“Damn it, this damn thing really has no breath left. Did we just waste our time for nothing?” The short and stout youth had already withdrawn his fingers from the white fox’s nose before the three senior disciples, including Wang, even descended. He blurted out an angry curse.
As he spoke, he raised his head to glance at the three descending from above, his face twisted in frustration as if he were about to say something more.
But the three above—Wang and the others—suddenly changed expressions simultaneously and shouted in unison.
“Be careful!”
“The fox demon is alive!”
“It’s playing dead!”
Three different phrases, yet all conveying the same meaning.
The short and stout youth was quick-witted. Hearing this, his expression changed abruptly, and without hesitation, he flicked his wrist, producing a white talisman between his fingers, which he slapped fiercely onto the small beast whose tail he had been gripping.
Yet his reaction was still a step too late. His arm, holding the talisman, had only extended halfway when a searing pain tore through his palm gripping the fox demon.
With a loud cry, his fingers involuntarily loosened, and the white fox in his hand slipped free with a “whoosh,” landing steadily on the ground.
In that instant, the Snow Cloud Fox’s tail bristled, its fine fur standing on end and hardening into needle-like spikes, piercing the youth’s palm full of holes, leaving it bloody and mangled.
Seeing this, the three above roared in fury and charged straight down toward the small beast, which had landed on all fours.
But the white fox, having finally regained its freedom, had no intention of waiting around to be recaptured. With a swift leap, it transformed into a white streak, darting dozens of feet away. After a few more bounds, it plunged headfirst into a nearby thicket of shrubs.
In their urgency, Wang and the others moved with remarkable agility. Like a gust of wind, the three surrounded the shrubbery and each summoned a magical artifact, slowly combing through the area.
Yet, moments later, they were left dumbfounded. The thicket was empty except for a pile of scattered rocks. The Snow Cloud Fox, which they had clearly seen jump in, had vanished without a trace.
The three stood there, stunned.
“Eh? Where is Junior Brother Han going?” Kuihuan snapped out of his daze and instinctively glanced upward, letting out a startled exclamation. The others then noticed that Han Li was already riding his artifact, swiftly flying into the distance.
At that moment, Han Li’s voice reached their ears through a transmission spell.
“Senior brothers, no need to panic. That little thing used a diversionary trick and slipped underground. I’m tracking it with my artifact. Once it resurfaces, I’ll capture it alive.” With that, Han Li’s voice faded, and he gradually disappeared into the distance, riding his flying sword artifact toward the edge of the marsh.
Hearing this, Wang was both shocked and delighted. He called out to the others and eagerly took to the air, following Han Li’s trail. Kuihuan and the others quickly followed suit.
“Junior Brother Ma, is your hand alright?” Amid the rush, Wang still found time to glance back and ask the short and stout youth.
“It’s fine. Luckily, the thing’s fur wasn’t poisonous. Just a flesh wound,” the youth muttered, his face flushed with shame as he trailed behind. After all, it was his carelessness that had allowed the captured beast to escape—and after being warned by the others, no less. This left him deeply embarrassed.
“Good, then let’s hurry and catch up. I don’t know what artifact Junior Brother Han is using to track the fox underground, but we should follow quickly,” Wang said with a strained smile.
Kuihuan nodded repeatedly in agreement, adding curiously, “But speaking of which, this Snow Cloud Fox that evolved into a demon beast is unnaturally intelligent! To fake death so convincingly that even Senior Brother Ma couldn’t tell—that’s truly astonishing.”
The short and stout youth, cradling his injured hand, flushed even redder with humiliation.
Fortunately, Wang stepped in to defend him. “This isn’t Junior Brother Ma’s fault. Even I might have fallen for it in that situation. The fox is just too cunning.”
Hearing this, the youth named Ma shot Wang a grateful glance, feeling slightly better.
As the three conversed, the sallow-faced Xi, who had been silently chasing ahead, suddenly shouted in disbelief.
“Everyone, look! Junior Brother Han just vanished into the cliff! What… what do we do now?”
The others, startled, looked ahead and saw that they had reached the edge of the marsh. A few hundred feet away loomed a towering mountain, its peak lost in the clouds. Directly ahead was a sheer, knife-cut black cliff face.
Han Li, who had been flying ahead moments ago, was nowhere to be seen. The four stood before the cliff, staring blankly at one another, even Wang at a loss.
Han Li was indeed inside the mountain wall.
At that moment, he held the wolf-headed jade scepter, his body bathed in a faint yellow glow. A few feet ahead of him, a small yellow wolf, several feet in size, was clearing the way with earth-escape techniques.
Wherever this artifact spirit passed, the earth and stone parted effortlessly. Han Li followed leisurely behind the wolf, his expression unreadable.
Within the range of his spiritual sense, a white dot darted frantically forward dozens of feet below—the little white fox.
With his abilities, the fox’s death act had naturally not fooled him. Even its escape through a vein of rock beneath the shrubs had not evaded his surveillance.
Had this been an ordinary low-level demon beast, Han Li would have alerted the Hidden Sword Peak disciples as a courtesy. But this fox had immediately struck him as unusual.
The creature carried a faint spiritual aura that felt oddly familiar to Han Li.
After a moment of contemplation, he realized with surprise that this aura bore a resemblance to the pure spiritual energy of the Nine-Curve Spirit Ginseng’s incarnation—the white rabbit.
Thrilled, Han Li initially thought he had stumbled upon another incarnation of a heaven-and-earth spiritual being. But upon closer inspection with his spiritual sense, he grew puzzled.
The fox’s spiritual energy was far too meager—less than a tenth of the ginseng’s. Moreover, his senses confirmed the fox was flesh and blood, not a transformed entity. Otherwise, the simple Five-Element Confusion Array would never have trapped it.
Though certain the fox wasn’t a spiritual incarnation, Han Li grew even more intrigued. He suspected its evolution from an ordinary beast was tied to this trace of spiritual energy.
Determined to uncover the truth, he allowed the fox to escape Kuihuan and the others, secretly tailing it to discover its secrets.
Now, at the cliff face, the fox had unhesitatingly merged into the rock as a ball of white light. Han Li, following stealthily, wasted no time in summoning the earth-attribute artifact spirit from the jade scepter. Only the wolf’s earth-escape technique could track the fox without alerting it. Using his flying sword to carve through the mountain would only scare it off again.
The mountain was vast. After tracking the fox for hundreds of feet, the white light suddenly paused before emerging from the rock, seemingly entering a sealed stone chamber.
Han Li’s heart leaped with excitement. He urged the earth-attribute wolf forward, quickening their pace while strengthening his spiritual sense to scout the chamber covertly.
Yet the moment his senses neared the chamber, they were repelled by an odd force, unable to penetrate.
“Eh?” Han Li murmured in surprise, instinctively slowing his advance as caution surged within him.
Just then, he felt an immense pressure clamp down on him, weighing him down like a mountain. A calm, aged voice echoed in his ears:
“Since we have a guest, no need for hesitation. Must this old woman invite you in herself?”
As the voice faded, countless yellow lights erupted around Han Li, and an immense force shoved him from behind.
In a flash, he found himself inside the stone chamber. Startled, he swung the jade scepter, summoning a dual-layered red-and-yellow barrier around himself. At the same time, he spat out over a dozen green beams that circled rapidly outside the barrier.
Only then did Han Li have a moment to survey his surroundings.
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