Chapter 30: Encirclement Hunt

The mist was unnaturally thick.

It was so dense she could barely see her fingers when she held out her hand.

Gu Xianwang reached back, groping for Ye Chan’s hand, but grasped only empty air. “Ye Chan?”

“I’m here.” Ye Chan’s voice drifted from somewhere ahead and to the left.

Gu Xianwang’s heart lurched. Her Zhaozi skill—her keen eyesight—was worthless in this fog. The buzzing of wings grew louder, drawing nearer from every direction. In this directionless haze, where forward and backward blurred into one, it felt like stumbling blindly toward a wasp nest.

Long Li’s footsteps had faded into silence. Gu Xianwang licked her dry lips, tamping down the restless anxiety churning in her chest, and shuffled two steps toward Ye Chan’s voice.

She moved with agonizing slowness, terrified of springing some hidden trap. But the droning hum was overwhelming, like a vast swarm blotting out the sky above. She still couldn’t see a thing. Cold sweat beaded on her temples and trickled down. Her fingers tightened on the hilt of her waist knife.

Without warning, a beam of light lanced out from straight ahead, stabbing right into her eyes before sweeping downward. Gu Xianwang blinked on reflex. Then, from the roiling fog, an arm shot forward and clamped around her wrist.

She jolted. “Who’s there?”

“Shh.” Long Li yanked her close.

Gu Xianwang’s hair swayed with the motion, and something insectile thudded into the strands. Tiny wings fluttered against her scalp for a heartbeat before it buzzed away.

She whipped her head around in horror—only to meet endless white nothing.

The sensation was nightmarish, like being blindfolded for execution by a thousand cuts, with no clue when the next slice would fall.

Long Li swept her flashlight in a slow arc. Moments later, Ye Chan and Sara materialized from the gloom, their silhouettes vague and spectral, like phantoms exchanging uneasy glances.

Sara smacked her lips in disgust. “What the hell is making that noise? Shit, I can’t see a damn thing.”

Ye Chan’s voice trembled. “I-I just glimpsed one. It looked like a cicada, but huge—like a hornet. Pitch-black, with patterns on its back.”

A cicada with patterns on its back?

Gu Xianwang and Long Li traded a loaded glance. Fly gu from the karst cave. Some must have survived.

From the relentless buzzing, there were far more of them out here than inside.

Gu Xianwang took a step back, her expression darkening. “Those are fly gu, bred by the mountain folk. They might be after me.”

Sara had dealt with fly gu eggs before and wasn’t fazed. She shot Gu Xianwang a skeptical look. “After you? Why? Did they tag you with something?”

Gu Xianwang pressed her lips together, at a loss for words. Her bizarre constitution was inextricably linked to the Forbidden Witch Bone, but she couldn’t let that slip. “I ran into them in the karst cave earlier. Got swarmed by the adults.”

“Tch.” Sara rolled her eyes. “Is that all? Can you drop the main character act for once? These bugs go after anything that moves. Who hasn’t been dive-bombed? That black-furred spider we tangled with was the real killer—with its venom—”

Before she could finish, two fly gu burst through the mist barrier, hurtling straight at them. Long Li’s hand flashed out like lightning. In an eyeblink, her dagger cleaved both insects in half.

The severed fly gu halves splattered to the ground, wings still twitching spasmodically. Ye Chan couldn’t help herself—she stomped down hard. A sickening crunch echoed.

The squelchy give underfoot turned her stomach. She rubbed her arms vigorously and drew in a sharp breath. “Hey, do you smell something rotten?”

Gu Xianwang froze, sniffing cautiously at herself. Nothing.

Sara’s nose was sharper than a bloodhound’s. The gesture irked her; she’d caught whiffs of Gu Xianwang’s perfume long ago. Showy stuff—lingered forever. What brand was that, anyway? And now she was putting on airs.

“What else? That bug you squashed. Stinks like a fart beetle.”

Long Li hadn’t uttered a word throughout, her brow furrowed as she scanned the murk. Gu Xianwang picked up on her tension. “Have you tracked the fly gu by sound?”

Long Li’s gaze shifted back to her, heavy with grim certainty. “We’re surrounded.”

For a moment, none of the three spoke.

Sara yanked her hood down and zipped her jacket tight. “Fuck it. Who cares? Let’s just bull-rush out of here. Bugs, right?”

Her outer layer offered some protection. The other three were down to short sleeves.

Long Li shook her head. “Visibility’s shot right now. Charging blind could land us in another trap. If we get separated, finding each other again will be next to impossible.”

“So now what? Just waiting for the bugs to have their feast?”

Gu Xianwang said to Long Li, “Why don’t you take the lead and light the way with that strong flashlight? We’ll follow your beam.”

“The battery’s running low. It might not last until the fog lifts.”

Left didn’t work, right didn’t work. Ye Chan said dispiritedly, “Why is even heaven taking their side?”

Gu Xianwang felt a chill seep into her like iced water. She suspected this eerie fog wasn’t heaven’s doing at all, but something deliberately conjured by scheming hands.

In the silence, the fly gu worms around them suddenly grew agitated. Their buzzing turned chaotic. Moments later, seven or eight burst through the fog and flew straight at Gu Xianwang.

She had anticipated as much. Her waist knife whipped into motion at once. Fortunately, she had kept some distance from the other three—two steps away. She had already figured out the fly gu worms’ attack pattern back in the karst cave: no poison, just bites that hurt like hell.

