Wolf Howl
Hei Lou Lan looks at Mo Shi Kuang with a gloomy face, his heart turning heavy at the result, since variant men rarely awaken an aperture at all and only the fortunate few among the fortunate go on to real cultivation, a rarity onlookers say is why Liu Wen Wu prizes him as a sworn brother. Mo Shi Kuang taunts Hei Lou Lan as a black skinned fatty and calls for a real opponent, and the insult stings enough that Hei Lou Lan sends Hei Xiu Yi, one of the black banner troops’ three commanders and a rank four upper stage defensive specialist, rather than answer him himself. ch. 498
Hei Xiu Yi arms himself with black light armor, fifty six flying bone shields and nine ghost faces before stepping onto the stage. Mo Shi Kuang’s early punches barely move him: the bone shields scatter most of the force, the armor absorbs the rest, the ghost faces drink in what leaks through, and a green halo above him mends the shields’ cracks before hurling the same fist qi straight back, dropping Mo Shi Kuang to the ground. He rises laughing and calls Hei Xiu Yi worth using half his strength, then kicks a foot of condensed qi, as big as a small hill, down onto him. It smashes the fifty six shields in an instant, breaks the green halo, and leaves the nine ghost faces able to weaken only one tenth of the force before scattering, so that Hei Xiu Yi’s armor shatters and his bones crack under the blow, while several defensive Gu Masters give their lives just holding the barrier that keeps the blast inside the ring. ch. 498
He collapses barely breathing, and because Hei Xiu Yi is part of Hei Lou Lan’s own direct family line and the son of Hei tribe’s supreme elder’s grand nephew, losing him would cost the black banner troops at least twenty percent of their strength, so Hei Lou Lan breaks the match’s own rules and sends two rank three Gu Masters in to drag him out. Furious at the intrusion, Mo Shi Kuang sweeps out a fifty foot long, ten foot wide arm of qi that flings the two rescuers aside like flies and tears on into the crowd outside the stage, killing spectators who cannot dodge it in time. ch. 498
Hei Lou Lan’s group retreats from the blast, then rallies to shatter the qi arm together; Mo Shi Kuang only grows more elated and charges the group himself, and Liu Wen Wu calls his own side into the fight to back his sworn brother, tipping the whole heroes assembly into open brawl. Both leaders realize a costly melee here threatens their standing before the true contest for the Imperial Court begins, but neither can call a halt to it. Amid the chaos a lone wolf howl rises from the distance, and countless more answer it, merging into one vast howl that the narration says announces the presence of a beast emperor. ch. 498
