Breath of the Wilds

By the following afternoon, as the last light of day began to sink behind the distant rocky ridges, three Black Horses entered a long, narrow valley between two low mountain ranges.

The cliffs on either side rose like natural walls, their gray-black surfaces scarred by centuries of wind and weather. Deep fissures ran across the stone, some resembling claw marks left by an enormous spirit beast in an age long past. The valley floor was nearly a hundred zhang wide, covered in fine yellow sand mixed with loose gravel. Through the center wound a darker ribbon of earth, like the remains of an underground stream that had dried up years ago.

The air here felt different from the open desert. It was a little more humid and noticeably heavier, carrying the scent of dry soil, stone that had stored the day’s heat, and the faint lingering trace of wild beasts that had passed through earlier. Wind entered from both ends of the valley, struck the cliffs, and curled back upon itself, producing long whistles that sometimes resembled a broken flute and at other times the distant call of a beast searching for its pack.

The Western Wastes were never truly silent. They merely created the illusion of silence. Beneath the sand, behind the cracks in the cliffs, and within every shift in the wind, something was always moving, watching, or waiting.

Seated on his Black Horse, Hao Nhien let his gaze travel across the rock walls. The landscape reminded him of a stone valley in the Outer Sect Secret Realm, where he had once faced a pack of wild wolves and their Wind Wolf King amid howling wind and cries echoing through the darkness. The memory brought his vigilance back with it.

He urged his horse forward until he was closer to Lanh Hoa.

Lanh Hoa still led the way. Since entering the valley, he had barely looked back, but his pace had clearly slowed. His shoulders sat lower, his right hand remained near the hilt of his saber, and his eyes swept constantly over the sand, the edges of the cliffs, and every unusual eddy of wind.

He did not need to say anything. Hao Nhien could already tell that the terrain demanded caution.

“This place would be ideal for an ambush,” Hao Nhien said. “People could hide along both slopes, and if the front and rear were blocked at the same time, anyone trapped inside would have few options besides climbing the cliffs.”

Lanh Hoa nodded once.

“Correct.”

They continued for some distance before he drew his reins and brought his horse to a stop.

Lanh Hoa dismounted, walked toward a patch of sand close to the cliff, and crouched. Hao Nhien and Luu Thanh stopped as well.

For once, Luu Thanh made no joke. He removed the bow from his back, checked the string, and only then moved closer.

Using the hilt of his curved saber, Lanh Hoa brushed aside a thin layer of sand. Beneath it lay a compressed patch roughly three handspans across, with a faint spiral pattern in the center.

At first glance, it looked no different from a mark left by the wind.

Hao Nhien soon noticed what was wrong.

The spiral turned against the direction of the current airflow.

Near its edge, several larger grains had been overturned, exposing darker, slightly damp sand below. The compressed area also leaned toward the foot of the cliff, as though a beast had deliberately clawed the ground and pressed down to preserve a scent.

Lanh Hoa pointed to it.

“A reverse-wind spiral. An old Sand Fox mark. They use these to hold scent, call others to the area, and mark prey they have already been following.”

Hao Nhien bent closer.

“Is it fresh?”

“Less than half a day old.”

Lanh Hoa rose and looked deeper into the valley.

“There are people ahead, and the pack has already marked them. More than one person.”

Luu Thanh gave a quiet whistle out of habit, but when Lanh Hoa glanced at him, he stopped and asked in a more serious tone,

“Could it be the group whose tracks we found yesterday?”

“Most likely.”

Hao Nhien looked ahead.

The group they had tracked the previous day consisted of more than ten people. They had not been traveling in haste, and aside from concealing parts of their trail, there had been nothing particularly suspicious about their movement. If they were still following the same route, the distance between the two groups could no longer be very great.

“Will the Sand Foxes attack them?” Hao Nhien asked.

“If that group is still inside the valley after dark, the chance is high.”

“Can we catch up?”

“Yes.”

“Without letting them or the pack detect us?”

Lanh Hoa considered the terrain for a moment.

“We can, if we leave the Black Horses behind before full nightfall.”

Hao Nhien nodded.

