The doe walked in front as Yun Lei followed behind. Their pace couldn't be called fast but it wasn't slow either.
Although Yun Lei had been very confident in expressing that nothing would happen to the doe's people, he knew that he had simply made a deduction and while he was confident in his deduction, the other possibilities could not be denied.
Yun Lei thought it was likely that the hunter was working in a team. Did it make sense for a lone hunter to travel into the woods? Perhaps if it was closer to the edge of the forest it would. But the doe spoke as though they were pretty deep in. If one had to travel overnight to get that deep, travelling alone made even less of a sense.
The gears in his head were turning nonstop as he thought but, all the scenarios he had been able to think of led to negative outcomes.
If one hunter discovered the Deers' location, it was unlikely that they wouldn't tell the team they were working with. The reason for that was simple. The prey might have been deer but in a desperate scenario, they could easily trample over one hunter, even if he was armed.
But Yun Lei also felt that the information wouldn't have travelled very far. Human greed knew no bounds, after all. If they knew about the location of such precious prey, they would want to hog it to themselves. Why would they tell others?
Do the other hunters know that the hunter I killed was chasing after one of the white deer? Depending on the answer to that question Yun Lei had to change his line of thinking. But even without that, he could see three major scenarios playing out.
The first was that the hunters would wait for their comrade to return before launching a full-on attack.
The second was that they had already attacked the Deers, in which case, the little doe running towards there in a panic would only lead her to getting killed.
The third was that they would seek reinforcements from other hunters to bolster their numbers before launching an attack, which would take time.
Of course, it could all have been just as Yun Lei told the doe; the hunter he killed might have been the only one who knew about the location of the Deers. That was the easy and painless option.
Yun Lei was hopeful for such a scenario but he didn't count on it. He had to prepare for the worst. Which was precisely the reason he had stopped the doe from running straight to where her people were. After all, for all he knew, the other Deers might as well be dead. He had to at least save the one before his eyes.
"Hunter." The doe softly hissed.
Yun Lei pushed his unnecessary thoughts to the back of his mind as he focused all of his senses. It was almost unnoticeable but he smelled the faint traces of human sweat. He could hear soft footsteps getting closer towards him.
He told the doe to curl up her body and hide behind a tree as he did the same. But unlike before, he didn't ready his bow.
To win any confrontation, what was the most important thing? Information.
He needed information. And what way would be better than getting the information directly from the enemy?
As the hunter got closer, Yun Lei readied his knife. The target was another mortal so he would have no difficulty taking him down. Although Yun Lei wasn't trained in any sort of combat arts, a lot of information about them was stored in his head. He didn't think taking down a mortal was all that difficult.
"Where is that bastard? He was supposed to come back an hour ago." The hunter's soft mutter didn't escape Yun Lei's ears.
The hunter looked completely frustrated and was grumbling to himself. He moved with a lot more caution than his companion but it didn't matter because both the doe and Yun Lei were extremely good at picking up presence.
The doe was so good, in fact, that Yun Lei couldn't help but wonder how she got caught unawares in the first place.
Yun Lei extracted a tiny bit of profound energy from the crystal in his pouch before reinforcing his right leg. He didn't want any unexpected situations to occur because of his injury.
When the hunter got close enough, Yun Lei nimbly moved from behind the tree without even making a single sound. His aura was fully unleashed as it exploded from his body like a volcano and rushed straight toward the hunter who was shaking like a leaf.
Under Yun Lei's downright oppressive aura, the hunter couldn't even move. He felt as though thousands of tiny blades were surrounding his body from all sides, merely an inch away, waiting to fall upon his body and cut through his flesh.
He saw Yun Lei move toward him like the wind, knife in hand. He saw the handsome young man effortlessly pin him to the ground as the knife got closer and closer to his neck.
Then, he saw it. The blood-red eyes that were looking at him, no, that were staring at his very soul. The breath he was about to take seemed to be stuck in his neck, his hand and feet went limp and even his wildly pounding heart stopped moving, as if it was trying to hide.
He was desperately trying to take a breath but his body wasn't listening. As Yun Lei's hand slowly wrapped around the hunter's throat, the hunter felt a warm liquid running down his legs.
"Tell me what I wish to know and you may yet die a painless death." Yun Lei's voice was guttural and intimidating but it also carried a unique rumbling majesty to it. It was like the growl of an angry beast yet full of the sovereignty of a ruler.
The hunter wasn't the only one shivering at those words. The doe had been unable to even take a single proper breath since the moment Yun Lei's aura had exploded. The reason was simple. She could smell it on him.
