William grunted as he threw a Qi-infused palm at the underside of the branch he was flying towards. It was either that or smack into the branch face first. If he survived this day, he would definitely remember how much of a boost the Impact Boots now gave him.

He winced when his palm broke through the wood and lodged itself in the branch. The sudden jarring stop rattled his body, but the goal was accomplished. He was no longer flying recklessly with little control.

William was surprised to see that he didn’t lose any health, but he sure as hell felt that his hand was throbbing in dull pain. Luckily, he could look to the system if he should care about it. The decision was that he shouldn’t care.

The problem now was that he was hanging precariously with only his embedded palm keeping him from falling back into the snarls and yips that were constantly being let out below him. Though, it was far fainter than William expected.

He looked down, eyes widening at the sheer distance between him and the forest floor. The massive Draebern was back to being the tiny dot it was when he first saw it when he woke up. Of course, now that he knew it was covered with dark red fur, his eyes could see the hints of that color.

Even at this distance, William shuddered at the rage he could hear in the Draebern’s roars as it flung the attackers away. The Shadowpack Hunters didn’t seem to be deterred by the destruction they were facing. However, he had to admit it was impossible to see them entirely. William knew they hadn’t run away in fear because of the plentiful pairs of luminescent yellow eyes that moved ever closer to the Draebern every second. He even tracked the ones that had been launched far away by an attack, but they seemed to rejoin the pack a few seconds later.

William shook his head, trying to ignore the brawl and get his feet on top of the branch instead of dangling in the air. Then he could worry about what to do about that fight he inadvertently started.

He kept his palm spread to keep it lodged inside as he easily moved his body close to the branch while trying to use the grooves to grip it with his free hand. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could grab that he trusted to release his lodged hand.

William didn’t want to waste his Spiritual Energy, but he supposed saving his own life couldn’t be called a waste.

He thrust his free palm with Qi surrounding it, embedding it deep enough into the branch to be confident enough to pull out the other. With how wide the branch was, William had to repeat it three times before he was able to reach the end and firmly grip the top edge.

With a little grunt, he pulled himself up and sighed in relief when his feet were back on firm ground… well, on a firm platform-sized branch, but it was the same thing, really.

William glanced up, surprised that he was already halfway to the leaf ceiling. If he could jump this high, though it was with some external boost, he wondered how far of a drop he could just walk off casually. Of course, it wasn’t anything he was going to try at the moment, but definitely something he needed to figure out to know the limits of his body.

He flinched when the Draebern let out a roar that was louder than any of the others before, and this one seemed to be for a different reason. It still sounded savage, but a sort of desperation was added to it.

William frowned as he looked over the edge. He had no idea why he thought he could understand the beast's emotions simply by the roars it let out.

However, his eyes widened in shock at what he saw.

The Draebern was utterly covered in Shadowpack Hunters. As in, William couldn’t see that hint of red fur anymore. All he could tell was that the Draebern was latched on by so many Shadowpack Hunters that the deep black fur of the canine-like beasts massed together enough that it seemed to darken the light around them.

William winced when the Draebern roared again, but he could tell it was significantly weaker this time. He observed the movement of the Shadowpack Hunter-covered Draebern slow before finally coming to a standstill.

He could barely believe what had happened, even though he was a witness to the entire thing. The Draebern seemed as invincible as can be up close, but it was taken down by a pack of far weaker beasts.

William stared in fascination at the shifting mass of pitch-black fur before stiffening in fear with countless glowing yellow eyes suddenly appearing. They seemed to all be staring right at him.

His first instinct was to duck out of view, but with how seamlessly they seemed to work together to take down the Draebern, losing sight of these things might be the worst possible thing to do. He remembered the agility of the one Shadowpack Hunter he had Observed and was confident he could escape if he had enough of a head start.

William knew that his escape route would involve jumping between branches, the exact thing he wanted to avoid, but that risk was better to take than get eaten alive like that Draebern did.

He and the Shadowpack Hunter continued to have the staring contest with hundreds of feet between them, seemingly determined not to be the one that blinked first.

William brought his Spiritual Energy levels in front of him to check what he had left.

Spiritual Energy: 131/175 (20% per Hour)

He had used fifty Spiritual Energy in the process to get on this branch, so he could tell the approximate time that passed by how Spiritual Energy was recovered.

William quickly figured out that it was only ten minutes.

Those glowy-eyed things killed that Draebern in ten minutes.

Ten minutes.

William shuddered again as he began forming an escape plan. This staring contest reminded him of what the Shadowpack Hunters did with the Draebern when it was stuck in the illusion array. If the next step was similar, then they would soon be attacking, though how that was possible with the distance between them, he didn’t know.

Nonetheless, William strained all his senses to pay attention to his surroundings while taking quick glances at the distance of the branches to the other trees. As long as he didn’t become careless, he should be able to easily cover the distance with his natural physical ability without using Spiritual Energy.

The most important thing was to get as close to the leaf ceiling as possible. If worse came to worse, he would take his chances with the seemingly amicable snake guarding the personal garden of this dimension’s master.

William’s ears twitched when he heard something that didn’t sound like the normal sounds the forest had made so far.

It was like the world moved in slow motion as he cracked the branch under his feet with the force he used to push away. Right where his head previously was, a Shadowpack Hunter flew by with claws outstretched. Its glowing yellow stared right at him as it bared its teeth.

William already saw it was up here alone, either as the lone distraction or for something else. Either way, he wouldn’t let it go by with its life intact.

With a bloodthirsty grin that was out of place on William’s usually neutral face, he launched an attack without a thought of holding back, wanting to slice through the beast, bisecting it for daring to attack him.

The Qi-infused palm landed successfully on its soft stomach, making the Shadowpack Hunter let out a pained squeal as it was launched by the force of William’s attack. It slammed into the opposite tree before falling a few hundred feet and crashing on a branch near the forest floor.

[+450 XP]

The experience points were good to get, but William was more concerned about how the Shadowpack Hunter didn’t die immediately after his attack. From what Qin Yu told him, his attacks were strong enough to take down things above level thirty.

That concern was chased out of his mind when he glanced back at where the Hunters had massed.

They were gone.

The only thing left seemed to be the skeletal remains of the Draebern, the flesh stripped off cleanly to the last piece.

William’s heart started to thunder in his chest as he immediately made to follow his escape plan. Without hesitation, he ran to the edge of the branch and jumped.