Neither of them moved.

  Not a branch snapping. Not an animal stumbling. Something had chosen to drop from a height, land clean, and go still. Cael had read enough to know that distinction mattered.

  He pushed Lightning Sense out and immediately got flooded. He narrowed it hard, cutting everything outside five meters.

  There. Twelve meters north. Moving low, weight forward, the kind of movement that belonged to something that knew how to be quiet and had decided not to bother.

  He killed the sense before the headache built. "Twelve meters. Coming straight."

  Edric had already drawn the blade. No hesitation, no waiting to be told. Weight forward, knees slightly bent, blade held low at his right side. Not raised. Just ready, the way a hand rested ready rather than reached.

  "River's behind us," Edric said, just above a breath.

  "Yes."

  "She won't follow us in."

  Cael glanced back at the water. Fast through the center, slick stones, no way to see what was on the bottom. Crossing blind with something moving behind them was its own problem. But Edric wasn't wrong about the logic.

  Something moved in the undergrowth. A single branch, low down, then stillness.

  "She's reading us," Edric said.

  "Don't run," Cael said. "Don't turn your back."

  "I know."

  They moved backward toward the bank in slow even steps, facing north, neither rushing. Cael kept his eyes on the treeline and trusted his feet to find the ground behind him. The grass at the bank's edge went soft. The stones at the waterline were another problem.

  The undergrowth shifted. Closer. And to the left.

  "Flanking," Edric said. Flat, the calm in it genuine rather than performed.

  He turned his body slightly, blade tracking the new direction.

  Cael pushed Lightning Sense again. Ten seconds.

  Eight meters left. Parallel to them. Moving to cut the angle to the water.

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  He killed it before the headache crested. "Eight meters. Going for the angle."

  Edric stepped left without being asked, putting himself between Cael and that side, blade still low. The move was clean and required no discussion. "He's good at this. Instinctively good, the way people are when the skill is built into them from the start."

  Then the forest went completely silent.

  She stepped out of the undergrowth.

  Big. Shoulder height at Edric's chest. Spotted coat marked in dark irregular patches. Eyes a pale amber that caught the morning light and held it steady. She moved onto the bank five meters to their left and stopped, looking at them with the patient attention of something that had made decisions like this before and found them simple.

  Her tail moved once, slow.

  Cael opened the Codex and ran Appraisal without moving anything else.

  Name: Thornback Leopard

  Type: Forest Beast

  Cultivation: Mortal Awakening — Peak

  Potential: ★★★☆☆

  Threat Level: High — Exceeds current party capacity

  Fate: Raises her cubs. Hunts this corridor for eleven more years.

  Peak Mortal Awakening. Two full sub-stages above Edric. The Codex had added a threat level field because the gap was wide enough to warrant saying so plainly.

  "Eleven more years." He read the Fate line twice. "She's not dying here and she knows it. What she's deciding right now is whether we're a problem worth solving."

  He didn't share the panel. Nothing Edric could do with it right now.

  Edric faced her fully. Blade visible. Not aggressive, just present, the way a problem announced itself.

  She looked at the blade.

  Then at him.

  Then past him, at Cael.

  Cael held still and met her eyes. He had no idea if that was the right call. It felt like the right call.

  Ten seconds.

  She looked away.

  No fear. No hesitation. A decision, made the way something made a decision when it had options and selected a different one. She turned back to the treeline and walked into it. Three steps. The undergrowth closed. Two more seconds and there was no sound at all.

  Neither of them moved for thirty full seconds.

  Edric let out a long slow breath. He rolled his shoulder once and slid the blade back without looking at it.

  "She was testing," he said.

  "She had cubs," Cael said. "We weren't worth the injury risk."

  Edric looked at the treeline where she'd gone. "What if we had been?" about it honestly. Unawakened, five-meter Lightning Sense, a skill he still couldn't activate. Edric at Early stage with a short blade. Peak Mortal Awakening, three stars of potential, on her own territory with cubs to protect.

  "Then we'd have found out very fast," he said.

  Edric made a short sound. Almost a laugh.

  He looked at the camp, the treeline, then at Cael.

  "We can't stay here," he said.

  "No," Cael agreed. "We can't."

  "The river is good for cultivation. Ambient Qi, moving water, old forest. All of it is right. But staying in one spot means becoming a known feature of the local landscape. The cat found us in forty minutes. Other things will, eventually. And not everything will decide we're not worth the cost."

  "The smoke columns to the south," Edric said.

  "Half a day's walk from the ridge. Maybe less if the terrain opens up."

  "Settlement?"

  "Something. Locals, could be anything." Cael looked south through the trees. "Either way it's more than what we have here."

  Edric crouched, picked up the Warmweave bedding, and compressed it under his arm. Practical, immediate, no discussion required.

  "Then we go south," he said.

  Cael nodded once.

  They broke camp in under ten minutes.

  End of Chapter 6