Chapter 535

Fang Yuan flies far better than Liu Wen Wu, Ouyang Bi Sang and Mo Shi Kuang, and while he dodges them in the air he sends the wolf army to slaughter Liu tribe’s soldiers. The three brothers give up chasing him and turn on the wolves instead, and each wolf they kill burns more of their primeval essence, which is exactly what Hei Lou Lan and Fang Yuan want. The wolf tide never stops. Once the brothers’ primeval essence runs low, their battle strength collapses, letting Hei tribe’s stronger fighters finally suppress them. ^{ch. 535}

Liu Wen Wu loses, and tells Hei Lou Lan bitterly that his true defeat came from Tai Bai Yun Sheng and Chang Shan Yin, not from Hei Lou Lan himself. He reasons that if the three brothers had reached the Wolf King with their combined speed early on, the wolf group would have collapsed and Hei tribe would have lost. But man as before blunted their killer move’s effect. When they finally cornered the enslavement master Chang Shan Yin, they found he was unexpectedly a master of flight as well. Unable to catch him, the three can only watch their advantage crumble, and Liu tribe’s broken army is chased down, suffering heavy losses as Liu Wen Wu and his officers are captured once their primeval essence runs dry. ^{ch. 535}

Because Liu Wen Wu is one of Liu tribe’s prospective Gu Immortals, killing him would break the Imperial Court contest’s own rules. Hei tribe, despite its win, has also taken heavy losses, so it holds him for a large reparation rather than his life. Ordinary battle gains alone would not restore Hei tribe’s strength for the fights ahead. Three days later Liu tribe’s envoy arrives and withdraws its people and submitted tribes back into the blessed land, while the exhausted Hei tribe army camps to manage its captives and divide the spoils. ^{ch. 535}

Cultivating inside the large lizard house Gu, Fang Yuan feeds a rank four wolf soul Gu into his thousand man soul. The wolf soul crashes against it, freezes, and fuses into it, leaving his thousand man soul with long wolf ears and a thinner, sharper-nosed frame, though his hair, eyes and tail stay unchanged. He judges his soul now around thirty percent wolfman. This is a small success from cultivating this way daily since the Imperial Court contest began. Full conversion would sharply increase how many wolves he can command and let him direct them by thought alone, with less fatigue after battle, but at his current rank four Gu’s pace he expects the contest to end before he finishes. He reflects that ordinary Gu Masters need at least twenty to thirty years to reach his level of soul cultivation, and even a gifted, clan-backed cultivator like Dong Fang Yu Liang needs ten years. ^{ch. 535}

His own foundation on Dang Hun Mountain has let him move far faster. He considers chasing the Thieving Heaven inheritance and Luo Po Valley, then sets it aside. Hu Immortal blessed land’s gruel mud has corroded Dang Hun Mountain down to only a small mountain left, so it needs saving first, and Luo Po Valley must wait until the Imperial Court contest ends. ^{ch. 535}

While he cultivates, Chang Biao brings Ni Xue Tong and Chang Ji You to the large lizard house Gu’s door. The guards make them wait outside through the bitter northern plains night, their Gu worms confiscated and their primeval essence unable to hold off the cold. Chang Biao keeps a calm face though he dreads the meeting: he shares a deep grudge with the real Chang Shan Yin, and Liu tribe had refused to let him keep his family name. Giving up that name would have ended Chang tribe as a tribe. Hei Lou Lan folded the captured Chang tribe into the reparations from Liu Wen Wu specifically to please the Wolf King, leaving Chang tribe no choice but to submit. ^{ch. 535}

The enmity between Chang Shan Yin and Chang tribe was known to all, and after Hei Lou Lan captured Chang tribe he let Fang Yuan handle them completely. Fang Yuan only wants Chang Shan Yin’s identity to reach the Imperial Court blessed land, and the Wolf King’s old grudges mean nothing to him. Fang Yuan judged that settling this casually would not fit his status and would make people suspicious, so he chose to summon Chang Biao to a formal meeting instead. Ni Xue Tong cannot hide her guilt. Chang Ji You, shivering but excited, has spent his life hearing of the Wolf King as his father and struggles between pride, dread and admiration at finally meeting him. ^{ch. 535}

After using three wolf soul Gu, Fang Yuan opens his eyes and purposely makes them wait until midnight before receiving them, to give Chang Biao a display of authority. Walking in first, Chang Biao dreads that discovery would leave him dead with no proper corpse and his reputation ruined, and that even short of discovery, revenge against Chang tribe would cost the Wolf King only a sentence’s worth of effort. He feels like meat on the chopping block already, the helplessness of living in this world. The three kneel before him: Chang Biao lowers his head, Ni Xue Tong turns pale, and Chang Ji You watches him with open excitement. Fang Yuan only laughs, and the sound alone makes all three of them shudder. Chang Biao shuts his eyes with his heart sunk, waiting for judgment; Ni Xue Tong nearly collapses; and Chang Ji You feels only warmth, certain this is his father’s laughter. ^{ch. 535}