Spirit Realm

The forces of Shattered Ice Manor and Qin Lie had all been completely encircled by the Silver Winged Demon Wolves.

Qin Lie’s group and Shattered Ice Manor’s practitioners were divided by a bit of distance, each group on one side. When they looked at each other, there were only cold glares.

“Yan Dewu is at the middle stage of the Natal Opening Realm. Within Shattered Ice Manor, he is famous for being ruthless and sinister. The three Hall Masters under him are all brothers. Their names are Tang Mu, Tang Lin, and Tang Sen, and they were all at the early stage of the Natal Opening Realm, experts at close quarter combat. It is rumored that… in the past, the three Tang brothers once killed a martial practitioner at the middle stage of the Natal Opening Realm after joining hands.”

After Shattered Ice Manor’s people emerged, Liu Yan explained some stuff to Qin Lie and the Ling Family, “This Yan Qingsong fellow is the young manor lord of Shattered Ice Manor. He is the cousin of Yan Ziqian and has cultivated to the ninth level of the Refinement Realm, and is only one step away from the Natal Opening Realm. His strength is also extremely terrifying…”

As Qin Lie listened to Liu Yan’s explanations, he solemnly observed the Shattered Ice Manor martial practitioners as his eyebrows wrinkled together.

When he had first seen Shattered Ice Manor’s group earlier, they had around sixty people with them. After their extended chase, less than forty had appeared.

Of those who had died, most of them had died from spirit beast attacks. If there weren’t any other variables, the Silver Winged Demon Wolves had killed the most of them.

The power of Shattered Ice Manor’s forces was very great. They had experts such as Yan Dewu and the three Tang brothers, as well as Yan Qingsong and Feng Yi. It was no wonder that when fighting this force the leader of the Silver Winged Demon Wolves had needed to call for reinforcements.

Generally speaking, Rank Two spirit beasts were comparable in strength to Natal Opening Realm martial practitioners. However, if those Natal Opening Realm martial practitioners wielded powerful spirit artifacts, then the practitioners would be a notch above them…

From this perspective, Yan Dewu and the three Tang brothers should have each been more powerful than a single Silver Winged Demon Wolf.

Shattered Ice Manor had a disciplined training system. This group of martial practitioners lead by Yan Dewu were all of his trusted companions and acted in perfect harmony with one another. Their weapons were also of excellent quality. Due to their advantage in numbers, it wasn’t completely hopeless for them to fight and win against the Silver Winged Demon Wolves.

Their chance was even better now due to the fact that they had found Qin Lie and the others and dragged them in to the fray which would divide the Silver Winged Demon Wolves' attacks.

Qin Lie’s expression gradually became more and more profound as he secretly pondered and realized that there was very little hope for them to get out of this situation.

“Qingsong, well done!” After Yan Dewu arrived, he continued giving instructions, directing the Shattered Ice Manor practitioners to form a defensive formation. Nodding towards Yan Qingsong, he praised him and then continued, “With the help of Liu Yan’s group, we will split the pressure. This time, it will be much easier.”

“Elder Yan, what about Nebula Pavilion’s forces over there?” asked Feng Yi.

Just from seeing Qin Lie and Ling Yushi, Feng Yi became somewhat unable to contain his inner resentment and wanted to rush over there to kill. He wanted to tortuously kill Qin Lie and viciously massacre the Ling Family, then ruthlessly ravage Ling Yushi’s lower body and satisfy his impulses.

“Do not worry about Nebula Pavilion’s forces,” answered Yan Dewu, his expression cold. “They will help us divide the pressure from the Silver Winged Demon Wolves and make it so that we will deal with a few less. Be at ease, they will definitely all be bitten to death by the demon wolves. That, I am sure of.”

“Hehe. Lord Wu’s foresight is still the clearest. Please instruct us on how to use those people,” complimented Yan Qingsong with a smile. “Liu Yan and his group only have around ten people. When I shouted for everyone to come over, I just wanted to drag them down into the water and force them to help us block the attacks of the demon wolves. It would be extremely unwise to kill them currently because we would be wasting our power.”

“Let us follow Qingsong’s plan,” said Yan Dewu. He didn’t bother looking at Feng Yi again as he turned towards the three Tang brothers. Nodding, he said, “Stay in this area and wait for the Silver Winged Demon Wolves to come at you. Hurry up and prepare. The wolf king should almost be here. Harden your mind and kill all of those damned demon wolves for me!”

