The birds had carried her, most likely because she had tried to communicate to the tiger in the distance. It had fallen on the wrong target. Of course, she didn’t mind. She wanted to call the birds again, but they were already scattering away, frightened by the sudden earthquake. "What is happening right now–" Even the sounds of her comrades were quite a distance away. All of a sudden, the ground shook more violently, and Zerra was horrified to find the land sliding down. So, they were near some kind of cliff. She tried to grab onto anything — vines or something — but to no avail. The vines or any plants couldn’t hold on long enough before they followed the ground in sliding down. She perked her ears and yelled, "I am here!" Unfortunately, it was useless, as she was still falling down the cliff. In an attempt to keep herself alive, she used her wood power, ordering the surrounding plants to wrap around herself. Then, she could feel it. She was falling down even more quickly. The soil at the edge of the cliff could no longer hold itself together. She might get buried alive if not for her quick reflexes. Worse, if it weren’t for the leaves and branches wrapping around her like some kind of cocoon, she might have turned into fox meat paste. It took a few minutes until the shaking ground stopped. Zerra tried with her senses to feel her teammates. A frown marred her forehead. She couldn’t sense them, which meant that those people were too far away. Unsurprisingly, the ground buried the cocoon she had wrapped herself in. Slowly, she pulled the branches and leaves, trying to make her way from the place closest to the opening. Once she created a hole, the soil fell down to her small cocoon. "I have to take the soil to my inner space..." she muttered, frowning unhappily. Wouldn’t it be better to do it in her fox form too? This place feels so cramped, she was nearly out of breath. In a second, the girl had turned into a white fluff, with dirt sticking around her white fur and paw. She was all dirty. However, soon she found it wasn’t effective. The space indeed became less cramped, but she couldn’t get as much soil as she could to her inner space. As such, she turned into her human form again after the five minutes’ time ran out. Zerra used a hoe to dig into the soil. Originally, she thought it would take a while to get out with her proficiency in using the new tool, but she found out she was quite good at using the hoe? She managed to drag a lot of soil inside, touched the mound and moved it inside her inner space like a hardworking fox. All in a few seconds. An hour later, she crawled out of the cocoon made from the branches and leaves, a little breathless. If not from the oxygen she inhaled from her inner space, she might have been dying from losing breath inside. She sprawled on top of the soil, utterly exhausted. "Where am I?" She frowned, a little bewildered. The first thing she did when she was inside the cocoon was try to locate her teammates. Now, she realized she was all alone without any of them. She took a bottle of water from inside her space and drank it. It was the spring water she secretly saved from the ones Cassias had given her. Once she recovered her energy a little, she stood up. "Ouch," she hissed. She had stepped on jagged ends of countless stones. Now, her feet were a little injured too. How come they were so sharp that they could even pierce her shoes? Zerra squinted her eyes. Then, it dawned on her. She wasn’t stepping on stones alone, but some kind of mutated plants. Their leaves seemed very sharp, cutting into her shoes as if they were paper. She avoided the area and took out new shoes, sitting somewhere safe. She had never tried to heal herself. Should she try it? So, she did, and was taken aback when she found her own power ineffective. She couldn’t even heal herself? However, she could feel her own power indeed trying to regenerate her injured feet, albeit much more slowly. She had no choice but to put a bandage on her wounds and wear her shoes. There was no time to waste; she needed to get out of this forest quickly. She was all alone, and it would be dangerous once some mutated animals found her and called their group. She believed that Laziel and others also must have been looking for her. The stinging pain didn’t stop her from dragging her feet. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on N0velFire.ɴet Her eyes scanned her surroundings. Tall trees were everywhere, then the thick and lush vegetation nearly as tall as her. It was green all around, like there was no end to it. Strangely, she had never seen a single mutated animal. "Oh," she jolted, cursing her crow mouth. There was a dark vulture hovering in the sky, letting out raspy and hissing sounds that were uncomfortable to hear. It seemed to be watching something as prey. Zerra narrowed her eyes, hiding herself behind a tree. She spread her senses. The vulture was swooping down, then landed on a branch. After walking for a while, she had arrived on the other side of the landslide. The cliff above was too tall to see its end, filled with some kind of fog. The vulture stayed where it was for a while, not leaving. It made Zerra curious about what kind of prey it was waiting for... So, she used her spiritual power to spread her senses a bit wider. The vulture might have waited for some kind of animal to die– Eh? Her thoughts abruptly stopped when she saw the vulture’s prey. It wasn’t a mutated animal, but a person! She had made sure that no ability users were dragged alongside her, but now she wasn’t sure anymore. Her senses hadn’t stretched this far. The mutated birds only came for her. They brought her away before dropping her off at the edge of the cliff. Who was that person? The injury didn’t seem to be mild either–no wonder the vulture was waiting for the person to die. No matter who that was, she couldn’t let the person die like that, so she came out of her hiding spot, startling the vulture into letting out squeaky sounds. She approached the person. When she checked with her senses, the person’s face was filled with dirt, so she couldn’t determine his identity for a while. "Do you want to fight with me?" Zerra hissed at the vulture. She needed to solve this little thing quickly, before it called other mutated animals! The vulture swooped down, squawking at her. She didn’t know why this bird suddenly turned hostile when it came near her. Most likely, it was because of the breath of life she possessed, which was in conflict with the aura of death radiating from its body. She took out her whip, cracking it in the air. As the bird came close, she controlled the whip to wrap around the vulture’s body. It avoided her first strike, but she managed to do it on her second try. She aimed in the direction it was going as fast as she could. The vulture flapped its wings. Unable to escape from the whip, it quickly changed its target to her. The bird with the whip wrapped around its body, flapped its wings. Zerra already expected it would retaliate, so she grabbed the bird and pulled its wings ruthlessly. She frowned when the bird started squeaking again. Fearing it would attract more attention, she quickly killed it and dug out its crystal core. She tossed the dead bird away, swiftly dragging her feet toward the unconscious man. The man groaned when she touched his wounds. She jolted. "Sorry, but please bear with it for a while." She had no choice but to bring the man away in her current condition. Gritting her teeth, she slung one of his arms over her neck, dragging him away. They had to leave quickly. It would be bad if the earlier fight caught any mutated animals’ attention. Spreading her senses around, she quickly found a cave. She used her spiritual power to blast out an entrance, which was covered in the soil from the landslide. She hadn’t done so earlier to find a way out of her cocoon because blasting it open would affect her at close range. Once the cave opened, she used her power to grow vines and vegetation, closing the entrance, then she turned to the unconscious man on the ground. She took out a portable lamp and began to clean his wounds and face. Zerra sucked in a deep breath when a familiar face was revealed in front of her. What was this man doing here?