With her knife unsheathed, Chen Ying didn't hesitate for a single microsecond. She dropped straight out of the ironwood canopy, forty feet above the damp forest floor.
SWOOSH!
She fell like a shadow through the misty morning air. Halfway down, her free left hand reached out with practiced precision, snagging a thick, hanging jungle vine to arrest her downward momentum just enough to absorb what would have been a bone-jarring impact.
BOOM!
She landed in a low, perfectly crouched three-point stance directly in the muddy gap between Wu Haoran and the charging beast. The shockwave of her landing sent a spray of wet earth radiating outward.
"WOAH!" Wu Haoran shrieked, tripping over his own boots in sheer shock as Chen Ying materialized out of thin air directly in front of his eyes.
