The "Little Kitten" Being Hunted
The deeper Chu Tianxiu ventured into the Star Dou Great Forest, the more the civilized world fell away. The air grew thick with the scent of damp earth, decaying leaves, and the primal musk of hidden creatures. Sunlight, where it pierced the dense canopy, fell in scattered, golden coins upon the forest floor. His guide, the agile ape-like soul beast, moved with silent familiarity through the undergrowth, and Chu Tianxiu followed, his own steps making no more sound than a falling leaf.
His mind, however, was not silent. The rhythmic motion of travel allowed old thoughts to surface. The cold disappointment of Bibi Dong's betrayal was a dull ache, a bruise on his spirit. The vicious satisfaction of the ambush, of breaking the Four Princes and sending Golden Crocodile Douluo fleeing, was a brighter, sharper memory. He replayed the moment the soul tools had fired, the look on the Title Douluos' faces. Power, he thought, not for the first time. It is the only true currency. The only real loyalty.
The ape-beast ahead of him suddenly froze, one hand raised. It pointed a long finger through a break in the foliage. Chu Tianxiu melted behind a broad tree trunk and peered out.
On the other side of a small, mossy clearing, the chase was in its final, desperate stages.
A girl, no older than eleven or twelve, was stumbling forward. She was dressed in a tight-fitting outfit of black and dark purple leather that did little to hide her startling maturity for her age—a slender waist, long legs, and a developed figure that spoke of harsh genetics rather than childhood. But her beauty was marred by distress. Several ugly, bleeding claw marks tore through the leather on her back and arms. Her face, which might have been pretty, was pale as parchment, and a thin trickle of blood traced a path from the corner of her mouth. Her long, dark hair was matted with sweat and leaves.
"Second Miss, stop running!" a rough voice shouted from the pursuing group. Three men, their auras marking them as Soul Elders or low-level Soul Kings, were gaining. The leader, a man with a wiry build and a cruel smirk, possessed a Netherworld Cat martial soul; his hands were elongated into dark, clawed gloves. "We're just following orders! Blame that useless fiancé of yours for running like a coward!"
The words struck the girl like a physical blow. Chu Tianxiu saw her flinch, her already unsteady gait faltering. A deep, old hurt flashed in her wide, frightened eyes before they hardened with renewed determination. She pushed more soul power into her legs, her own agile form suggesting a feline martial soul as well.
She wasn't fast enough. The lead pursuer, the Netherworld Cat soul master, saw his chance. His third spirit ring glowed. "Third Spirit Skill: Shadow Rend!"
He slashed the air. Three arcs of inky darkness, sharper than any blade, shot toward the girl's legs. She tried to dodge, but exhaustion made her slow. One of the arcs clipped her calf. She cried out—a short, pained gasp—and went down, tumbling across the leaf litter before coming to a stop against the roots of a giant oak.
The three men slowed to a walk, forming a loose circle around her. Their laughter was low and ugly. "Nowhere left to run, little miss," the leader sneered, flexing his shadowy claws.
From her place on the ground, the girl—Zhu Zhuqing—closed her eyes. The world seemed to narrow to the pounding of her own heart. The physical pain was distant. A deeper, colder despair washed over her. 'Is this it?' her mind whispered, too tired for true panic. 'After everything... to die here, hunted like an animal by my own family's hounds? I hope... I hope it doesn't hurt too much in the next life.' She braced herself, waiting for the final blow.
It never came.
Instead, she heard sharp cries of alarm—not her own. A series of sickening crunches, like dry branches snapping, followed by heavy thuds. Then, silence.
Confused, Zhu Zhuqing struggled to open her eyes. The scene before her was so unbelievable her mind refused to process it at first.
The three men who had been hunting her were now lying in unnatural, broken heaps on the forest floor. Their necks were twisted at impossible angles. Standing amidst them, like a statue carved from shadow and moonlight, was a young man. He was shirtless, his torso marked with faint, silvery scars and the solid, lean muscle of a seasoned fighter. He wasn't even breathing heavily. Around him, several dark, misty shapes—ghostly figures of wolves and great cats—paced silently before dissolving into the air. He was looking right at her, and on his handsome, youthful face was a grin that held no mirth, only a kind of detached, predatory satisfaction.
The sheer, violent incongruity of it—the calm boy surrounded by instant death—was too much for her overtaxed system. The adrenaline that had been sustaining her vanished. A wave of dizziness and pain, both physical and emotional, crashed over her. Her vision swam, the image of the strange young man blurring into the darkness of the canopy above.
"Hey," the young man said, his voice laced with faint amusement. "Why are you unconscious? Are you trying to scam me? I didn't even touch you."
He took a few steps closer, his head tilting. Only after a quick, assessing glance did he see the true severity of her wounds and the utter exhaustion in her slack features. The grin faded, replaced by a look of slight exasperation. He let out a short sigh, a cloud of condensation in the cool forest air.
"I'm too kind for my own good," he muttered to himself, the words barely audible.
He bent down. With a care that contrasted sharply with the brutality of moments before, he slipped one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, lifting her as easily as he might lift a bundle of firewood. She was surprisingly light. He adjusted his grip, ensuring her injured leg was supported, and turned back the way he had come, leaving the clearing and its silent occupants behind as if they were nothing more than discarded leaves.
As he walked, carrying his unconscious burden back toward the safety of his lodge by the lake, Chu Tianxiu allowed himself a small, private thought. The hunt had been a minor diversion, but it had been clean. Efficient. There was a clarity in the forest's violence that the tangled betrayals of the human world sorely lacked. This "little kitten," as he already thought of her, was just another piece of the world's chaos. But for now, she was a piece he had claimed.