Deep in the northern foothills, the overlapping canopy sliced the sunlight into thin, scattered strips.
Barbed briars scraped against Li Fan’s sleeves, tearing two slits into the cloth.
Pausing briefly, he folded his cuffs inward, bound them tight, and continued stalking into the deep forest.
His steps were extraordinarily light, his center of gravity kept low over his heels.
As his feet touched the ground, his weight transitioned smoothly from the outer edge to the inner arch, while his upper body remained almost motionless.
The soil was slick with moisture, but he deftly skirted the bogs, choosing to step only on the gaps where broken twigs lay buried under layers of dry leaves.
He moved almost without a sound.
A dull, heavy sound echoed ahead.
The noise of digging, the snap of snapping roots, and the rhythmic vibrations of large creatures chewing.
Li Fan silently scaled a thick, ancient tree, peering down through the gaps in its roots.
The moment he saw what was below, his fingers tightened on the bark.
Hawksbill, that old bastard.
A *little* boar?
Five massive beasts clad in natural rock armor were sprawled out below.
The boar king in the center easily weighed over three hundred pounds, its thick, horn-like hide as hard as pig iron.
With every step it took, the ground caved in slightly.
Li Fan slowed his breathing, staring at the five moving mountains of meat for ten seconds while recalculating his tactics in his head.
He silently slipped down from the ancient tree and crouched behind a thicket, pulling out a small pouch of pepper powder he had swiped from the camp kitchen before setting off.
For beasts that relied heavily on smell, pungent powder was far more effective than blades or arrows.
He reached into the inside of his combat boots to check on a few granules of saltpeter.
There were enough.
Three hundred paces ahead lay a narrow, rock-walled pass—narrower than the shoulder width of the boar king.
Once they charged inside, there would be no room to maneuver, and momentum would turn them into runaway battering rams.
Li Fan spent three minutes setting up at the pass.
He smoothed out a bed of dry leaves and sprinkled the pepper powder evenly over it.
It wasn’t a large quantity, but it was enough to cause chaos once carried by the wind.
The saltpeter was buried beneath the layer of leaves.
Strong northern winds funneling through the rock walls created a natural draft; all he needed was fire and smoke to trigger an explosion at the right second.
After smoothing away any obvious marks, Li Fan rubbed his hands in the moss to remove his scent, then climbed an ancient tree at the mouth of the narrow pass.
Heavy black iron bow in hand, he notched an arrow.
For his first shot, he didn’t target the boar king.
The heavy black-feathered arrow plunged vertically from above, striking the hindquarters of the leftmost guard boar!
*THUMP!* Though the arrowhead failed to pierce the stony hide, the violent kinetic force of the blunt impact shattered the muscle beneath.
The boar squealed in pain and whipped its head around, spotting Li Fan whistling from a high branch.
In a single second, the herd went wild.
The boar king roared, and all five massive beasts charged toward the ancient tree, their speed so intense that even the trunk trembled.
Li Fan leaped to an adjacent tree, continuing to whistle and taunt them.
He held another heavy arrow ready on his string, holding his fire.
Leaping, changing trees—he threaded his way through the canopy, precisely guiding the enraged beasts below straight into the narrow pass.
The boar king led the charge, plunging into the narrow ravine.
The stone walls squeezed off their room to spread out, and their sheer momentum made it impossible to stop.
The moment the boar king’s front hooves stepped over the layer of dry leaves— High above, Li Fan flicked his wrist, dropping a skinning knife from his sleeve.
*CLANG!* The steel blade hit the saltpeter with precision.
Sparks flew, instantly igniting the dry leaves into open flame.
Heated by the fire, the pepper powder rose and was sucked into the draft, instantly filling the narrow pass with suffocating, acrid smoke that stripped the boars of their most relied-upon sense: smell.
The boar king let out a squeal of alarm as its massive body slammed hard against the stone wall with a loud crash.
Li Fan dropped from the tree.
His landing spot wasn’t the boar king, but a disoriented guard boar.
He landed squarely on the gap where two horn-like plates met on the center of its spine.
