21 The Black Dog

The fifty black midnight spirit hounds were rushing madly toward them, threatening to overtake them in less than a hundred breaths. A black miasma surrounded these hounds, spreading outward and causing the red and gold tinged leaves to crumble into dust.

"Run to the east!" shouted Cha Ming.

The group of black hounds was heading from the south, and he did not want to run north in case they accidentally intruded on a larger beast's territory. He was also hoping that the hounds were not targeting them. Such a large group of hounds could not possibly have them, a small group of cultivators as their target! Although each hound was only a second-level spirit beast, a few pack leaders could be seen among them. These pack leaders were probably fifth- or sixth-grade spirit beasts.

After only a few minutes of running, they noticed that another group of hounds was heading toward them from the south. They hastened their pace toward the east, only to find yet another group of fifty hounds. They quickly set off toward the northeast, hoping to evade both groups. Finally, after a few minutes, they encountered yet another group heading north. A hundred and fifty midnight spirit hounds! They had no choice but to begin fleeing toward the north.

Although Cha Ming had a variety of talismans at his disposal, he was at a loss on how they would be able to avoid a hundred and fifty midnight spirit hounds. He could do nothing but direct their fleeing group in such a way that they would be surrounded.

Seeing that their situation was quite dire, Wang Jun withdrew a sheet of paper from his bag of holding. It was a talisman! In this case the talisman only had two characters, which together symbolized "obscure." There was no "lesser" or "mid-level" before the characters. Given the power undulations from the talisman, Cha Ming was fairly sure this talisman was a high-grade talisman. The power level of such a talisman couldn't be questioned.

"Everyone, keep running!" yelled Wang Jun. "This is an obscurity talisman with a duration of one hour. It will shield us from being seen, smelled, or heard for a total of one hour. However, it has a major weakness: if we make physical contact with any of these spirit hounds, the spell will instantly fade!"

The group paled as they kept running through the tall yellow grass. Although their group wasn't particularly physically fit, the threat of death kept them pushing their limits.

They continued running north, and while the gap between them and the hounds was closing slowly, the trailing beasts had slowed their pace significantly and were tracking them using only visible imprints in the yellow grass. After a full hour, they had still not lost the group of hounds.

Suddenly, when it seemed like the hounds were about to catch up, they heard a loud crash as the leading hounds crumpled to the ground. The group of chasing hounds suddenly stopped. It was as though they had hit a wall, and the hounds spread out to the east and the west like a river hitting a dam. They weren't sure what caused this to happen, but one thing was certain: If it wasn't for this strange barrier, all that would have awaited them was death.

--

Their party collapsed several hours later, gasping for breath. The woods here were no longer the same vibrant woods with green, gold, and red leaves. Instead, they were surrounded by white, gray, and black tree trunks that were fully devoid of life. They would not have picked this desolate land, but they had no choice. They felt guided by an invisible hand, unable to go to the east or the west. Was it fear that guided them, or was it fate? Regardless of what it was, they were incapable of resisting the urge to continue north and fought through their exhaustion.

The obscurity talisman had faded long ago. A side effect of it was that the world took on a grayish hue. They had thought their desolated surroundings were due to this modified perception, but they quickly realized that all the trees in this area were truly dead. In other parts of the forest, they saw shrubs and leaves on the ground. All they could see now was a thin dust that swept across the forest floor in seemingly random patterns.

Any attempts at seeing farther into the woods were impeded by a white mist spanning in all directions. Before long, Cha Ming realized they were lost. Wang Jun, who normally had an impeccable sense of direction, also felt completely lost and disoriented. After some exploring, they realized that they could still proceed through the desolate woods, but only on the winding path that the mists allowed.

Time lost all meaning. When they felt tired, they would pitch camp and rest. They continued until about a day had passed, then they set up camp and rested again. There was no sun; there was no moon. There was neither light nor darkness, only desolation and the white mist.

After what they thought might have been three or four days, their group finally began to see color. The color was a red-and-black liquid that didn't seem to follow the laws of nature. Instead of pooling into low-lying areas, the red-and-black liquid flowed uphill and accumulated on small hills and protrusions. The soil here did not seem to show any interest in soaking up the liquid, leaving it to aggregate in small puddles.

At one point, Cha Ming reached out toward the bloody stream to confirm its contents. He was stopped by Wang Jun just in time for them to see a lonely bird come down for a drink of "water." As soon as the bird contacted the puddle, it melted and burned, letting out a sharp cry in stark contrast to the silent woods. Their group never tried touching the mysterious liquid again.

