The journey back from the Verdant Veil was a silent procession, a river of three individuals flowing through the deep, quiet jungle. Leela, at the forefront, was the current, finding the path of least resistance with an instinct born from a thousand similar journeys. Aryan was the stone, moving smoothly in her wake, his own senses and knowledge creating a frictionless passage. Dev, at the rear, was the eddy, a point of constant, swirling hostility that nevertheless followed the main flow.
For Aryan, the journey was an education. He watched how Leela's eyes scanned not constantly the path ahead, but the canopy above and the shadows to the side, anticipating dangers before they manifested.
He noted how Dev's pace never wavered, his feet falling in the exact spots Leela had just vacated, a discipline that minimized their trail and conserved energy. These were the unwritten lessons of the jungle, practical skills that no encyclopedia could ever teach.
They had been walking for an hour when Leela raised a single, gloved hand, bringing the procession to an instant halt. She didn't turn, her gaze fixed on a patch of ground a dozen meters ahead.
Aryan's eyes followed hers. He saw nothing unusual, just a section of the forest floor blanketed in a thick, vibrant green moss, dotted with small, delicate, ivory-colored, bell-shaped flowers. It looked serene, almost picturesque in the deep gloom.
His mind, however, screamed a warning. He cross-referenced the image with the archives he had memorized. Flora identified: Hushmoss. Flower: Siren's Bell.
A symbiotic relationship. The moss releases a soporific spore when disturbed, while the flower's pollen contains a fast-acting neurotoxin. A common but fatal trap for the unwary.
"We go around," Leela said, her voice a low whisper. "To the left. Watch your step. The spores can travel."
She began to move, picking a careful path along the edge of the moss bed. Dev followed, his expression grim, his earlier arrogance replaced by the focused caution of a professional.
Aryan, unprompted, had already begun to move. He had identified the same safe path Leela had chosen, his own analysis yielding the same result. He controlled his breathing, circulating a thin film of Qi to block any stray spores, just as he had with the Dream-Pollen.
His independent, immediate reaction did not go unnoticed. Leela, glancing back to ensure he was following, saw that he was already moving correctly, his posture calm, his breathing controlled. There was a flicker of deep surprise in her jade eyes, visible above her mask. It was one thing to have a secret, powerful technique. It was another thing entirely to possess the deep, practical knowledge of a seasoned survivalist. The story of a single damaged manual was beginning to wear very thin.
They cleared the dangerous patch of ground and continued on. The subsequent silence was heavier, more thoughtful. Dev was no longer just hostile; he was wary. He was beginning to understand that the boy in front of him was not a liability, but an unknown, and in the deep jungle, the unknown was always the most dangerous thing.
Their journey was interrupted again half an hour later. This time, there was no warning. From the dense, leafy canopy above, a blur of emerald green plummeted from the sky. It was a serpent, no thicker than a man's arm but three meters long, its scales shimmering like polished jewels. It moved with the speed of a striking whip, its fangs, dripping a black, viscous venom, aimed directly at Leela's exposed neck.
His mind supplied the data in a cold flash: Glimmerwing Serpent, 6th Layer of the Qi Condensation Realm. An arboreal ambush predator. The black liquid dripping from its fangs, he knew, was a potent hemotoxin.
Leela, focused on the path ahead, was caught in a moment of vulnerability. But her instincts, honed by a thousand such moments, were flawless. She didn't try to turn or dodge completely. She simply dropped, her body collapsing into a low crouch, the serpent's fangs hissing through the air where her head had been.
In that same instant, two things happened.
Twang.
Leela, even as she fell, had drawn and fired her bow in a single, fluid motion, the arrow a streak of green light aimed not at the serpent that had attacked her, but at a different branch to her right.
And from the shadows of that branch, a second Glimmerwing Serpent, the first one's mate, was just launching its own attack, aiming for her exposed flank. Leela's arrow struck it mid-lunge, pinning it writhing and hissing to the tree trunk. She had anticipated the coordinated attack.
But the first serpent, having missed its initial strike, was already coiling, its jeweled head swiveling for a second, fatal bite. Dev, from the rear, was already charging forward, his blades a blur, but he was a fraction of a second too late.