The tip of the longsword rapidly approached the Long-Eared Tiger's soft white underbelly. Its point almost touched the white fur.
Lin Xin's mind went almost blank as he watched the Long-Eared Tiger pounce directly at him, his body too slow to react. He could only grip the longsword in his hand with all his might.
Crack.
The blade broke like a dry branch, and a powerful force suddenly knocked him to the side.
"Senior brother, run!!"
An Ying's voice then reached him.
It was she who had fiercely kicked Lin Xin away, while she herself got viciously grabbed by the Long-Eared Tiger on her right leg, her body tumbling on the ground because of the immense force.
"An Ying!" Lin Xin shouted as he got up from the ground.
"Don't worry about me! You go first, I'm okay!" An Ying quickly jumped up from the ground, and with a swish of her sword blade, she stabbed towards the Long-Eared Tiger's eyes.
Lin Xin also knew he was a burden at this point, and the best thing to do now was to get out of the Long-Eared Tiger's hunting range.
Roar!
The Long-Eared Tiger roared angrily, pouncing towards An Ying who adeptly dodged to one side. However, because of her leg injury, her movements were very cumbersome, nearly not managing to avoid it, which looked perilously close.
The one person and one tiger dodged and weaved around a few large trees in the forest.
"Damn it!" Lin Xin inwardly cursed himself for being careless, underestimating the Long-Eared Tiger. But now was not the time, he quickly ran towards a far-off place. As long as he could escape first, it would be much easier for An Ying to escape as well.
He ran fast forward, the dense forest growing darker ahead, surrounded everywhere by tall, unknown species of trees, whose large leaves even sunlight couldn't penetrate and fall through.
The tiger's roaring behind him grew fainter.
Lin Xin felt a little pain in his wrist, clearly having twisted it when the sword broke, but there was no time to worry about that now. He quickly put some distance between himself and the danger until he almost couldn't hear any noise behind him, then he stopped.
"Need to find a big tree to climb. Otherwise, it'll be troublesome if the Long-Eared Tiger catches up!"
Scanning around for large trees that could be climbed easily, Lin Xin tried to calm his rapid breathing and focus his mind.
The forest was quiet, with no sounds but the occasional rustle of leaves stirred by the wind.
Lin Xin looked back the way he had come, and the surroundings looked no different from the rest of the environment: the ground was covered with thick fallen leaves, not even footprints could be seen.
Looking around, he could see a faint mist through the gaps in the trees in the distance.
Most of the nearby trees were tall and straight, hardly suitable for climbing.
"This place..." Concerned for his junior sister An Ying, Lin Xin quickly moved towards the direction where there were more trees, trying to find one suitable for climbing.
He didn't know exactly where he had run off to, but somehow, this place felt oddly disquieting.
Standing alone in the center of the forest, the trees seemed slightly darkened, and the white mist everywhere around him, devoid of sunlight, gave off an inexplicable pallor.
The trees seemed like countless thin black lines, shooting straight up from the ground.
Faintly, there seemed to be a light blue tinge above the forest, the light gradually dimming.
Lin Xin walked alone through the forest, already sensing something off—there was not only no sound around, but even the wind seemed to have stopped.
The visibility grew shorter, and the plants on the ground appeared eerily dark.
Crunch, crunch...crunch....
His feet continually stepped on the dry leaves on the ground, producing crisp, conspicuous sounds—the only sounds in this forest.
Suddenly, faint voices came from ahead. It seemed to be human voices!
Lin Xin's heart fluttered, and he quickened his pace towards the direction of the voices.
As he drew closer, the voices grew clearer.
Woo-woo...woo-woo...
It appeared to be a woman's crying.
He hesitated for a moment, then Lin Xin sped up again. Someone crying in such a place might be lost or injured. He still had some medicinal herbs with him, which might help the person. He could also ask about the situation in these woods.
After walking a distance forward, the mist in front began to dissipate.
Lin Xin vaguely made out a woman in white clothes kneeling on the ground, her hands covering her face, her back to him as she cried.
The crying was mournful, as if filled with great pain and timidity.
Because the woman was facing away from him, he couldn't see her face. Lin Xin attempted to approach a few steps, just as he was about to speak.
Suddenly, he felt something was wrong, an eerie sensation creeping over him.
That woman's clothes were too white...too clean!
"If it's someone who's lost or injured, their clothes wouldn't be so clean and tidy..." Doubts flashed through Lin Xin's mind, and looking around at the surroundings only heightened his unease.
His previously advancing footsteps suddenly halted.
Crack!
Suddenly, it seemed he stepped on a very brittle dry branch, making a distinct crack.
And at that moment, the woman's crying also stopped. Her shoulders, which had been shaking, paused slightly.
"Damn!" Lin Xin's scalp tingled, and he dared not move.
The woman remained motionless, apparently listening for any sounds. After waiting a bit and not detecting anything, she started to cry softly again.
Woo-woo....
The crying was desolate and timid.
Lin Xin, however, felt increasingly that something was wrong. He sighed in relief and then slowly circled around the woods, trying to see the woman's face from a different angle.
After a moment of thought, he started to move left, hiding behind the trees as he slowly shifted his position.
