A growl cut through the air, cowering the bamboo, their heft now insubstantial, a hollow display before ferocity made manifest. The wolves and half-breeds around him lowered their heads in submission, wary of the rare display of overt displeasure from their pack leader.

  What is this trickery, Nox? Why do you limit my hunt?

  A spider barely the size of a newborn's fang appeared, drifting in the air like a mote of light.

  Your pack charged into one of my nests, attacking my kin. How did you not expect due retribution?

  Abalast's growl deepened, his pride roused at this diffuse presence daring to challenge his dominance. He knew the elusive spider was likely his greater, but his Path kept him from backing down before such an ephemeral display of power.

  You know I act on behalf of the Legion. Even you wouldn't dare draw their combined wrath, so undo this.

  The tiny spider tumbled in the air, like a pup at play. Abalast snapped at it, like the very nature of rending death cutting through reality. The little spider floated out of the way, as if the attack was but a lazy swipe.

  Oh, I know those unliving quite well, and I'm certain they'd place the blame of your failure properly on your head. After all, you chose to initiate a hunt on the child instead of bringing him back with the elf weakling. The lure of potential is quite tempting, no?

  Abalast huffed, genuinely impressed by the display of skill. To evade one of his empowered bites was not trivial, and Nox even did so with a lesser construct of some sort. Indeed the skill's hidden master was a true power beyond his ken, and thus worthy of his deference.

  Yes, this was a rare opportunity for one of my pack to rise. Likely worth the risk to my standing with the Legion.

  Then I did you a favor by restricting the hunt to his grade. Allowing for you to swoop in should your children fail makes the reward from the heavens but a shadow of its true potential.

  The wolf stilled, surprised the creature so far from his path could intuit as much of his hunt. Yet he doubted she could truly appreciate the cost of failure, how deeply it would sap at his foundations. But this was also an opportunity, for indeed the wilds would reward the victorious in proportion to the challenge, and the elven child's potential would only soar with the involvement of Nox in his struggles, her own accumulations targeted by his hunt. He doubted she could see that hidden snare in his skill, the hunt expanding to all who dare challenge the rightful predator.

  Then watch as my hunt unfurls. Abalast smiled. And may the wilds favor the strong.

  -x-

  Axl rushed down the path imprinted in his mind by Nox, eerily not encountering a single spider on his way. Slowly, the webbing beneath him got sparser, the tunnel walls less carefully chiseled. The racket of the wolves behind him grew increasingly distant, apparently still in battle.

  At least the wolves were still being attacked as they charged through Nox's domain. He hoped those F-tiered four-legged ones would also join in the fight, but if they ignored him gawking at their work, they likely would also just let the wolves pass them by.

  Accepting the quest earlier brought up an image in his mind of his target, a werewolf taller than most others with black fur streaked with red, its mouth unusually wide. He wasn't thrilled to see the obvious similarities to the floating wolf head that effortlessly killed Olkan.

  After another ten minutes of running, Axl noted he was firmly out of Nox's domain, the webbing gone, replaced by irregular stone. A few vines dangled from the ceiling, emitting a faint luminescence, which let Axl turn off [Mana Shroud] for large chunks of time. Running it just with the Mana-sensing feature was relatively cheap, but it still used internal Mana, and he was starting to run low from his constant use of the skill.

  This wasn't the only problem, since his body was also getting weak, his mind foggy, not only at the constant pressure of navigating past the spiders, but the earlier charge across the bamboo forest above. He needed some rest, if only for a few moments, then figure out how to deal with the pack.

  Luckily, Axl had a rather detailed map in his mind of the cave system ahead, the spider lady having implanted his brain not with a simple straight line to his destination but a corridor nearly a dozen of kilometers wide all the way there. It was uncanny, having near-perfect recollection of a massive cave system as if he'd lived there, with more detail than the hallways of Ost.

  The map in his mind showed a massive cavern only an hour's jog away dominated by a lake in its middle, the many islands on the lake growing large mushrooms that reached almost to the ceiling. The place seemed like the best chance to get himself a breather and try out some things.

