The Spirit Animal

The team's quick departure might have been a mistake.

As if sensing the timidity of the group of humans, the green light dots in the darkness moved quickly and came near a few moments later.

Gu Qianqian and Li Xiaochun looked back when heard the sound behind, they warned in a low voice, "Attention, everyone! Prepare for battle!"

With the words ended, the figures of seven wolves appeared into their sight, seven wolves whose bodies were twice size of the ordinary wolves.

Facing the fourteen warriors with swords, the seven wolves looked kind of timid. Suddenly, a long howling of wolf came behind them, which made the seven wolves showed a bloodthirsty look, roared and rushed up towards the team.

Wei Gaoyuan was closest to the wolves, he struck over the first wolf rushing in front with one sword strike. Behind him more than ten teammates had rushed back to join the battle. When shooting his sword to stab the second wolf, he found a small green wolf slowly walking out from the trees behind.

This green wolf, smaller than the ordinary wolf, had a pair of bright eyes, bright as eyes of human beings. It stared at Wei Gaoyuan, growling, showing its sharp teeth.

Wei Gaoyuan had felt the unique pressure from the extraordinary green wolf, staring at it warily.

Staring at him for a moment, the green Wolf moved abruptly like an arrow and shot itself to Wei Gaoyuan as a green lightning.

Wei Gaoyuan wielded the sword to swipe the neck of the green wolf, and the blade touched its front paw for defending, making a harsh sound of friction between metals, with the first round ending, they immediately got more than ten feet apart.

Green Wolf once again gave a low roar, with its front paw holding the ground. It looked like suffering no damage at all, the sword unexpectedly failed to cut its paw — was its paw made of steel as his sword? Wei Gaoyuan asked himself in surprise.

The green Wolf didn't give him much time to think more. With a low growl, it shot its body forward, clawing at Wei Gaoyuan's face. With the sword in hand, Wei Gaoyuan stabbed the green Wolf's neck with at least 90% of all strength. He believed, no one below the stage of the Mystery could defend this strike. However, the green wolf suddenly turned over its body, changed the direction of his paw-strike to directly pat the blade, a clear clatter of metals, the sword was slammed aside. The man and the wolf were apart again after a short second-round fight.

Two rounds between the warrior and the wolf, an even result.

Seeming to be aware of each other's power, both sides didn't continue to act rashly, staring at each other quietly and motionlessly. At the same time on the other battle fields, Gu Qianqian and Li Xiaochun had killed a wolf and rushed to help other teammates.

All of a sudden, the green wolf threw back its head and gave a long howl, then jumped back with an unwillingness in its eyes. Wei Gaoyuan quickly took this opportunity to hack at the green wolf's back body from the side.

With a fine rolling on the ground, the green wolf evaded it without much difficulty and did not intend to stay fighting anymore, turning to run into the darkness in woods behind. At the same time, the remaining six wolves took the chance to retreat quickly in order after the green wolf. Moments later, there were nothing left on the battle field but a dead wolf and the people gasping for breath.

Of the left six wolves, there were two who had got severe injuries, yet no one tried to stop their retreat.

After all of the wolves disappearing in sight, everyone uttered a sigh of relief, a teenager with a childish face threw himself onto the ground and looked where the wolves disappeared, "I just wonder…why did they choose to retreat?"

"I guess, they've perceived that the overall strength of their team is not so strong as ours…" Li Xiaochun said. "The wolf is very crafty…with high intelligence. The leader of them… that green wolf…after rounds of fighting with Gaoyuan, found itself could hardly win out. Had it chosen to continue fighting, the wolves, the rest of its team, might have suffered heavy casualties…"

"So that's it!" the childish face teenager clapped his hand with a look of enlightenment.

As his words ended, a wolf howl suddenly came from the distance in the darkness, which seemed to be a scream of pain, everyone looked at the direction of the sound, but nothing could be seen.

"Just keep moving..." Li Xiaochun turned and walked towards he opposite direction where the wolves ran away.

...

Another day had passed, few of the youngsters from Qizhou City had experienced such a tough jungle life, therefore, the whole team fell into occasional silence, exhaustion written on everyone's face.

