Chapter 453

The myriad wolf king’s attack briefly raises Man Hong’s hopes that it will join the fight, but it only returns to commanding the horde from the rear. A fresh thousand wolf king moves up to fill the gap, protected by a rank three self-ignition Gu whose flames would burn off Fang Yuan’s enslavement smoke before it lands. Rather than force the issue, Fang Yuan leaves Ge Guang and the three elders to handle it and moves on, reasoning that not every wolf king in such a vast horde will have a defense against him. ^{ch. 453}

Over about two hours he adds seventeen more hundred-rank wolf kings and two more thousand-rank ones to his side, bringing his totals to four thousand-rank and over thirty hundred-rank wolf kings, with his ordinary wolves already past eight thousand and nearing ten thousand. Most are turtleback wolves, but the haul includes a thousand-rank wind wolf king and hundred-rank poison beard, water, and wind wolf kings besides. Ge tribe leader eases at the turning tide and the elders praise Fang Yuan’s suitability for such battles, though he warns them not to grow careless while the myriad wolf king still holds back. ^{ch. 453}

The myriad wolf king then lets out a long howl that sends the entire horde, over twenty thousand turtleback wolves, into a reckless all-out charge on the camp, catching Ge tribe off guard. Ge tribe leader orders the frontline to fall back to the second defensive line. Fang Yuan tells the Gu Masters assigned to guard him that he will return alone to the ranch to regroup instead of retreating with them; when some hesitate, a single hard look from him silences them, and he hands the duty of protecting the retreat to Ge Guang, who agrees and leads the withdrawal. ^{ch. 453}

At the ranch, Fang Yuan gathers close to ten thousand wolves, crowding the small space, and sends out a swift water wolf that is secretly a white-eyes wolf, a mutated beast still in infancy, bought quietly from the market and made thirteen times hungrier and shorter-lived by a third watch Gu. Once mature, its all-white eyes will see as sharply as a rank four investigative Gu, even at night. A wolf care Gu lets him watch the battlefield through its eyes with one eye while his other eye takes in the ranch, and he searches his captured wolf kings for useful Gu worms before they can be lost in battle, recovering one rank three and five rank two wolf enslavement Gu and leaving lesser worms in place to preserve the wolves’ strength. Three rounds of a rank four wolf smoke Gu, each draining his primeval sea to its bottom and refilled with stones, turn the wolves’ heavy wounds light and heal the light ones fully. ^{ch. 453}

Watching through the wolf’s eyes, he sees Ge tribe leader and the elders join the front line as the myriad wolf king itself enters the fight, breaking the second defensive line, though the canals let most of Ge tribe’s Gu Masters retreat in order to the third and final line, behind which only the mortals remain. With his essence back to ninety percent and no time left to heal further, Fang Yuan sounds a wolf howl Gu that swells his wolves’ apparent size and strength, its call carrying a thousand li under the reddening sunset. Man Hong and Man Hao’s faces turn grave at the sound, while Ge tribe’s morale surges at the chants of his name. He then leads nearly ten thousand wolves out of the ranch, not north to the crisis but south, twelve hundred-rank wolf kings driving the charge as an arrowhead into the already exhausted southern wolf force, which collapses at once. ^{ch. 453}

Under his group’s protection he fires off three wolf enslavement Gu in moments, taking three more hundred-rank wolf kings, then redirects the army southeast. There a thousand wolf king can rally only a few hundred wolves, its main force still locked in fighting elsewhere, and a rank three wolf enslavement Gu subdues it without any resistance: his fifth thousand-rank wolf king. Its former followers stop fighting and gather under him, ending the chaos in the southeast. ^{ch. 453}