Leaving

In the blink of an eye, seven days passed.

In front of the main town's entrance, twenty fierce looking men were busy preparing the horses for the upcoming trip.

They wore light leather armour, gloves and boots,arms and legs had a good covering making these men look like typical sell-swords. If someone with an experienced eye was here,he could tell that there were many places suitable to hide weapons like daggers and the sort with this type of clothing.

Different from normal horses, these ones had complete black eyes, making it impossible to distinguish them thanks to the body that seemed to have been made of coal, a snake-like silver line decorated both of its sides.

Cui Ling watched by the side, after observing for a while he realised that these creatures seemed more intelligent than normal animals, this was displayed by how it interacted with humans,but this wasn't what interested him the most.

What drew his attention was the 20 men,to be more precise, their clothing.

According to what he knew,this wasn't the normal look a warrior would choose from the cultural perspective. Although Peng City was far, it wasn't enough to have such a big difference in these people's attire.

This little detail was a reminder to Cui Ling, He was going to step out of his comfort zone. The information he had about the outside world was limited. limiting his ability to plan with it.

With his current body, besides using his brain there wasn't much he could utilise to protect himself. He could have waited until he's grown up, but he had other considerations…

Hao Niu who was besides him noticed his curious gaze; smiling he said " They are a mercenaries I hired, travelling alone is a sucide after all "

Cui Ling's eyes lit up " mercenaries?"

Hao Niu nodded " In Peng City, there's a place where lone fighters can be hired as escorts or for other reasons that needs force "

" Uncle Niu, where were they the last few days ? I didn't see at all in the town "

" Because they only come late at night, they spend the day inspecting the surroundings for any abnormalities that could cause risk to our trip back "

'oh..them doing this means that they faced an unfortunate encounter because of neglectance…. there is no point in thinking about this anymore. At least thanks to my identity, I won't be the first one to die ' Cui Ling looked at the three people group walking towards them '

" Brother Niu, sorry for the delay; neighbours kept giving goodbye gifts and asking all sorts of questions,it is difficult to refuse " Deng Wuyan said apologetically.

Hao Niu didn't mind " It's okay, my people are still preparing, there is no delay "

Hearing that, the husband and wife duo relaxed, they were really embarrassed. Hao Niu is already doing them a favour by bringing them along, now they even came late,it was truly shameful.

Deng Wuyan looked at his son wanting to relieve some shame " brat, you came here by yourself, did you get my permission? "

" But.. father, I came alone because we were getting late and I thought maybe Uncle Niu would think we changed our mind, making him leave without us… "

Deng Wuyan's eyes twitched ' crafty kid ' before he could respond, a man came reporting " Boss, we are ready to leave "

Hao Niu nodded and looked at the four members' family " I will ask for the last time, are you sure you want to do this? Although travelling became safer recently, it is still dangerous "

Pan Ruolan looked at her husband and held his hand. Deng Wuyan took a deep breath and said with resolutely " We are sure "

" Okay then, time for departure "

Everyone quickly mounted except for Pan Ruolan and her children, they sat inside a carriage. It was mostly used to carry goods, but it wasn't difficult to create space for them to settle.

The group left under the sounds of farewells

Cui Ling looked back at the shrinking town

' Finally, first step to change my path '

°

" Brother Niu, why are we moving at such a fast speed? " Deng Wuyan was sweating, his body shivering slightly, eyes shifting left and right, nervousness written all over his face.

" Haha, don't you enjoy the wind, the weather is also quite nice today, don't you think ? Hao Niu teased.

" Not funny, you know my situation, moving this fast will only accelerate my heart beat further " Deng Wuyan could tell if it wasn't for the fact they had a carriage with a woman and two children inside, this group of people would have gone even faster.

" Relax, it is normal to move fast in this situation, usually when a small team like ours decides venture a relatively short distance in the wilderness, we quicken our pace so that half-spirit beasts won't attack us from multiple directions "

" Oh I see "

Half-spirit beasts were as the name suggests, beasts that were in the step to become authentic spirit beasts, some can take that step, some will never will.

But even so, they were still quite a bit stronger than normal animals, the horses used by mercenaries are in fact considered as one, completely showing their superior abilities to the ones Cui Ling used to see.

Deng Wuyan didn't ask anything else and focused on what could be barely called a road.

The route was a mix of hills and plains, making the journey a bit easier.

As they travelled, there was a sudden howl reverberated in the air, the 20 mercenaries smoothly spread out and moved into a formation, two third of them made a half circle at the front while the rest protected the back.

Soon, the source came into view, it was a large red wolf, casting its yellow eyes on the upcoming humans as though it was studying them, but the wolf directly turned to leave after letting that howl.

The man in the lead expression changed slightly, but he quickly made a hand signal, an archer with obvious experience,took out his bow and shot 3 arrows at a lightning speed.

The wolf avoided the first arrow, but he was still hit by the other two managing to slow him down

They surrounded it like ghosts and ruthlessly attacked from different angles, injuring it bit by bit, although the wolf was a half-spirit beast with agile and tough skin, it was killed after a few rounds of attacks.

Deng Wuyan was impressed by how well they handled the situation,Cui Ling on the other hand frowned.

He noticed that there was no sign of relaxation that you have after having a fight with these men. Instead, they looked more tense.

Hao Niu also did so he asked " Captain Kong, is there a problem? "

Kong Donghai, the captain of this mercenary group replied with a serious tone " that was the half-spirit beast lava wolf, this type of beasts likes to move in groups, the one we met is probably a scout, the first howl he did was to inform the rest of the pack; we need to hasten our pace further " he then looked at ones in the carriage " I suggest you ride on the horses, it won't be comfortable in the carriage "

Deng Wuyan looked at his wife,seeing her nod, without wasting time; He took her and Xue'er on his horse and Cui Ling rode with Hao Niu.

Kong Donghai took out a pouch and started to throw a blue powder around before using the rest on himself.His men followed his actions and did the same.

Without needing them to ask, he explained " This blue powder can somewhat hide our smell and confuse the pursuers. There is no time to waste, let us move at top

speed "

Using the maximum speed they can achieve, they moved through the hills, nervously scanning around.

Because of his trauma,Deng Wuyan had it worse, sweating profusely, afraid something would jump at any second.

Pan Ruolan could feel his heart beats, gently holding his hand,she whispered

" Everything will be okay "

Feeling his wife warmth,he calmed slightly, putting a prideful face, he said " Woman, I'm still not broken to the point where I need my wife to calm me down "

She only smiled in response, used to his temper.

Cui Ling calmly observed, unlike everyone else, he was quite relaxed. He already left his fate to the heaven's will, he already died two times anyway.

If this group proved to incompetent and got him killed, he can only blame his luck, greed and impatience.

Kong Donghai suddenly yelled " We are close to the temporary camp, don't let your guards down "

Before the moral rise, multiple howls sounded from different directions

" 1,2,4…12 Damn it " Kong Donghai frown became deeper.

"What's wrong? Didn't you manage to kill the last one easily?"

"It's different, that one was only an old scout,the weakest wolf in a group of

adults "

Cui Ling understood what he meant, being a scout is usually the most dangerous task, naturally this job will be left to old wolves who lost their prime fighting abilities.

Before the captain could continue explaining,his expression changed.

In front, seven lava wolves stood on their way, taking a look around, he saw another five at the back, but what shocked him the most was the wolf at the top of the hill.

"Spi….A spirit beast ! "