As they traveled further, a small hill was growing in their line of sight. The hill was black, but the details were obscured by the mist pervading their surroundings. This hill was surrounded by many black rocks. This was the first change in scenery that they had seen in the past few days. Excited, they sprinted toward the hill and reached it in only a few breaths.

Once they reached the hill, they realized that it was not a hill at all—it was a fifty-meter-long black dog! The many black rocks surrounding it were larger midnight spirit hounds. Compared to the pack leaders they had previously encountered, these beasts were clearly twice as big. The five of them stood before the large dog in somber silence. Wang Jun was the first to break the silence.

"Cha Ming, these midnight spirit hounds all seem dead, and what you see in front of us appears to be a mid-foundation-establishment midnight spirit hound. Such a beast is very rare and very useful to my clan. Could I perhaps take it? I would split any profit with the group…"

Take it? If their entire group combined their storage, perhaps they could take away their claws and teeth. How could they take away an entire gigantic beast like that?

Cha Ming shook his head. "Wang Jun, if you can take away this beast, I don't think any of us will argue with you. But we don't have the ability to take away something so large. Besides, you've incurred a great expense using the obscurity talisman. If you want to let your clan know about the location, perhaps they could come by and pick it up later…"

Cha Ming then went over to a few smaller beasts, storing five beasts in the bag of holding he had borrowed from his teacher. "This is all I can hold…" He shook his head helplessly. He and Feng Ming then proceeded to cut out beast cores and teeth. Meanwhile, Wang Jun continued to stare at the large corpse as if he was trying to think of a way to move it.

After a short while of pondering, Wang Jun threw up a group of nine oddly shaped black coins. Instead of the usual round coins, these were shaped like rectangles pierced with a square hole. These coins floated for a few breaths, and as Wang Jun pulled away the power supporting them, they fell to the dusty forest floor. After observing the coins for a few moments, Wang Jun brightened and picked up the coins.

He first made his way to the remaining fifty smaller beasts that had had their beast cores extracted. They disappeared one by one, until every one of them had disappeared. Feng Ming, Gong Lan, and Hong Xin, who knew nothing of his origins, shot him a shocked look. Not even their clan patriarch had such a large storage treasure! Their shock didn't last long, because Wang Jun did something even more astonishing.

He slowly walked up toward the mouth of the foundation-establishment beast. As he approached, he was buffeted by the foundation-establishment strength pressure that billowed out from the corpse. When it didn't seem like he could continue, he spit out a mouthful of blood, which immediately blacked and turned into a mist. This mist surrounded him, and his figure turned dark and blurry. He then continued to walk nonchalantly; the pressure that had previously caused so much trouble seemed to ignore him, as if he didn't exist. He then made his way to the dead hound until he was less than a foot away.

Just when Cha Ming thought he would try cutting off a tooth or claw, Wang Jun instead took out a small chest. He opened the chest, and the large beast disappeared into the chest, leaving behind a bloody lake. Then the lake disappeared, and the forest floor returned to its original dusty gray color. The blood could no longer stand the desolation in the forest once the supporting power of the large hound disappeared.

Their whole group was stunned. While Hong Xin didn't realize it, Feng Ming, Gong Lan, and Cha Ming were much more experienced than her. To take all of the objects in, he needed at least five hundred cubic meters of storage space. The bag that was lent to Cha Ming by his teacher had a tenth of that amount of space. Such a storage space was something that perhaps only foundation-establishment elders would have, and it would be one of their most precious treasures. The value of a portable storage device increased exponentially with the available space. It was no exaggeration to say that the city lord's estate might not be worth as much as Wang Jun's small chest.

Looking back to his friends, Wang Jun let out an embarrassed cough. He was not one who liked exposing his wealth. He whisked away the small chest into one of his sleeves and said, "Should we get going?"

Not wanting to make things difficult for his friend, Cha Ming charged ahead in front of the group, nodding and patting him on the back.

--

The sounds of shattering ice sounded once more as Cha Ming walked over a frozen puddle. The frozen puddle was surrounded by many others, forming the outline of deep tracks along a clay road. He knew this was a dream, yet he made sure to break every puddle as he wandered down the frozen clay road. He did not get to indulge in this innocent pleasure for long. In the distance, he saw that familiar gray smoke rising from a small burning house.

Time was of the essence. Cha Ming quickly ran toward the familiar house and the familiar fire. As he focused his burning eyes, he noticed that this fire was a little different. The fire seemed concentrated on a single side of the house, and it burned with a lower intensity than in prior dreams. He didn't ponder on this fact for very long. The temperature was still within reasonable limits, and the house could still be approached.

