You Chase, I Flee

Jiao Yu shook his head, but General Ling leaned in, sniffed, and even gave it a lick. "It seems to be a mineral." He Lingchuan glanced at it. *This fellow really has zero fear of poison.* As if sensing his confusion, General Ling replied, "Toxins from rocks, earth, metals, and medicinal herbs have little effect on us." Good grief, wind-boring beasts possessed quite an extraordinary innate gift. He Lingchuan used the tip of his saber to scrape, dislodging a fair amount of powder. Red... stone powder? Its shade resembled pork-liver red. Had he seen this somewhere before? He beckoned Zhao Dazui over. "What is this?" Zhao Dazui was utterly bewildered as well. Wasn't it completely normal for some odd minerals to form in burrows like this? He Lingchuan then pulled a small vial from his bosom, poured out a bit of a mixture of mud and red powder, and said to Jiao Yu, "Smell this powder." Fortunately, Jiao Yu had no idea where the stuff had come from. Leaning forward, he took a careful whiff and nodded. "It's the same kind as what you just scraped from the rock. Where did you get this?" "Right after entering Chiyan Kingdom, Fu Shan Yue and I killed a sheep thief. He had this powder on him." Jiao Yu understood. "He was here in this vicinity?" "Very likely." He Lingchuan scraped more powder from the stone and collected it. "First, let's head back and find out what this stuff is." He felt a surge of relief. After so many days, they had finally uncovered a usable lead. Right then, the rock sheep's panicked bleating drifted down through the fissure. Having spent so much time with this spiritual mount, He Lingchuan could discern its moods, and he could tell that its cries were brimming with terror. "Not good, something's happening up above!" The soul-snatching mirror automatically translated for him: "Hurry up! There's something down there, right behind you!" He Lingchuan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The killer actually knew they were here? Zhao Dazui naturally couldn't hear what the soul-snatching mirror said, but he panicked all the same. "W-We should get back quickly!" With that, he turned to leave. Jiao Yu and General Ling were about to follow, but He Lingchuan shook his head. "Why take the long way around?" Daylight was shining down from above; they were separated from the surface by only a single fissure in the ground. It was just that the fissure was very narrow, and mostly collapsed and obstructed by boulders. He Lingchuan had prepared a sledgehammer for today's excursion. He pulled it from his storage ring and gave it two experimental swings. A clutter of rocks came tumbling down from overhead, nearly burying him in dust and grit. Zhao Dazui couldn't help saying, "My lord, you can't get out through here." It wasn't that he was gloating; this noble lord truly lacked common sense. Overhead were rocks and boulders of all sizes that had collapsed from high above; digging from beneath made it far too easy to be crushed to death. These pampered aristocrats didn't even have the practical judgment of a quarrier! Even so, the opening above had grown somewhat wider. Just as Zhao Dazui spoke, He Lingchuan tossed a palm-sized doll toward the pile of rocks. With a soft *bang*, the doll expanded into a ten-foot-tall giant. The gold-armored bronze automaton took the stage. Of course, in this tight space it could only stoop, adopting the exact same posture He Lingchuan had used upon first entering the burrows. At its master's command, it entered reckless excavation mode, ignoring the rain of falling stones from above. Minor superficial damage healed quickly on its own anyway. Along the way, He Lingchuan maneuvered it to dodge two massive boulders that plunged straight toward its face. Amid a cacophony of clattering crashes, the falling rubble and dust coated it in pale gray, but the sunlight spilling into the burrow suddenly brightened. It was breached! "Up." He Lingchuan leaped, tapped his toe against the bronze automaton's shoulder, shot through the opening, and reached the surface. The tiger and the wind-boring beast followed suit. Zhao Dazui was dumbfounded and could only scramble upward with cautious care. Landing on the ground, He Lingchuan did not linger, sprinting immediately toward the rock sheep. He saw the spiritual beast fixated on a fissure, hooves scratching frantically at the earth as if trying to dig out a hole. Yet the crevice was too narrow for it to squeeze down, leaving it bleating in distress. "What's the situation?" The soul-snatching mirror translated: "There's something underneath—likely the source of that stench." That made sense. When the rock sheep was attacked last time, it had probably caught the killer's scent. He Lingchuan peered into the fissure and saw something squirming within, faintly gleaming with a dark brownish sheen. Well, look at that—it was actually right here! He Lingchuan drew his sledgehammer, channeled power through both arms, and slammed it down three times with furious force—*clang, clang, clang!* Under this tempestuous assault, the rocky crust shattered. He first tossed in a bundle of fluorescent grass to inspect the surroundings before leaping in. Something slid away into another burrow. He Lingchuan darted forward like an arrow. Yet the creature was already sinking downward into the stone ground, leaving only the tip of its tail exposed. General Ling rushed past him, swift as a gust of wind. Catching sight of the tail tip, it lowered its head without hesitation, drove forward, and flicked upward! A wind-boring beast's head jerk possessed immense strength; it could effortlessly fling an enormous rhinoceros into the air. A long stretch of the subterranean creature was indeed gouged out by the motion, but its full body never revealed itself. With a *thud*, the long tail hit the ground, writhing relentlessly on its own, completely detached from the body. It actually had a gecko's ability to sever its tail to survive! He Lingchuan