“Then we follow. We do not interfere until we know who they are, how many people they have, and how strong the Sand Fox pack is. If they are only dealing with low-rank beasts, they may be able to handle it themselves, and there is no reason for us to enter a fight unnecessarily.”

Lanh Hoa looked at him briefly, then used the hilt of his saber to sketch a rough map in the sand. He marked the main valley, the two slopes, a narrow crevice to the right, and a route climbing higher along the rock face.

“Ten li ahead, the cliff breaks apart. From there we can move up the right slope. Once night falls, the wind turns from west to east, so if we stay high, our scent will be carried behind us.”

Hao Nhien studied the sketch.

“We leave the horses in this crevice?”

“Mm. It is sheltered from the wind and difficult to spot.”

Lanh Hoa stood.

“Let’s move.”

The three mounted again.

They no longer traveled at their daytime pace. The Black Horses moved in single file through the valley, their broad hooves making almost no sound on the sand. The last traces of sunset faded behind the mountains, turning the yellow ground first gray and then cold silver beneath a crescent moon that rose above the distant rocks.

About half a shichen later, Lanh Hoa led them into a wind-sheltered crevice.

The three Black Horses were tied farther inside.

Lanh Hoa took out a pouch of gray powder and scattered it around the area to suppress the scent of spiritual power, sweat, and the lingering traces of beast blood on their supplies.

Luu Thanh patted his horse on the neck.

“Stay here. If anything comes close, kick it to death.”

Lanh Hoa turned his head.

Luu Thanh withdrew his hand at once.

“I was giving it tactical instructions.”

Lanh Hoa ignored him.

Hao Nhien smiled and looked out from the crevice.

The farther he traveled into the Western Wastes, the more clearly he understood how different life here was from what he had known in the Eastern Plains. People did not survive through cultivation and artifacts alone. They learned to read the wind, distinguish marks in the sand, recognize the scent of beasts, locate water, conceal their tracks, and cross dead regions where a single bad decision could erase an entire group without leaving much behind.

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Life here existed closer to death, but in another sense, it also existed closer to the land itself.

The three moved along the right slope, using the shadows between the rocks as cover.

Lanh Hoa led the way and made almost no sound. Every step landed on firm stone, avoiding loose gravel and cracks that might betray their position.

Hao Nhien followed in the middle. He extended his spiritual awareness and allowed his Wind affinity to follow the currents compressed between the valley walls. It let him sense subtle changes in speed and direction, though he made no attempt to use that perception as a substitute for Lanh Hoa’s knowledge of the terrain.

Luu Thanh brought up the rear.

The relaxed manner he showed during the day had disappeared completely. His back was slightly bent, the longbow rested in his hand, and three arrows were already held between his fingers. The bright, mischievous look he usually carried had sharpened into the focused gaze of a nocturnal hunter.

After nearly two shichen, Lanh Hoa raised one hand.

All three stopped.

Ahead, a rocky outcrop projected from the slope, high enough to overlook the valley floor below.

Lanh Hoa lowered his body and approached the edge. Hao Nhien and Luu Thanh followed.

More than a hundred zhang away, a small fire flickered in the darkness.

The people below had deliberately kept it low to avoid attracting spirit beasts, but in the black valley, even that faint glow stood out like a lonely point of light.

There were eleven people around the camp.

The number almost perfectly matched Lanh Hoa’s estimate from the tracks they had found the day before.

Most were middle-aged men, though several were younger. They wore thick desert robes, had stacked their supplies together in the center, and had arranged their temporary shelters and watch positions with practiced care.

Hao Nhien observed them for a while.

“A merchant caravan?”

“Possibly,” Lanh Hoa replied quietly.

They were clearly not newcomers to the Western Wastes. The way they organized their goods, placed their sentries, and set obstacles around the campsite showed long experience with desert travel.

Yet none of them were resting now.

Beyond the edge of the firelight, low, elongated shadows moved through the darkness.

Sand Foxes.

A great many of them.

They did not charge at once. Instead, they split into smaller groups and used low dunes and scattered rocks as cover. Green eyes appeared and vanished throughout the darkness, constantly shifting around the camp.

