Chapter Seventeen: The Pursuit

The wind had stopped for some time now, and the sunlight filtered through the trees, casting patches of porcelain-white light on the snow. Though the forest lacked the glittering brightness of a snow-covered landscape, it was much clearer than usual.

For most hunters, such weather was not ideal—prey could be seen from afar, and unusual noises were easier to hear. But for Datha, his followers, and the demon dogs (demonized undead), it made no difference.

Datha wasn’t a good hunter himself, nor did he expect his subordinates to be. Especially since the dogs he led were irritable, violent, and bloodthirsty. Even with strict disciplinary measures, their nature had to be taken into account—after all, they couldn’t be killed before the hunt even began.

Moreover, the word “indulgent” almost described the temperament of every member of the dark forces. It was extremely difficult to enforce strict discipline among those whose very nature was rebellious.

Datha held a branch and drew a simple diagram in the snow. He tapped a dot in the center. “Prey!” He drew a line at a distance behind it, leading toward the dot. “We’ll let them notice us, but not chase too closely.”

Datha pointed to one of the demonized men with the branch and drew a curved line indicating a flanking maneuver from above. “Once we spot the target, you’ll lead your men and move in quickly.”

The two demonized men nodded in agreement.

“You two!” Datha pointed to two more with the branch. “You’ll lead your men and move around from below.”

One of the assigned demonized men asked, “So we’ll surround them from three sides?”

“No!” Datha shook his head. “We’ll drive them away. Make them realize there are people above, below, and behind them. They can only go in one direction, and then we’ll apply pressure, forcing them to change direction little by little.”

As he spoke, Datha drew a thick horizontal line at the far end of the diagram, then raised the branch and pointed toward the southwest. “In that direction, about 9 kilometers away, there’s a natural barrier—Divine God’s Scars. Even the Mazaro goats can’t climb those cliffs. Our target has no way to escape!”

In reality, the barrier known as Divine God’s Scars was 11 kilometers away in a straight line from Datha’s position. But as a former tenant farmer, no one could expect him to have excellent military skills. After all, over the past 30 years, he had focused mostly on farming.

While Datha planned a patient hunting strategy,Neo rubbed his hands to keep warm and continued chopping wood with his axe. His strength and physical fitness—advantages of being a warrior—were on full display. With each swing, wood shards flew everywhere. A tree as thick as a bowl could be felled byNeo in 5 to 7 swings.

Neo was cutting wood as part of setting up traps, and he had already returned to his human form.

Consumption is one reason. Additionally, although all aspects improve significantly after transforming into a wolf, those sharp wolf claws are clearly better suited for hunting and fighting rather than making tools, especially for intricate tasks such as setting up sensitive triggers. For Neo, the werewolf form is a combat-ready state; he has never even considered living and working in that form constantly like the Vidennis werewolves.

It’s true that Neo has a free spirit, and his experiences in human society have taught him a lot. Yet it’s undeniable that human society has influenced him in many ways—his perspectives and habits, for example. He’s accustomed to being in human form and using his mind and tools rather than brute force.

In a situation like this, a true werewolf would opt for mobile combat, seeking out the opponent’s weaknesses during movement and launching fierce attacks. Whether successful or not, they would retreat immediately until the opponent died, escaped, or they themselves perished or ran out of strength.

Although Neo also chose mobile combat, he added traps, mostly combat traps rather than self-triggering ones. The difference lies in the former requiring human cooperation for quick setup, while the latter relies on clever design and many specific conditions.

It was bitterly cold, and he was both cold and hungry. He grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it into his mouth, then glanced at his empty leather pouch. “Almost enough…” he thought to himself. Most of the tools he brought to set up traps had already been used—22 trap mechanisms in total.

A comprehensive map had taken shape in Neo’s mind, with all the traps marked on it, along with relevant visual images. Whenever he thought of a particular trap, the surrounding environment would appear clearly.

This was the advantage of having a strong mental power. Even without using it for magic, one could obtain a more precise, comprehensive, and detailed mental simulation for decision-making.

Compared to his opponents, Neo was practically a professional born for battle.

After running continuously for over 30 minutes, Datha felt somewhat frustrated because he realized he had underestimated the werewolf. The opponent’s stamina was at least twice what he had imagined, causing him to repeatedly miscalculate the werewolf’s speed and giving it plenty of time to catch its breath.

However, when Datha discovered one of Neo’s traps, his frustration vanished.