It was the smell of a hunter. No, it was the smell of a predator.
She braved her instincts and peeked at the scene happening just beyond the tree she was hiding behind. Yun Lei was sitting atop the hunter with a hand on his neck, a cold look of indifference on his face. The hunter on the other hand had not only soiled himself, but he also seemed unable to even move a single finger.
It was the rule of nature. The doe knew this better than even the hunter. After all, she was a Deer, a being who had spent all of her life as prey. Who knew better than her what the gaze of a predator felt like? Who knew better than her what that cold, uncaring and dominating gaze felt like.
The fact that the gentle young man who had shown her such a bright smile as he promised to save her people could release such an aura scared her. The fact that she had never before felt anything close to the oppressive aura Yun Lei was releasing only gave more weight to her fears.
Although she had smelled the blood on him before, felt her instincts telling her to run away from the dangerous presence before her, it was just instinct. She had prepared her heart but experiencing the real thing shook her.
Yun Lei pulled out a map from the hunter's pouch and scanned through it. It was almost the same as the one he had found before, the small 'x' was still there.
"How many of you are there?" He asked the hunter who was on the verge of passing out in the same growl like voice before slightly loosening his grip.
"How many?" He repeated.
"F-f-five..." The hunter barely squeezed out with all his might.
"Anyone besides you five know about this?" He pointed towards the 'x'.
The hunter was struggling to breathe so he just shook his head.
"Point out where the rest of your friends are."
The hunter raised his shaking left hand before pointing to a spot on the map. It was decently close to the 'x', a bit further to the south.
"Your group hasn't contacted any other hunters, right?"
Shake, shake.
The hunter desperately shook his head.
"Thank you for telling me. Now that you're useless to me, I'll give you the painless death I promised to you." Yun Lei said with a small smile. "Turn around."
The hunter looked at the young man with eyes full of fear and confusion. Of course, the last part wasn't for the hunter to hear. It was for the doe. Yun Lei didn't want her to see him kill.
The doe did as she was told but not before she heard the hunter's barely audible voice ask.
"W-who a-are y-you?"
"Ren Feng." Yun Lei said as a smile appeared on his lips. He extracted some more profound energy and made it accumulate on the tip of the blade before raising the knife and driving it straight down between the hunter's eyes.
Of course, he had no problems with telling a dead man his name however, the doe was still listening in. It was better to be safe.
Yun Lei grabbed the pouch at the hunter's hips. As for everything else, he just left it as it was. His quiver was already full of arrows and he didn't need anything else from the body.
He would have liked to dispose of the corpse but they lacked time so he simply dragged it towards a bush and dumped it there. It was out of view at least, so that would have to do.
"Let's go." He told the doe, who once again took the lead. She walked while carefully turning her head away from the smell of blood.
"Turns out I was wrong." He softly said. "The other hunters know too. We will need to stop them before they can harm your people."
Yun Lei had already thought of the possibility in his head but now that he had proof, he felt it was only right to tell her.
"How will we stop them?"
"We hunt the hunters."
The doe stopped walking and turned around to face the young man walking behind her. There were bloodstains on the white blanket Yun Lei had fashioned his skirt out of, there were splatters of blood all over his torso and hands.
The sight scared her but she did not avert her eyes.
"Why are you helping me?" She asked the question that had been on her mind all along. "Why are you helping my people?"
"Because I want to." Yun Lei gave her a simple answer while looking straight into her eyes. This answer made her calm down a little bit.
"Your name is not Ren Feng, is it?" The doe started walking without waiting for the answer.
"Of course, it's not." She couldn't see it but could tell that the young man behind her was smiling.
"Why are you smiling?"
"I'm smiling because I like it this way. After all, if you know when I'm lying and when I'm speaking the truth, it'll be easier for you to trust me."
"I cannot always tell. It is just a feeling."
"I can tell too, when someone is lying to me. I have this peculiar property, you see. I can smell what someone is feeling." Yun Lei's smile widened. "Especially fear. The stench of fear is very distinct."
Yun Lei's words made shivers run down the doe's body.
"Though, I doubt I need to use my nose when you shake like that." He let out a small chuckle.
Yun Lei looked down at his blood-stained hands and then looked at the white doe walking in front of him.
He had killed before but that had been with a bow, from a distance. This time he was up close and personal. Would it feel different? He had asked himself.
The answer was no. It felt no different. He had just ended another life but let alone regret it, he didn't even feel that he had done anything out of the ordinary.
I have changed. Yun Lei silently thought as his gaze sharpened. He did not need any useless thoughts right now.
The hunt was yet to be over.