With the last of the saddles and harnesses finally completed, Kai's group transformed into a caravan of terrifying efficiency. No longer bound by the slowest among them, they cut through Zan's wilderness like a blade through parchment—swift, relentless, and unstoppable.

  The preparations had been meticulous. Igni, Snow, Ning, and several other massive spirit beasts now bore custom-fitted saddles, their broad backs transformed into mobile platforms. Woven baskets, reinforced and layered with padding, were secured to their sides, carrying the smaller and slower members of their entourage—like the fox Yinying and many of the other slower creatures who couldn't keep up with the blistering pace Kai demanded.

  And then—they moved.

  The acceleration was staggering.

  On open plains, they became a blur—a storm of fur, muscle, and wind, tearing across the landscape at speeds that would have shattered mortal comprehension. 100 kilometers per hour was their baseline. 200 was common. When the terrain allowed, when the earth was flat and unbroken, they pushed further—500 kilometers in a single stretch, the world melting into streaks of color around them.

  Forests posed a different challenge. Thick trunks and tangled undergrowth would have forced any normal traveler to slow to a crawl. But Ning, the colossal Quake Buffalo, refused to be hindered. With earth-shaking strides, she plowed forward, her massive horns and armored shoulders smashing through obstacles like a living battering ram. Trees splintered, brush flattened, and behind her, the rest of the group followed in the wake of her destruction, their path cleared by sheer, unstoppable force.

  But speed came at a cost.

  The saddles kept them from being flung off—barely. But comfort was a luxury they couldn’t afford. At these velocities, the wind became a relentless foe, howling in their ears, biting at exposed skin, threatening to rip them from their mounts if they loosened their grip. The riders—Kai, Lulu, Gin, and the three disciples—clung to their harnesses like shipwreck survivors to driftwood, their fingers cramping, their muscles screaming from the strain.

  Lu Bu endured it with gritted teeth, treating the ordeal as another form of training. Chen Gong, though less physically robust, had strapped himself down with additional bindings and focused on breathing techniques to stave off nausea. Zhang Liao, the newest and youngest, spent the first few days wide-eyed and trembling, convinced each ride would be his last—until, to his own surprise, he began to adapt.

  Lulu, despite her complaints, had the easiest time—her smaller frame meant less wind resistance, and she had long mastered balance through cultivation techniques. Gin, on the other hand, alternated between exhilarated whooping and groaning misery, depending on how much liquor was still in his system.

  Kai? He bore it without complaint.

  They rarely pushed to full speed for long.

  Not because the spirit beasts couldn’t handle it—Snow and Ning could have run for days without rest—but because the human members of the group needed breaks. Their bodies needed to recover from the punishment of the ride. Their minds needed moments of stillness to process the world rushing past them.

  So, they adapted.

  They sprinted in bursts—eight hours of relentless travel, then camp. Sometimes less, if the terrain was particularly brutal. Sometimes more, if Kai sensed an opportunity to gain ground before bad weather set in.

  The difference was undeniable.

  What would have taken months on foot was now collapsing into weeks. The northern horizon, once a distant dream, grew closer with each passing day.

  When they finally stopped to rest each evening, a collective sigh of relief escaped Kai’s three disciples. The brutal pace of their journey had an unexpected benefit—it exhausted the prodigies. After hours of clinging to their saddles, muscles burning from the strain of resisting the wind’s relentless pull, even Lu Bu’s boundless energy was sapped. Their arms trembled, their fingers stiffened, and their legs ached from the constant tension of staying mounted.

  For the first time since taking them in, Kai had breathing room.

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  Their physical fatigue, combined with the responsibility of training Zhang Liao before Kai would teach them anything new, had finally slowed their absurd rate of progress. No longer were they mastering techniques overnight, bombarding Lulu with requests for new techniques, or pestering Kai with endless questions. Instead, they spent their evenings recuperating, their usual vigor dulled by the demands of travel.

  It was a small mercy.

  It took nearly a week before Zhang Liao began speaking to Kai with any regularity—far longer than Lu Bu, who had opened up after a single day. The Windrider boy was withdrawn, his words sparse, his gaze often distant. But slowly, in fragments, his story emerged.

  His parents had died long before the massacre. His mother had perished in childbirth—a tragically common fate in the harsh lands of Zan. His father, a skilled hunter, had fallen to one of the monstrous beasts that prowled the edges of Northend, leaving Zhang Liao an orphan before he could even walk.

