The mountain night stretched long and merciless. Lin Yan dared not let his campfire burn too long—after his clothes had dried and a trace of warmth returned to his limbs, he smothered the flames carefully with dirt, leaving only a faint ember struggling in the dark. Huddled in a crevice, dagger in hand, he strained to catch every sound—the wind, insects, the whisper of falling leaves. The assassins' parting words—"Dead or alive, we bring back his body"—coiled around his thoughts like venomous snakes. Sleep never came.
At first light, he was on his feet.
He avoided open paths entirely, sinking deeper into the forest's green maze. When thirst came, he drank from trickling brooks; hunger, he quieted with dry rations and a few bitter berries. He moved like a wounded wolf through foreign hills, driven by one instinct only: to stay hidden, and to keep heading west.
But he had underestimated his pursuers.
On the second day, as he crept along a dry riverbed, a faint metal-on-stone scrape pricked through the stillness—small, deadly, deliberate.
In that instant, his skin went cold.
He threw himself flat, rolling into a clump of fern.
A heartbeat later—whizz!—a crossbow bolt screamed past where his head had been, burying itself deep in the trunk across the ravine. The shaft quivered like a living thing.
They had found him.
And this time, they meant to kill.
Lin Yan froze, sweat chilling his spine. Peering through the ferns, he spotted the glint of steel thirty paces upstream—a man in gray battle garb stepping from behind a boulder, a military crossbow aimed down the ravine, eyes sharp as a hawk's.
"Quick little bastard!" the man rasped, his tone mocking. "Come out and I'll make it painless!"
No movement. Lin Yan's mind raced. Only one? No—soft rustles answered from his flank and rear. Two more closing in. The trap was complete.
Three killers. One dagger. A battered body.
The math was hopeless.
"Search the fern patch!" barked the crossbowman, taking aim to seal the exit.
The other two drew blades, advancing carefully, parting the foliage inch by inch.
Death loomed so near that Lin Yan could feel the blood pounding in his temples. Not here. Not yet.
His eyes darted, hunting for anything—anything—that could tilt the odds. Then he saw it: beside a rotted tree root overturned by wild boar lay a patch of bright red mushrooms, dotted with white.
Poison caps.
The idea that sparked was reckless—insane—but it was all he had.
One blade sliced closer, rustling fern fronds a mere hand's breadth away.
Lin Yan inhaled once, coiled, and exploded from cover—not at the attackers, but toward the rotting tree root!
The sudden move startled all three. The crossbowman twisted to aim; the others swung reflexively.
Before the first strike could land, Lin Yan scooped a handful of dirt and fungi and flung it backward in a wild arc.
The poisonous red fragments burst through the air like thrown ashes.
"Watch out—poison!"
Both swordsmen jerked back instinctively, shielding their faces.
That heartbeat of hesitation was enough. Lin Yan rolled forward, came up on one knee, and slashed low—his dagger carving across the crossbowman's calf.
"Aah!"
The man howled, staggered, and fired by reflex. The bolt grazed Lin Yan's shoulder, drawing a streak of blood.
He didn't stop. Twisting under the man's legs, he bolted downstream—into the thickest part of the forest.
"It's the damned mushrooms! After him!"
Shouts and footfalls thundered behind him.
Lin Yan ran as if the mountains themselves were chasing him, lungs burning, every heartbeat a drum of survival.
Pain flared from his wound; his breath turned metallic. But he only ran faster, veering between trees to break the line of sight.
The crossbowman didn't follow—the wound had crippled him—and the others, wary of more "poison tricks," lost precious seconds.
Seconds that meant life.
He tore through a tangle of vines and thorns, plunging into the shadowed heart of the woods until the sounds behind him faded. Still, he knew it wouldn't last. These men were professionals. They would regroup. They would track again.
Exhausted, he climbed a slope, scanning desperately for refuge.
And then—faintly, across the valley—he saw it: light.
Not the scattered glimmer of a village, but a concentrated glow, pulsing with the clang of metal.
Blacksmiths? At this hour?
The memory of the map flared in his mind. This direction… this distance… Could it be—?
A new surge of adrenaline coursed through him. He changed course, heading for the lights.
Maybe it wasn't Blackwater Fort yet, but if people lived there, he might blend in—might vanish again into the crowd.
He stumbled down the slope, every step a jolt of pain, the sounds of pursuit once more echoing faintly behind him.
He looked back at the forest—dark, endless, hungry—and something hard flickered in his eyes.
Then he ran, toward the light, toward the unknown.
He did not know whether those flames meant safety…
or the mouth of a greater hell awaiting him.