After days of recuperating in the mountain cave they had both recovered enough to begin moving safely. Neither were at their best, but they weren't sure if the death-scream had some other purpose than damaging their bodies. They hurriedly left the cave at night, while the temperatures were still too low for the Volvaka to go out, and traveled a good distance away before making camp in the branches of a large tree.
Yun and Wuying spent a few days in the woods finishing the healing process before they made any major moves, and during that time they encountered a few groups of roving Volvaka patrols. They both felt like this was more than before, but didn't have any proof that this was the case.
Fully recovered, Yun and Wuying began to travel west again, searching for the secret cave they originally set out to find. This cave was the greatest hope for the higher-level forces to keep the Volvaka from this primary Hive in this region in check.
Travelling in the night, resting in the day, they continued west for nearly two thousand kilometers in this way, only fighting with Volvaka patrols occasionally. As a result they continued to collect more materials in their spatial storage, and Yun was reluctant to put anything more in hers. Her storage space was nearly completely full, and with hers being the more valuable type that can support life she was reluctant to fill it with so may dead things. Other than the Queen's body and the bodies of the four Royal Guards, Yun's storage was mostly full of the crystals from the cavern, which she wasn't sure about.
Wuying was forced to keep the bodies of the rest of the Volvaka they slayed, and he also kept some of the weapons for future battles where he may need to bring out a different form of combat. While they were resting over some of the many days they spent traveling they also spoke occasionally, when not cultivating, and also sparred a few times. Many days were spent like this, and they both grew closer to each other as a result.
In the end, Yun maintained her bottom line and kept Wuying in his place as her subordinate for the duration of the conflict. They both considered whether they may become closer in the future, but this was too far away. Wuying occasionally thought to himself that Yun was simply too fast, her cultivation shot up at an astronomic pace compared to his, as he was a decade older than her.
As he thought of this again, Wuying was still nearly in shock at this whole circumstance. A child, eleven years old, was in charge of the military action for their entire sect. She was also one of the most powerful members of the younger generation in spite of being a decade younger than them. How insane did this sound?
Long Wuying, a proud cultivator of the Darkness laws, a proud child of the heavens who stood atop his generation, was overshadowed by a child that was half his age. He couldn't help sighing inside that the Heavens weren't fair at all. There were geniuses in the world, then there were monsters like Yun who were seemingly capable of toppling the world.
They finally reached the area where the secret cave was reported to be after a week of careful travel, meandering out of the routes the Volvaka were patrolling heavily in order to avoid them. The only problem was they only had a description of the area they needed to enter and what the cave mouth typically looked like, not a full map of it's location for safety reasons.
Arriving where they were going to start searching, they looked at each other and sighed, Yun spoke first.
"Well Wuying, looks like it's time to spread out and search. Meet back here, in this tree, before daybreak so we can shelter here before the patrols start. Make sure you don't travel too far from this base camp, we should be within a few kilometers of where we need to be."
They agreed on a direction and both took off to examine the mountainside and hills nearby. Any sharp precipice could be what they were looking for. After a full day of searching they hadn't yet found the cave and instead camped out in the tree for the night.
The next night they searched yet again, hoping for a lucky break, and Yun found it. Ecstatic, she returned to the meeting point to wait for Wuying and share the good news, but on returning to their meeting tree she saw a group of Fire-Eaters gathered nearby, seemingly waiting for something.
Fire-Eaters were the only Volvaka who could function in the cold nights on the Cradle. Using their cultivation of Fire energies they warmed their bodies, which was why they periodically puffed out little bursts of fire from their nostrils. This made them terrible at hiding, but they were extremely effective at night combat in spite of this due to their other skills that created heavy concealing smoke.
The blood in Yun's veins froze. There were nearly a dozen full grown Fire-Eaters, but thankfully she couldn't see Wuying anywhere. She assumed he was still safely looking for the cave somewhere to the east of her.