On the fourth day, nothing came within thirty meters of Meng Hao. But that night, when everything grew quiet, it took the mastiff about one hour to slowly crawl back to him.
Meng Hao couldn’t see it, but the path the mastiff had crawled was a long streak of blood. Its teeth were smashed, its back caved in. It lay next to him, its head twisted to the side as it licked his palm. With weak whines, it seemed to recount the days’ events to Meng Hao.
Meng Hao’s eyes were red. He couldn’t see the mastiff, but he could sense how weak its Qi was. At the moment, he had become just like a mortal, and he knew that without the mastiff there to protect him, he would have been dead on the first day.
But the price paid for his life was the mastiff’s increasingly weak condition. Soon a day would come when it wouldn’t be able to crawl back to him at all….
Meng Hao forced his eyes to remain wide open. He stared at the magical symbols on the stone stele, longing for enlightenment. But no matter how he looked at them, he was unable to gain any understanding. It was as if… they were nothing more than magical symbols that had nothing to do with him, an outsider.
And then, the fifth day arrived….