The mountain trail dissolved into a jagged scar of shattered slate as Hajin sprinted through the darkness behind Juna.
"Pick up the pace!"
"Right on your heels!"
The wolfkin leaped from boulder to boulder with effortless lupine grace, navigating the pitch-black forest floor by scent alone.
"Can you still smell him?"
"Blood," Juna snarled, her tail whipping tight as she bounded across a dry creek bed. "Heavy stench of slaughterhouse runoff."
Behind them, the distant third bell's dying vibration still echoed in the sharp canyon air, raising goosebumps on Hajin's forearms.
Collapsed hollows riddled the mountain path, where subterranean tremors crushed ancient pit traps into treacherous sinkholes.
"Watch the drop!"
"I see it!"
"Two hundred paces past the split rock," Juna shouted, landing flat on a slab of granite. "Something massive is grinding against bedrock!"