She swatted four or five from the air but had no time to crush them underfoot. Twisting around, she called out, “This isn’t sustainable!”

But when she turned, even she was stunned. Over a dozen fly gu worms were charging out of the mist from every direction, like headless flies. They pounced on anything that moved, friend or foe.

What the hell? Weren’t they supposed to be homing in on just her?

Ye Chan flailed her knife wildly. “Fuck, fuck! Have these bugs gone mad?”

More fly gu worms were closing in from the surroundings. The wall of white fog was growing mottled with black spots, like ink bleeding across paper.

Long Li clamped down on Ye Chan’s hand and snatched away her dagger. “Get down!”

Then she spun around the three of them, slashing with blinding speed. Gu Xianwang had thought her own strikes against those two fly gu worms earlier were quick, but they were nothing compared to this. Wherever Long Li’s eyes went, her blade followed. The flashing white edge wove a net of razor-sharp light—like a web of lightning—shielding Ye Chan within.

Sara’s movements were equally precise, honed from countless real battles with no wasted motion. Their seamless coordination lightened the load on Gu Xianwang considerably. It also stirred something complicated in her, a feeling she couldn’t quite place.

But that vague emotion didn’t linger. A sudden flurry of flapping erupted overhead, echoing the bird calls startled by gunfire back in the woods.

Caw—caw—

Crows?

Crows didn’t live in rainforests like this.

Still wondering, Gu Xianwang watched a massive black-feathered bird burst from the fog, circling with wings spread wide as it dove straight at her. At first glance, it looked ninety percent like that myna bird called Xizi—but a full size larger, with blood-red eyes.

Its beak was long, sharp, and hooked. One snap from that would hit harder than the village geese. Gu Xianwang dropped low to evade. A gust of wind brushed her back as the bird reared up, parted its beak, and snatched a fly gu worm midair. With two crisp crunches, it swallowed the thing whole.

Ye Chan peeked through her fingers, dumbfounded, then whooped in delight. “The bugs’ natural predator! Fuck yeah, heaven really does leave a path!”

Sara faltered midstep, baffled. “Do all the birds around here have stomachs of steel? Eating gu worms?”

Gu Xianwang wasn’t so optimistic. Old Dog’s relayed message still echoed in her mind—this bird was no ordinary creature. Old Stick had once mentioned discovering something in his trap only because Xizi had tipped him off. Mountain folk raised gu worms, and myna birds ate gu worms. It formed a complete breeding chain.

Old Stick and these mountain folk were undoubtedly connected. They were probably just an outpost halfway up the slope.

In those two seconds of distraction, pain lanced across the wound on her neck. She slapped instinctively, sending two fly gu worms tumbling away.

Damn it.

After a night of rest, she had almost forgotten what a bite felt like. If a bullet ant’s sting was like getting shot through, then a fly gu worm’s bite was like fire cauterizing flesh—a searing, roasting agony.

She hissed through gritted teeth and scanned their surroundings. The fog seemed to be thinning. The fly gu worms weren’t swarming as thickly anymore; they flew in scattered bursts. But that might not be good news.

Because now, dozens of enormous black-feathered mynas perched among the branches of the surrounding trees. All of them fixed their blood-red eyes on the women in unison.

Long Li hauled Ye Chan to her feet. An eerie standoff gripped both sides.

It felt just like the heavy stillness before a storm.

Long Li’s expression remained utterly grave. The instant the birds’ wings began to beat, she barked, “Run!”

Flutter, flutter—

Countless wings beat the air, sending scattered feathers drifting to the ground. In that instant, it was like releasing white doves in a city square—except one symbolized peace, while the other heralded death.

The flock of black-feathered mynas darted swiftly through the trees. Though large in body, they were agile beyond belief. Ye Chan lagged behind the rest, a living target if ever there was one. She twisted her head for a glance as she ran, only to see a myna hurtling straight toward her back. She couldn’t dodge in time and flailed her arms wildly behind her.

Yet the myna veered sharply at the last moment, skimming past her head. Its long beak plunged straight into Sara’s shoulder up ahead. Ye Chan watched in horror as the bird tore through Sara’s jacket, ripping open a gash. The myna’s talons dug into Sara’s back for purchase, its head snapping back to yank free a small, bloody chunk of flesh.

“Fuck!” Sara hissed through the pain, her feet never faltering as she snarled, “These damn birds hit like bullets—we’re just sitting ducks!”

She wasn’t wrong. The birds’ tactics differed entirely from the fly gu. They massed and circled overhead, swooping down with the advantage of altitude. Taking one out while running flat out was damn near impossible.

In the midst of the chaos, Long Li pulled alongside Gu Xianwang. “Run straight ahead and stop at thirty meters.”

Gu Xianwang surged forward, with Long Li right on her heels. Long Li’s ear twitched faintly as she tracked the whir of wings through the air. Roughly ten meters out, she slammed to a halt and whipped around. Her hand lashed out like lightning, clamping onto a palm-sized myna. This one was smaller than the rest, its eyes glowing with an eerie golden light.

Gu Xianwang skidded to a stop at the thirty-meter mark and glanced back. Long Li held the little myna aloft, as if issuing a challenge to the flock. In response, every circling bird in the vicinity dropped to the branches, filling the air with a raucous chorus of caws.

The others hadn’t yet grasped Long Li’s intent when her gaze turned icy. Her fingers crushed inward in a flash, accompanied by a faint crack. The myna’s neck collapsed inward—its cervical vertebrae shattered clean through.