Tristan observed Jaeng’s stunned expression in silence as they walked.

“What?”

Jaeng’s nostrils flared, his brow furrowed, and he clenched his fists. Confusion quickly turned into anger.

“This is ridiculous! Are you telling me that the lives of most of these people are disposable?”

Tristan shrugged in response.

“It seems they are, at least to the city lord.”

Suddenly, his eyes caught something strange.

Tristan abruptly turned his head to the left and looked at the top of a house about 60 meters (167 feet) away. A dark blur appeared in his vision for a brief instant. It was so fast that normal eyes would’ve missed it, but thanks to his enhanced vision, he was certain he saw something.

‘What was that?’

He tried to recall the shape of what he’d seen in his memory, but although the sun was nearly setting, its light still bothered his eyes, making his vision less sharp. All he could make out was that the figure was about half the height of an adult man and seemed bipedal.

After seeing his companion squinting at something for a while, Jaeng finally asked, “What is it? Why are you making that face?”

“I think I saw something,” Tristan replied.

Without further explanation, he ran toward what he had seen. A clear suspicion about the identity of what he’d glimpsed formed in his mind.

He was running and jumping across the rooftops, and some people passing on the streets pointed at him in surprise at the rare sight of a martial artist displaying his abilities.

He began walking more slowly and cautiously as he neared his target. He scanned his surroundings, investigating for anything that seemed out of place.

Jaeng appeared a few seconds later.

“Why did you run off?” he asked, confused.

“I saw something suspicious on top of this roof.”

Jaeng looked concerned. “Do you think it was a monster?”

“Yes, unless there’s some strange martial artist who likes to dress up and wander across rooftops.”

Tristan and Jaeng searched the area for a while, but they found nothing.

“There’s nothing here! Are you sure you saw something? Maybe you were mistaken.”

Tristan pointed to his own eyes and said, “I’m a cultivator of Darkness, or did you forget?”

“Fair enough, but I heard you guys don’t see well in the light.”

Tristan’s lips twisted. “My ability to detect movement is still perfect, and I can guarantee the speed of the thing I saw wasn’t normal.”

“So now we’re dealing with a monster that disappears like a ghost. Wonderful.”

Tristan sighed and said, “Let’s go. We’d better inform the others as soon as possible.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/CJALaUN.png]

After Tristan returned to the city walls, he reported what had happened to the guards.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Strange. It seems these beasts are of a smarter kind than usual. That makes things more complicated.”

“Thank you for the information you’ve provided.”

Goejin, the leader of the guards, looked at the child who wasn’t even half his height, but he knew the hierarchy between them was clear. He respectfully bowed to Tristan before leaving.

After reporting to the guard leader, Tristan went to the room that had been made available to him.

But his rest didn’t last long when he heard a loud knock on the door. From the rhythm of the knock, he became alert.

‘Something happened?’

He quickly got up and opened the door. One of the guards was standing there.

“There’s an emergency. We need you to meet with the leader.”

Tristan followed the guard, who led him near the gate.

His fellow sect members from the Flying Sword Sect were already there, forming a circle around something. Several guards were also nearby, looking down at the ground.

When Tristan approached, he had to push through some people to get to the front, and finally, his eyes saw what the others were staring at.

He saw the yellow robes of his sect, black wooden shoes, and a blue sash, and he quickly recognized it as one of the seniors from the Third Flying Dao.

Tristan’s eyes widened slightly, and a subtle expression of surprise appeared on his face. There was a pool of blood on the ground, but what truly caught his attention was the absence of something.

His head. Tristan was staring at the headless corpse of one of his seniors on the ground.

‘What the hell?’

‘How did this happen?’

He looked at the faces of the other members of his sect and only saw a mixture of fear and shock on their faces. He noticed that only Xurain was missing from the group, so the identity of the corpse was now clear to him.

One of the female seniors finally composed herself and asked the leader of the guards, “What does this mean? How did he die? What’s going on here?” Her tone became more irritated as she spoke.

“We don’t know. One of my subordinates found him like this near the wall.”

“This happened inside the walls?” she asked.

The leader nodded.

She clicked her tongue and said, “How did a beast get into the city center without any of your men noticing?”

He shifted uncomfortable and replied, “We don’t know. It seems we’re not dealing with simple creatures. They must have abnormal abilities.”

“What a mess!” she said.

She thought about the current situation for a moment, contemplating what to do next.

“We need to find this monster quickly! If any citizens of Zaguhan are hurt, the honor of our sect will be stained, and we’ll be considered incompetent. Let’s split up and search for this monster,” she told her fellow ThirdDao members.

“Split up? This creature killed Xurain, and we don’t know how strong it could be.”

She considered this. “Tsk, it’s just a stupid beast. We have nine people with us. Let’s divide into three groups and hunt it down. We’re from the ThirdFlying Dao; we’re used to this.” Her chest puffed out a little as she said the last part.

image [https://i.imgur.com/CJALaUN.png]

As they walked through the alleys of the city center at night, Tristan looked at the overconfident senior leading their group. She was the same person who, with Xurain’s death, seemed to have taken over as the leader of the disciples.

‘She’s probably from an important family.’

She walked with firm steps and confidence on her face. It seemed that the death of a fellow disciple hadn’t affected her at all, but this lack of emotion didn’t surprise Tristan much.

Ahead of him was Xiao Mei, the twin he had recently defeated. Seeing one twin without the other gave him a strange feeling.

The group moved forward silently, and it seemed there was an invisible wall between each of them. Still, he noticed that Xiao Mei occasionally gave him threatening looks, though she was probably trying to appear menacing, Tristan found it cute.

‘She must still be mad about the duel’ he thought.

He glanced briefly at her but suddenly noticed something unusual in the shadows near Xiao Mei.

As quick as a tiger, Tristan leaped toward Xiao Mei, grabbing her small body and throwing himself to the side.

Still in the air, he felt a sharp pain in his back.

‘What the hell is that?’

He had the sensation of his back becoming wet from the blood.

He hit the ground, rolling while keeping Mei in his arms.

When his body stopped rolling, he immediately let her go and quickly looked back. With fury in his eyes, he searched for the cause of his pain. He saw a hunched figure straightening up, rising to a height of nearly 2 meters (6’7”). The creature had a thin body covered in black fur, feline legs, and disproportionately large paws with long, curved claws at the tips of its fingers.

The creature looked at Tristan with its large, glowing yellow eyes filled with rage, its vertical pupils fixed on him. Its bear-like mouth opened, revealing several sharp white teeth. The monster’s tail swayed in agitation.

The beast bent its legs and jumped nimbly toward Tristan, its enormous paw—twice the size of his head—heading straight for his neck.