“I never expected my opponent to be an idiot, but from his performance so far, it’s clear this guy isn’t smart. Look at what he does with the hard-earned time he has!” With that thought, Datha glanced at a horizontal bar strung between branches above him.

“Sir, should we destroy this trap?” asked one of the demonized men, who was somewhat perceptive.

Datha waved his hand, signaling the group to keep moving. “We don’t need to go to the trouble.”

The demonized man chuckled. “Sir is right. Traps like this can even be avoided by the stupidest pig.”

Then, after a while, Datha discovered a second trap. This time, even Datha couldn’t help but laugh. It was the same clumsy design—trying to use the torque of two sturdy trees to swing a large log horizontally. Not only would it fail to hit anyone, but even if it did, what good would it be? Datha believed that even his weakest subordinates, with their thick skin, would not be afraid of such a swing, let alone him, who could break it with a single palm strike.

The demonized one who had spoken earlier said again, “Sir, your prey thinks he’s a skilled hunter, but in reality, he’s just an average laborer…”

Although Datha agreed inwardly, his words carried a strong warning tone: “This guy is still very dangerous. Don’t expect to capture him alive when fighting—kill him outright.”

“Yes,” the demonized one replied readily, though he didn’t really agree in his heart. But thinking about it, capturing one person required the opponent to be strong; even if not, they had to pretend to be strong—otherwise, what merit would there be?

After running for a while longer, Datha warned, “The target isn’t far from us!”

On a gently sloping area with sparser trees, Datha and several demonized ones crouched and crept upward, using a few trees as cover to peek.

There, under a large tree on the opposite ridge, was a young human man, seemingly chewing on something.

“It’s him!” Datha said in a low, cold voice. From this distance, it might be hard to tell whether it was a human or a werewolf in human form, but the dark aura wouldn’t lie. Datha could clearly sense that the aura emanated from this young man.

Seeing that it was in human form, the demonized ones felt a bit more confident.

“It seems he’s not a Windstorm Werewolf scout,” one of them analyzed in a low voice.

This was almost the general opinion among the demonized ones before, and it raised a concern: this werewolf might be luring them into what they thought was a real trap, set by a considerable number of Videnis werewolves.

Over time, however, this concern faded, and by now they were completely at ease. Videnis werewolves wouldn’t waste over two hours chasing them through the woods, and they were better at fighting in the open. Most of their members always stayed in their werewolf form—in their eyes, human form was a symbol of weakness, indicating an inability to maintain a powerful state.

Datha hadn’t divided his forces, choosing to wait until the right moment to strike, for similar reasons. Now he was truly at ease. With a wave of his hand, he ordered, “Execute the plan!”

“Yes!”

Following the earlier plan, the demonized ones led their demon dogs to circle around from different sides.

Datha, along with a dozen others, silently calculated the routes of the two split teams, waiting for the perfect moment to avoid alerting the target.

Ugh, howls, roars…

The demonized undead couldn’t stand still—staying in one place without moving forward or backward, with no permission to make loud noises, was pure torture. Their already limited intelligence, not much better than that of dogs, made it hard for them to endure such torment.

“Damn it! With such a guy around, I feel like a werewolf in a fierce battle—only knowing how to charge around!” Data cursed silently, then waved his hand, ordering his subordinates to charge forward.

Between these ridges was a narrow downward V-shaped valley. From above, viewed from south to north, it formed another horizontal V. Data and his subordinates were in the middle section of this horizontal V. The straight-line distance between the two points was less than 40 meters, but the depth was over 50 meters. With trees growing across and rocks piled up, there was no hope of finding a path.

For ordinary people, to cross such terrain, they could either head south about 300 meters first. As the distance between the two ridges narrowed near the bottom of the horizontal V, they could leap across. Or they could go north about 400 meters, down a gentle slope where the ground was relatively flat. Taking a longer route, they could still make it across.

But Data saw no problem with this steep V-shaped valley. He and his subordinates had the basic skill to climb over mountains. The trees and protruding rocks could serve as footholds, allowing them to use them like steps for long jumps. After a few such leaps, they would reach the valley bottom. As for climbing up, there’s an old saying: “It’s easy to go up, hard to go down.” With so many footholds, climbing wouldn’t take much time.

Moreover, the two detouring teams had already set off, taking routes to the south and north. What Data’s group needed was to go straight up, creating a preliminary “surrounding three, isolating one” formation.

“Charge ahead!” Data led the way, guiding his subordinates through the valley. From afar, they looked like a pack of starving tigers descending the mountain.