Hao Nhien lowered himself behind a rock and watched calmly.

Lanh Hoa beside him barely seemed to breathe, while Luu Thanh drew the bowstring a short distance and released it again to test the tension before settling his grip.

A howl suddenly rose from deeper in the darkness.

Sharp and drawn out, it traveled along the cliffs and returned in several echoes.

The Sand Fox pack attacked.

They did not rush forward in disorder. One group pressed from the left first, forcing the people inside to shift their formation in response. Almost at the same moment, another group began harassing from the right with repeated advances and retreats, while several beasts farther back held positions that restricted escape along the valley.

Whenever one fox was repelled, another filled the gap. Pressure shifted from one side to another with enough coordination that the people inside had almost no time to regain their rhythm.

“There is a King,” Lanh Hoa murmured.

Hao Nhien nodded.

This kind of hunting pattern was far too organized to come from an ordinary pack acting on instinct alone.

The group below responded quickly. They contracted into a smaller circle, with four people guarding the main directions while the others filled the gaps and protected the supplies behind them.

At the very center stood a young woman.

She appeared to be around twenty, dressed in a light brown desert cloak over cleaner, better-made clothing than the rest of the group. A short blade was held in her hand, and her stance showed that she had received combat training, though the grip around the hilt remained somewhat stiff.

More importantly, her position was no coincidence.

The others were actively protecting her.

Whenever the Sand Foxes shifted their attack, the formation moved with them to keep her at the center. Two men even accepted greater pressure on themselves rather than allow an opening to appear near her position.

Hao Nhien noticed the pattern immediately.

She was clearly not an ordinary member of the caravan.

The strongest person below was a tall, silver-bearded middle-aged man wielding a great saber with both hands. His aura had already reached mid Foundation Establishment. Each sweeping strike forced several Sand Foxes back, and he frequently shifted to reinforce whichever part of the formation was beginning to weaken.

There were two other Foundation Establishment cultivators in the group, though their auras were noticeably weaker. Most of the remaining members were at late Qi Condensation.

That was the only reason their formation had held this long.

Even so, Hao Nhien soon realized the Sand Fox pack had not yet committed its full strength.

Lanh Hoa saw it as well.

“The King has not entered the fight.”

Hao Nhien asked,

“It is waiting?”

“For someone weak to expose themselves.”

As if answering his words, the darkness to the right of the fire suddenly shifted.

A gray-gold blur shot forward with astonishing speed.

The Sand Fox King.

It was far larger than the others, nearly three zhang long, with a low but powerful frame. Its gray-gold fur looked dark beneath the firelight, while its green eyes remained cold and unreadable.

Its aura was stronger than Lanh Hoa’s.

Hao Nhien needed only a moment to realize that this was no newly advanced third-rank beast. Its strength was at least comparable to a cultivator at Foundation Establishment layer six, perhaps even touching layer seven.

In a direct contest of raw power, Lanh Hoa would not be its match.

And this valley was the beast’s territory.

The Sand Fox King did not attack the strongest man.

Nor did it choose the shield bearer.

It circled the edge of the formation and targeted a young man already wounded in the shoulder.

At nearly the same moment, the rest of the pack increased pressure from the other two sides, preventing those nearby from turning to help.

The King’s claws swept across.

Blood splashed onto the sand.

The young man cried out as his shoulder was torn open, but the Sand Fox King did not linger. The moment its strike landed, it withdrew beyond the firelight and vanished behind a low dune.

Luu Thanh muttered,

“It knows exactly who to choose.”

“More than that,” Lanh Hoa said, watching the darkness. “It is exhausting the whole formation.”

The King appeared again from another direction less than ten breaths later.

This time it only feinted an attack, forcing two people on the outside to raise their weapons. The moment their formation tilted, the smaller Sand Foxes on the opposite side surged forward.

One man was bitten in the leg and dragged off balance.

Two companions tried to pull him back, but that reaction opened a gap in the line.

The silver-bearded man roared, brought his great saber down to force three Sand Foxes away, then used his shoulder to drive one of his own men back into position.

The formation closed again, but less smoothly than before.

