Deserves death without pity
Wolves charge out of the ground like an endless tide. Wind wolves fly, water wolves are snow white, night wolves are slim and stealthy, turtleback wolves are sturdy, and vermillion flame wolves burn fiercely. Hundred wolf king, thousand wolf king and myriad wolf king lead the army with the mutated wolves. Among them, a blood forest wolf carries a bone forest on its back and stands as tall as a mountain, a shark fin wolf has elephant-like skin and moves on land and in water, and a frenzy wolf has three silver-grey eyes. Inside Imperial Court blessed land, azure wolves run through the golden sky, howling with a strong aura. ch. 571
Fang Yuan sits on an azure myriad wolf king’s back. The wind cannot shake his resolved expression, and his eyes, dark as the abyss, look down with unreadable thoughts. The wolves had scattered when he first entered Imperial Court blessed land, but Fang Yuan had been handing out missions, recalling old wolves and recruiting new ones, and by then commanded about five hundred thousand wolves running beneath him like tides of the sea. At this point, he stands at the peak of the mortal realm. ch. 571
During the Imperial Court contest, he ranked among the five beast kings alongside Jiang Bao Ya, Ma Zun and others, and after the contest, judged just within Northern Plains, he stood as the current generation’s number one enslavement master. Beyond his enslavement mastery, he also displayed great skill in strength path cultivation, and became a flying master as well. Northern Plains knows him as Wolf King Chang Shan Yin. ch. 571
At this moment, a voice in Fang Yuan’s mind tries to discourage him. It is Mo Yao’s will, who tells him that combining strength and enslavement is a needless, age-old problem, and urges him to abandon dual cultivation while it is still early. She explains that strength and enslavement are very different from each other and that she failed to combine them fully herself, and argues that a Gu Master’s strength comes from depth of attainment rather than the number of paths pursued. ch. 571
Fang Yuan scoffs and refuses her advice. He argues that problems exist to be solved, and that the dual cultivation of strength and enslavement only looks like an age-old unsolved problem because he had not yet been born to attempt it. He declares that he will hold the world in his palms and leave his name in history, alongside Star Constellation, Red Lotus and Paradise Earth. ch. 571
Star Constellation, Red Lotus and Paradise Earth were rank nine venerables, and across the whole of history only ten such venerables ever existed. Fang Yuan was a mortal reaching for that height. It was like an ant trying to become an elephant, and even Mo Yao’s will fell silent, startled by the scale of his ambition. ch. 571
Elsewhere, Gu Masters battle earth chief beasts. The beasts growl and the Gu Masters shout as a small-scale fight reaches its climax, the ground pitted with holes and the field littered with broken limbs and blood. Five to six Gu Masters surround the earth chief beast king in fierce combat, with large numbers of earth chief beast corpses already around them. ch. 571
Earth chief beasts have a humanoid body with a snake tail, a bat-like face, a pointed nose, large ears and a black body covered in flesh armor. Five to six flesh whips grow from their chests. The whips range from tens of centimeters to several meters long and move like agile snakes, striking with great force both offensively and defensively. They live underground but stay near the surface, and their eyes, fur and tail are valuable Gu refinement material, with whips six meters or longer often priceless and almost never sold. ch. 571
Earth chief beasts are nearly extinct in Northern Plains, but they live in huge numbers inside Imperial Court blessed land, with whole groups burrowed for ten thousand li around this area near the sacred palace. Money draws many Gu Masters to hunt here. Jiang Dong leads one such hunting group, experienced from several earlier hunts of earth chief beasts. ch. 571
This time the group runs into trouble: it draws about a hundred earth chief beasts, a manageable number, but their king is an old thousand beast king. The old king cannot fight well and is sickly. Even so, it carries many wild Gu and fights at the true strength of a rank three. Among mortal Gu Masters, rank one are beginning students, rank two form a tribe’s common backbone, and rank three are elders who support the clan and are far rarer. Rank four can lead as many as ten thousand men, and rank five stands at the peak of the mortal realm, the rarest rank of all. The earth chief thousand beast king is not a problem by itself, but its rank three strength is too much for this group. ch. 571
At the start of the battle, Jiang Dong, decisive and experienced, orders some fighters to break in and stall the beast king while the rest slaughter the smaller beasts, a split that keeps the group from collapsing. Jiang Dong shouts encouragement, insisting the old beast is going down. Everyone answers, morale and focus lifting. An hour into the fight, the Gu Masters are nearly out of primeval essence, but Northern Plains culture has them all trained in strength path too, so they fight mostly in close combat and save their essence for emergencies. ch. 571
The old beast king suddenly swings its tail. The blow sends one Gu Master flying, and when he lands his chest is smashed and every bone in his body is broken, already dead. Morale collapses at once. ch. 571
Jiang Dong is one man down, and his primeval essence is less than twenty percent. He thinks of escaping. He reasons that fleeing would ruin his reputation, but that a ruined reputation still beats death, and that Northern Plainsmen, ferocious as they are, are not fools. He tells himself that after years of fighting just to survive, he now has ample resources inside Imperial Court blessed land and should be building his own foundation rather than dying here. He also thinks of the parents and children waiting at home, and of a child who will begin cultivation within half a year, and silently apologizes to the group before he acts. ch. 571
Jiang Dong retreats suddenly. He spends all his remaining primeval essence on his movement Gu and vanishes through the air like the wind. The remaining Gu Masters, stunned that their leader has fled, scatter as their last morale disappears. The earth chief beast king, its fury raised most likely by Jiang Dong’s own ruthless attacks, chases after him alone, out of everyone present. ch. 571
Jiang Dong despairs as his essence runs out and the chase continues. Ma Hong Yun, a rank one support Gu Master who joined the group recently and had been sent to scout the area, calls out for Jiang Dong to run. Jiang Dong changes direction and runs toward him instead, and Ma Hong Yun realizes too late that Jiang Dong means to lure the beast king onto him. Jiang Dong reaches him first, knocks him unconscious with a Gu worm, and throws him behind as bait. ch. 571
The old beast king ignores the offered bait and keeps chasing Jiang Dong. As it closes in, the ground begins to rumble, and far off in the sky a line grows larger and clearer: wolves. Jiang Dong recognizes vermillion flame wolves and turtleback wolves among them and remembers an announcement that Wolf King Chang Shan Yin was going to hunt in this area, and he cheers, certain he is saved. He sits down, shaking with relief, tears in his eyes. ch. 571
The wolf tide does not slow, and within seconds it tears him apart. In Fang Yuan’s mind, Mo Yao’s will sighs sorrowfully and asks whether he is not afraid of going against the natural order or of other Gu Masters’ opinion, letting the wolves kill everyone in their path, enemy and ally alike. Fang Yuan answers plainly that he announced the hunt long ago. He calls the greedy people ants blocking his path and says there is no pity for them. ch. 571
