[Master... ride... Zheng Da?]
'Hmm, maybe not the best choice of words, but there's no reason to explain it to Zheng Da.'
Zheng Da with it's new wolf body tilted it's head and looked at me in confusion.
"You want to ride the slime!? You do remember that it isn't really solid right?" Rao Nuan said
"It's alright, it's not like I'm going to die if it fails right?" I smiled at her as I awaited Zheng Da's answer.
"Think about it this way, if it works then we have a mount to ride on."
[Okay!] This time it's voice was the most energic it had ever been. Almost like it was excited that I would do so. Maybe because it wants to return the favor.
The slime wolf lowered it's body to the floor and I got on the back of it. It got up, lifting me with it a little. My feet dangled about a few inches off the ground. The wolf was actually quite big, perhaps a dire wolf in terms of size.
When it lifted me up I held onto it's body and the feeling from the touch was like true fur. Some places were rigid like bones were really there and I felt the wolf's muscles under the fur. If I didn't know beforehand I would have really thought this was a wolf.
In fact Zheng Da was even better than a wolf in terms of strength. Wolves aren't strong enough for people to mount them nor were they large enough. Zheng Da on the other hand could carry me and even still had some space between the ground and my feet.
"It works?" From the side I heard Rao Nuan's confusion
Zheng Da tilted it's head back to look at me. It was panting as it stared at me and felt something from behind. It was Zheng Da's tail waving and swatting around in the air.
Thinking about how large the wolf was I asked the others, "Would you two like to come on? We could all fit if we squeeze together."
"Okay only if-" Yao Ya was saying something before Rao Nuan quickly cut her off
"Really?! I wanna get on! Help me up!" She hastily came to the wolf's side and raised her arms out towards me.
But before she could come into contact with me or the wolf, Zheng Da moved to the side. Rao Nuan on the other hand walked forward another few steps before almost falling over onto the ground. She made a few actions which looked like she expected to lean on something before she reorientated herself.
Plastered on her face was a look of irritation as she looked at Zheng Da.
Looking at the wolf with her the features of a happy wolf seemed to of disappeared replaced with a slightly hostile look. Zheng Da's eye's looked sharp and her maw opened a little showing it's fangs, along with that there was a low growling which came from it.
Seeing Zheng Da's look I immediately started petting it's head and rubbing it's body to try and calm it down.
"Zheng Da, it's okay! These two are friends not enemies! We don't have too much time left so we have to leave quickly. Zheng Da will you let these two ride you too? I swear I won't let them hurt you okay?" The patting and rubbing seemed to have an immediate effect as it's anger disappeared quickly and instead the wagging of it's tail came back.
Rao Nuan came over slowly this time and as soon as she came near enough to get on the patting and rubbing didn't seem like enough anymore. Zheng Da watched Rao Nuan get on and even glared at her for touching my shoulder when getting on.
"Zheng Da don't glare at them like that! It'll make them uncomfortable." Hearing my words it's ears drooped a little and it's glare vanished.
Soon after Yao Ya arrived and I extended my hand to help her up, As I was helping her up I didn't realize what Zheng Da was doing.
It was glaring even more fiercely at Yao Ya than Rao Nuan, but glancing over at me it started receding it glare.
As Yao Ya got up onto the wolf she pushed Rao Nuan back further onto the wolf to sit in the middle. Seeing so I thought about asking before I stopped myself.
'How strong is Zheng Da? It can carry 3 people on it's back, yet a normal wolf can't even carry 1.'
"Are you two ready?" I asked before immediately realizing I don't know how to control where Zheng Da goes.
"1 second. Okay I'm ready" Within that second span she wrapped her arms around my waist and suddenly I felt her leaning her entire body onto me with the area around my upper back feeling especially good.
"Zheng Da go that way! we don't have that much time left." I pointed in the general direction of where we came from.
Seeing my arm Zheng Da began to swiftly move in the direction I pointed. The ride was quite a unique one, especially counting the fact that I had never rode on an animal before.
The ride couldn't be called the smoothest, but considering that this was the first time Zheng Da had legs I let it pass. Mainly because of the feeling on my back kept changing every time. It was an interesting experience for sure, but it wasn't a bad one. It wasn't long until it became better though as Zheng da steadied itself over time.