His soles slipped slightly, but his left hand grabbed a fistful of coarse mane to stabilize himself.
As the boar thrashed violently, his right hand gripped a large, dark-red, three-sided arrowhead like a dagger and drove it ruthlessly into the soft artery beneath the boar’s neck!
He twisted the tip inward and pulled it out.
*SQUELCH—* Scalding beast blood spattered all over his sleeve, cooling rapidly in the air.
The guard boar collapsed with a heavy thud.
Li Fan used the recoil to leap back into the air.
Mid-flight, his black iron bow was already pulled to a full moon.
Below, enraged by the thick smoke, the boar king threw its head back and opened its mouth to roar, exposing the unprotected palate inside its jaws.
The bowstring snapped with a dull thunder.
At point-blank range, the heavy black-feathered arrow slammed viciously into the open maw, driving straight through the upper palate and deep into the brain.
The boar king’s massive body froze instantly before crashing heavily to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust that enveloped the narrow pass.
Three seconds later, the dust cleared.
Li Fan stood quietly beside the boar king’s carcass.
His gray apprentice robes were caked in stench, blood, mud, and pepper powder.
He took a breath, coughing slightly as the pungent spice caught in his throat.
Holding the black bow in his left hand, he rested his right foot on the boar king’s ear to confirm the beast was dead.
On the perimeter, the remaining guard boars witnessed the horrific scene, squealing in terror as they crashed through the thickets and fled into the deep forest, their hoofbeats fading into the distance.
Li Fan relaxed his tense shoulders, unstringing the tension in his posture, and panted for a moment.
Looking down, he saw that the ration bag at his waist was soaked through with boar blood and completely ruined.
Sighing, he pulled out his short knife.
He roughly pried off the boar king’s two tusks and grabbed a handful of mane from its neck while he was at it.
Carrying his trophies in one hand, he headed back toward the camp.
At the camp entrance, arcane lanterns emitted a cold, pale light.
Hawksbill stood in the shadows with his arms crossed over his chest, several trainees poking their heads out behind him to look.
Li Fan emerged from the darkness and tossed the boar tusks at Hawksbill’s feet.
*THUD!* The bone hit the flagstones with a dull clatter.
“Your boar tusks,” Li Fan said, straightening his back as he wiped the blood from his cheek.
Hawksbill stared at the terrifying pair of tusks on the ground, pausing for three seconds.
His eyes swept over the boar king’s mane, finally landing on the human’s blood-soaked clothes.
He said nothing, turning around to walk back into the camp.
As they passed each other, he lowered his voice to a whisper: “The mess hall saved some ribs for you.” Li Fan looked at his retreating back and let out a silent chuckle before pulling his expression back together.
Turning around, he saw Firas standing to the side with a complex look on his face.
“How did you kill it?” “A hunter’s way.” “Impossible.
That stone hide can’t be pierced by arrows.” “It really wasn’t killed by shooting alone,” Li Fan said flatly.
“I only shot the final arrow that pierced its brain.
Before that, I used a knife and my brain.” Firas stared at the short knife in his hand, falling silent.
In a corner of the camp sat a flight of stone steps.
Li Fan sat on them, a clay bowl resting on his knees.
Stewed, fully cooked ribs were drenched in rich gravy, steaming with warmth.
He took a bite; getting the meat out from between the bones took a little effort, but it was flavorful.
Freeing up a hand, he picked up the heavy black-feathered arrow that had pierced the boar king’s skull.
Aside from a faint white scratch on the three-sided arrowhead, the structure was completely intact and reusable.
He casually wiped off the dried fluid against his pant leg and set it aside.
Li Fan sat at the edge of the arcane lantern’s glow, right on the boundary between light and darkness.
He chewed down the last bite of the ribs.
Footsteps echoed from the storage area, and Hawksbill walked out holding an iron disc.
He hung the disc onto a rack, locked it, and stepped into the barracks.
The friction of the iron disc turning was remarkably clear in the quiet night—a thin, metallic ring.
Li Fan crunched down on the last piece of soft cartilage, swallowed it, and tossed the bone into the mud at his feet.