Chapter 174: Nothing But Schemes

At dawn the next day, Elena watched Yuir vanish into a hollow tree. When the panther failed to emerge, she guessed it had chosen the hollow as a temporary den and hurried back to inform her brother.

The White Dragon Lord nodded and turned to his elite force of roughly a hundred troops, all itching for action.

"Move out! Stick to the plan."

"Understood!"

Led by the Ogre chieftain, the long-waiting elite force marched into the jungle, while Amos and Elena took to the sky.

Willy and Felicia remained behind to guard the camp.

High above, the White Dragon Lord circled among the clouds, keeping a close eye on the advancing troops through the gaps in the forest canopy.

This force represented the absolute best of the monster army. Every one of the hundred soldiers was a handpicked elite, all at least High Tier professionals, with spellcasters making up half their number.

Cloaked by magic, these spellcasters would creep up on the Nether Panther. The instant the White Dragon Lord struck, they would cast Light from pre-calculated angles across a thousand-meter radius, stripping the battlefield of a single shadow while simultaneously cutting off the panther's escape routes.

Timing their approach perfectly, the White Dragon's forces closed in on Yuir's hollow tree right at high noon, when the sun blazed directly overhead.

Invisibility Spell! Silent Barrier!

The elite troops silently formed a ring around the tree and gradually tightened their net.

Inside the hollow, Yuir snapped awake from a deep slumber, raising its head to peer warily into the forest.

The forest insects chirped exactly as before, and not a single enemy shadow could be seen. Still, the panther's primal instincts screamed that danger was closing in.

Here on Kumlinge, only one creature could make it feel so threatened.

'Damn it! Why won't he just leave me alone!'

Yuir rose to its feet. Muscles coiled tight, it locked its eyes on the opening, ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

Suddenly, a sharp birdcall echoed from overhead. Every hair on Yuir's body stood on end as if jolted by an electric current.

The instant the bird chirped, the entire forest surrounding the hollow blazed with blinding light.

Yuir tried to trigger its shadow leap but was forced to abort. The ability had a maximum range of a hundred meters, yet every shadow within a thousand-meter radius had been completely scrubbed away.

Even before the signal call, the White Dragon Lord had caught Elena's cue and dove from the clouds, Dragon Breath already churning in his throat.

He hit the forest canopy right as the bird chirped, unleashing a torrential stream of icy blue Dragon Breath.

The seventy-meter-tall tree was swallowed whole by the freezing blast. In an instant, the entire trunk was encased in thick frost, heavy icicles dangling sharply from its branches.

Feeling the terrifying surge of energy above, Yuir held nothing back, instantly vanishing into a cloud of black mist.

The White Dragon Lord watched the black mist reform a hundred meters away, entirely unsurprised.

Their last skirmish had taught him that the Nether Panther could conjure black mist to teleport short distances, but the technique took a massive toll on its stamina. Four jumps at most, and Yuir would be completely drained.

Four jumps wouldn't be nearly enough to breach his elite forces' perimeter.

The White Dragon Lord cut off his breath attack, tucked his wings, and plummeted straight onto the frozen tree.

His massive bulk slammed into the frozen, brittle canopy.

Crack! Crunch!

At the explosive sound of shattering ice, Yuir sprinted forward in a desperate frenzy, not even daring to look back.

Just then, the sinister Gurgalu lunged from behind a thick trunk, swinging a massive Spiked Club straight at the speeding panther's face.

Scared out of its wits at the sight of the oncoming Spiked Club, Yuir dropped to its belly and slid right beneath the swing.

The Spiked Club whistled through the air, barely grazing the Nether Panther's sleek black fur.

Carried by its own momentum, the panther skidded ungracefully across the dirt.

Having completely pulverized the frozen tree, the White Dragon Lord folded his wings atop the pile of ice shards. His massive, twenty-meter-long body charged straight at Yuir, who had barely made it a hundred meters.

Yuir dug its sharp claws into the earth, carving deep furrows to forcibly halt its slide. Just as it scrambled to its feet—

A High Tier gnoll hunter perched in the branches above cast a massive weighted net down toward the beast.

Still off balance, the Nether Panther couldn't generate the leverage to accelerate. Worse, several spells shot in from all directions, perfectly sealing off every escape route.

Left with no choice as the net and spells descended, Yuir vanished into a cloud of black mist once more.

The net, alongside curses of Weakness and Daze, struck thin air. Crossing the hundred-meter gap in just a few massive strides, the White Dragon Lord's lunge also met nothing but empty space.

The Nether Panther reappeared another hundred meters out, looking utterly wretched. Its normally immaculate black coat was coated in dirt and littered with crushed grass.

But survival left no time for vanity. The beast dug its paws in and resumed its frantic sprint.

The White Dragon Lord could easily see the toll those two consecutive leaps had taken. Yuir was already panting heavily.

The forces of White Castle swelled with confidence. If they could just force out a third jump, the Nether Panther wouldn't be able to escape even if it sprouted wings.

The White Dragon Lord relentlessly gave chase through the forest. With a body over twenty meters long, each massive stride ate up the distance, rapidly closing the gap.

Robbed of its shadow leap, the Nether Panther was a tiger without its teeth. No longer fearing instant death, the High Tier professionals boldly surged forward to block Yuir's path.

Yuir was still nearly seven hundred meters away from the edge of the illuminated zone. There was no way it was making it out.

The White Dragon Lord could practically taste victory.

Suddenly, Yuir burst through a line of blocking subordinates. It gained a small burst of distance, then whipped its head back to viciously glare at the White Dragon—who was now less than fifty meters away.

'Huh?! You still dare glare at me!'

Sensing something was off, the White Dragon Lord immediately pushed himself to top speed.

But once again, he pounced and caught nothing.

Amos ignored the dissipating black mist he had just crashed through, scanning the surroundings, but the black panther was nowhere to be found.

'Where did it go?!'

Startled, the White Dragon Lord rapidly cast his mental perception outward. A hundred meters directly underground, he sensed a frantically fleeing figure.

'An underground tunnel?!'

Sprinting furiously down a sloped tunnel, Yuir shuddered with lingering terror. Thank goodness it had chosen that specific tree hollow to rest in out of pure caution after feeling someone watching it.

Four hundred meters from the hollow lay a subterranean cave, entirely obscured by vegetation.

Yuir had originally planned to use its shadow leap to effortlessly reach the cave, but it had entirely underestimated the White Dragon Lord's ruthlessness. The dragon had mobilized an army of spellcasters to bathe a full thousand-meter radius in Light, leaving absolutely zero blind spots.

The tunnel went incredibly deep. Even Yuir, who had stumbled upon the cave by chance, had never dared explore its depths. But right now, it had no time to worry about that—it just kept running.

Back on the surface, the White Dragon Lord and his subordinates surrounded a narrow sinkhole just barely wide enough for two people to pass through at once, their expressions incredibly grim.