Chapter 499

The howls resolve into a wolf army: night wolves, wind wolves, turtleback wolves, water wolves and vermillion flame wolves, each group at least several tens of thousands strong, sweeping in from every direction behind a supply train of farm slug Gu, black skin fat armor beetles and lizard house Gu, all marching under a blue banner marked Ge. Onlookers recognize it as Chang Shan Yin’s wolf army and are stunned by its scale: their intelligence had accounted for his night wolves, wind wolves and turtleback wolves, but not the water wolves or the vermillion flame wolves, the rarest and hardest hitting of the wild wolf kinds. Liu Wen Wu can explain the water wolves through Ge tribe’s long stay at Crescent Lake, but presses his own intelligence elder over where eighty thousand vermillion flame wolves came from. ^{ch. 499}

Zhong Fei You is first to spot a night wolf emperor among the pack; once Bei Cao Chuan confirms it, gasps ripple through the crowd, since a wolf emperor matches a rank five Gu Master’s strength and Chang Shan Yin himself is only rank four. Pei Yan Fei, who wants revenge on Chang Shan Yin, clenches his fists at the thought that the wolf emperor now puts him on par with Ma Zun, Jiang Bao Ya and Yang Po Ying. ^{ch. 499}

Fang Yuan rides in on a white eyes wolf with Ge Guang and the rest to meet Hei Lou Lan, who greets him first. Liu Wen Wu, standing beside his sworn brother Mo Shi Kuang, feels Fang Yuan’s gaze linger on him and grows uneasy, since Chang tribe, the original target of Chang Shan Yin’s enmity, has already submitted to him, so any revenge Chang Shan Yin seeks now runs through Liu Wen Wu himself. Fang Yuan proposes an alliance with Hei Lou Lan for revenge and for the Imperial Court contest. Hei Lou Lan accepts at once, delighted, grabbing Fang Yuan’s shoulders and calling the alliance his greatest honor, while Hei tribe erupts in cheers. Hao Ji Liu addresses himself to Fang Yuan as his defeated opponent and pays his respects with visible unease; Hei Lou Lan, weighing whether killing him would please Chang Shan Yin, is stopped when Fang Yuan simply tells Hao Ji Liu to keep doing his best. ^{ch. 499}

Wang tribe, Fang tribe and Ye tribe are among several undecided tribes that then choose Hei Lou Lan’s side, while the rest divide between the two factions; with stronger outside forces still to face, neither side presses its advantage, and the camps withdraw peaceably. Liu Wen Wu privately regrets vowing to protect the weaker Chang tribe rather than letting Chang Shan Yin have his revenge outright, but backing out now would demoralize every tribe that has submitted to him, so he orders his intelligence elder to learn where the wolves came from instead. Mo Shi Kuang promises he can kill Chang Shan Yin regardless of numbers, and Liu Wen Wu, comforted by the thought of a still secluded second sworn brother, decides against provoking Hei tribe for now and turns his own ambitions toward the west. ^{ch. 499}

Walking beside Fang Yuan afterward, Hei Lou Lan remarks that the wolf army will unsettle every rival force; Fang Yuan reads the small talk as a probe and answers it with a cover story, laughing that he only left wolves behind at Onion Valley years back and they multiplied there on their own. Ge Guang backs the story before the whole tribe, though the narration discloses that Fang Yuan actually opened a stargate at Onion Valley into Hu Immortal blessed land and released most of its wolves, then covered his tracks there, so the evidence for the cover story looks solid to everyone but him. The story works: Hei Lou Lan calls his luck admirable and praises him at length, flattery so thick it sounds as though Northern Plains held no one but Chang Shan Yin. Fang Yuan then boasts openly of sparring with Ma Zun, Yang Po Ying and Jiang Bao Ya and of using Imperial Court blessed land to advance his own cultivation, and even Hao Ji Liu bites his tongue at the arrogance of it. Hei Lou Lan gifts him a rank five turtle jade wolf skin Gu, a Gu whose recipe calls for a living turtleback wolf emperor to make; down to two immortal essence stones, Fang Yuan accepts it without hesitation. ^{ch. 499}