The location chosen by the black-robed wizard at Yuehe is situated at the ’edge zone’ on the periphery of the North District—a point in human society that is especially intriguing. No matter how bleak the current situation is, they can always carve out finer hierarchical differences within a stable social structure. Through mutual discrimination, accusations, and compromises, they manage to forget most of the imdiate sufferings.
Being an edge zone of the North District, one can imagine how harsh the environnt in this area is.
Between the riverbank’s mudflats, you can often see bodies lying at the junction of water and land: fairies with cut fingers, giants scalped, kappas with the moon disk removed from their heads—all stripped of the most valuable magic materials. These corpses find no further use, even for the lowest wizards of the North District. Apart from these, there are so white mice and rabbits that died either from plagues or magical experints scattered across the riverbank.
Due to the strange curses and residual magic potion clinging to these bodies, even the corpse-eating beetles refuse to co, leaving these bodies to slowly rot in the mud. Perhaps only the magic-feeding mosquitoes and the reckless river flies on Buji Island are willing to contribute a bit to the circle of nature here.
Yet, in the winter season, the activities of the flies and insects significantly decrease, causing the increasingly accumulating bodies in this edge zone to eventually spawn a layer of miasma reeking of evil.
This miasma greatly interfered with the tracking efforts of the Absolution Hunting Team.
"Can’t you determine the direction he disappeared?"
The Black Cat jumped onto a branch of a low pine to gain a higher and farther view than his companions. Squinting, he slowly rotated his ears, trying to peer through the dense night.
But besides the dark Silent Forest and the murmuring of Quiet River water, he could capture no more useful information.
"Hardly."
Dylan tossed the light sphere in his hand, about the size of a ping pong ball, and beckoned to the Black Cat atop the tree: "You can co down and give it a try, I’ve refined that guy’s scent."
The Black Cat jumped down from the tree, sniffed the light sphere, and couldn’t help but sneeze.
Whether it was to disguise their identity or due to nurous experints done every day, the light sphere was mixed with various herbs and magical creature scents. Upon catching the scent, the Black Cat thought he’d stumbled into the school’s Hundred Herb Gardens or Pet Garden.
After careful discernnt, he detected a large amount of scents belonging to the school teachers and students, many familiar to him, so even his own.
Too many targets ant there wasn’t a target.
Zheng Qing suspected that even without the obstruction from the riverbank and miasma, once the three of them chased into the Silent Forest, the target’s trail would be completely subrged amidst the more complex and muddled scents of the Silent Forest.
Even so, he didn’t imdiately give up. Instead, he lowered his stance, took a deep breath, and endeavored to search for the target’s trail amidst the scent of rot and stench.
However, the complicated environnt at the convergence of Silent Forest and Quiet River made everything chaotic and confusing. It seed every direction was filled with that guy’s scent, yet none of the directions were entirely similar.
This contradiction drove the Black Cat sowhat crazy, until his eyes turned blurry from breathing and he was on the verge of suffocating, he still couldn’t find the correct direction.
"You’re a cat now!" Dylan couldn’t conceal his surprise in his tone.
"And you’re still a dog!" The Black Cat flicked his tail irritably.
"First of all, werewolf lineage is related to the Demon Wolf, not dogs." Mister Blood Werewolf raised one finger, waving it in front of the Black Cat’s nose, then raised another: "Secondly, broadly speaking, I only have half a werewolf lineage, and werewolves have only half Demon Wolf lineage... Calculating like this, I might at most have a quarter of Demon Wolf lineage... Compared to you, a pureblood cat, naturally my talent is far short... Speaking of dogs, maybe you could ask Furry Bean to try? I rember it’s quite adept at catching people."
Even without Dylan’s reminder, Zheng Qing was planning to call out Gouzi.
Soon, that grayish figure erged from the darkness, curiously circling around the Black Cat a few tis, its tail wagging happily, as if ready to pounce and lick at any mont.
What a silly sight.
The Black Cat lifted his paw, clenched it, opened it, clenched it again, opened it again, several tis, finally put down the paw without smashing the clenched cat punch on Furry Bean’s dog head.
"Find him!"
The Black Cat pushed the refined scent sphere in front of Gouzi with his paw, solemnly instructing: "If you can bring him back, do; if not, rember his resting spot!"
Furry Bean stepped forward and sniffed it, then gave a big sneeze as well.
This suddenly improved the Black Cat’s mood a bit.
The difference between a hunting dog and a hunter is that hunters often hesitate due to overthinking, while hunting dogs possess an almost blind courage, unafraid to bravely pounce before fully discerning the target.
After sniffing Dylan’s refined scent, Furry Bean flicked its tail and disappeared into the night like a gust of wind, instantly revitalizing those left behind.
In preparation for any possible conflict or unforeseen circumstance, Dylan and Blue Bird began organizing their equipnt while waiting, bracing for the possible unexpected.
"The first rule of a chase is to never pursue into areas beyond your understanding, especially those that appear dangerous."
Dylan fished out a cat mask and fastened it to his face, adding: "The Silent Forest is such a place... In fact, until we are properly prepared, I don’t actually recomnd continuing the adventure."
"That doesn’t sound like sothing a Starry Sky Academy student would say." The Black Cat tugged at his ears—being just a cat now, he had no need for a mask.
"Before entering Starry Sky, my more important identity is as a mber of the Clans of the Moon." Mister Blood Werewolf answered with a pleased smile and no hint of anger: "Compared to adventurous failure, I prefer a safe victory."
The chanical, indifferent voice mixed with an odd sense of amusent rendered particularly eerie against the backdrop of night.
The Black Cat felt the short hair on the back of his neck stand upright.
"Speaking of which, do you think that guy hails from the Hundred Herb Gardens or the Pet Garden?" To cover up the mont’s awkwardness, the Black Cat clumsily changed the subject.
"Are you referring to those residual scents on him?"
Perhaps finding the mask voice too unpleasant, Dylan removed the mask, stroked his chin and pondered: "It could be anyone, a caretaker from the Hundred Herb Gardens, a Pet Garden duty keeper, a laboratory assistant, or a teacher or student frequently in contact with magical creatures; we can’t exclude any possibilities based solely on those ssy and disordered scents."
This conclusion was originally within the Black Cat’s expectations.
He let out a sigh of muddy air, looked up to the sky.
The moonlight tonight was so bright that it obscured the stars, and the chilly aura from the Silent Forest enveloped the cat, dog, and people, mingled with the mist from Quiet River, making the night seem all the more damp and cold.
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