I was only a few miles out when I realized just what the guard meant. The danger isn't wildlife, it's other people. Other cultivators to be exact. At first I caught a disgusting whiff of unwashed body and wrote it off as someone else on the road.
But an hour after I turned off the road and picked up my pace to a jog I caught the scent again when the wind shifted. Someone's definitely following me. It's only a few miles to the portal, at this pace I'll be there in 5 or 6 minutes.
Concentrating on the Death Energy on the area I'm hoping to get a clearer idea what the situation is. Luck favors me and the wind shifts again, bringing 3 clear scents to my nose. All particularly rancid. Even feral rogue werewolves don't smell that bad.
I stop in a clearing, waiting to see what they'll do. My Goddess enhanced senses pick up 3 faint shimmers of Death Energy, so whoever these cultivators are, they're murderers. Not that I'm in any pace to judge.