Hao Nhien saw the young woman in the center grit her teeth and step forward half a pace, slashing at the muzzle of a Sand Fox that had slipped through. Her blade only left a shallow wound, but it was enough to make the beast withdraw.

The silver-bearded man shouted,

“Get back!”

She obeyed without argument and returned to the center, though her eyes remained fixed on the people fighting around her.

Hao Nhien noted the reaction.

She was not helpless. Her cultivation simply was not strong enough for a battle like this.

Below, the situation continued to worsen.

A Qi Condensation cultivator was bitten in the calf. The moment he lost his footing, two Sand Foxes pulled him from the formation. The man beside him tried to intervene but was forced back by another wave of attacks.

The scream lasted only a few breaths before disappearing into the darkness.

Luu Thanh tightened his grip on the bow.

Hao Nhien did not turn, but he could sense Wind-affinity spiritual power beginning to gather around the archer’s fingers.

Lanh Hoa’s hand had also settled on the hilt of his saber.

Neither moved without orders.

Both were waiting for Hao Nhien’s decision.

Below, the Sand Fox King struck again.

This time it targeted a young sword cultivator whose arm was already injured. The man managed to raise his sword in time, but the impact still drove him backward nearly a zhang.

The King did not pursue.

It vanished into the darkness as soon as the strike was complete.

Hao Nhien kept his eyes on the place where it had disappeared.

The beast was not merely powerful. It was patient.

Its speed, familiarity with the terrain, and control over the pack were all advantages. If the fight continued this way, the group below would be worn down until they could no longer maintain their formation.

Hao Nhien did not like watching people die.

But he also understood that charging down without first breaking the pack’s hunting pattern would only add three more targets to the battlefield.

If they wanted to save the group, they needed to disrupt the thing controlling the hunt.

“Lanh Hoa,” he asked quietly, “if the King dies, what happens to the pack?”

“Most of them will fall into disorder.”

“Will they retreat?”

“Not necessarily, but their current coordination will break.”

Luu Thanh added in a low voice,

“If we want to hit it, we have to force it to reveal itself. It never stays inside the firelight for more than three breaths.”

Hao Nhien nodded.

He expanded his spiritual awareness and let his Wind affinity follow the currents moving between the cliffs.

The valley curved slightly at this section.

Wind descending from the right slope was compressed downward, collided with the current coming from ahead, and created a brief pocket of turbulence just beyond the edge of the campfire’s glow.

The disturbance was small enough that an ordinary person running through it might never notice.

For a spirit beast moving at extreme speed, however, even a minor shift in airflow could disrupt its footing for an instant.

Hao Nhien watched the Sand Fox King appear twice more.

Each time, it circled from the darkness on the right toward the rear edge of the formation, using the same bend in the valley to conceal its approach.

A pattern had begun to emerge.

He understood what he needed.

“Lanh Hoa.”

“Mm?”

“If the King changes direction and tries to escape up the right slope, stop it. You do not need to kill it. Just force it back toward the valley floor.”

Lanh Hoa drew his curved saber.

“Understood.”

“Luu Thanh, when it appears again, use your Wind affinity to block its retreat to the left. Do not aim at its body. Shoot in front of its path.”

Luu Thanh had already placed an arrow on the string.

“Got it.”

Hao Nhien looked at both men.

“That beast is stronger than any of us in a direct fight, especially on its own ground. No one chases if it pulls away.”

Lanh Hoa nodded, while Luu Thanh’s usual smile was nowhere to be seen.

“Understood.”

Hao Nhien rested one hand on the hilt of the Tieu Dao Sword.

Below, the caravan’s formation contracted once again. The silver-bearded man was breathing harder, the shield bearer on the left could barely raise his arm, and the young woman in the center was using a strip of cloth to bind the wound of someone who had just been dragged back inside.

Then a low howl sounded from behind one of the dunes.

Hao Nhien felt the current shift.

The Sand Fox King appeared again, racing straight toward the section of the valley he had been studying.

Hao Nhien did not draw his sword yet. His eyes remained fixed on the beast as he spoke in a low voice.

“Get ready.”