With their break over, Lin Songmei, Yan Mingqing, and Han Youhong were back on the road. They were close, unless there was another rockslide or something, they’d be able to make it to the edge of the crater by dinner time.

Rubbing her eyes, Songmei scanned the area, keeping alert as long howls echoed through the area. “Mingqing, Youhong, you two see anything?”

“No...” Mingqing shook her head, unsheathing her sword as her head swiveled around, waiting for the inevitable attack.

Pulling her bow off her back, Songmei stood between Mingqing and Youhong as they made slow progress through the area. Luckily, this area was more flat and untouched compared to most others. As they neared the crater, areas that had been hit with a rockslide lessened. Because of that, more and more often, Songmei and the others were walking through the familiar ravine scenery.

A piercing howl.

As if it was a trigger, howl after howl broke out as wolves began to show themselves. Each of the wolves had crazed eyes, swollen muscles, and were frothing at the mouth.

Honestly? They didn’t look like they were doing too good, and from past experience, Songmei could tell these wolves had already eaten the drug-like plant. She wasn’t sure though, it seemed they also had some other disease going on though too at the same time. The drug-like plant wouldn’t cause any frothing at the mouth...

It seemed these wolves were just unlucky and got hit with two bad draws of luck in a row.

Notching an arrow into her bow, Songmei charged it up, letting it fly as the battle commenced.

With her arrow finding its mark in one of the wolves mouths, Songmei circulated her Qi as fast as she could, activating her Butterfly Step and her Crystalline Strengthening technique in tandem.

Meanwhile, as the battle began, a faint star-like mist gathered around Mingqing’s blade, showing its horrifying cutting power as Mingqing tore through wolf after wolf.

They were lucky, these were just small fry in big numbers. This was much easier than a single big monster that had its strength raised to an unreasonable degree.

The battle now though, was what could only be described as organized chaos. Wolves surged in like waves, all coming towards Mingqing who was tearing through them, forming a bit of a corpse pile around her.

As Mingqing drew the aggression from most of the wolves, Songmei flitted around the battlefield behind Mingqing, providing her support, incapacitating or killing as many wolves as she could. Youhong, on the other hand, was like a specter, also disappearing and reappearing like the wind, killing the strongest wolves in a few clean strikes.

Songmei’s hands moved without stopping as she let arrow after arrow fly. Arrow into an eye. A leg. A mouth. A body.

For the most part, when she used her Arrow of Crystallization, Songmei didn’t have to pay anymore attention to that wolf. If it hit their eye, they’d be visually incapacitated. They wouldn’t be seeing out of one eye, instead seeing out of two, but one through a wonky crystal lens. If she hit their leg or body, they’d be physically incapacitated. If she hit their mouth, they’d suddenly not be able to breathe, which wasn’t conducive to staying alive.

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For the most part though, she had to settle for normal arrows. She couldn’t always spare a few seconds to infuse an arrow with Qi...

It was good that she could at least shoot them with much more strength now, though.

Thwang.

Letting loose another arrow and piercing a wolf’s eye, Songmei backed off before Mingqing’s sword flew in, beheading it in one clean strike.

Step. Step. Step.

Leaping back into a more open area of the battlefield that the wolves hadn’t filled yet, Songmei pulled out another quiver of arrows, switching it with her empty quiver before beginning to shoot once more.

-------

The battle ended after a few action-filled, blood-filled minutes. They’d managed to kill around 30-40 wolves, and hadn’t sustained any injuries of their own. Overall, a good success!

Blinking a few times now that the discomfort in her eyes had gotten a little worse, Songmei rubbed it a few times before meeting back up with Mingqing and Youhong. Watching the two wipe the blood off their blades, Songmei let out a long sigh before bending down and beginning to salvage the arrows that she could.

Every battle...

At this rate, before she even finished opening her meridians, she’d have permanent back pain and walk around looking like a shrimp...

“Are you feeling alright, Songmei?” Mingqing called out, watching Songmei rub her eyes with a scowl on her face. “Is the weird feeling worse?”

Blink. Blink.

Ignoring the discomfort and going back to picking up her arrows, Songmei waved Mingqing off. “It’s a little worse, but I’m fine!”

At this point, it seemed like it was getting a little worse every time she used her Qi, but after a while of not using her Qi, the discomfort would lessen once more. Of course, she couldn’t just stop using Qi, she had to cultivate, and even if she did stop, it’d come back the moment she started using Qi again...

Songmei was pretty sure it wasn’t anything to worry about though... They had asked both Xueli and Youhong’s master. Both had said that, although they didn’t know what it was and would have to see it in person to really know, they both said it wasn’t something like a Qi parasite or cultivation deviation.

That was reassuring to hear... Songmei didn’t want to have an immense cultivation deviation and then have her head explode or her eyes go blind because of some accident...

Picking up the last of the arrows, Songmei returned to where Youhong and Mingqing were waiting, giving Mingqing a hug and latching onto her like a backpack while murmuring. “I’m done getting my daily dose of back pain~ How are you doing though?”

“I’m doing okay,” Mingqing murmured back in reply, picking Songmei up piggyback style before patting and running her hand through her hair while beginning to walk forward. “Little worried about you though...”

“You shouldn’t be...” Songmei whispered back, resting her head against Mingqing’s shoulder. “Xueli said it’d be fine... she also said she’d volunteer to join the extermination team so that she could come by and take a look...”

“Well, I still want to worry,” Mingqing laughed, pinching Songmei’s cheek. “Don’t worry about me, I’m chilling, hanging out. Living life with a new backpack.”

As the two lovebirds... no, “platonic best friends” piggy backed and walked off, Youhong was left there, looking around as he watched Mingqing and Songmei whisper sweet nothings to each other.

“Really?” Youhong muttered to himself with an exasperated laugh. “That fast? The battle ended like 2-3 minutes ago and you two are already saddled up together and... damn.”

Following along the two after slinging his two chainblades onto his back, Youhong pulled out some lychee jelly, unwrapping it with much more care than usual. “At least I have you, the love of my life...”