  He set off, turning to an almost hidden side-entrance that should shave off a few minutes of his trek. The pack's noise got fainter and fainter behind him, so he took the chance to finally examine his dimensional pouch, hoping there would be something in there to help.

  First, he simply tugged at it or tried to reach in, but he hand was just stopped by the tough fabric. He then activated [Mana Shroud] to get a sense of it better, and strangely it only looked like a rectangle of cloth, the inside a confusing blur of Mana. Even siphoning some of the ambient Mana into it did nothing.

  Then he sent a small bit of his own internal Mana, and that seemed to do it. The pouch absorbed the Mana and suddenly became much more apparent to his mind, as if a presence latched onto him. A neat cube two meters on each side was intimately revealed, every one of its contents clearly visible. It was an uncanny feeling, like gaining control of a new arm, or having the information on all these cave systems pushed into him. Just how damn convenient could it get to be a cultivator? Did they also have magical latrines that wiped your ass on the go?

  Shaking off the sense the sheer indignation that something so useful could exist in the world, Axl focused on his newfound stuff. The space was crowded, including crates of dried herbs, various types of flowers or bark in small decorative boxes, and clothing similar to what Olkan was wearing when he died. The herbs had wisps of Mana about them, and the forest-related stuff almost held as much as what the crabs had back in Piril, which was a surprise. A small crate contained slabs of metal that had positively beautiful Mana, and Axl had to resist the temptation to take a piece out and examine it closely. Hard to get rid of those miner's instincts, even running for his life in an elven body.

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  Most crucially, there were several canteens of water and rectangles of bread wrapped in paper, all shoved into corners and gaps between crates. He immediately stopped for a moment and reached into the surface of the pouch, his hand disappearing into the fabric, coming out with the canteen and one of the rectangles. He quickly ate the dense bread, trying hard not to savor the fruits and meat inside, then followed the food with long chugs of water, then placed them back in the pouch and continued his run and his inspection of the pouch's contents.

  There were also twelve spears neatly aligned to a rack against a wall, all identical to the one the elf captain wielded, and a small shelf with four vials holding extremely Mana-dense liquid. The shelf also had a small stack of paper, all barely hand-sized, with dense glyphs inscribed on them. Axl's eyes widened slightly as he saw these, Roken's memories recognizing this with awe—these were healing potions and talismans.

  All of this was packed in a very utilitarian way, to maximize the use of the limited space, except for a single corner, where a small podium had an area all for itself, enclosed in a decorative cabinet a respectful distance from any of the other mundane materials. On that podium rested a simple scroll in a sleeve of yellow metal, the only container in the pouch he couldn't see through.

  Against the scroll was a simple note in hastily scribbled Saptish.

  Study this to better understand the Balanced Path. A gift as I ask that you please show leniency towards my kin.

  Axl felt conflicted seeing Olkan's last words, beyond the smaller surprise that he somehow managed to scribble this while dangling from a wolf's jaws. On the one hand, he was disgusted that the elf thought he'd target his kin for his actions, but on the other, he respected the captain's resolve even more. There was a cold logic to his actions, not hesitating to seize power when it presented itself, then quickly pivoting to drastically different action, even as he was barely able to move, fangs dug into his flesh.

  Olkan's explosive last strike wasn't a flailing emotional resignation, it was a calculated move to help his former enemy survive. The gift of the dimensional pouch was an attempt to make the life of his family better, to minimize the odds of revenge, should Axl survive. To his very last, Olkan acted with a clear-headed discernment he'd only ever seen before in Cas Kaltan back in Luna.

  He couldn't help but marvel at how well the ploy was actually working—Axl held the pouch to his side, its countless riches making his ongoing survival that much more likely. Despite himself, he found that his indignation at being betrayed was overwhelmed by gratitude. Or perhaps gratitude was the wrong word, more a sense that a wrong has been set right, that balance was restored.

  A plan is only good if it survives the other side knowing about it.

  Cas Kaltan's words echoed in his mind, the memory of the com-chatter suddenly vivid as a knife in the chest. His fury rose at the Vikam and their brutal, ridiculous invasion. Maybe this was why it was so easy to brush off Olkan's betrayal—the rage suffusing every fiber of his being already had a target.

