Chapter 168

The clan elders realize the fourth wolf is not really a thunder crown wolf. Fang Yuan names it first: a lightning lycan, a myriad beast king with a wolf’s shape but a man’s intelligence, commanding the pack as its strategist. He immediately turns to flee. He judges the elders too exhausted to fight it, and too distrustful of each other to cooperate. ^{ch. 168}

Before the retreat can start, the lycan spits a rank four Wolf Smoke Gu that engulfs the field in blinding black mist, then strikes Fang Yuan directly with a lightning bolt. His Thunder Shield Gu dies blocking it. His Thunderwings Gu is crippled, and the shock nearly stops his breathing before he falls and claws his way back to consciousness. Warned that the lycan has shrunk itself to hide among the ordinary wolves, Fang Yuan fights through the smoke with the battered Chainsaw Golden Centipede. He uses the Earth Communication Ear Grass to feel out a path, but its hearing is wide and blurred, and it keeps leading him back into fresh packs. In a short stretch of fighting the centipede kills up to a thousand wolves, its razors wearing down until it is nearly useless. ^{ch. 168}

The two clan leaders agree to fight together against the wolves, but the lycan ambushes them and breaks their coordination before it can hold. With his primeval essence running low, Fang Yuan abandons offense and moves only to survive. Clan elders die screaming around him in the smoke. Following the sound of a nearby fight, he changes direction and sprints toward it, coming to a stop as he finds Bai Ning Bing. ^{ch. 168}