Leaving the Group

As the snake carav cut through the Yul forest, the loud mercenaries and spirit beast became much quieter.

Humans with fighting capacity chat from time to time, the others however only speak when necessary, especially those with no experience in traveling like Cui Ling's family.

Following the principle' knowledge is power ' Cui Ling continued his habit of mingling with the guards or with anyone who seems to be more familiar with travelling, using clear body language as a sorting method.

Getting useful information proved to be easier than he thought. He managed to understand the frequency of such caravs, the volume was far higher than his estimation. Showing what he learned from the village to be less reliable.

But that wasn't too important, because he confirmed the trip's target; The dark moon army!

The army was specially founded to clear spirit beasts and anything that makes the wilderness dangerous for the low-tier entities, just like himself.

Back then he found out that the army recruits kids from a tender age and grooms them into loyal and capable soldiers. Under the army's banner, everyone who joins gets a chance to start cultivation, making this establishment quite popular among people with no backing and no wealth.

This was his only chance to embark on the road of cultivation once again, because of his poor circumstances as a mortal village's born.

In the beginning, he was planning to wait until reaching a suitable age before leaving, but after knowing about the army he completely changed his plans. Although he knew little about this world, he was familiar with human organisations and one thing they all had in common is a love for loyalty.

So to pave a better road for his future, he decided to join as a child for the military training that was available. Fortunately, he was already aware of Hao Niu, smoothing his decision-making.

He took a risk but compared to what he is used to, it was nothing. Being a person trained in the army from such a young age, with some good acting and his knowledge of human behaviour, he didn't doubt having a better future than an unknown teenager.

" Uncle Song, I heard that kids are kidnapped in Peng City, is that true?" Cui Ling made an anxious expression

"What? Where did you hear that from?"

"Some of the scary-looking Uncles were talking about how many children were taken away from their parents and may not be able to return"

Wu Song was about to preach a little about how it's not good to eavesdrop on the mercenaries, but seeing how scared the kid was getting, he skipped that part "kid, don't listen to those drunkards, would your parents take you to such a dangerous place?"

"Then…what did they mean?"

"Well, they were probably…."

A sudden horn noise almost made him bite his tongue, and with a changed expression, he hurriedly stood up with his weapon in his hand.

"Kid, go back to your parents and make sure to stay close to them" then he dashed to some of his companions

Cui Ling silently obeyed but his mind was on something else, right when the horn's sound happened, a mysterious feeling overwhelmed him, making his heart beat faster, the skin paling a little with droplets of sweat starting to come out.

It has been a long time since the last time he felt like this.

Anxious!

It was a feeling you get when you are about to miss a valuable opportunity, No! It is something I need to have.

"Brat! Get right here this instance" Deng Wuyan yelled with a booming voice. It doesn't take a genius to know that something bad was about to happen, Just take one look at the fierce mercenaries and you will see they are getting tense, ready for battle.

Hao Niu and his friend Xiong Ling soon came over.

"Old Niu, don't worry too much, it is not strange for this to happen"

"What's happening ?"

" For them to blow the horn, it means that there's a beast attack coming, considering the volume and the pitch it should be a little above low-level threat" Xiong Ling chimed in.

What he said only made the family more nervous, noticing this he continued "Don't worry, the stronger beasts have already been taken care of, the one attacking managed to slip by because they weren't a threat…."

The couple sighed in relief, but Cui Ling thought otherwise; Xiong Ling didn't say the beasts were not a threat to the normal people, and with the strange expression he had at the end, he thought of the possibility that the beasts may be weak but only to the cultivators, as for the others….

There is another possibility, which is that the number of beasts was large, enabling them to reach the carav.

Worst case scenario, both are true!

Every important mortal already has sufficient protection dedicated to themself, the same thing for the goods. So why would they bother to do extra work for nobodies? They could even profit from their death. It was not difficult to imagine a situation where the rich send 'gifts' to cultivators while they take the valuables of the dead.

You should have faith in humans.s? Even in his first world which is considered the most peaceful, people still did whatever possible to gain more, more and more.

Yes, there are good people out there but why would you put your trust in an intelligent race just because some of them are good?

Cui Ling lived with humans long enough to know that having backup plans is the way of the strong.

A loud roar interrupted the adults' conversation.

"We should hurry! We should join forces with the others before the beasts reach here"

All agreed and followed Hao Niu to meet with others who looked to have a similar number of guards.

Meanwhile, Cui Ling is busy thinking about how to separate from them. Although having these people be a meat shield is tempting but the risks are higher.

If the beasts are willing to attack the carav, then assuming they avoid groups of mortals stuck together is foolish, to say the least, so why are they grouping up anyway? Unless you have the strength to survive by yourself, you have no choice but to join the others, under the righteous light of bravery and friendship of course.

This is the way of the weak and one of the reasons he is determined to walk his path to the end.

Cui Ling looked around, studying the facial expressions of everyone. There are more than three hundred people here, not counting the guards who are on full alert.

