"Damn it, Red! Go." He roared as he jumped down from the tree, ready to face the oncoming battle.
But Red stood still without moving an inch as if someone had fixed him there, disobeying his order directly. Seeing Red eyes burning with fierce loyalty, just as his own heart pounded with the same determination, he sighed and shook his head. Both of their feelings were mutual. Neither wanted to leave the other behind.
"Roar"
Just as Yuan readied himself to face the last struggle of his life, a dragon's roar bellowed deep in the forest. The Dragon Hound froze, its spine rigid. It raised its head, glancing toward the source of the roar.
For a moment, everything was still—frozen in time. After giving the pair a brief glance, the Hound let out a low growl, turned on its heels, and bounded back into the woods, vanishing into the trees like a shadow.
It took Yuan a moment to come back to his senses. His legs gave way beneath him, and he collapsed to the ground, the adrenaline finally leaving his body. His back was drenched in cold sweat, his breath ragged as he thought about the close shave with death.
Red came up to him, nuzzling his side. Yuan managed a shaky smile and patted his head. "We made it, partner."
"In 10 days or so, the tournament mom talked about will start," he thought as he stood up to leave.
Although the dragon hound had left, he kept his senses to the extreme because of the heavy blood scent in the air. He knew the instant he lowered his guard down in this atmosphere, he would be dead. Many hungry predators were roaming around in such situations.
He came across many bodies, badly mutilated by dragon hounds. Yuan whispered silent prayers for their safe journey to the next world as he continued moving.
Right at the border of the forest, yuan heard fighting sounds. He followed the sound and saw a heavily injured young man fighting two Bronze Lynxes with his broken sword. The young man was trying his best to parry the attacks of lynxes as if trying to protect something.
Yuan focused slightly and saw a heavily injured leopard behind the young man. He immediately understood the situation. He exchanged a glance with Red and joined the fight. Both young man and lynxes were surprised by their sudden appearance. The young man took a breath of relief seeing another human.
Yuan joined the young man in fighting against one lynx while Red took the other one.
These two Bronze lynxes were only mid-stage level 1 beasts. In just a few minutes, they killed the lynxes. Young man threw the sword aside and moved his bettered body toward Shadow Leopard.
Shadow leopard had a deep claw wound on its back, causing it to lose a lot of blood. Seeing the Shadow Leopard almost on its last breath, the young man's eyes dimmed. He placed his blood-covered right hand on the shadow leopard's head gently and spoke in a choking voice, "Thank you for everything, buddy."
The shadow leopard glanced at the young man's face for a moment before standing up with great difficulty and raising its head proudly, letting out a last long howl. After the howl, the beast collapsed to the ground, taking its last breath.
A stream of tears emerged from the young man's eyes as he saw his proud companion leaving forever.
Yuan stood behind silently, allowing the young man to calm himself. Though he felt sad seeing the shadow leopard dying. Glancing at Red, he vowed in his heart to never let anything happen to his partner.
After a while, Lu Ze calmed down and stood up. "Thank you for saving me. I am Lu Ze." he turned toward Yuan and said.
"Yuan," Yuan shook his head and passed him a healing pill. Lu Ze's condition wasn't much better. If not treated on time, he wouldn't be far from meeting his partner again. The young man knew this and after remaining silent for a moment, he accepted the pill.
*****
Half an hour later, Yuan emerged from the Cloudy Forest with Lu Ze on his back. "Finally," Both of them took a breath of relief.
"How did all of this happen?" he asked.
"You know about City Lord organizing the annual hunting festival some twenty days ago?" Lu Ze asked back.
Yuan nodded his head. He had heard the festival from the retainer in the pavilion. He even evaluated many beasts from this hunt.
"Some greedy bastards somehow managed to secure a Dragon Hound's Cub during the festival and gifted it to the City Lord. Being a youngling of Dragon hounds, a 3-star beast with high frontline fighting potential, City Lord liked the cub very much and gave them heavy gifts in return." Lu Ze gritted his teeth in anger.
"Those greedy bastards grew excited seeing so much money and thought if they were able to do it once, they could do it a second time. They formed a strong team and foolishly raided the den of Dragon Hounds. Not only have they died themselves, they've also angered the hounds to no end, causing the death of so many people."
Lu Ze sighed thinking about all of his party members who died in the forest under the claws of Dragon hounds along with his partner, Shadow Leopard.
Yuan stood stunned. For a moment, he admired the courage of that team to raid the hound's den. But courage without supporting intellect always leads to downfall.
Soon, they arrived at the camp. The camp was also in a state of complete alert. Empire soldiers stood at the gate, checking everyone entering the camp. After passing through the security check, yuan brought Lu Ze to a temporary tent set up by soldiers for the injured. After making sure Lu Ze was out of danger, he left the tent.
A look of gratitude appeared in Lu Ze's eyes as he watched Yuan's leaving back.
"That young man is the one who saved you?"
Lu Ze turned his head and saw a middle-aged man lying on the bed next to his. He nodded. "Who is he? Do you perhaps know him?"
"Hahaha! Shi Yao, did you hear that? This young man is asking whether we know that brat or not." The middle-aged man turned toward another middle-aged man and laughed out loud.
"Shut up, you geezer Huang. This all happened because of you." Shi Yao shouted.
Huang Ji didn't mind Shi Yao's words and adjusted his almost broken glasses as he tried to maintain his scholarly image, though that didn't matched his bandaged face.
He turned toward Lu Ze and said, "Everyone knows him. He is the infamous cripple Yuan from the Menghao Beast pavilion."