Chapter 50: Axe’s & Oshan dew

Just as he was about to throw his blood-poison shell, a sudden shadow engulfed him.

In a blink, a heavy body pressed him down, hurling him a few meters downward from the high cliff in quick succession.

"Fuck! Who—?" He was about to curse, but his mouth was sealed tight.

The loose shale gave way with a dry rattle. The grip on his mouth clutched like iron nails.

Oshan didn’t even have time to turn his head. A heavy, solid weight slammed into his back.

"Hiss," a voice rasped against his ear—raw, deep, and low. A faint smell of rusty iron and gunpowder invaded Oshan’s nostrils.

"Mmph!" His breath hitched, his eyes widening in shock.

In this continent, very few people could track him like this without him finding out. He had survived to this day not only with his hunter skills and the secret abilities of his Bruce hunter clan, but also because of his stealthy shadow-traversing method.

He whacked his elbow behind him, only to be grabbed and pinned. The other man hurled a hard punch onto his back.

The breath blasted out of his lungs in a sharp wheeze.

Desperate, Oshan back-kicked hard, his boot striking a solid torso.

The heavy weight on his back loosened just enough for him to twist his body around.

As he turned, he threw a fierce, blind punch.

The stranger caught Oshan’s fist midair, but the sheer force of the turnaround threw them both off balance.

They rolled off the crumbling ledge.

Both of them hit the flat top of the hanging boulder together, skidding through wet grit and bird droppings.

The boulder tilted an inch beneath them, groaning against the cliff face where its roots met the cracked slate.

Below the rim, there was nothing but a four-hundred-foot drop into the black mist of the gorge and the gorge scavengers.

Just a little more, and they would both fall on top of them, right into the mouth of death.

"What the fuck are you doing, Axe?" Oshan hissed through his teeth.

"Oho! You know my name." Axe’s voice held no urgency at all.

His leisure was suddenly cut off as Oshan thrust hard into the wound on Axe’s shoulder with his palm, ripping the flesh open. A black-silver glint flashed from the little hidden blade between his fingers.

Axe grunted, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second.

That was all Oshan needed.

He twisted his hips, throwing his entire body weight over Axe, pinning Axe’s chest against the stone, and driving his forearm straight into his throat.

Crack.

The boulder beneath them violently tilted another inch.

More loose slate rattled over the edge, raining down on the scavengers below.

They tilted their heads up, but turned around like nothing was up there.

Axe was cornered against the very edge of the abyss, his head hanging over the four-hundred-foot drop.

His gray eyes narrowed as the wind whistled past his ears.

Oshan’s free hand blurred, pulling the red-tipped poison pin out of nowhere, aiming it straight for Axe’s eye.

But Axe’s reflexes were still fast.

Even with his throat compressed, his hand shot up from the side, clamping around Oshan’s wrist like an iron grip.

The red tip stopped just a millimeter away from Axe’s pupil.

The boulder groaned again.

"Cut the crap," Axe hissed.

"You don’t want to be those scavengers’ food, do you?"

Axe’s gray eyes were hollow, rimmed with red exhaustion, but the grip on Oshan’s wrist was uncompromised.

Oshan looked into those cold, hard gray eyes and remembered how this little cub had managed to sneak-attack him, a veteran, matured hunter.

His resolve to kill him wavered.

Oshan knew exactly who this man was.

To him, these five brothers were always pathetic little cubs waiting to be slaughtered—until three days ago, when Alisa sent an urgent message to track them down.

He knew they were not as simple as they had seemed before.

Axe cursed through his teeth. "Damn it, we will fall in a few moments, you old rat."

"Heh! A pack dog has some guts, I see..." Oshan taunted in a low voice.

He kicked out with both heavy boots, slamming his heels hard against the inner cliff wall to shove their combined weight backward.

The stone tipped forward another sickening inch.

Small pebbles rained down into the dark.

"Move again," Axe breathed, his chest heaving, "and I’ll throw you off this rock."

Oshan stared up. "Still got teeth," he wheezed, his mouth curling into a smirk. "Thought you and your runts were rotting at the bottom of the falls."

Axe smiled. His gray eyes fluttered with a silver glint. "Who sent you? Speak before this rock slides."

"Does it even matter when we are basically hanging on death’s door?" Oshan grunted.

Axe turned his head slightly, looking at the ferocious beasts under the cliff.

He cursed under his breath.

"Damn it, let’s finish the trouble first."

"Looking for a hand? You could have asked nicely earlier. Your style is not appealing, boy." Oshan moved out slowly.

His fingers still held the hidden blade.

The boulder rumbled again.

"You were also looking for that crack, weren’t you?" Axe asked, his eyes fixed on Oshan’s ragged and wounded face.

Three big cuts were still fresh on his jaw, reminiscent of the wild hounds and ice bears of the north.

This man was not simple.

"So were you. How will you deal with the scavengers?" Oshan didn’t elaborate.

Now that everything was out in the open, there was no need to hide.

Axe reached down, unhooking the weapon from his belt.

A machete glinted in his grip.

The dark light on the edge was coated with something transparent—invisible, yet something was there.

"Just this?" Oshan scoffed, though his eyes flickered with admiration. As a hunter, he loved the raw feeling this weapon gave off.

"They are not your pack dolls." He pointed to the beasts down the cliff.

"Try it, you will know." Axe smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Oshan looked at the thin, sharp, and dark blade edge and didn’t argue more.

"Jump or slide?"

"Jump."

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