The Author's Viewpoint-Chapter 139 - The Wolves Hunt Back

Tave stayed in his demon form. He had to, this form pushed everything to the edge: speed, stealth, awareness. It was the only way he could keep moving like this, like the ground itself wasn’t enough to hold him down.

But what surprised him even more was Panpan.

Even now, she matched his pace.

No hesitation. No struggle. Just focus. Just running.

That’s all either of them could do. Run.

Then her voice came, clear and calm even through the breathless pace.

"Tave, should we split up or stay together?"

He didn’t need to ask how she knew about Tave’s disguise. By now, there was no point hiding it. The Soul Fire. His Relic. The way he moved. The way he spoke. It was all him.

Tave glanced back, just for a second.

"We stay together," he said. "It’ll be worse if you’re alone in this forest. Fang’s with us now. He’ll help clear our path."

They crashed through the treeline, finally reaching the cover of the woods.

Tave forced his legs to keep going, leaping, dodging trees, darting through the undergrowth like a shadow. He checked Panpan’s position, she was still there, keeping up flawlessly.

"Wait... didn’t you say the Elite Demon could track Fang? How are we supposed to escape from them?"

Tave focused forward, remembering the moment back in the prison.

"Fang is Tier 4 now," he answered.

He turned to her again. Panpan gave a single nod, silently taking it in.

Fang had ascended the moment that prison guard fell. He’d pushed himself beyond his limits, and with it, more of his power had awakened.

And right now, that power was saving them.

From the shadows ahead, where Fang was running at the front, something emerged, more wolves.

Tall as grown humans, shadows in beast form. One after another, they split from the darkness and scattered through the forest in every direction.

Fang’s new ability, Shadow Clones.

Dozens of them.

All sprinting away, splintering into different paths.

"They’ll chase those," Tave said, lowering his voice. "We stay in stealth. Fang’s better at it now, and his clones will draw them off. That gives us space, enough to run, hide, or start taking them down one by one."

It wasn’t a perfect plan. But it was more than they’d had minutes ago.

Tave kept scanning every movement around them. The flying demons circling above on winged beasts, and the scattered search teams tearing through the forest floor. Every branch that snapped, every shift in the wind, he read it all.

But the real threat stayed in the sky.

The Elite Demon.

Faster. Smarter. Deadlier. Likely armed with advanced detection abilities.

Still, the longer Tave and Panpan stayed in stealth, the more he realized something important. They weren’t being found. Not easily. That meant their plan was working.

The demons were losing focus.

Driven by rage and confusion, they’d split up, becoming sloppy. They were too angry at the chaos Tave had caused, too desperate to prove themselves. Now they were scattered, reckless, and exposed.

Then. A loud thump shook the canopy above them.

Wings. Massive. Flapping hard. One of the flying beasts dove through the trees, wings slicing the air as it came straight toward their position.

Tave’s decision came instantly.

"Panpan," he said, "we take this one down."

No hesitation. Panpan already had her bow in hand. She slid to a stop, aimed upward between the trees.

Fang darted ahead, leaping into the branches with speed that almost blurred his shape. Panpan loosed an arrow, silent, fast, perfect. It sliced through the leaves and found its mark.

The demon let out a grunt as the arrow hit its shoulder.

Fang pounced mid-air, his shadow-wrapped form striking like a black bolt. He crashed into the demon, knocking him off balance. The beast and rider crashed into the trees.

Branches cracked. Leaves exploded in all directions.

Before the demon could recover, Fang struck again from above.

Tave rushed in, his Relic igniting with dark Fire as he dashed forward. Panpan followed, loosing two more arrows in rapid succession.

In seconds, slashes, fangs, and steel hit their mark.

Tave’s blade drove straight through the demon’s throat.

Fang’s claws ripped open his chest.

An arrow landed squarely in his eye.

One down.

No pause. No time to celebrate.

They bolted again, fading back into the trees.

Move. Move. Kill fast. Disappear faster.

The demons were still dazed. Still under the influence of the brew. And the Lunaris Bloom made everything foggier, made them weaker than they should’ve been.

It was a rare advantage.

And Tave and Panpan were using it for all it was worth.

The demon forces had scattered across the forest, dozens of them earlier. At first, they were just hunting Tave. But now, it was clear. Their mission had changed.

They had to catch Tave and Panpan.

They believed spreading out would block every escape route, forming a wide net to trap them both. But that was their biggest mistake.

Because Tave, Panpan, and Fang weren’t running blindly, they were moving like ghosts.

They darted between trees, slipping through shadows with deadly precision.

Each time they struck, it was the same: fast, silent, and final.

A blur in the dark, then a blade to the throat. A claw in the back, followed by a quiet fall. An arrow through the skull, before the target even sensed danger.

Tave and Fang were built for this. They were killers in the dark. Silent assassins. Shadow-strikers who didn’t need numbers or brute force, just timing, speed, and silence.

Panpan completed them. Her camouflage, her mobility, and her accuracy made her the perfect ranged support. She moved like water between cover, firing arrows that barely made a sound, until they struck something vital.

Together, the three of them were a nightmare in motion.

While the demon army flailed through the woods, shouting orders and stomping through branches, Tave, Fang, and Panpan carved a path through them, one kill at a time.

They didn’t fight the entire army.

They broke it, piece by scattered piece.

Five kills. Five.

That alone was a huge win.

Tave, Panpan, and Fang had torn through the scattered demon ranks like precision tools. Strike, vanish, repeat. But even more than the kills, what mattered was what Tave felt now.

A pulsing surge in his chest.

Harder. Louder. Hotter than before.

His body buzzed with power, raw, rising energy building fast.

He was about to level up again.

But there was no time to sit, no time to focus and meditate to absorb Gaia Force the usual way. Not here. Not while running.

So leveled up while sprinting for his life.

He reached out, grabbed Panpan’s hand. She glanced at him, just once, and instantly understood.

Tave shut his eyes for half a second, tuning into everything, the air, the energy, the elemental particles swirling around them. He forced his body to draw them in. Every breath, every step, syncing with the flow of Gaia itself.

It was insane.

But the adrenaline, the chaos, the desperation. It all sharpened him to a blade’s edge.

And then.

[ You have advanced to Level 29. ]

It hit like a shockwave through his body.

Tave opened his eyes, just as Panpan suddenly stopped beside him.

He stopped too. Instantly.

They knew.

The air shifted.

One demon landed in front of them, slamming to the ground in a burst of force. Another landed behind. The third dropped silently to their side.

Surrounded.

Two of them had wings, twitching as they flexed.

These weren’t random grunts.

This just got serious.