Getting out of the camp was not, in fact, the easy part.

The alarm sounded before they'd made it fifty feet from the prisoner tent — not because anyone had seen them, but because Lingxi had apparently been wearing a tracking formation woven into her profound iron shackles, and removing the shackles had triggered it. The entire rebel camp erupted into chaos, torches blazing to life as soldiers poured from their tents and cultivators took to the air on flying swords.

'You didn't mention the tracking formation,' Yun Che shouted over the blaring alarm.

'You didn't ask!' Lingxi shouted back.

They ran. Arrows whistled past their ears. A Fire Palm technique scorched the ground behind them, turning grass to ash. Earth Profound cultivators closed in from three directions, their overwhelming pressure pressing down on Yun Che's Spirit Realm cultivation like a physical weight.

He activated the Sky Poison Pearl and pushed his cultivation past its limits. His eighth profound vein cracked open completely, sending agony through his body but also flooding him with enough profound energy to blur past the Earth Profound pursuers.

The southern perimeter was ahead — just two hundred feet. Behind them, the entire camp was awake and angry. Lights filled the mountain pass. The howling of hunting beasts joined the roar of pursuit.

They crossed the perimeter with a final burst of speed, diving into the treeline as a barrage of profound techniques blasted the ground behind them. Yun Che collapsed against a pine tree, gasping, while Lingxi knelt beside him, her golden eyes scanning the darkness.

'You're bleeding,' she said.

'I'm always bleeding.'

'That's not a healthy lifestyle.'

'Neither is being a rebel general's prisoner for three years.'

She laughed — a short, surprised sound, as if she hadn't expected to find anything funny tonight. 'Fair point.'