Under the guidance of Shadow Blade Lynn, Elvia began the longest flight of her life.
“To the left. There is a large boulder thirty paces away. Hide behind it.”
The voice was so calm it sounded like it was reading a menu.
Elvia did as she was told.
Carrying Lin Gui on her back, she stumbled and hid behind the massive rock.
Just as she crouched down, a massive demon walked by only ten meters away.
The creature's hooves struck the ground, making the gravel jump with every step.
It did not turn its head or linger; it simply walked straight past.
Elvia held her breath, her heart nearly leaping into her throat.
Only after the demon had moved far off did she dare to slowly exhale.
“Continue heading east. Do you see that thicket of thorns ahead? Go around its left side and stay close to the mountain wall.”
“Why?”
“Because the right side is the territory of Wind-Winged Wolves. Their sense of smell can detect your farts from three kilometers away.”
Elvia: “...”
She obediently headed left.
In this manner, under the guidance of Shadow Blade Lynn...
She was like a startled rabbit, dodging and weaving, twisting and turning through the wilderness.
She crossed swamps by stepping on specific stones indicated by Shadow Blade Lynn, not daring to miss a single step.
When she looked back later, those stones formed a hidden path through the mire.
In the surrounding mud, there were dense tracks left by magical beasts.
She crossed mountain ridges, staying on the shaded side as instructed by Shadow Blade Lynn.
Places untouched by sunlight were freezing cold, but they were also devoid of magical beasts.
On the sunny slopes, however...
Every few hundred meters, she could see groups of demons with sleek fur lying out to sunbathe.
When they entered dense forests, Shadow Blade Lynn told her which trees had hidden hollows where they could take a temporary rest.
She would climb up and find that the hollow was just large enough to accommodate her and Lin Gui.
The entrance was even screened by hanging vines.
It was as if they had been specially prepared for passing adventurers.
When traveling along streams, Shadow Blade Lynn told her to stay in the water and not step on the stones along the bank.
“Running water washes away scent. If you step on the bank, your scent will remain on the stones and be picked up by those long-nosed things.”
Elvia did as she was told.
The freezing stream water soaked into her already tattered boots.
Her toes went numb with cold, but she did not dare step onto the shore.
Once, she truly could not walk any longer and wanted to rest under a large tree.
“Don't stop.”
Elvia grit her teeth and stood up to keep walking.
She didn't know who Shadow Blade Lynn was.
She only knew that this woman's knowledge of the wilderness had reached a terrifying degree.
She knew the habits of every type of demon.
What time they were active, what time they slept, what terrain they preferred, what scents they were sensitive to, whether their sight was good, or if their hearing was sharp.
She even knew which demons had territorial conflicts with one another.
She knew how to hide in the wilderness.
Not the kind of concealment that relied on magic.
But the most primitive, fundamental kind.
How to walk without making a sound, how to breathe without being detected, and how to use the wind direction to mask one's scent.
She knew how to reduce physical identifiers.
Elvia listened to her, chewing a certain herb she found in Lin Gui's bundle and smearing the pulp on her face and hands.
The smell of that herb was so pungent it made her want to gag.
But after applying it, the mosquitoes and those blood-sucking flies no longer landed on her.
She knew where the temporary outposts were.
A hidden cave, a hollow giant tree, or a pile of rubble that could hide a person.
She guided Elvia as they moved between these outposts.
Every time Elvia was about to collapse, a spot appeared at exactly the right moment.
“There is a crevice in the rocks ahead. Crawl inside and spend the night there.”
Elvia crawled into the crevice.
The gap was very narrow, just enough for her and Lin Gui to squeeze together.
The wind outside was heavy, but it was quiet inside the crevice, like another world isolated from the rest of the land.
She didn't know how Shadow Blade Lynn knew about these places.
She only knew that without this woman, she would have died a hundred times over already.
One day.
Two days.
Three days.
Time became a blur during the flight.
Elvia was experiencing for the first time what the true wilderness was really like.
What it looked like without the protection of Lin Gui's Shroud of the Gloomy Night.
She personally saw a demon being torn to shreds by a stronger one, its intestines spilling across the ground.
She personally saw a flock of flying demons pass overhead, their shadows blotting out the sun and nearly making her legs give way from fear.