“Understood!”

“Awooo!” A loud, vigorous howl emanated out from within the depths of the forest.

Upon hearing it, the pack of Silver Winged Demon Wolves surrounding the Shattered Ice Manor practitioners and Qin Lie’s group all howled towards the sky in response.

They licked their knife-like sharp teeth, a cruel, bloodthirsty aura emanating out from their eyes. They fiercely rushed forward from every direction, simultaneously attacking Shattered Ice Manor’s people as well as Qin Lie’s group; each wolf had a frightening demeanor.

“Let us first deal with the wolf pack!” Liu Yan quietly swore and then hurriedly stopped everyone, having them prepare the defensive formation to deal with the demon wolves’ attacks.

As he had been explaining Shattered Ice Manor’s major figures earlier, their own group had been slowly moving towards Shattered Ice Manor’s forces in formation, hoping for an opportunity to decisively strike them down.

From his point of view, their group was doomed to die here. It was either being torn to shreds by the wolf pack or being killed by Shattered Ice Manor.

That being the case, they might as well drag a few more Shattered Ice Manor enemies down with them before dying. This way, even if they died, it would be worth it.

But the Silver Winged Demon Wolves just struck too quickly!

Not waiting for the group to approach Shattered Ice Manor, the wolf pack unleashed a raging offensive, scaring Liu Yan and forcing him to give out new orders.

Everyone followed his orders, immediately stopping as Qin Lie, Ling Yushi, Ling Feng, and Gao Yu stepped forward, directly facing the attacks of the demon wolves as Ling Ying, Ling Xin, and the rest attacked from within the defensive ring.

“Whoosh whoosh whoosh!”

Three powerful male wolves spread out their silver wings, and a sinister light shined in their eyes as they glided over in the air.

“They’re coming!”

The hairs on Qin Lie’s body all stood up on end as he clenched the sculpture left behind by his grandpa. Taking a deep breath, he focused on the upcoming fight.

Cold beads of sweat appeared on everyone’s foreheads except for his. They too prepared themselves to go all out, risking their lives to try and buy more time.

“Charge!”

“Give it your all!”

“Shit, I’m not going to stand for this! I don’t want to die in a demon wolf’s mouth! I want to shatter Shattered Ice Manor!”

“I’m also not going to stand for this!”

From within the encirclement, several people shouted, and their eyes turned red as their demeanor became angry and crazed.

“Aooo!”

At this moment, an impelling howl suddenly came from within the nearby forest.

Upon hearing this howl, within the cruel, cold eyes of the three Silver Winged Demon Wolves who were getting ever so closer to Qin Lie’s group, a sliver of confusion appeared.

It seemed as if their leader had issued an extremely strange order, causing them to feel surprised and confused at the same time.

“Eh? What happened?” asked Ling Feng, stunned.

Qin Lie also became dazed.

The three Silver Winged Demon Wolves which had been rushing over had suddenly changed direction, passing right by Qin Lie’s group as they moved towards Shattered Ice Manor’s people instead.

Even the demon wolves behind them changed their targets. All of them ignored Qin Lie’s group and headed towards Shattered Ice Manor’s people.

“Holy f*ck! I... I really saw ghosts this time!” moaned Ling Xin, collapsing exhaustedly to the ground.

“God, I haven’t seen wrongly, right? My eyes haven’t become blind, right? Why would they let us go?” shrilly questioned Ling Xiao.

“What’s going on?” puzzlingly whispered Liu Yan, his expression also becoming stunned after the demon wolves all changed their directions. His frayed nerves finally calmed down as he too dropped to the ground.

“Eh? How come they aren’t attacking Nebula Pavilion’s forces? Are those demon wolves blind? Could it be that they can’t see the group of people right there?” A perplexed shout sounded from within Shattered Ice Manor’s forces.

Over on Shattered Ice Manor’s side, every one of them had all become completely astonished.

They looked in an extremely awkward manner in Qin Lie’s direction, completely unable to comprehend what they were seeing. Even after all of their insidious calculating, they never had expected that the Silver Winged Demon Wolves would completely ignore Qin Lie’s group.

——This was completely beyond reason!