He was trying to know the causes behind the feeling received earlier, he knew better than to simply ignore it. The sixth sense is something he believes in but what he experienced was different in ways he couldn't explain.

But his attention soon focused on the screams of horror and chaos that spread too fast for anyone to be mentally prepared. The battle started without warning.

Dust rose and blood splattered as they fought back the aggressive monsters. As he expected they targeted the bigger groups. Quietly, Cui Ling found his way to the inner part of their 'stronghold'; his size gave him quite an advantage in doing this.

What about his family? Although it would be unfortunate to lose them now, he had no intention to risk his life for them.

He never considered them as a real family, the love and warmth being part of such a construct were irrelevant to him for the simple reason that he already had enough of it.

Two lives of experiences saturated his need for real human connection that would tempt those with social issues to take random people as their family because they didn't receive kindness in the previous one, treasuring true friends because they had none before.

Shaking these thoughts away and putting his full attention on what is happening around him, the things he saw made him question the knowledge and experience of Xiong Ling who clearly underestimated the threat.

Half-spirit beasts ran amok as they killed guards and feasted on their fresh blood, the numbers were high enough to make him reconsider the possibility of cultivators being too lazy and letting few beasts pass through.

The threat here was clearly higher than any acceptable and logical measure, the easy explanation of Xiong Ling being an ignorant fool was dismissed as he was not dumb enough to undermine people's experience.

The most logical explanation in this situation was that things escalated quickly for the person to issue another warning (in other words they didn't care enough)

Apparently, he wasn't the only one who thought that.

"Damn it! Why are there so many monsters?" a noble-looking middle-aged man said angrily.

" Did something happen to sir cultivators?" another man who seemed to be his friend stated hesitantly.

"Are you dumb? Obviously….they must be busy fending off the stronger beasts, they're righteous cultivators. How can something happen to them?" those who paid attention, can easily tell he didn't mean what he said.

After a bit of consideration, he walked towards the man while ignoring the 'Deng An' shouts as he rapidly mulled over his next steps. Before long, he was beside the duo and softly tugged the Nobel-looking man.

With a clear irritation, he looked down "What?"

"Uncle, did you hear about what happened to the cultivators?"

With a raised eyebrow and doubt in his voice "kid, just spit it out if you know something "

Timidly he sneakily pointed towards a man with a clear high position that was shown by the four empty metres around him and the personal guards that made sure no one get near him.

" I heard that uncle say cultivators can't help us because they are in danger themselves, otherwise someone he knew would have brought him away already" he used a lowered tone as though he didn't want people to hear a secret.

The noble carefully studied the man, and his years of noble social interactions told him, this person is like him with possibly a higher status if what the kid said was correct. And in that case, it means things are pretty horrible for them now.

He looked at his friend, waiting for an opinion.

"Umm, even if this is true we can't do much, although breaking up from the group would have helped us avoid some attention but there are still other beasts roaming around and they are enough to kill us many times over"

Cui Ling secretly frowned, this guy is a problem…. With a sigh, he interrupted "Uncles! I heard there is a carriage monsters don't attack"

The duo looked over intensely "brat, if you are joking then don't blame us for punishing you"

With fearful eyes, Cui Ling timidly replied " I'm not lying, I heard because there is smelly stuff in there, monsters avoid it"

They exchanged suspicious looks, not for the possibility of the kid scamming them, such a thought never crossed them; who in their right mind would consider that a young child is capable of pulling a perfect act to harm people he never met before? Not to mention the confidence they have when it comes to dealing with people (who had lower intellect).

After a quick whispering, they demanded more details before shooing him away.

Not even a quarter of an hour later, Cui Ling saw them leaving and ignoring the people questioning them as to where.

Generously, Cui Ling told these people the same information. Under the fear element and the fact of two Nobel-looking individuals left already, it took no time for them to follow behind. Including him!

With featherweight footsteps, Cui Ling soundlessly jogged three steps behind a random man who seemed to be a servant. making sure not to be close or far from him.

This soon proved to be clever as a yellow monkey jumped at the man from a tree, directly landing on his back. Cui Ling didn't linger to see his unfortunate fate and ran at full speed until he reached another person before doing the same thing.

This strategy can only be done by someone who doesn't attract the most aggression in a certain area, which in this case is a small human cub.

If it were normal animals, he wouldn't have been confident but from what he had learned it seemed beasts get a certain level of intellect when they reach at least half-step spirit beast, and this resulted in having the ability to judge who will cause the biggest threat in a human-like fashion. A classic situation where being smarter could make you less threatening.

But good times don't last long as two red wolves attack his seventh shield. With no hesitation, he rolled on the ground towards a carriage and crawled to the other side, and sprinted. If an adult watched his movement they would be shocked by how smooth he was.

As expected, one of the two wolves targeted him. He knew that shaking him off was impossible so for him now there is only one option…

Fight!