A sudden silence befell them, so smothering that they couldn’t even hear the sound of breathing.

“…You think we’re being followed?” Allen Leonard broke the silence. “Is it your speculation, or are you sure about that?”

“We are being followed,” Zelit said firmly, bringing about another stretch of silence.

“We found traces of them two days ago,” he continued. Throughout the march, Zelit had been relying on the entire recruit members for surveilling and scouting purposes. Recently, however, he had taken about half of the surveilling team to scout instead. “One of our scouting teams told me that there is a group chasing after us.” 

Allen Leonard’s eyes turned sharp. 

“How big is the group?”

“There are about five hundred of them.”

“How many mutants?”

“About one-tenth of their total force.”

“What is their distance from us?”

“Roughly 1 km.”

Allen Leonard quickly looked around and saw only the wilderness covered in darkness. He groaned and shook his head. 

“Even if we are to fight them, we can’t fight them here.”

They would be facing three times the number of enemies that had attacked them at the base camp. Additionally, they had no guarantee that the particular group was the only one following them. To make things worse, many of them were still injured, and fighting in a vast open space would be suicidal. 

Zelit thought the same. If they had to fight, they had to go to a place where they would have the most territorial advantage. They needed a proper defensive architecture; even a castle...