Five hundred thousand wolves start a war
In the night, Sang Yi flees across the grassland with a dead night wolf cub in hand, a pack close to twenty thousand strong chasing him for the corpse. He leads them into a ravine where waiting Gu Masters seal both ends behind him with earth walls and falling stones, trapping the wolves inside. Fang Yuan, riding a night wolf emperor, commands his own wolves down from above and uses a rank four clear mind Gu to calm the trapped pack, whipped into frenzy by onion explosion Gu, before ordering the real attack. He divides the wild wolves and wears them down, then takes their myriad beast king itself with a rank four wolf enslavement Gu, paying only a few hundred night wolves’ lives for the king and close to twenty thousand wolves besides. A rank three leader rewards Sang Yi with five hundred primeval stones and a rank three Gu. He wipes the sweat from his brow. While breathing heavily, he studies the primeval stones and the Gu he has just been given, then watches Fang Yuan’s retreating figure and reflects that even his own rank three standing and demonic path fame cannot compare to the Wolf King. ch. 501
Working through the night, Fang Yuan takes in seventy thousand wild night wolves. He returns to Hei tribe’s camp only at dawn, once the wolves stop hunting and go to nest. The night wolf group alone, some thirty thousand strong before these last few days, grows to three hundred and twenty thousand, and counting in the vermillion flame wolves, wind wolves, water wolves and the rest, his total army now reaches five hundred and thirty thousand. ch. 501
Commanding so many myriad wolf kings weighs on Fang Yuan’s soul, so he works the rank four wolf soul Gu to convert his thousand man soul into a wolfman soul. Wolves recognize a wolfman soul as one of their own kind. After more than two hours of use, it has only lengthened his soul’s wolf ears a little; the Gu’s effect had already thinned once his soul grew past the hundred man soul level it works best at. A rank five version, which needs a wolf emperor’s own intact soul and only about a fifty percent chance of success even then, stays out of his reach. ch. 501
He has asked Hei Lou Lan, through Hei tribe’s Gu Immortal elders of the Huang Jin family, for a rank five wolf soul Gu or a live wolf emperor. Hei Lou Lan reports back that the elders will trade only a wolf emperor, and only for battle merit, since he needs to justify it to his own people. Hei Lou Lan’s own warmth toward Fang Yuan has cooled since the poison vow was sworn, and the wolf army’s size, now past five hundred thousand, leaves him quietly wary despite the vow’s restriction. Fang Yuan has also set Little Hu Immortal to watch treasure yellow heaven for a wolf emperor. Only a boar emperor has come up for sale. ch. 501
Reading Hei Lou Lan’s impatience, since every other Imperial Court contender besides Hei tribe is already fighting, Fang Yuan asks which force he means to strike first. Hei Lou Lan names Cao Fu, meaning to wipe out Dong Fang tribe. He calls Dong Fang Qing Yu Northern Plains’ famous beauty and means to kill all of Dong Fang tribe’s men and capture all its women. Fang Yuan is briefly stunned: despite the detour, matters still point toward Dong Fang tribe just as they did in his previous life, though this time, he tells himself, five hundred thousand wolves make it different. He decides it does not matter: profit is worth it even if the sky and earth collapse, even if his name reeks for ten thousand years. ch. 501
The next day Hei tribe pulls out its camp and marches on Cao Fu. The news reaches every faction watching. Dong Fang tribe, whose rank five wisdom path leader Dong Fang Yu Liang has been dominating Cao Fu’s own heroes assembly and pressuring the holdout Zhao tribe, spends a sleepless night recalculating and reverses course. He offers Zhao tribe unusually lenient terms and travels there in person to invite them into the alliance, leaving Zhao tribe’s leader to weigh whether the old enmity between the two tribes can finally be set aside. ch. 501