subconsciously glanced at General Ling. The old ram's speed just now had been absurdly fast, like a javelin hurled straight at its target, or an instantaneous flash. Paired with those pointed horns, it was truly a lethal weapon for battlefield ambushes. This was in fact the innate gift of wind-boring beasts, known as "Charge." Once locked onto a target within eight zhang, it could arrive almost instantaneously—provided there were no obstacles along the path. Had it been their first confrontation, He Lingchuan doubted he could have dodged it. Unlike humans, demons did not require overly intricate techniques; they only needed to hone their innate gifts to perfection. General Ling's "Charge" had already reached the third tier, allowing it to execute three consecutive charges, each faster and more forceful than the last. By the third charge, it was truly too swift for the naked eye to track. ... By the time the tiger Jiao Yu arrived, He Lingchuan and General Ling were examining the long tail. Brownish-tan, hairless, pure flesh, still squirming across the floor. Jiao Yu extended a paw to poke it, then quickly drew back. "There's slime on it!" "It was just severed from that creature," He Lingchuan said. "Probably the tip of its tail." Two holes punctured the tail tip, pierced by General Ling's horns. "Why isn't there any blood?" "There is, it's just mixed into the mucus." He Lingchuan pondered. "Like when you chop an earthworm into pieces." "This thing is an earthworm?" He Lingchuan shook his head. "I saw a reflection through the fissure. Its surface should be hard and smooth." Jiao Yu looked back toward the path they had come from. "There's slime all along the ground." "It leaves a trail as it crawls." "Leaves slime in its wake, has a hard outer surface, hairless and soft-bodied..." Jiao Yu pondered, reaching a conclusion with little effort. "Could it be a snail turned demon?" "It fits." He Lingchuan put the trophy away. "But what is its connection to the dead sheep thief?" No one had an answer to that. He Lingchuan traced the slimy trail backward and discovered that the monster had been heading toward the porcupine demons' underground den—which was to say, where they had just been. "This thing came for us," he said coldly. "It meant to ambush us." Yet the rock sheep's alarm had exposed it, and seeing the opportunity lost, it had fled. Jiao Yu hesitated. "Could it just be a coincidental encounter?" "Going by Wang Mazi's description, this thing's method of attack is to ambush on rainy nights, lying in wait for prey to come to it. The night my mount was attacked, it was also pouring rain," He Lingchuan mused. "Today is bright and sunny, and this subterranean cave is quite dry, which completely diverges from its usual pattern. Therefore, it most likely came specifically looking for us." General Ling sneered, "Let it come! I'll make sure it never returns!" Jiao Yu said gravely, "We must not be reckless. If it dared come here, it surely has something to rely on." The human and the tiger leaped back up to the surface. The rock sheep trotted over and gently bumped its head against He Lingchuan. "Thank you." He Lingchuan stroked its curved horns, thanking it from the bottom of his heart. "That monster had probably already set up its subterranean ambush, waiting for us to return the way we came, only for you to uncover it." Even though Jiao Yu possessed origin power, He Lingchuan was not conceited enough to believe they were invincible. The monster had struck again and again across different places, succeeding every time; it surely possessed formidable abilities. If nothing else, were a hundred porcupine demons easy to deal with? If He Lingchuan himself had to face a hundred enraged porcupine demons without using trickery or having superior numbers, his only option would have been to flee with his head in his hands. They were hunting the killer, yet the killer had laid an ambush along their unavoidable path, waiting in its most proficient manner for them to walk right into the trap. The mere thought was chilling. Close call. They had nearly fallen into its scheme. The danger had truly struck without warning. The rock sheep nuzzled his hand, conveying that he was welcome. The wind-boring beasts had originally looked down on it, believing a rock sheep was too weak and fit only to serve as a mount for humans. But now, they also walked up and nudged heads with it in gratitude. By this time, Zhao Dazui had finally scrambled to the top. Panting, he hurried over and asked, "What happened?" "The killer planned to ambush us." "Huh?!" He Lingchuan paid him no further mind and went over to retrieve the gold-armored bronze automaton. "Lead the way. We're heading back to Youtian Town." ... The return journey went smoothly, without any hitches. On the road, He Lingchuan, Jiao Yu, and General Ling exchanged their views. That creature had appeared at the porcupine den. Either that was its habitat, or it had come specifically to ambush the crown prince's special envoy. Considering that the porcupine den was relatively dry, whereas such a creature would naturally prefer a damp, dark, rotting environment, the human, the tiger, and the ram all agreed that the latter was more likely. That brought them to the next question. How did the creature know they would visit the porcupine den today? If it hadn't trailed them the entire way, someone had leaked the special envoy's movements. Those who knew of He Lingchuan's itinerary for today were limited to the few people present at last night's banquet. Investigating them one by one was bound to turn up something. With the investigation finally making headway, even Jiao Yu felt eager to get started, his whip-like tiger tail lashing against the carriage walls with crisp slaps. Investigating a case was actually tedious drudgery. Clues either conflicted or led to dead ends, and tracking down the cause behind the disappearance of a bird was practically searching for a needle in the ocean.