“What happened? Just how exactly could this happen? Those demon wolves… why would they ignore us? When they were rushing at us just now, they were exuding killing intent and were clearly ready to kill us. I’m sure I didn’t see wrongly,” questioned Ling Yushi, her beautiful eyebrows crinkling as she tried to think of an explanation. She couldn’t think of any reason that would explain what had just happened.

“It was the howl of the demon wolves’ leader!” suddenly exclaimed Gao Yu.

Everyone suddenly looked at him.

“The three forwardmost demon wolves only went past us because the leader issued new commands,” said Gao Yu, his expression extremely perplexed. “Although I don’t understand either, one thing is certain — the one that let us go was the demon wolves’ leader!”

“Huh?” Everyone looked at each other as they became increasingly puzzled. They had no idea why the wolf king would rescind its attack on them.

It was just at this moment!

A strong, sturdy-looking, giant wolf majestically walked out from within the forest, its entire, three meter long body silvery white.

This giant wolf was clearly a full level higher as a pure energy fluctuated around its wings. It seemed that once it spread its wings, it would be able to fly around the world.

After its appearance, everyone was immediately certain that this was the leader, the wolf king of the pack of demon wolves!

After it appeared, it didn’t look towards Shattered Ice Manor’s area, seemingly not caring about them as they were already under attack. It instead moved towards Qin Lie’s group.

“I’m… I’m afraid that the wolf king might… might be a terrifying Rank Three!”

Upon seeing the true appearance of the wolf king, Shattered Ice Manor’s Yan Dewu couldn’t help but swallow his saliva, incomprehensibly mumbling as a sliver of fear surfaced within his eyes.

From when Shattered Ice Manor had encountered the wolf pack all the way until now, the wolf king had yet to make an appearance, and thus, it was also the first time Yan Dewu had seen it.

Just glancing at it was enough to cause chills to run down Yan Dewu’s spine. After slightly sensing it, he immediately guessed the true strength of the wolf king.

A Rank Three spirit beast was comparable in strength with a martial practitioner of the Manifestation Realm, powerful enough to squash the lives of anyone here!

Including Yan Dewu himself!

How could he not be terrified?

Only, when the giant, silvery white wolf appeared, it didn’t pay any attention to him. In fact, it didn’t even look towards Shattered Ice Manor’s location. Instead, it walked straight towards Nebula Pavilion’s group. This made Yan Dewu feel nervous, but it also gave birth to a wild thought: Why does it want to personally kill Nebula Pavilion’s forces? Just how did they anger it for it to personally appear and attack?

“A terrifying Rank… Rank Three entity.” Upon hearing Yan Dewu’s cry, Liu Yan’s face paled as he hopelessly said, “It seems like it is about to personally make a move! Shit, just how did we anger it?”

At this moment, all of the Ling and Gao Family members felt chills run through every part of their bodies. It was as if their blood had stopped circulating, as if they had been frozen solid by a bone biting chill.

Qin Lie grasped the wooden sculpture as he watched the Demon King casually pad over. Deeply looking into the wolf king’s eyes, he suddenly had an extremely strange feeling: The wolf king was coming for him!

Indeed, after the wolf king came closer, it continued walking straight towards him!

From the wolf king’s eyes, a look of complexity that highly intelligent creatures possessed leak out. It seemed to be sighing as if it was thinking of a distant memory…

It was only looking at the wooden sculpture in Qin Lie’s hand!

Qin Shan’s sculpture!

Qin Lie’s body shook as if an electric current had shot through every cell in his body. At this moment, he finally understood!

He finally understood why those three demon wolves had suddenly stopped their attack, and he finally understood the true motive of the wolf king!

“Everyone, everyone don’t move! All of you, don’t move!”

Qin Lie felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest. He gasped for air as he tremblingly ordered everyone behind him to stay their ground while he himself walked forward from amongst them.

Under the extremely shocked gazes of everyone, Qin Lie moved towards the Silver Winged Demon Wolf King, and just like the last time, he held the sculpture high up above him.

The giant, silvery wolf finally walked over!

Under everyone’s perplexed eyes, the extremely terrifying wolf king slightly crouched down. Opening its mouth, it stuck out its tongue and, both gently and carefully, licked the sculpture…

Everyone froze as if they had been turned to stone.

……