Feng Jiu’er found herself truly caught between two impossible choices.

Fall and be torn apart by the black wolves, or keep clinging to the branch and be shot dead by the arrow.

Worst of all, even if struck by the arrow, she would still fall — meaning she would end up both shot and mauled.

She weighed it for no more than a tenth of a second before slamming her palm against the trunk, deliberately speeding up her own fall.

Had she not done so, that stray arrow would have hit her.

But below, the black wolves were packed in, dense beyond counting…

…

“It was definitely this direction!” The group of pursuers had caught up and begun searching the area.

The tune they’d heard earlier had clearly come from this spot. They’d fired off more than a dozen stray arrows — surely not every single one had missed?

“You all check over there. The rest, follow me…”

Before the black-clad leader could finish speaking, his expression suddenly shifted. “On guard!”

Something was wrong! How could a place this unnaturally quiet carry such a murderous aura?

Suddenly, a tune rang out — sharp, brief, its melody utterly strange, unlike anything they had ever heard!

“Who’s there?” The leader’s mind raced. He aimed his cold bow toward the direction of the sound, ready to loose a stray arrow.

But suddenly, his hand jerked, and the direction of his shot changed in an instant.

With a whoosh, the arrow buried itself in a clump of grass nearby.

“Awoo…” A wolf’s howl rang out, and at the same instant, the tune leapt into a sudden frenzy, its rhythm turning abruptly, dramatically fast!

“Watch out!” The moment the leader’s warning fell, more than a dozen black wolves erupted howling from the surrounding grass, leaping out one after another.

“Black wolves!” The black-clad men’s faces went pale with shock, each gripping his cold bow.

But what truly terrified them was that these dozen or so wolves were only the vanguard — behind them came several dozen more.

“Retreat!” The leader pulled his bow taut and loosed several more arrows in quick succession.

But the black wolves moved far faster than any of them had imagined. The arrows had barely left the bowstrings before the wolves had already shifted position, lunging at them in an instant.

The black-clad men were all skilled in lightness skill, and with a light tap of their feet, they leapt up onto the tree branches.

But the wolves below leapt higher than anyone could have imagined, slamming again and again into the trunks, springing toward the branches without pause.

Worst of all, the entire hillside was crawling with black wolves — not just dense in clusters, but scattered everywhere underfoot.

They lurked hidden in every patch of grass. Unless one could walk endlessly along the treetops without ever touching the ground…

But the moment one’s feet touched the earth, the black wolves were very likely to pounce, tearing and biting savagely.

In truth, only someone with truly exceptional lightness skill could manage to keep moving along the treetops without pause.

That demanded not only superb lightness skill but also deep inner strength, since walking through midair drained one’s inner energy with every single step!

Sure enough, before long, one man lost his breath mid-stride on the treetops and, in a moment of carelessness, fell to the ground.

At once, three black wolves burst from the nearby grass and lunged at him.

He had no choice but to draw his short blade with a whoosh, locked in a life-or-death struggle with the wolves!

The rest soon found they couldn’t hold out on the trees either, dropping one after another to the ground, entangled in combat with the wolves.

The scent of blood thickened… In the moonlight, that slender figure leaned against a tree, her white garments soaked through with blood, her eyelids drifting nearly shut.