A single wrong step could wake a sleeping monster...
Or trigger some lethal danger she wasn't even aware of.
She finally understood why those Gold Rank adventure groups...
Always hesitated and made excuses when faced with high-paying transport commissions.
It wasn't out of laziness.
It was because they knew that in the wilderness, a single moment of carelessness was enough to be fatal.
That pay was bought with their lives.
And she, once perched high above, had looked down on them for not being proactive or obedient enough.
What had she been thinking back then?
“A pack of gutless trash.”
Looking back now, she realized that she was the trash.
Fourth day.
Fifth day.
Sixth day.
Elvia didn't know how she was holding on.
The soles of her feet were covered in blisters that burst and became calluses, which then burst again and bled anew.
Her legs felt like they were filled with lead; every step required her entire strength.
Her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.
Everything she saw was doubled with ghost images.
She didn't dare to sleep.
It wasn't that she didn't want to, but that she didn't dare.
She didn't have concealment magic.
The hiding methods Shadow Blade Lynn taught her could only fool ordinary demons.
They couldn't fool the demons with sharp senses of smell and hearing.
Every time she closed her eyes for a brief rest...
She would be driven away by a passing demon after a few minutes or a few dozen minutes.
The longest sleep she had was less than two hours.
The shortest time, she had just closed her eyes when Shadow Blade Lynn's urgent voice echoed in her ear.
“Get up! Three magic wolves are heading this way!”
She leaped up almost by instinct and ran with Lin Gui on her back.
Only after running several hundred meters did she hear the wolf howls from behind.
The sound was less than fifty meters from where she had been resting.
Her legs went weak on the spot.
But she didn't dare to stop.
She could only keep running.
Exhaustion.
Despair.
Limitless exhaustion and limitless despair.
She didn't know how much longer she could last.
She only knew that every time she was about to give up, she would turn her head to glance at the unconscious man on her back.
He was still alive.
She could feel his heartbeat.
It was very faint, but it was beating.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Like a stubborn, unceasing drumbeat.
She didn't know when he would wake up.
She only knew that if she could hold out until the moment Lin Gui awoke, this desperate flight would end.
Then she could finally have a good sleep.
However...
For eight whole days...
She carried Lin Gui under that woman's guidance.
Through swamps, over ridges, into dense forests, and along streams, step by step, she walked out of the forest.
The man on her back still hadn't woken up.
She glanced down at him.
Lin Gui's face was still deathly pale.
His wounds had begun to scab over, but his left arm was still twisted at that bizarre angle.
His breathing was so shallow she had to lean in close to hear it every time.
If it weren't for the fact that she could feel his heartbeat against her back every so often...
She really would have thought he was already dead.
“His injuries are too severe,” Shadow Blade Lynn's voice echoed in her mind.
“If it were just superficial wounds, he wouldn't be unconscious for this long.”
“The biggest problem is his mana overdraft.”
“A mana overdraft forces his body to trigger a protection mechanism.”
“He won't wake up for at least half a month.”
At this moment, Elvia no longer cared.
Because...
She pushed aside the last thicket of bushes.
Sunlight pierced her eyes.
Before her was a tundra.
Open, flat, and endless.
Beneath her feet was soft moss, a mix of gray and green that shimmered with a gentle luster under the sun.
In the distance were rolling, gentle slopes covered in gray-white and pale-green lichen.
The wind blew across the tundra, carrying a clean scent of sunlight and earth.
Overhead was a pale blue sky.
So blue it was transparent.
Elvia stood there in a daze.
She recognized this place. It was in the north of the borderlands...
The Southern Tundra.
Then, her knees gave out.
With Lin Gui on her back, she slowly sank to her knees.
She knelt on the soft grass.
She set Lin Gui down beside her and looked up at the pale blue sky.
Tears began to fall.
She didn't wipe them away.
She simply knelt there, weeping silently.
After a long time...
She took a deep breath and turned to look at Lin Gui.
Sunlight illuminated his pale face.
She reached out and gently brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead.
Then, she lay down.
She lay on the moss.
The sunlight was warm.
The wind rustled through the tundra.
Very light.
Very gentle.
Geographic transition zones were buffer zones for demon territories.
In other words...
She was temporarily safe.
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