Small beast horde
On his way back to Gu Yue village, Fang Yuan repeatedly passes five-man groups running to reinforce a fight ahead, and by the time he has walked less than five hundred meters he has already counted thirteen such groups. He turns the sight over in his mind, aware that his five hundred years of previous-life memory is patchy and that forcing open its fogged parts costs more than it returns, and unable to place this event among the clear memories he does hold, he wonders whether it is something new caused by the changes his return has already made. ch. 93
At the village’s north gate he runs into his schoolmate Gu Yue Chi Cheng, who tells him a small scale beast tide has formed near the village and will grow into a large one if left alone, threatening the mountain-foot villages whose mortals and slaves the clan depends on. Fang Yuan recalls that such a tide did happen in his previous life, and reasons privately that the real wolf tide outburst will come next year, that this smaller tide is a subsidiary of the wolf pack’s growth crowding other beast groups into migration, and that left unchecked the chain of migrations could still weaken the village’s strength even without threatening its survival. A sudden thought flashes in his eyes at the news, though he quickly hides the change by lowering his gaze before Chi Cheng notices. ch. 93
Chi Cheng continues that the internal affairs hall and external affairs hall have both ordered mobilization as an urgent mission, that Fang Yuan’s own group already left that morning, and needles him as a mere rank one Gu Master facing a more dangerous night battle while showing off the rank two red belt he recently earned through his grandfather Gu Yue Chi Lian’s help. Fang Yuan proposes joining Chi Cheng’s group for the march, citing the clan rule that a Gu Master left behind must merge into the nearest group and continue fighting, and though Chi Cheng objects, the group’s silent leader Gu Yue Chi Shan settles it with a short order to keep up. ch. 93
The six-member group sets out down the mountain with Chi Shan leading, Fang Yuan keeping pace closely enough to earn an approving look, and Chi Shan then placing both Fang Yuan and the struggling Chi Cheng in the safer middle of the formation alongside an old Gu Master, a blue-haired female Gu Master, and the reconnaissance Gu Master Chi She out front, whose Snake Tongue Gu Fang Yuan judges good enough to drive off three wild deer and steer them around a group of turtleback apes, but limited by a small perception radius, easy interference, and blindness to cold-blooded creatures, leaving him thinking he will need a detection Gu of his own now that he has reached rank two. When a white tiger closes in fast, Chi She’s warning lets the group meet it prepared, and the old Gu Master traps it in a spat web while Chi Shan’s golden-lustered fist crushes its head in under three seconds, the whole group moving on without pause. Watching their coordination, Fang Yuan judges he would need at least five minutes to take down such a tiger alone, and reasons that although these Gu Masters are his own rank two, their rank two Gu worms give them a fighting power his own rank one Gu still lack. ch. 93
As Fang Yuan considers he will need Gu worms of his own rank to match that power once his primeval stones allow it, Chi She suddenly reports finding the sickly snake’s group ahead. ch. 93
