultivated here, and we disturbed her by accident, and now she left to find another secluded location.

Elaine Daseldoff calmed down and tried to put herself into the shoes of a cultivation fanatic, who had rushed towards the core to advance as fast as possible. After mulling it over, she nodded. She would have endured such a huge group of intruders, but if she absolutely had to kill the tiger for whatever reason, she would have immediately left the area. Afterwards, she would have found another quiet location to continue her cultivation.

Lena’s heart eased after reaching this conclusion. “We’re continuing towards our original goal. Keep your eyes peeled for another Monster Beast attack.”

Lena paused and glanced up. “Be mindful of attacks from above. She might tail us.”

It seems they haven’t reached their goal, whatever it is.

“But I’m in luck. Apparently, they know the treasure’s exact location.”

Wolf took off the camouflage cloak and stored it, unwilling to risk damaging it in a sudden ambush. Then, he followed quietly, staying a hundred meters behind the group, and taking care not to disturb a single leaf as he tread the tangle of branches.

A quarter of an hour passed when his nostrils suddenly flared.

A faint musky scent entered his nose, and he froze. Some Monster Beast has repeatedly marked this area as their territory.

Wolf looked down and through the dense foliage just barely saw some trees were scared with claw marks two and a half meters above ground. The markings were glaringly obvious, and no intruder could miss them.

Four thick, long gashes. Their pattern matches that wounded Whiteflame Honeyeater’s injuries.

“Does that mean it stumbled here before getting its ass kicked? Then it fled and ran into us?”

It’s not impossible, but I think it stumbled into Gilded Apes’ territory somewhere else. Probably?

“Did a lot of monsters fight here?”

“Shush, those are territory markings. Didn’t you read the pamphlet gate’s elders distributed?”

Wolf’s ears twitched from the stupid comment. The two women had whispered, but his keen ears picked up the foolish words.

“It was five pages, who has the time for that? Don’t tell me you actually read it?”

They can’t really be ignoring the warning? I mean, they are strong. Twenty of them stood ground against a peak Blood Saturating White Tiger. Sure, they could never have killed it, but they kept it from tearing them to shreds.

“With a few exceptions. Besides, I think the tiger was just fending them off, waiting for them to retreat. Fighting all out against so many of them meant certain death, and it didn’t expect that bitch’s backstab.”

Wolf pricked his ears and realized the noise Brilliant Gate’s disciples made had lessened by several fold.

I guess she’s not hopeless.

“She probably gave them a quiet signal. Not that they are quiet.”

The group below slowed, as did Wolf, who climbed down a level of branches, hoping to catch glimpses of what was happening.

Not a full minute passed when a lazy guttural roar echoed throughout the jungle. It sounds like a bored gate guard accustomed to unauthorized people trying to barge through.

“The bellow caught their attention. I can climb down and see what’s happening.”

A few moments later, Wolf saw the giant group below standing stiff, their weapons drawn. The majority of the blades and spears trembled, their wielders snapping their heads side to side, ready for a phantom ambush.

“Not again.”

“It’s the Gilded Apes,” several members of the faceless crowd muttered similar words, causing Wolf to roll his eyes at the obvious.

As he mused over the situation, the unseen guardian hollered once more, its second warning carrying a considerably more terminal note.

The frightened women moved on instinct. They huddled, backs against backs, however, there was no order to their formation.

Wolf choked his snort a moment before it happened, keeping his scoff to himself. “The messier their teamwork, the better.”

Should I ambush them from the rear if Gilded Apes attack their front?

“It’s needlessly risky. If they flee, they would charge straight towards me.”

I could attack from the flank?

“Stand fast! Fight defensively, and don’t try to wound them. Their hides are too tough and only I can kill them. Just focus on stalling them.”

Wolf looked at Elaine Daseldoff, standing with her sword drawn and trying to rouse her troops.

She looks kind of heroic.

Wolf’s other Mental Aspect was about to comment when branches snapped and leaves shook as three Gilded Apes dashed through the dense undergrowth.

The mighty simians appeared like a cross between a human and a gorilla. Crushed dry leaves covered their golden backs, still flaking off them as the beasts rushed towards the Brilliant Gate’s group.

The manlike apes stood three meters tall, even with their backs hunched. In their thick, burly arms, they wielded massive clubs as long as the spear Wolf had thrown to rescue the unfortunate White Tiger.

The Gilded Apres bellowed, brandishing their weapons, still twenty meters away, and Elaine charged to meet them, with only her three bodyguards following behind her.