He quickly touched the doorknob with the back of his hand. After confirming that the door could be opened without provoking a violent burst of flames, he wrapped his hand in his long-sleeved garment and slowly opened the door, just like he always did. A violent cloud of smoke billowed out as the hot and cold air equalized.

Not wanting to waste any time, he opened the door the rest of the way and ran inside the house, looking through his familiar surroundings and checking for any casualties. It was dark, but he quickly made his way around the many rooms in the house. His familiarity became his advantage as he used up precious seconds, eventually making his way up a narrow flight of carpeted stairs.

He didn't think twice, relying on his sense of hearing to barely make out two sets of sounds. To his left were the sounds of the barking dog, and on the right, the screaming child. The sounds pierced through his soul as he made a quick decision, heading toward the right to grab the screaming child out of his fenced bed. By now, his eyes had turned completely red, and tears were screaming down his cheeks. It was difficult to say if his eyes were red because of the heat and smoke or if he was overwhelmed by the sadness of the situation.

After maneuvering the child, he was able to pry the child's trapped leg from out of the bed. He held the kicking and screaming child, holding it close to his body as he felt his way out of the small room and back to the staircase. As he ran down, the whining sounds of the trapped dog reached his ears. Yet again, he couldn't take a chance. But for some reason, he felt like he had much more time than usual, and the hot, smoky air didn't seem to obstruct his breathing as much. But the child had been in the smoke for too long.

He ran down the hot stairs and finally found his way outside, where he was greeted by the child's mother, who embraced her poor child while crying at her ineptitude. She was surrounded by two other young children.

As he panted with his hands on both knees, he once again heard the barking sound. Was there enough time? The house fire was now much more intense, and he would truly be risking his life if he went inside. He could at least try. If he didn't, he would regret it for the rest of his life. The dog wasn't unknown to him, even though it wasn't his dog. He had played with the dog many times before.

Despite the cries of the young mother, Cha Ming sprinted toward the open door of the house. Growing flames reached through the door now. The smoke had started to clear up a little, a sign that the remaining moisture in the wooden house had already evaporated. Nevertheless, he darted up the stairs. He could feel his shoes melting as he quickly ran up the stairs, making each step precarious and slippery.

This time, he turned left at the top of the staircase. After a quick check on the doorknob, he slowly opened the door, and smoke blew out into his face. A quick gust of wind blew past him, and as he looked back, he noticed that the flight of stairs had now burst into flames. There was no turning back.

His hands darted out as he felt along the floor for any signs of his hairy friend. His eyes were even more bloodshot than before, and tears were no longer streaming out of his eyes. After searching for a few breaths of time, he finally located the large fifty-pound dog. It had passed out because of the smoke, and Cha Ming was forced to hoist the fifty pounds of dead weight on his shoulder.

Since the stairs were aflame, he had no choice but to use the window. He dragged the golden dog up to the large window. It had a modern design, which meant that it was difficult to fully open in the first place. He didn't hesitate to grab a nearby chair, using it to shatter the window and force the broken pieces of metal framing outward.

Luckily, inside the room there were two twin-sized beds. Even in his best shape he would never have been able to properly handle an awkwardly large king-sized bed. It only took him forty-five seconds to throw the mattresses out of the window. He then hoisted the large dog to the side of the house, carefully throwing it onto the farther mattress. Bright red lights flashed outside the house. The fire department had arrived, and if he managed to even step outside, he would surely be saved.

But luck was not on his side today. As he prepared to jump out of the window, the window frame he was holding collapsed along with the wall, which fell due to the burden of his weight and the loss of support underneath. He fell directly through the crumbling floor, only to be devoured by the raging inferno on the first floor. His consciousness faded as he was burned bit by bit. His sight faded to black, and soon the black faded to white.

Cha Ming opened his eyes to the usual bleak scenery. He was surrounded by dead trees and white mist. He thought about his dream. Why had the dream changed? Why was he not too exhausted to rescue the dog this time around? Why was there now an extra choice: Should I risk my life to save a dog?

Many firefighters had asked themselves the same question in recent times. Newspapers published mountains of stories about brave firefighters who traveled through harm's way to save a furry family friend. Sadly, these stories accompanied the fewer articles that memorialized the firefighters who died trying.

It was in their bones to save those that had a chance, and they took that chance to fight against the odds. It was no one's right to deny them that privilege.