The parallel forests were a shield, but a slow one. After neutralising the checkpoint commander, Arin knew the Magistrate Guards would quickly deduce the true threat: an enemy capable of bypassing spiritual armour with raw, physical force. They would be searching for him with unprecedented zeal.
He could travel under the cover of the dense woods, invisible from the sky and the road, but the winding terrain and thick undergrowth restricted his pace to a mere crawl. He had weeks of travel ahead, and his timeline to find Lyra was critical. He needed speed, not just concealment.
The forest is safe, but slow. The road is fast, but fatal. I need an alternative.
Arin's current methods were inadequate. He needed a way to cover vast distances quickly, a common luxury among true cultivators who utilised flying artefacts or domesticated Sky-Feather Beasts. His next acquisition had to be speed.
To escape the immediate vicinity of the checkpoint, Arin veered sharply into the foothills, choosing a lesser-known mountain pass that promised to shave days off his journey to the central plains. The pass was treacherous, littered with loose shale and shrouded in a perpetual, cold mist. It was also deep within the territory of spiritual beasts a risk he deemed preferable to the scrutiny of the Magistrate's net.
He had been climbing for two hours when his enhanced senses flared, warning him of a synchronised, rapid approach. Not men, but beasts.
Three Shadow Wolves descended upon him from the higher ridge. They were low-to-mid-grade spiritual creatures, roughly the size of large bears, covered in charcoal-black fur that seemed to devour the scant light. Their strength was not subtle; it was brute force, capable of shattering the stone with their spiritual claws. They were protecting their territory, and Arin was their trespasser.
The first wolf lunged, its attack preceded by a wave of dark, concentrated Qi, aimed directly at Arin's throat.
Arin moved. He activated the Shadow-Weave Steps, not to escape, but to confuse. His body flickered and distorted, gliding sideways just as the claws tore through the air where he had stood. The wolf, reliant on the primal clarity of sight and scent, was instantly disoriented by the brief, unnatural misdirection.
The second wolf, circling wide, then lunged. Its claws struck Arin's shoulder. The attack was powerful enough to crack a bone.
But Arin's bone was no longer mortal. The Bone-Forged defence absorbed the blow with a heavy thunk that echoed in the mist. The spiritual Qi infused in the wolf's claws simply dissipated against the sheer, unyielding density of the reinforced bone. Arin felt a heavy shock, but his skeleton held firm, proving the worth of his latest Mark. The wolf, expecting flesh and bone, recoiled in surprise, its own claws ringing with the impact.
Arin exploited the shock. He used the continuous, stable flow of his Marrow-Sealed core to maintain the Shadow-Weave Steps, becoming a shimmering, impossible target. He darted between the three disoriented wolves, striking not with Qi, but with Bone-Forged fists aimed at their vulnerable leg joints.
He struck the first wolf with a clean, devastating blow to the knee. A sharp, final crack sounded. The wolf howled, collapsing onto the shale.
The second wolf, blind with fury, tried to pin Arin against a sheer rock face. Arin let it strike, his Bone-Forged back absorbing the impact, and then used the rebound to pivot and drive his elbow into the wolf's spiritual core a focused, compressed attack that relied not on complex Qi, but on raw, divine density. The wolf instantly seized, its Qi circulation violently disrupted, and it fell to the ground, twitching.
The third wolf, sensing the impossible resilience of its prey and the sudden demise of its packmates, tried to flee. Arin used a final, explosive burst of Blood-Engraved speed, catching the creature, driving a crushing forearm to the back of its neck, rendering it unconscious.
The fight was brutal, swift, and clean. Arin stood alone in the mist, breathing heavily, utterly unscratched.
He surveyed the scene, his senses calming. The wolves hadn't simply been patrolling; they had been guarding a small crevice in the rock wall a den.
Inside, Arin found two things of immediate, critical value. The first were the three Spiritual Cores, small, black, stone-like artefacts of concentrated energy. They were powerful, high-grade fuel sources that could be used to supplement his Cloud-Drifting Bloom energy, ensuring his core remained nourished for weeks.
The second object was smaller, but infinitely more valuable: a smooth, fist-sized artefact shimmering with faint, contained wind energy. It was a Low-Grade Mobility Orb, a disposable, single-use artefact used by low-level travellers to rapidly propel themselves across difficult terrain for short distances. It was powered by the small spiritual cores the wolves had been hoarding.
Arin had found his speed. He immediately slotted one of the wolf cores into the Mobility Orb's vacant slot. The orb instantly stabilised, buzzing with focused wind energy.
Arin smiled, the first genuine smile he had worn in days. He had faced the wilderness and been rewarded. He had gained both the fuel for the long haul and the necessary speed to escape the immediate threat. He didn't need to fly; he just needed to move faster than the search parties.
He mounted the Mobility Orb, the low-grade artefact instantly creating a cushioning field of wind beneath his feet. He could now skim over the terrain at a rapid pace, his feet barely touching the ground. He turned his attention back to the plains below, leaving the mountain pass behind in a blur of motion. The pace was desperate, but the direction was clear. He was now a high-speed projectile hurtling toward Port Zenith.