The squad pressed eastward, hacking their way through a sea of dense, thorny bushes and small, jagged rocks. But the brief moment of calm did not last. Suddenly, Pratap's expression darkened. He sensed an aggressive aura rushing toward them from behind at an alarming speed.
Gritting his teeth, Pratap looked back at his comrades. "Those Vyadhs have locked onto us. We have to run, now!"
Barely three hundred paces behind them, the lead Vyadh tracker felt the sudden fluctuation in the soldiers' energy. He immediately alerted his bloodthirsty crew. "He noticed my tracking! Hurry, catch them!" The hunters surged forward, increasing their speed drastically as they homed in on the soldiers.
Through the thick foliage, the hunters finally caught a glimpse of their fleeing prey. They looked like starving beasts ready to pounce.
Glancing over his shoulder, Pratap saw the shadows of the Vyadhs closing the distance to a mere 150 paces. "They found us! Move!" he roared.
The squad pushed their bodies to the absolute limit. Bursting out of the sea of dense thorns, they entered a more open, ordinary stretch of the ancient forest. But in their panicked rush through the suffocating darkness, they failed to realize that the mountain range they were following had sharply curved from the East toward the South.
Following the trail of Origin Energy, the Vyadhs broke out of the brush right behind them. The distance was closing fast.
"There they are!" the lead Vyadh shouted, pointing ahead. "The Princess and her guards! They are barely fifty paces away!" They were now well within bow range.
Hearing the shouts so close behind them, Pratap's heart pounded with anxiety. "My brothers, we have to run with our lives on the line!" Understanding the gravity of his words, the soldiers poured every ounce of their strength into sprinting forward.
To speed up their escape, Pratap hoisted Abhay—still hidden beneath the heavy black cloak—onto his back, and the group dashed desperately through the pitch-black night.
Thwip! Thwip! A volley of arrows rained down from the hunters, but miraculously, Pratap's squad managed to dodge them in the dark.
But the Vyadhs were relentless. Armed with bolas, bows, spears, and curved swords, they chased the royal guards like hounds after a wounded deer.
Running blindly, Pratap's squad suddenly burst into a clearing—only to stop dead in their tracks. Standing right in front of them was an impossibly high, sheer mountain wall. It was a dead end.
Pratap's eyes went wide with shock. "We were heading East! How did we end up in a blocked canyon?"
A moment later, the Vyadhs arrived, completely blocking the only exit. The trap was sprung.
One of the hunters let out a twisted, joyful laugh. "We finally caught our little running prey!"
The hunters began to whisper and taunt them, stepping forward with drawn weapons.
"These rats made us run so much," one sneered.
"You're dead meat now," another spat.
A third gripped his blade with a murderous glare. "You bastards annoyed me so much... I am going to hack you into pieces!"
As the Vyadhs advanced for the kill, Pratap quickly lowered Abhay to the ground. "Whatever happens, stay behind me," Pratap ordered the boy. "And do everything you can to survive."
Abhay nodded firmly. "I will."
Sur, gripping his weapon, offered the cloaked boy a confident smirk. "There is no need to worry about these annoying mosquitoes, Princess. Just stay back."
Shhhk! Pratap, Sur, Samar, and Rudra drew their swords from their scabbards, the steel glinting coldly in the pale moonlight. Instead of a shield, Rudra drew a deadly, half-arm-length iron mace from his waist, pointing it fiercely at the approaching hunters.
Seconds later, the dead-end canyon erupted into a chaotic symphony of clashing steel. The battle had begun. But it was a desperate 4 against 7, and the sheer numbers of the Vyadhs immediately put Pratap's squad at a heavy disadvantage.
Pratap violently clashed swords with a charging Vyadh, his blade a blur. Mid-swing, he barely managed to twist his body, narrowly dodging an arrow shot by a hunter in the back before resuming his brutal swordplay.
Sur fought like a cornered tiger. With a small buckler shield strapped to his right arm and a sword in his left, he took on two Vyadhs at once. He used the shield to expertly deflect heavy blows while instantly counter-attacking with his blade.
Samar, meanwhile, was struggling. He was locked in combat with a hunter wielding a long spear, the enemy's superior reach making it incredibly difficult for Samar to land a hit with his shorter sword.
Rudra was an absolute powerhouse. Wielding his heavy short mace in his right hand and a sword in his left, he violently pushed back two dual-wielding hunters. He used the crushing weight of the mace to shatter their guard, creating brutal openings.
The clashing of Pratap's sword against his enemy was so impossibly fast that an ordinary human eye couldn't even track the movements.
Pressed against the mountain wall, Abhay watched the four soldiers fight in absolute awe. How are they moving so fast? he thought, completely bewildered.
Because Abhay had not yet taken a single step onto the path of cultivation, he was completely blind to the truth. To him, the Origin Energy was invisible. He couldn't see that Pratap and his squad had flooded their bodies and weapons with shimmering Origin Energy, granting them superhuman speed, devastating power, and lethal precision.