  Yet, the Windriders had not abandoned him.

  "The clan raises its own," Chen Gong explained when Kai voiced his surprise. "Windriders see children as belonging to the tribe as much as to their parents. Even if both are lost, the community ensures they are fed, taught, and protected."

  It was a foreign concept to Kai, who had grown up in a world where bloodlines and personal legacy dictated a child’s worth. But in the unforgiving wilds of Zan, where survival was a collective effort, it made sense. The Windriders could not afford to cast aside the next generation, no matter how they came into the world.

  Zhang Liao had been raised by the elders, taught to track, to ride, to read the land’s subtle warnings. He had been trained in the clan’s traditions—the stories of the sky, the songs of the steppes, the unspoken rules of honor that bound the Windriders together.

  The boy carried himself with a quiet resilience, but Kai could see the fractures beneath the surface. Losing his entire tribe—the people who had raised him, who had been his only family—had hollowed him out in ways Kai couldn’t fully grasp.

  Kai watched as Lu Bu and Chen Gong worked with the boy, drilling him in basic stances and breathing techniques. There was no impatience in their instruction—only a quiet understanding. They, too, had been pulled from the wreckage of their pasts.

  Kai kept a watchful eye on Lu Bu and Chen Gong’s instruction of Zhang Liao, making sure they weren’t filling the boy’s head with anything too reckless. Every so often, he would pull Zhang Liao aside—checking in with short, simple questions.

  "How are you holding up?"

  "Any trouble with the training?"

  "Need anything?"

  The answers were always brief.

  "Fine."

  "No."

  "I don’t know."

  Zhang Liao was a boy of few words, his expressions guarded, his voice quiet. But Kai had begun to notice something else about him—something beyond his silence.

  The boy was deeply superstitious.

  Every morning, without fail, Zhang Liao would walk in three deliberate circles before bowing eastward, murmuring something under his breath. When Kai first saw it, he assumed it was some kind of Windrider warm-up ritual—until he realized the boy was performing the same motions even on rest days, when no training was scheduled.

  Then came the warnings.

  As they traveled, Zhang Liao would occasionally speak up—not with questions, but with quiet, urgent cautions.

  "Don’t cut that tree," he’d say, pointing to an ancient, gnarled oak. "It’s bad luck."

  "We shouldn’t camp here. The wind sounds wrong."

  "That rock formation—we should go around it. Spirits live there."

  At first, Kai dismissed it as the nervous habits of a traumatized child. But the more he observed, the more he realized these weren’t just random fears—they were ingrained beliefs, passed down through generations of Windriders.

  And Kai, remembering the last tribe he had encountered, he remembered Taimyr also mentioning something about it being bad luck to refuse weary travelers refuge.

  When Zhang Liao pointed out a cluster of silver-barked trees that were supposedly sacred, Kai didn’t argue. He simply commanded Ning to veer slightly off her usual bulldozing path, letting her massive frame crush through underbrush instead. The Quake Buffalo huffed in annoyance but complied, and Zhang Liao’s shoulders relaxed just a fraction.

  It wasn’t a hardship. If avoiding a few trees helped the boy feel even slightly more at ease, Kai saw no reason not to oblige.

  Chen Gong, ever the curious mind, was fascinated.

  "The Windriders are one of the oldest peoples in Zan," he mused one evening as they set up camp. "Their superstitions likely aren’t just superstitions—they’re survival lessons, preserved in ritual. That tree they avoid cutting? Might be poisonous when burned. The ‘bad luck’ rock formation? Could be unstable ground or a predator’s den," Chen Gong theorized.

  Kai grunted in acknowledgment. It made sense. The Windriders had thrived in this harsh land for centuries. Their traditions, no matter how strange they seemed, had roots in real dangers.

  Zhang Liao, overhearing, didn’t confirm or deny—but for the first time, Kai caught the faintest flicker of something in the boy’s eyes.

  Respect.

  Kai didn’t press. He didn’t mock. He simply accepted the boy’s quirks and adjusted when needed.

  And slowly, ever so slowly, Zhang Liao began to trust.

  Not with words.

  But with the quiet certainty that his warnings would be heard.

  And that, Kai realized, was progress.

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