Narrow Escape

"Hey, I have an idea!" Quickly I explained my new plan to the others.

"I think that's a great plan! Rao Nuan you might be safer if you leave us." Yao Ya agreed with me

"What! You gonna put my life in danger just because you're guessing they won't kill me? Are you doing this just to save yourself? Hmph, fine I'll do it since we don't another plan, but if I die I'll haunt you as a spirit!" In the end Rao Nuan Begrudgingly agreed

"Thank you for trusting me, Rao Nuan. I'll make sure we find a good place to leave you." I turned back giving her a sincere smile.

After another dozen minutes of escaping we finally reached some slightly familiar territory. It was the more mountainous region where we encountered that stronghold. Even if they knew this place just as well as we did or better at the very least we would have more of a chance then the mostly flat forest area.

The mountains had caves, large rocks, and some beasts as well which could be used to our advantage.

Zheng Da at this point had only really been moving according to the general direct of the portal I had pointed at.

[Zheng Da, I need you to move more erratically around the mountain. We need to lose their trail.]

[Erratically?... Lose trail... Okay!]

Zheng Da, out of nowhere started gaining speed. I don't know if she had it stored as or if it was a final exhaustion of it's energy, but we were quickly leaving the sight of those bandits.

The wolf leap from tree to tree and eventually from rock to rock. Their horde of members which was enclosing onto our finite distance was finally being left behind, at least for now.

We left their sight behind a rock and from there I directed Zheng Da towards more familiar land. With some twists and turns we finally made it to where I think we would drop Rao Nuan off at.

Following along the side of a mountain we found a ruin with it's doors busted down. The ruin was quite well known to Yao Ya and I as that was even the place we had first done it. Moving towards the nearby tree line I pointed in the general direction of the portal.

"Alright, Rao Nuan you'll get off here and as long as you go this direction for a while you should meet up with others who might be waiting here for the portal to open."

"Okay, but Yao Ya should come with me too. If she stays with you she'll slow you down too right? It would be better if she just came along with me." Rao Nuan said

I was just about to speak up before Yao Ya spoke ahead of me.

"That's a terrible idea. After all they are after both of us if you were the only one who was missing than it wouldn't matter. But if I was missing then they might split up to both search for me and chase after Brother Cheng.

That would also implicate you and possibly even the rest of our sect members here with us. These people's cultivation is higher than our average inner disciples so many might not be able to handle it if they suddenly decide to attack."

She basically spoke my mind as that was what I intended to say in general as well.

"But how are you two going to get back? If the portal's time runs out then how will you escape?" Rao Nuan raised a very important question I didn't quite know myself.

"Don't worry about it, I think I know a way. Let's just go, we don't have that much time left!" Yao Ya hurried me

"Alright then, bye." Rao Nuan waved us goodbye

"See you later, Rao Nuan!" I returned a wave before departing.

Unknown to me, Yao Ya was silently smirking behind me.

[Zheng Da I need you to go back and find those bandits, but don't just go straight back. We need to go away from them at an angle yet still slightly towards them ok? We need to make it look like we failed to make a secret U-turn to get their attention.]

[Ok... Why... get their... attention?]

'It's asking questions! That's nice it's like it's growing up and becoming more curious about the world. Maybe, eventually it'll be able to speak in complete coherent sentences.'

[We need to get it so that those bandits will focus on us instead of that girl we left earlier. If they find her, they might do something bad to her! If they find her they might find others too and do bad things to them as well.]

[Okay...]

Zheng Da ran back through rocks where we passed before and started heading left. Not long after we began to do so we spotted a large group of people on horseback. Yet as we kept moving they didn't seem to notice us.

'Oh shit. Come on notice us! Notice me! Notice me! Notice me please! Senpai!!!'

We weren't going to shout to get them to focus on us as that was quite a suspicious act to do when they were the party being chased. They needed to notice our movements on their own to make it believable else it could all feel like a trap for them. If we didn't get their attention they might continue on and find Rao Nuan and the other sect members.