It was indeed Nio who was resting under the tree, having started resting over a dozen minutes ago. He rested, ate something briefly, and continued to dissipate the dark spiritual energy in his body.

Nio felt this process was somewhat like using hot water to melt an ice pillar—the ice gradually melted, but the water formed melted into the hot water. Fortunately, the dissolved dark spiritual energy didn’t cause new problems, probably because there were already deposits of the original dark evil energy as a foundation.

Before Data’s group even reached the hillside, Nio already knew. This place was his choice. Though it didn’t seem obvious at first, it actually had many favorable factors.

When Nio saw a group of dark minions charging down the V-shaped valley, he stood up, brushed the snow and dust off his pants, took out his magic energy rifle from his bag, walked a few steps to the edge of the ridge, and fired at one of the demonized undead. The bullet hit the upper left arm, creating a pigeon-sized hole but failing to penetrate.

For an ordinary person, such an injury would render the left arm unusable for a long time. But the demonized undead had a special structure, so the injury only slightly affected their normal movement. Running, jumping, or even using the left arm wasn’t a problem.

Nio didn’t care. Calmly, he loaded another bullet and fired again. At this distance, from a high vantage point with snow as a backdrop, hitting the target wasn’t difficult. This time, it was the shoulder of another demonized undead, resulting in a similar minor injury.

“Fire two more shots, just any shots. The pursuit can end early.” Data, who had already reached the valley bottom, felt a hint of anticipation.

It was the stupidity shown by the other party that gave him such hopes. Abandoning his strength in running and trying to fend off enemies alone with a broken musket—what else could this be but foolishness? By observing the terrain, Data had already planned out where to gain leverage even just to wait for a moment. If he could be pushed a little further forward, then, with a sudden burst of speed, he was confident he could reach the ridge within 5 seconds. By then, everything would be over ahead of time. Even if he couldn’t kill his target in an instant, he could at least hold them off, and his subordinates would arrive soon. Even the two teams approaching from the south and north, seeing the situation change, would quickly encircle them—leaving the target with no chance of escape.

But Neo didn’t fire a third time. Instead, he calmly put away his musket and disappeared from Data’s sight.

“Running away again? It doesn’t matter. The real pursuit has just begun. That damned werewolf will eventually be forced into a corner, with no strength left to fight!”

Just as Data was thinking this, a rope spanning across the top of the V-shaped valley suddenly appeared—it was the result of a flying grab projectile.

“A rope?” One of the demonized men saw it and called out in confusion. The two ends of the valley were almost parallel, and there was no way to slide down—what use was the whole rope?

“Cut it!” Data also saw it. After hesitating for half a second, he roared in frustration.

The demonized men and undead used their bodies as weapons and didn’t carry swords at all. One of them did have a dagger, but with the valley being over 50 meters deep, filled with trees, and the damned sun shining down directly, relying on a dagger to cut the rope was utterly unrealistic.

The dagger was thrown upward, far away from the rope—useless.

Neo, who was preparing to cross the valley, smiled slightly. Next time, these dark minions might learn to bring some tools, right? If they still had a chance after today.

In truth, Data didn’t expect any of his subordinates to have the throwing skills needed to cut the rope in time. He was simply angry that the damned werewolf had dared to cross using a rope—it was a blatant insult!

Running, leaping, climbing—Data wasn’t panicked. His reactions were extremely fast, and his subsequent actions were swift as lightning. This time, his goal wasn’t to reach the ridge all at once. As long as he reached a height of about 40 meters, he could unleash his Dark Breath Slash to cut the rope, causing the damned werewolf to fall and be badly injured if not killed outright!

Yet Neo was not only a little faster than Data expected but also a little smarter. He walked along the rope, his steps steady as if on solid ground. His performance made it clear he had trained specifically for this.

Unwilling to give up, Data tried his best to stop him. By the time he reached 20 meters, Neo had already covered more than half the distance. By the time Data reached over 30 meters, Neo was just a few meters away from the other side. As Data tried his last desperate move and unleashed the Dark Breath Slash, Neo leaped forward, suspended in midair, and pulled back the thin rope he had been holding, removing the clasp that secured the other end to the tree. Then he shook the rope forcefully, retracting it, while simultaneously landing on the other side and achieving victory.

By now, Dathi was just a few steps away from the ridge; he finally decided to climb to the top. Neo neatly packed up the rope on the opposite side while grinning at him, then disappeared down the slope under his resentful gaze…