“Oh!” Coin exclaimed in surprise.

“What happened?” Miles asked as he cautiously looked around himself.

“I don’t think the mantises chased you because you disrupted their mating session.” Coin said ambiguously.

“Why did they chase me then?” Miles couldn’t help but ask. Coin was acting cryptic.

“The orb we found is a middle-tier orb!” Coin said with a giggle.

“You mean—” Miles was surprised by this.

“Yeah, it was probably a queen mantis at middle-tier and not a regular one. I am surprised that knickknackery dagger worked, but it must be a weak spot. All in all we were lucky.”

Coin then charged the orb in Miles’s hand with a large amount of electric current. The orb melted and took the shape of a sword. It was thin, long, and light. A sharp and thin azure wind of light flowed on the edge. Overall, it looked so deadly.

Miles swung it a couple of times as felt it in his hand.

He then hit a tree with a dagger followed by the sword. The sword went through like a hot knife through butter. After observing, he pulled both weapons out from the tree bark.

“Try to swing with all your power.” Coin said to Miles.

“Like this?” Miles held the weapon with both hands on top of his head and swung it across him. The weapon shone with azure light, and a wind slash left the weapon that flew over 5 meters. The unlucky tree standing in its way was cut into two pieces vertically. The flying wind blade traveled further and made a big dent at the giant rock far behind.

“It took almost a lot of my stamina, but, damn, it felt good!” Miles beamed with joy and swung the blade two more times as heavy as he could. One of them flew to the adjacent forest and the other one to the Insect Kingdom.

“Easy there, tiger. You wouldn’t want to hurt another human accidentally. After all, there are many people hunting in Parallel Forest.” Coin warned Miles as he was getting careless with the air slashes he was casting.

“Alright, alright. One last time, and I am done!” Miles said and swung his new toy as hard as he could. A slash thicker and longer than all others flew towards the woods. It flew more than 20 meters before it came to a stop. But a painful howl proved Coin was indeed right. Miles shouldn’t have played with the sword carelessly.

A yowl was then heard.

With that, angry wolf howls followed from the direction Miles sent the air slash.

Their joyous moment had vanished at that instant.

Sweat started to form on Miles’s forehead, and he cautiously looked at his surroundings.

“What the hell are you standing there for?” Coin sent an electric current to wake Miles, and said, “I am hearing more than 30 wolves steps. Run, now!”

Without a moment to delay, Miles ran to the safest location he could think of. It was the adjacent Insect Kingdom. The stronghold was too far, and he had no other place he could go at the moment.

Furthermore, the monsters aren't accommodating to other kinds. It could also be seen from the fact that, even though two forests were next to each other, their borders were sure as death. No insect could pass to the forest where the wolves came from, nor no other monster ever spotted in the Insect Kingdom.

The third reason was, there were many trees higher than hundreds of meters. Wolves weren’t known for their climbing abilities. Thus, it was the most logical decision Miles could take.

He did not get that far when the wolves had caught up and were on his tail. He was hoping to scare them away by entering the Insect Kingdom, but he wasn’t that lucky, unfortunately.

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Miles felt chills run down his back. He then took a glance behind. When he did so, he swallowed his saliva not because of the sheer number of his chasers, but because of what they were. The wolves that pursued him were Blizzard Wolves.

Blizzard Wolves were the overlords of the Parallel Forest. They were, like wolves, one of the few monster families that broke the Ranking rules and traveled to the lower tier areas. Most of the Blizzard Wolves were mostly middle-tier, and sometimes they would have high-tier in their ranks. Looking at their bravery to barge into the Insect Kingdom, it could be seen that they didn’t care about it.

All of them had their red eyes locked on him with white mists coming out of their mouths. Most of them were at least a meter and a half from the ground to shoulder, but their feet length was longer than that.

The one at the forefront was at least 2 meters tall. Its canine teeth were like sharp cold daggers. The white mist it was producing was covering the ground and air.

The pack was getting faster and faster, while Miles was getting slower and slower.

Meanwhile, the other monsters ran deep into the forest. With wolves tailing behind, Miles had no choice but to follow the other insects. As he went left and right, he set obstacles for the wolves whenever he could, but they were nimbler than him.

Left with no other choice , Miles climbed to a treetop in three swift jumps. He was finally able to take a breather.

He looked down at the wolves waiting beneath the tree. “What are you going to do now? You oversized dogs?” He mocked them, but the next second he regretted it.

The wolves opened their jaws and formed ice spikes as big as an adult head. They all flew upwards towards his direction like bullets and broke the branch he was just standing on. If he hadn’t escaped in time, he would have been riddled with holes.

“I’d be dead for sure if I took on all of them. Death is certain. Coin, help me out.” Miles asked with a hint of distress in his voice.

“ Let me analyze.” Coin said as he started to examine their situation. “You have food for 5 days with you, but you have to dodge their attacks, which will burn most of the food you’d consume, then you’re going to need more. Also, you need sleep at some point. Other than that, they have more than 30 wolves in their range. So, they can find food by diverging their powers, and still can keep you busy with their attacks. By my calculations, with their numbers they can also work in shifts to keep you sleepless and hungry. In conclusion, you have to find a way out or you will die.”

“Can wolves think of all of these?” Miles asked with bated breath.

“Wolves are great hunters, and evolved to hunt in packs. They are experts at division of labor, and hunt their targets with numbers. So yes, they can.” Coin broke out the bad news for Miles.

It was then something worse happened. The wolves gave up on Miles and pointed their attacks at the tree he had climbed. They condensed their attacks towards it. It shattered to pieces and started to fall towards the empty part of the forest.

Without a moment to think, Miles immediately tumbled, jumping from one branch after another, from one large piece to the next to avoid the consecutive attacks.

“Jump on your right, now!” Coin guided him as well.

He then jumped onto a tree 5 meters away He landed safely thanks to the momentum he had gained from the falling tree. He stood on top of it and looked down at the wolves gathering under the tree he just jumped on.

“We cannot go on like this. We really need to find another way out.” Miles looked around and tried to calculate in his head.. The wolves were tenacious and had no intention to leave him alone. He must have hurt their off-spring or elder for them to hate him this much.

“There is nothing we can do at this point. There is no communication system in Portal World. You know that already. Something blocks the communication here. We can only call for help primitively, but I don’t think many would understand the smoke signals.”

Coin was sounding desperate to try anything out at that point.

Communication in Portal World had been blocked by something monsters did. The Mother AI theorized it as ‘divide et impera’, dividing the forces and conquering them with no communication in between.

“Should I try to reduce their number with my new weapon?” Miles asked, but realized it was a waste of effort.

“No, the weapon’s range is too short, and if you climb down to attack them, you will also be vulnerable to their attacks. If they blast this tree to smithereens, like the previous one, you will have nowhere to jump this time.” Coin emphasized the absurdness of his idea.

It was out of luck that the wolves gave up on attacking him directly and focused on the trees only. The distance between them allowed Miles to dodge the ice spikes. But with their destructive powers, trees would fall one after another.

Miles had no choice but to jump from treetop to treetop.