We were getting farther and farther away from them until I heard one of them shout.

"Hey, everyone look over there! It's them!" One of them shouted alerting the others.

Lowering their voices they no longer needed to shout.

"Huh, where's that second girl?"

"Who cares where she went!"

"What if they told her what happened?"

"... We have to deal with these problems one at a time ok?"

"Alright let's go after them then. The person directing the wolf seems to be a man. Woman you have the fastest mount and I don't believe they've seen you yet. You even have different clothing from us now.

Eventually they'll have to stop and we'll give them that opportunity by slowing down. You'll go up and coincidentally meet them, try seducing the man and the moment you get near him plunge your dagger into him. When we hear him scream we'll come out and attack that final woman with you.

If it becomes too dangerous you must call out, alright?"

"Understood" A slightly alluring yet mostly cold voice spoke out.

..

"So you said earlier that you know another way to get out of here? What would that be?"

"Of course I've been studying some information about these realms since I heard about it. The portal we came out of is only one of many which these realms are connected to. There isn't only one portal which is connected at a time either.

There can be multiple, but luckily there is another portal with similar spatial coordinates that should also be set to the world we were at before appearing somewhere after a set amount of time. I have a single use tracker talisman which should be able to point towards the general direction of the portal." She showed me by pulling out the talisman

"How do you know all of this information?" I was quite curious to where this situational explanation came from, it was precisely what we needed at this moment.

"It mostly all came from my teacher. She told me all about the second portal just incase I were to not make it to the first one. She was so worried about me that she even used a few of her precious treasures to figure out another portal would open in the same world we were in. She even gave me the portal tracking talisman."

"You sound like you have a good teacher at the sect."

The horsemen behind us started to catch up with us once again.

…

For some reason the horsemen started to lose their distance with us. Perhaps it was because their horse finally got tired from all the running, but whatever it was we were going to take advantage of it.

"It should be around now that the second portal should be opening soon. Let's get there while we seem to have a bit of time we could reorient ourselves." Yao Ya took out her tracking talisman from before and tore it.

It turned a bright red and seemed to force her to extend her arm in the general direction of where the portal was. Telling Zheng Da to follow the direction of the glow red talisman it abruptly turned in that direction.

Not long after, we made it over to a small clearing near the side of a mountain where the supposed portal would be. There also happened to be a cave. Suddenly the talisman in Yao Ya's hand lost it's color followed by being disintegrated.

After hours of riding Zheng Da we were finally able to get off of it. Yao Ya went to check the cave while I went to sit down somewhere. My legs felt weird so I sat down on the side of one of the rocks for a second which was soon interrupted.

*Rustle* *Rustle*

From a nearby bush the sounds of the leaves being moved was quite audible.

A long leg stuck out followed by an arm and the rest of the body. It was a woman who looked quite alluring, both figure and face.

Quickly I stood up and raised my sword, "Who are you?! Wait are you from one of the minor sects?" before lowering it a bit.

The woman wore a set of green robes, of which I distinctly remembering this minor sect's color as it was the final thing I saw before entering this land.

There was a hint of panic in her eyes which I caught when I asked about her sect.

"Y-yes who are you?" She spoke with a step back

"It's alright miss, why are you still here? Did you miss the escape window too?"

"Escape window? I missed it? Oh no how am I supposed to get out now? You have to help me!" Suddenly she rapidly shuffled towards me.

Hearing that put me on guard, 'She doesn't know? That's weird everyone should have know before they even entered.'

"Please stay there miss-"

Out of no where as she was shuffling towards me an arm which was behind her came back in front holding a dagger which was plunging towards me.

My sword was already held up, but I was surprised by her sudden attack and couldn't react in time. The dagger was flying at me, but at that moment a fairly small 2.5 meter tall portal appeared to my left.

The appearance must have surprised her as well as she seemed to have slowed. I don't know what came over me at that moment, but I decided to grab onto her and take her with me into the portal.

"Brother Cheng!"

That was the last thing I heard before I dove into the portal with this woman.