At noon on the third day, a clear stream appeared in their sight. The whole team broke into cheers and rushed to the bank. Some held water in their hands and rubbed it hard on their faces; some just directly buried their faces in the stream and gulped a few mouthfuls of cool water, then revealed a look of full satisfaction.

Wei Gaoyuan filled his kettle after gulping down some water. He looked around when suddenly his alert ears trembled slightly, then he fixed his eyes on the front vigilantly. After a while, the sound of footstep was coming from the front woods, heavy and hurried. For a moment, a boy running out from the woods, with dust on his white face and blood on his clothes.

The unexpected visitor also saw Wei Gaoyuan and his teammates, first showing a little happiness, then turning into seriousness. He shouted, "Run! Run…a Spirit…a Spirit Animal!"

What? A Spirit Animal?!

Everyone looked at each other in surprise and doubts.

Different from the ordinary animal, the Spirit Animal had got the spiritual intelligence and was able to swallow and absorb the Spirit Qi like a human Taoism Follower rather than live by instinct of ordinary animal. Although most Spirit Animals were still not as intelligent as humans, they were literally far superior beings to the ordinary animals.

To become a spirit animal, an animal must practice harder than a human Taoism Follower to go through the stage of Spiritual Judgement. (The cultivation system for non-human beings is not the same as that for human Taoism Followers) Once successfully broke through that stage, it would have roughly the strength of a warrior at ninth level in the Mystery. That is to say, the weakest Spirit Animal own the power to fight against a human warrior at ninth level in the Mystery.

All in the team simultaneously focus their eyes on Wei Gaoyuan, the only one in the team who were at ninth level in the Mystery, the only one who owned the power to fight against a Spirit Animal…

That boy saw that no one was moving after his warning, thinking that no one believed his words, so he cried out again anxiously, "Run! There is …really… a Spirit Animal!"

No sooner had he ended his warning than Wei Gaoyuan heard a sound of hiss mixed in the sough of the wind. Moments later, a snake, a giant snake, was seen wriggling towards here from the deep woods far behind that boy...

Everyone here had seen a snake, yet who had seen such a giant snake? A snake with a nearly two meters long head, and a bucket-sized neck? And…could anyone see its tail?

"A Spirit Animal! Everyone… run, Now! " Wei Gaoyuan shouted.

"Can you see its ranking?" Gu Qianqian asked.

"No," Wei Gaoyuan shook his head and said, "this snake is, I estimate, at least seventy or eighty feet long. I'm afraid… I'm not so sure to kill such a giant...."

His estimation really made everyone extremely nervous.

"You go first! I'll be trying to stop it… for a while…" Wei Gaoyuan said, drawing out his long sword.

"I stay to help you!" Gu Qianqian said, her teeth clenched and her face paled.

"No!" Wei Gaoyuan refused, "just go quickly, don't risk yourself…I'll try to escape if it's far stronger than me..."

It was obvious that Gu Qianqian was not able to do much help for him in such a battle, but she would do much trouble for him if Wei Gaoyuan was trying to escape.

Gu Qianqian was definitely not an idiot and understood it quickly. With a disappointment in her eyes, she only gave a sigh and turned to others,"We go first, don't distract brother Gaoyuan, that's a Spirit Animal!"

Many people had wanted to run since saw such a giant, but none of them think that one warrior ought to leave their teammates behind with great danger. After Gu Qianqian's remark, every one quickly got her intention and ran fast to leave.

The injured boy looked at Wei Gaoyuan in surprise and said anxiously, "Brother, that is a Spiritual Animal! You wanna fight with it alone!?"

"I am the warrior at ninth level of the Mystery, and… I'll try to fend off it as long as I can... just run! " Wei Gaoyuan said.

"Brother, take care of yourself! Thanks a lot!" full of surprise on his face at first, the boy quickly cupped his fist with a bow then turn to left fast.

Now the giant snake had been less than one hundred feet away from him, and its strong body turned out to be seventy or eighty feet long, with the huge oval head and a pair of big eyes glowing red.

Despite being a warrior of ninth level in the Mystery, Wei Gaoyuan just felt his heart pounding… Holding his long sword and staring at the giant snake, Wei Gaoyuan suddenly let out the imposing pressure of the warrior at ninth level in the Mystery, which was felt rolling to the giant snake!