What sent chills down his spine was that no matter how he changed his position, the direction of the woman's crying always had her back turned to him.
From start to finish, she had her back to him!
"Sss..." Lin Xin knew he was in trouble. He had heard from the elders since he was a child that one should not wander aimlessly deep into these woods, or else one might encounter something unclean.
Originally, he didn't take it seriously, but now...
"Retreat..."
Lin Xin felt cold sweat continuously seeping out of his forehead and back, as he stared at the woman and slowly backed away.
Slowly retreating...
Thud.
Suddenly, he felt as if he had bumped into something behind him.
The silhouette, the height, seemed to be that of a person, someone standing stiff behind him!
Cold sweat broke out from Lin Xin all over his body...
Violently, he turned around, Broken Sword in hand, ready to thrust forward.
But to his astonishment, there was no one behind him, just a somewhat slender tree trunk...
"Fuck!" Lin Xin couldn't help but curse. He hurriedly broke into a jog away from the woman. His only thought at this time was to get as far from that woman as possible.
Time ticked by, the sweat had already dampened the back of Lin Xin's clothes.
It wasn't until the woman's voice could no longer be heard that he ran for another full ten minutes or more.
Only then did the surrounding woods gradually begin to brighten, and he slowly sighed in relief. The creepy feeling in his heart slowly eased.
"Brother..." At this moment, he seemed to hear his junior sister An Ying's shout. He quickly ran towards the sound.
*****************
In the shadowy woods.
The woman in white still knelt on the ground, crying as though she would never stop.
It was unknown how much time had passed, but the woman's crying paused momentarily.
Gag...
A painful retching sound came from her, and from her covered face, suddenly erupted a large amount of flesh-colored, twisting maggots.
The maggots, like a fountain, formed clumps of flesh-colored worm streams, falling to the ground and writhing, spreading and crawling around.
****************
"Brother..."
When Lin Xin found An Ying, she was lying on a branch of a large tree, covered in blood and apparently seriously injured.
"Damn it!" He cursed bitterly, hating his own helplessness, and hurried over.
"That Long-Eared Tiger... hasn't run far..." Just as he ran over, he heard An Ying's weak urging. "Brother, go quickly... follow the blood trail... it's been poisoned..."
Lin Xin looked at An Ying, bloodstained all over on the tree branch, still concerned about his Long-Eared Tiger despite her severe injuries. Seeing the somewhat fierce wound on An Ying's neck still slowly oozing blood, he felt an indescribable stir in his heart.
"Treat your wounds first!" He shouted, cutting her off. "What do you need the Long-Eared Tiger for when you are nearly dying!?"
"But..." An Ying's lips were so pale from weakness. "We've prepared for so long..."
Lin Xin gritted his teeth, quickly climbed the tree, and bandaged the wound on An Ying's neck. He had made some bandages and gauze lower down the mountain and also distilled some high-concentration alcohol from white wine to use as antiseptic.
Fortunately, it seemed that the effect of her Inner Strength, all of An Ying's wounds were not bleeding heavily, seemingly with muscles automatically contracting to stop the bleeding, otherwise, she might have lost too much blood and gone into shock, which would have been really troublesome.
After treating the wounds, Lin Xin then climbed down from the tree, hearing from An Ying that although the Long-Eared Tiger had attacked them, it was also wounded several times by An Yin with the medicated sword, but it was staggering and did not know where it had gone, but they could still follow the blood trail.
Chasing after such a huge beast alone, Lin Xin felt somewhat apprehensive, but thinking of the great sacrifices An Ying made for his sake, injured in that way, and considering that the Long-Eared Tiger must already be under the effect of the drug, possibly unable to resist.
Lin Xin eventually gritted his teeth and followed the blood trail.
Following the blood trail for more than ten minutes, he could faintly smell a strong stench of blood ahead.
Soon he saw the downed Long-Eared Tiger, with blood all over the ground. It lay weakly on the ground, puffing out thick breaths from its nostrils, like a horse.
Carefully approaching, he used the stone Broken Sword to tap the Long-Eared Tiger a few times, confirming it had fallen into a deep sleep, before quickly tying it up with thick ropes.
The rope was as thick as a wrist, specially made by him. After tying it around the Long-Eared Tiger, although it could no longer struggle, Lin Xin began to worry about how to remove the creature.
With so much blood spilled, sounds of other wild beasts were already faintly coming from around. If time dragged on, it might attract even more fierce animals.
That no other fierce beast had come along so far was probably because the Long-Eared Tiger had marked the surroundings as its territory; otherwise, it would have attracted packs of predators like wolves.
Lin Xin now understood the difficulty of getting the Return to Origin Pill; even An Ying, with her Inner Qi, had sustained such injuries to barely subdue a Long-Eared Tiger, let alone ordinary people.
"If it's really not possible..." A fierce look flashed in Lin Xin's eyes for the first time, "To obtain it, how could it be possible without taking risks!"
The Long-Eared Tiger weighed well over a ton and was simply immovable, and once the drug's effect passed, even with ropes, it might not be possible to drag it back to the dojo.
As for going back down the mountain for help, that was out of the question, as by the time people arrived from down the mountain, probably only bones would be left. The predators around were not vegetarians...