The Stag-Horned Panther moved like a blurred ink blot against the green of the woods. It didn't leap; it surged. The air crackled as the toxic resin on its antlers ignited with a sickly green Qi, aimed straight at Vincy's throat.
"Left foot, pivot! Right hand, guide the flow!" Piet's voice barked in Vincy's mind.
Vincy didn't just dodge; he felt the air resistance against his skin. His body, enhanced by the Star-Core Clover and the density of the Secret Realm, moved with a sudden, jerky fluidness. He slipped under the panther's swipe, the heat of its claws singeing his hair.
"Now, Seraphina!" Vincy yelled.
Seraphina didn't hesitate. Her silver rapier hummed with a crystalline resonance. She didn't strike with brute force; she targeted the "points of truth" she now saw in the world. With a single, elegant thrust, she pierced the panther's shoulder. The silver frost of her new cultivation bloomed from the wound, slowing the beast's movements as its blood began to crystalize.
The beast roared, a sound that shook the leaves from the trees, but it was already trapped. Vincy, guided by Piet, slammed a palm into the panther's flank. A pulse of violet energy—not a strike, but a Spatial Ripple—disrupted the beast's internal organs. With one final, agonizing shriek, the Grade-4 predator collapsed into the moss.
As the duo stood panting over the carcass, a rustle came from a nearby thicket.
"Another one?" Seraphina hissed, her blade instantly snapping toward the sound.
Vincy reached into the storage ring he'd just claimed, pulling out the Soul-Sunder Blade.
"Stay back! We've already killed one of you today!"
Out of the shadows stepped a figure that looked more like a walking pile of laundry than a threat. It was an old man, draped in a robe stained with a thousand different shades of soot and herb-juice. He carried a massive wicker basket on his back, stuffed with bubbling glass vials and half-dried roots.
"Robbers!" Vincy shouted, his voice cracking. "Piet, is he a robber?"
"He looks more like a man who has spent too much time smelling sulfur," Piet observed, though his tone remained cautious.
The old man didn't reach for a weapon. Instead, he pulled out a pair of cracked spectacles and peered at the panther. "Oh, dear. A Grade-4 specimen... ruined. You punctured the gall bladder! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a Stag-Horned gallbladder that hasn't been tainted by silver-frost?"
The man ignored their weapons and knelt by the beast, pulling out a small, curved scalpel. "I am Master Olin," he grumbled, not looking up. "I am out here looking for Gloom-Cap Mushrooms for my latest batch of 'Heaven-Ascension' pills—which, for your information, currently taste like boiled boots. I am not a robber. Robbers have better fashion sense and significantly fewer chemical burns."
Seraphina lowered her sword slightly, though her silver eyes remained narrowed. "An alchemist? Alone in the Neutral Territories? You're either very brave or completely insane."
"Usually both," Olin cackled. He squinted at Vincy, then at the storage rings on the boy's fingers. "You lot have the look of students running from a fire. And those rings... Great River Clan? My, my. You've been busy."
Vincy felt a cold shiver. Did the old man feel Piet? Did he recognize the aura of a fallen Prince?
"Relax, Vincy," Piet whispered. "He's looking at your pockets, not your soul. His spirit-sense is buried under layers of charcoal and failed experiments. To him, you're just a lucky brat with a sharp sword."
Olin stood up, wiping his blood-stained hands on his already filthy robes. "Since you've ruined my harvest of this beast, you owe me. There's a cave two miles north—my workshop. If you help me carry these antlers, I might not tell the next group of 'Shadow-Stalkers' I see which way you went. And," he added with a toothless grin, "I might be able to tell you why those Blood-Ignition Pills in your pocket are actually poisoned."
Vincy and Seraphina exchanged a glance. The wilderness was proving to be just as dangerous as the school—but for very different reasons.