Chapter 457

Ge tribe leader turns increasingly bitter toward Chang Shan Yin as the promised reinforcements fail to arrive. Fang Yuan shouts they are coming soon and charges ahead of the troop. Ge Guang keeps pushing toward the front and his father keeps dragging him back, ordering him to remember he is the tribe’s young leader. Fang Yuan sneers inwardly that only he and the old tribe leader still have clear minds in the whole berserk troop. ^{ch. 457}

Battle hall elder inflates his body into a giant rockman, his cultivation surging from rank three peak to a strength comparable to rank four, and single-handedly pins down almost every hundred wolf king and thousand wolf king so the troop can reach the myriad wolf king. Night wolf king defends itself with golden bell shield Gu, shooting acidic poison needles and tearing apart any Gu Master its claws or tail reach; Fang Yuan says the shield must be destroyed before he can use wolf enslavement Gu. Once battle hall elder is dead, a fresh wave of wolf kings presses in unhindered. ^{ch. 457}

Ge tribe leader demands reinforcements again, and Fang Yuan tells him they are coming soon while ordering Ge Guang to lead a group pinning down the new wolf kings. Unable to openly favor his son by recalling him, the old tribe leader attacks the night wolf king himself and reveals unexpected strength: he swallows a burst of the wolf king’s ghost fire whole with rank four swallow fire Gu, then binds the beast with rank four vine claw Gu, a wooden vine sprouting from his own transformed hand. The night wolf king tears the vines apart and breaks all five of the old tribe leader’s fingers doing it. ^{ch. 457}

Fang Yuan intercepts the wolf king’s answering tail swing with azure wolf skin Gu, appearing to shield the old tribe leader, and is thrown clear by the blow. With Fang Yuan out of the fight, elders shout for the group to rescue him instead, and the wolf king turns its attacks on the old tribe leader as the greater threat. He fires three Gu at once into Dragon Head Drill, finally shattering the golden bell shield Gu, but the wound only triggers the wolf king’s rank four brave fight Gu, nearly doubling its battle strength as it fights through the pain. Told that Chang Shan Yin has fainted and is being guarded elsewhere, the old tribe leader presses on alone, rescuing exhausted elders again and again until his own strength runs out. An elder’s warning cry reaches him in time and he sees the night wolf king pouncing down at him, but the exhaustion of the whole battle has finally outrun what his aged body can bear, and though he means to retreat his body only staggers, out of energy, so the wolf king smashes him to the ground; his defensive shield holds for only a few breaths before the wolf’s claws land on him directly, and the whole troop’s attacks fail to pull its focus away from him. ^{ch. 457}