Chapter 770 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 37

Chapter 770 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 37

“Mo Lan said it’s on the east side of the camp! Hurry over and take a look!”

Ren Miao hastily pointed toward the watchtower.

She knew the rules. During normal combat, everyone could cooperate with one another, but once someone identified a target mirror beast for skill extraction, unless the situation was critical, it was best for that person to handle the kill themselves—at minimum, they had to land the final blow. Others should avoid interfering as much as possible, lest residual energy from different sources compromise the completeness and compatibility of the beast core’s skill extraction.

The moment Xiang Yufan heard this, he couldn’t spare another thought for anything else. He said a quick “Thanks!” and immediately hunched over, sprinting toward the watchtower in the center of camp at top speed while making as little noise as possible. In two or three nimble moves, he scaled the structure, breathing slightly ragged, and asked in an excited but suppressed whisper:

“Mo Lan, where is it? Where to the east?” His gaze was already sweeping urgently into the darkness to the east, searching for the windchaser antelope.

Mo Lan’s eyes remained locked on a specific point in the eastern darkness. Hearing Xiang Yufan’s voice, she didn’t turn her head. She merely gave the faintest directional gesture with the hand gripping her dagger, her voice pressed extremely low but her words coming fast:

“About two hundred meters in that direction, at the edge of that slightly elevated patch of grass. It paused there briefly just now—seemed to be grazing on luminous moss.”

“It’s moved since then. It’s pacing in a small area, moving very fast but in a regular pattern. Highly alert.”

Her perception and vision seemed entirely unimpaired by the darkness, precisely reporting the target’s position and movements.

Xiang Yufan immediately focused his gaze in the direction she indicated, straining to adapt to the distant darkness.

At first he saw nothing. But after a few seconds, aided by the faintest starlight and the strange faint glow emanating from the distant meadow itself, he managed to catch an extremely blurred gray shadow moving soundlessly like a specter at astonishing speed—it was indeed the windchaser antelope!

His heart gave a violent lurch, excitement and tension surging through him.

Xiang Yufan drew a deep breath and forced himself to calm down, mentally reviewing the hunting plan he had devised before setting out.

The windchaser antelope’s magic skill was called “Ride the Wind.” It could sense extremely subtle traces of danger in the air through the wind itself.

When downwind, its perception was extraordinarily keen—it could detect virtually all threats originating from upwind and harness the wind to unleash astonishing straight-line speed. A headwind, however, would disrupt its senses, and while its linear sprint was fast as lightning, its directional changes were relatively sluggish, making its trajectory fairly easy to predict.

This skill was universally acknowledged as a powerful lifesaving ability among one-star beast core skills, with extremely high practical value. Even after one’s psychic power advanced to higher star levels in the future, it would continue to play an important role.

But precisely because of this, hunting one was extraordinarily difficult.

For a one-star Mirror Explorer without any speed-boosting abilities, trying to chase down and kill a windchaser antelope head-on was a nearly impossible task.

Xiang Yufan was well aware of his own limitations. He had never harbored any illusions about killing one in a “head-on” solo fight.

His goal had always been “solo kill”—without insisting on a head-on approach, which meant he could leverage the environment, traps, or other methods.

While this wouldn’t achieve the most perfect extraction conditions, meaning the “Ride the Wind” skill he ultimately obtained might be slightly weaker than the antelope’s own version, for a low-star Mirror Explorer, it would still be an absolute dream prize.

By discarding the harsh requirement of a “head-on” kill, his room to maneuver expanded enormously.

He had prepared two plans for this.

The first was a trap ambush.

After locating an area where the windchaser antelope frequently roamed, he would set up trip lines, pitfalls, and other ground traps in advance, then patiently wait for it to walk right into them.

This plan had a relatively high success rate, with the drawback of being extremely time-consuming, requiring extensive preliminary scouting and waiting.

He had specifically studied a number of tracking techniques and trap construction methods for this purpose, and his pack was loaded with relevant materials.

But clearly, given the current sudden opportunity, there was no time whatsoever to set anything up.

The second plan was a downwind ranged kill.

He would carefully approach the windchaser antelope from the downwind direction, using the wind to mask his scent, then attack with a ranged weapon.

He dared to formulate this plan because he had inherited his father’s respectable talent for archery. His accuracy was decent among peers his age, and he had the foundation of practicing since childhood.

But this plan carried extremely high risk. Wind direction on the Kaleidoscope Wilderness was unpredictable—if the wind shifted midway, or if he made any slight noise, the windchaser antelope’s alertness would cause it to instantly burst into a sprint and flee. There would be no second chance.

He didn’t possess the windchaser antelope’s near-instinctual sensitivity to wind direction.

He couldn’t guarantee he would remain downwind of the antelope the entire approach until it entered his firing range, which was why even now he still lacked complete confidence in this plan.

So this second plan had always been a gamble in his mind—best case it worked, but failure would be entirely expected.

Now there was no other choice. He could only roll the dice.

Xiang Yufan quickly retrieved a lightweight but powerful hand crossbow from his storage equipment and carefully loaded a specialized armor-piercing bolt.

His heartbeat pounded like a war drum, but the hands gripping the crossbow were remarkably steady.

“Mo Lan, keep tracking its movements for me. I’m going to approach from downwind.” Xiang Yufan whispered to Mo Lan on the watchtower.

“Judging by the grass, the downwind position should be over there, one hundred and eighty meters out. It’s still grazing with its head down. Its movement frequency has slowed—its alertness seems to have relaxed somewhat,” Mo Lan said.

Xiang Yufan nodded once and immediately crouched low, gliding toward the downwind position Mo Lan had indicated as silently as a ghost.

He made full use of the grass and the undulations of the terrain to conceal his form, each step as light and nimble as a wildcat’s.

The night breeze blew from the antelope’s direction toward Xiang Yufan, perfectly masking his scent.

Everything seemed to be developing in his favor.

Eighty meters… sixty meters… forty meters…

Xiang Yufan could now clearly make out the windchaser antelope’s elegant silhouette and its faintly luminous fur.

He slowly raised the crossbow and began to take aim. His breathing all but stopped, his finger resting lightly on the trigger.

Thirty meters! At this distance, within his crossbow’s effective range, he had a seventy percent chance of hitting a vital spot!

But at that very critical instant—

Everything changed in a heartbeat!

The Kaleidoscope Wilderness’s capricious weather once again displayed its willfulness!

A sudden, moderate whirlwind with no warning at all swept across the meadow from the side, and the previously stable wind direction shifted ninety degrees in an instant!

For the windchaser antelope with its “Ride the Wind” ability, this abrupt change in airflow was as shrill as an alarm!

The antelope, which had been grazing on luminous moss with its head down, jerked its head up sharply. Its sensitive ears gave a violent twitch, and its head snapped instantly toward the direction where Xiang Yufan lay concealed!

The wind had carried from that direction an unfamiliar scent—the dangerous scent of a human!