  Axl shook off the distraction and picked up the pace, focusing on the balance between keeping the distance from the pack and his flagging energy.

  He soon stood at the edge of a lake almost two kilometers long, the sight of so much water in one place was strange. The pack was gaining behind him, but he took a moment to look across the many islands littering the large lake, finding the one matching his mental map, where a single massive mushroom stalk almost reached a stalactite hanging from the ceiling.

  In a hurry, he removed all his clothing and placed them in the dimensional pouch, then his sword and the pouch's belt. He even kept the wine and backpack, even as the space was getting tight. But he absolutely needed to get it all off his back, since all of it had copious amounts of blood and various other fluids, the stench almost certainly how the wolves were able to hone in on him so easily.

  While the Marked Prey title granted them some sense of where he was, it was grade-limited. Axl doubted a G-grade ability would be terribly precise, just like how his ability to sense Vikam elves hasn't even stirred all this time, to the point he wondered if he even had it turned on. So this was the first order of business, to figure out exactly how well his pursuers could detect him.

  Stark naked except for the dimensional pouch on a fresh belt from Olkan's clothing stash, he slowly waded into the water, [Mana Shroud] fully active to sense any predators within. It seemed like the pack's noise scared away any of the threats in these tunnels on the way over, but he wasn't so sure the effect would be the same in the lake.

  Carefully, he used one of Olkan's more mundane-looking shirts to wipe himself of the blood and grime in the water as best he could, then left the shirt right at the top of a nearby rock, and plunged into the lake.

  The water glowed slightly, a subdued blue shimmer in contrast to the vine's green luminescence, and it appeared like a slurry to [Mana Shroud]. Still, he swam through the water, cutting through it far better than he thought he could, as if his body knew what to do. He kept to the middle depths, following a current that pushed him forward, focusing on getting [Mana Shroud] to compensate for the distortion of the water's Mana.

  The gills to the sides of his neck opened up to let the water in, reinvigorating his body with a breath feeling even fresher than the pristine air above. He tried not to think too much about it, his body alien in a way he only briefly felt before. But he kept up the swim fully submerged, the tactical advantage of breathing underwater too good to not use.

  He only came across a single fish as large as his forearm at the edge of his skill's detection range, but it seemed to not notice him, so he continued his swim, reaching the island far faster than he expected.

  Another shirt was used as an improvised washcloth and left at the edge of the lake, and then he took a few moments to put on one of Olkan's outfits, the blue and yellow-patterned cloth surprisingly sturdy, almost like armor. It was a bit large for him, but nothing that some rolling up of sleeves and the hem couldn't fix. The soldiering boots would chafe, so instead he put on some slippers that were more adjustable with several straps that he could tighten against his feet. These were clearly training shoes, but were still an upgrade compared to Roken's civilian stuff.

  He looked up the towering mushroom, breathing out in relief that climbing it wouldn't be so difficult. In contrast to the slick surface of the bamboo trees outside, this trunk had flared out handholds in its fleshy bits, so he started up, aiming at a slender crack on the mushroom's cap that would let him get on top of it.

  The idea seemed fine at first, but as he climbed, he couldn't help but feel incredibly exposed, that every creature lurking in the darkness of the large cavern could spot him and strike just as he couldn't defend himself. A tense moment after another passed, but he soon reached the top and plopped onto the mushroom head, letting his racing heart recover from the stress. How strange that this felt so dangerous, but swimming across murky water felt like nothing, in many ways better than walking around.

  He looked out over the edge, carefully crouching to conceal himself as best he could. The wolf pack wasn't visible with [Mana Shroud] yet, the far shore of the lake barely visible, including the bloodied shirt he left there. Getting up, Axl examined the ceiling, actually having to duck slightly so his head wouldn't hit some of the stalactites, and he saw it, a crack nestled between two of them.

  He said a quiet thanks to the absurdly detailed map in his mind and climbed up the nearest stalactite, its surface not nearly as slick as he expected, even if the grips were harder than with the mushroom. But he barely had to go up a few meters and he crawled through the gap, seeing everything he needed for his own hunt to start.