From here on out, one had to be extremely careful.
As it stood, anyone who made it off Nine Waves Island had their hands soaked in blood.
....
「Deep within Nine Waves Island, in a dense forest.」
Song Ming clutched a bone-deep saber wound on his side, panting heavily as he leaned against a tree trunk.
His face was ashen, and his lips were cracked and dry.
Just half an incense stick's time ago, he and two other disciples from the Li Fire Institute had been ambushed.
The two had fought to the death to cover his retreat and were now just two stiff corpses in the snow nearby.
'That was too close...'
Song Ming spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva.
After confirming there were no more threats, he fought through the intense pain and staggered toward the bodies of his two fellow disciples.
He deftly searched them, quickly pulling out a few blood-soaked leather pouches and a small bag of loose gold and silver coins.
