Turtleback Wolf Group
An investigative Gu Master rushes to report a huge wolf group, estimated at ten thousand strong, three thousand li ahead of Ge tribe’s march. Ge tribe leader orders a second check. His elders name it turtleback wolf, the species with the strongest defense among wolves, and note that luring attempts have failed; the group is heading straight for the tribe, though its slow pace at least buys time to form up. Ge tribe halts and pulls into a circular formation, its Gu Masters raising earth walls, archer towers, and layered defenses under pressure. ch. 451
Ge tribe leader sends Ge Guang to fetch Chang Shan Yin, whom Ge Guang finds already approaching, aware of the wolf group and asking for the situation. Ge Guang reports that roughly eight minutes remain before the wolves arrive, and that light cavalry has been scouting six hundred li out since the migration began, wary of Man tribe. Inside the main tent, raised on a mound for a clear field of view, the assembled leaders greet Fang Yuan and lay out a map of the terrain, their defensive lines, and the wolves’ approach. He approves the arrangement, then points to a nearby river and asks why it is not being used for defense. Ge tribe leader admits they considered it, but the tribe’s slow-moving mortals could never reach the riverside, resettle, and rebuild their lines in time. Fang Yuan offers only the principle: they cannot reach the river, but the river can be brought to them. The idea visibly lifts the gathered elders, who work out the mechanism themselves: dig a canal to draw the river in, since a turtleback wolf’s heavy body cannot swim and will sink and drown once it falls into the water. They urge Ge tribe leader to give the order at once, and he immediately reassigns three troops to dig the canal while three others take over their unfinished work. ch. 451
Ge tribe leader thanks Fang Yuan again, crediting the plan alone with sparing roughly a hundred Gu Masters and cutting their losses, and the elders’ regard for him visibly warms. Scouts keep reporting the wolves’ position as it closes, and their final count comes back at over thirty-eight thousand. By eight hundred li, Ge tribe leader starts recalling his scouts. By five hundred li, the canal is finished and the river drawn in. By three hundred li, all three defensive lines stand complete, and support Gu Masters pull back to recover their primeval essence, ready as reinforcements. At a hundred li, the wolves become visible on the horizon, mostly from the north but also the northeast and southeast, and eight investigative Gu in the main tent send up smoke in every direction. ch. 451
Turtleback wolves are broad, dark green, dark blue eyed, and carry a heavy shell across their backs, about a third of their body weight, that both protects them and stores nutrition. Fang Yuan watches the charge shake the ground and notes that Ge tribe’s people, Gu Masters and mortals alike, move busily but without panic, hardened by how common beast attacks are on the plains. The northern line meets the wolves first: a Gu Master leader calls the charge and throws a wind blade, and a volley of wind blades cuts down dozens of wolves before the defenders switch to fire and lightning Gu as the wolves close. Countless turtleback wolves die smashing against the reinforced earth walls, but others climb the dead or claw their way through, and the southeast and northeast lines are soon fighting too, casualties mounting on both sides as healers scramble to keep up. ch. 451
Someone spots a turtleback myriad wolf king, so enormous that a wolf ten times an ordinary turtleback wolf’s size would still be only slightly smaller than it, and it splits the wolf group into five or six bands to circle Ge tribe’s camp searching for a gap. Ge tribe is soon surrounded on every side. ch. 451
Hidden on a nearby hill, Man Hao and Man Hong, Man Tu’s eldest son and a rank three middle stage cultivator, watch the battle through investigative Gu. Man Hao flatters Man Hong as the coming young tribe leader, and Man Hong admits his father set him this task to earn merit toward that position. He wishes aloud that Man Duo had come, since the chaos here would have let him borrow others’ strength to be rid of that scheming brother for good. Man Hao dismisses Man Duo as no match for Man Hong, and points out that hundred wolf kings have entered the fight, sharply increasing the pressure on Ge tribe’s front line as two to three hundred of them break through the earth walls. Man Hong watches Ge tribe’s Gu Masters die one after another with a pleased, sinister smile, privately judging that these fools are only getting what they deserve for refusing to join Man tribe. ch. 451
His smile stiffens when his investigative Gu shows a Wolf Enslavement Gu entering one of the attacking hundred wolf kings, flipping its allegiance and throwing the wolves around it into confusion, before they turn to gather under a single Gu Master instead. Man Hong asks whether this could be the Wolf King, Chang Shan Yin, and Man Hao confirms it. Man Hong, recalling his father’s warning that Chang Shan Yin is the plan’s greatest uncertainty, says he means to see what the man can do. ch. 451
