Chapter 438

Without slowing, the poison beard wolves charge straight into the wind wolves. Ge Guang spots a rider among them and, rational even in despair, warns his men that fewer than a thousand poison beard wolves may not be enough to save them, that everything depends on the newcomer’s skill at enslavement. Watching Fang Yuan let the pack spread out instead of massing for one charge, the surrounded Gu Masters despair, certain he has thrown away their only chance, cursing him and some coming to hate him for it. ^{ch. 438}

Fang Yuan answers with a wolf’s howl in a human throat, a call that carries eight hundred steps and doubles the fighting strength of every poison beard wolf within its range. The Gu Masters recognise a rank four Wolf Howl Gu and, with it, a rank four Gu Master; rank three among them is only an elder’s rank, rank four a leader’s, and even Ge Guang stands no higher than rank three upper stage. Strengthened, the poison beard wolves overwhelm the wind wolves in a short fight, and more than a dozen wind wolves die for every poison beard wolf lost. The watching Gu Masters gape in disbelief, calling it an enslavement master’s feat and admitting they have never heard of such a hidden expert in the area. ^{ch. 438}

The wind wolf king gathers its elites and drives straight at Fang Yuan, a beheading charge that would be unstoppable against most enslavement path Gu Masters, since Fang Yuan commands only a few hundred beast king level poison beard wolf kings against a wolf that leads a thousand. Fang Yuan is overjoyed rather than afraid: the wolf king is only a wild beast and cannot out think a man, and its charge is exactly what his loose formation was built to draw. It looses three wind blades at him mid sprint, and Fang Yuan waits until they are near before steering the hump wolf clear, narrowly and without haste. His poison beard wolf kings close ranks around the wind wolf king and hold it, unable to break through despite its greater speed and strength. ^{ch. 438}

Watching him toy with the trapped beast, onlookers rank him with Jiang Bao Ya, Yang Po Ying and Ma Zun as a first rate enslavement expert. When the wolf king’s fighting spirit finally breaks, Fang Yuan sends in his sole rank three Wolf Enslavement Gu, and though the wolf king struggles against it, his hundred man soul overcomes the contest and it submits. Someone guesses at the hundred man soul from the skill alone; another notes that Jiang Bao Ya, Yang Po Ying and Ma Zun all carry thousand man souls instead. With the wolf king enslaved, Fang Yuan gains his first thousand beast wolf king, its surviving thousand wind wolves join him, and his pack doubles to two thousand four hundred wolves. He privately credits the Gu Masters’ fight for tiring the wolf king first, thinking the price would have been steeper otherwise. ^{ch. 438}

Ge Guang bows deeply and offers his life to Fang Yuan’s judgement. Fang Yuan laughs it off warmly, praises the young man’s courage, and names himself Chang Shan Yin, promising he is no cruel or wicked man. Relieved, the Gu Masters believe they have met a righteous expert rather than the demonic kind they feared. Grateful and eager to keep such an expert close, Ge Guang invites him to Ge tribe as a guest, and Fang Yuan accepts, hinting that he needs to rest, restock his Gu worms and recover his spent primeval stones. ^{ch. 438}