…
We rode and rode for hours with Zheng Da never becoming tired, maybe perhaps the fact that it was a slime. Seeing how far we made it I felt that even by the time we made it over we would still have around 2 hours to spare before the portal would open.
The ride was boring and fairly often we chatted about mundane things. What we would do when we got out? Will we feel different once we're out? Has the outside world changed much? Actually, many of the questions at least for the first few hours were just about getting out.
Playing some games like we were on a road trip: I-spy, 20 questions, would you rather, and even rock paper scissors. That last one was definitely the weirdest one to try playing while on a wolf. I had to angle myself in an awkward position just to see what others had put out.
Eventually we started to reach some familiar places, we passed by the cliff with the with those wolf sect cultists, and later reached where the old ancient tomb where we first found Zheng Da at. Apparently there was another surprise waiting for us there though.
Once we passed the tomb we ran into a large group of mounted warriors on horseback. Zheng Da immediately stopped and hearing the sounds Zheng Da made their whole group turned towards us.
They were the group which we first encountered in that stronghold, I recognized some of them and clearly they recognized me as well. There was maybe around 19 of them in total and if that wasn't enough they were all above our level in terms of cultivation as well.
"Zheng Da get us out of here! Hurry!" Soon after I said that those horsemen reacted as well followed by Zheng Da.
"Guys that's them!"
"It's those two! You can tell by their clothes!"
"They killed our brothers! We finally found them, we can't let them escape!"
"Look at their mount! Hahaha we'll catch up to them in no time!"
"There's no way they escape with such frail and puny looking mount!"
"Either that's a really strong wolf or those 3 are extremely light. How the hell is a wolf able to carry them?"
"Does it matter? We out number them anyway and based off their strength we should be able to take them all out even if there were equal number of us."
"That's what happened before in that stronghold, but some of us were still killed during that."
"They must of just used their numbers advantage to surprise us back then how else can we explain their deaths when there is proof of them being weak right in front of us?"
"I suppose, but I don't seem to remember that girl in the the back. Have I forgotten or did they gain reinforcements from somewhere?"
"It doesn't matter let's give chase!"
While they were oddly having a little dialogue back there we went as far as we could in the time they gave us. That quick speed which had thought Zheng Da had as a wolf felt eternally slow as we left that location. We had never left their sight and just as we thought they wouldn't even chase us they all started to charge.
Minutes passed and the tense atmosphere I felt was still around since we had never been able to shake them. In fact I could see that they were getting closer steadily. In around an hour or so they would catch up to us and who knows what would happen then.
Luckily none of them had any ranged weapons, but I could see them speeding up. The gap was closing at an alarming rate. Their speed seemed to have soared and now would only take a few minutes for them to reach us.
Zheng Da seemed to have reverted back to when it's ride was extremely bumpy, but with the comfort level going down, the speed increased. Those people who would have caught up to us in merely a few minute would now take at least another dozen.
Suddenly their horse also slowed down from their sprint to a light trot as our distance started increasing heavily.
"Boss! our horses are starting to get tired from us pushing them, should we use the food?" From behind a nice piece of news rang in our ears.
"Yes! We'll do it, it doesn't matter as long as we get those two it'll be worth it. Hurry everone feed your horse else they'll get away. To avenge our brothers!"
"To avenge our brothers!" 18x
"Surely their mount will collapse of exhaustion sooner or later."
'How are we supposed to escape? if they can chase us just as infinitely as Zheng Da can run then we'll never leave!'
Soon we ran into another group of disciples from another sect. It was more of those from the Spirited Sun sect. As we passed them the horsemen came near, but didn't anything to them, instead directly ignoring them to continue their focus on me.
Luckily or unluckily we ran into another group after another half hour of chasing, this time it was fellow disciples from our Fortunate Sky sect and incredulously they didn't attack them either. Are they really only after us?
'What would happen if Yao Ya and I dropped Rao Nuan off somewhere before leaving, would they kill her? Her being on here would only weight us down and since they were only after us they wouldn't care about this other person right? Just in case we should hide her somewhere before leaving.'