Deeper inside the forest, Liu Cheng raised his head from where he had just killed two demonic beasts. He tightly furrowed his brows and looked in the direction where the crash had come from. Seeing a faint light that didn’t resemble the lightning and wouldn’t extinguish even when the rest of the forest went dark again, he felt even more that this was a situation he should check out.

He once again flicked a glance at the two cadavers on the ground and then shook his head, just leaving. He really would’ve liked to take a closer look around to make sure that there weren’t any other demonic beasts prowling around but for the moment, that just wasn’t possible. He had to make sure of what was going on over there first.

Jogging in that direction, weaving between the trees, and evading the underbrush, he slowly closed in on that spot. Meanwhile, he couldn’t help but worry a bit about what was going on with Jing Yi.

He had only intended to check things out for a moment but then, it had actually turned out that there really had been demonic beasts. Naturally, as a demon hunter, he hadn’t been able to just ignore that so he had had to engage in a fight.

Most likely, that boy would be quite worried by now. He also couldn’t help but wonder if it had been a smart decision to leave him there alone. If there were more demonic beasts around … It could very well be that he would be attacked. Then how would he defend himself?

He should’ve thought about that sooner. Especially since Jing Yi had helped him previously. Who knew if there hadn’t been any other demons close by who had seen that and would want to take revenge on the two of them, starting with the person they assumed to be the easier target? If that happened …

Liu Cheng shook his head and then hastened his steps, rushing toward the source of the light. Anyway, he would only check this out and then he would rush back to the clearing to make sure Jing Yi was alright.

Soon enough, he was finally able to see just what was happening that had caused the forest at night to suddenly turn has bright as in the day: Somehow, a large part of it had caught on fire.

Liu Cheng furrowed his brows, wondering what to do. He was a practitioner and not a cultivator so he didn’t have any magic at his disposal. He could only use his sword and for dealing with this kind of thing, that wasn’t very helpful. Especially not after the fire had already expanded to such a degree.

He sighed again, already wanting to turn away.

Not far from him, Jing Yi was still half trapped below the tree, once again getting anxious. He tried to wriggle out, pushing the branches away with his hands but it just wasn’t working. While he had managed to twist off some of the smaller twigs, making some space to turn his upper body, he just wasn’t able to free has legs that were trapped below the heavier branches. There was no way he would be able to use the type of strength that would be necessary to break those off.

He gritted his teeth, once again trying to gather the energy of the air as he had done before but in his panic, he had trouble focusing, making him fail several times. He cursed, hitting the ground next to him and making some of the mud splash into the air.

Liu Cheng who had just wanted to leave turned around and furrowed his brows. "Is somebody there?" He slowly inched forward, looking around.

Jing Yi’s eyes widened at the familiar voice. "Liu Cheng?! It’s me! I came looking for you but I was hit by a tree!"

Liu Cheng rushed over, his brows raising when he saw the type of situation Jing Yi was in. Looking around and seeing that the fire had already gotten close and would soon reach them, he took out his sword and them hacked at the branches, cutting them off cleanly.

Jing Yi heaved a sigh of relief and wriggled around some more, finally being able to turn onto his side. After a few more cuts by Liu Cheng, he managed to crawl out from under the tree, and stumbled to his feet, panting heavily. That had really been a close shave! If not for Liu Cheng suddenly coming by … After almost drowning, he might have burned to death instead.

He shook his head to push off the thought and turned back to Liu Cheng. "Thank you!" Anyway, he had managed to make it out of there with his help. He was safe now.

Liu Cheng just shook his head, grabbed him by the arm, and then pulled him along with him. "Let’s get out of here as fast as we can. I’m sorry for leaving you alone for so long. That shouldn’t have happened."

Inwardly, he could not help but wonder if this might have had something to do with the demonic beasts he had seen. Anyway, it felt quite a bit too coincidental that Jing Yi would get into a situation like this while he was away.

Unfortunately, now was not the time to investigate this. In fact, he was afraid that there wouldn’t be any time like this at all. This journey had dragged on for too long. It was time to bring Jing Yi back to the capital city of the Long kingdom as he had promised. After that, he could just return here and investigate everything slowly. That would likely yield better results anyway.