Chapter Eighty-Five: The Iron-Blooded Lord

The last of the wolf demons fell before Du Long and the others, leaving only Old Ma to face the wolf demon chieftain alone.

A formidable foe it was indeed. As befitted a third-rank wolf demon, it was fearsome in both offense and defense; when Old Ma’s battle blade struck its body, it left only a shallow wound.

After a long and bitter struggle, Old Ma was careless for a moment and clawed by the beast, leaving several gaping wounds across his chest, deep enough to show bone. His armor was torn open, and the blood on his breastplate blazed red.

"Sun Lin, come with me to help Old Ma! The rest of you stay alert, and remember to tend to the wounded!" After Du Long finished off the last wolf demon, he saw that Old Ma, though not yet defeated by the chieftain, had been badly injured. He quickly called to the others and rushed toward the battlefield.

"I’ll assist you! The rest stay on guard!" Yang Yunfeng tossed out the words and drove his spear after him. The others knew better than to complain; a third-rank beast was not something they could handle.

"Be careful!" Du Caini cried in alarm.

With the three of them joining the fight, the wolf demon chieftain, which had been evenly matched with Old Ma, finally began to panic. It had seen its subordinates all slaughtered by these humans and naturally understood that the situation had turned dire.

After all, the stronger a beast became, the more its intelligence awakened. It was said that once these beasts reached the fifth rank—what humans called the spirit rank—many of them could take human form and speak, their intellect surpassing that of ordinary people.

Awooo!

The wolf demon chieftain suddenly howled at the sky, then flashed straight toward Du Long. In its eyes, this hateful human had killed several of its followers, and he appeared to be the weakest among them.

Whether it was to break out or to take revenge, Du Long’s direction was the best point of attack.

Ordinary second-rank wolf demons stood nearly two meters tall. This chieftain was close to three meters in height and weighed no less than a thousand kilograms. Charging at full speed, its momentum was terrifying indeed.

Having slain several wolf demons in succession, the fear in Du Long’s heart had already been replaced by a faint excitement. Facing an existence a full level stronger than himself, he knew he could not match it head-on, but he still had the confidence to try.

"Good!" Du Long roared, and had the spirit girl remove the gravity seal from the vest on his back. Now as light as a swallow, his strength surged to its peak.

His feet shifted, and he slipped past the wolf demon chieftain’s frontal charge. With another flicker, he appeared on its left side and swung his black sun battle blade with full force, unleashing the twin surging tides of black sun technique. At the same time, he poured all the latent astral fire he had been hiding into the blade.

Though Du Long had only reached the air vortex stage, his innate black sun constitution had already granted him astral fire long ago. Now he poured every last thread of it into the black sun battle blade, instantly awakening the blade’s unique destructive power.

To outsiders, the blade was shrouded in a flickering crimson glow, radiating terrifying heat as it savagely hacked into the wolf demon chieftain’s lower back.

Awooo!

A cry of agony split the forest. The black sun battle blade easily tore through the beast’s normally tough hide and struck the vital waist bone with brutal force, cracking the bone on the spot, though not quite shattering it.

Even so, the wolf demon chieftain was severely wounded. Its hind legs clearly lost much of their power, and from the way it limped, its combat strength had undoubtedly fallen to the absolute minimum.

Having landed a blow, Du Long did not grow reckless. He immediately withdrew, for his strength was still too weak and the astral fire within him had been exhausted in a single burst. He could no longer launch a second astral fire attack.

"Old Ma! The rest is up to you!" Du Long shouted.

"Leave it to me! Watch how I deal with this beast!" Old Ma had seen with his own eyes how miraculously Du Long had slashed the giant wolf into grievous injury, and he had already judged the beast to be badly hurt. Naturally, he answered with confidence and sprang toward it.

Ever since Old Ma had also learned the Wind Walking Step, he had practiced it diligently. Though not as deft as Du Long, he had still achieved some effect. His form drifted to the giant wolf’s side, and he brought his blade down exactly where Du Long had struck before.

The wolf demon chieftain seemed to know that if this blow landed cleanly, it would be finished today. It suddenly twisted its body and snapped its jaws toward Old Ma in a desperate, life-or-death attack.

That frantic style forced Old Ma to retreat in haste, and the blade failed to strike a vital point. It merely split a long gash behind the wolf’s haunches.

Driven back, the giant wolf tried to withdraw into the forest at its side. But the severe injury to its waist and spine had badly hindered its speed, and Du Long and the others could never allow it to escape. In an instant they surrounded it once more.

"The few of us will draw this beast’s attention. Old Ma, find a chance to cripple it!" Du Long shouted, following the advice given by the spirit girl.

Yang Yunfeng and Sun Lin immediately carried out the plan. The three of them attacked the grievously wounded giant wolf at full strength. The chieftain’s spine had suffered a terrible injury, and that was no ordinary wound.

Damage to the spine meant weakness in the hindquarters and the inability to exert much strength. One wrong move affected the whole body. The horrifying pain and utter helplessness transmitted from the broken spine left it unable even to erupt into a full, desperate struggle, and it was pinned down completely by Du Long and the others.

At last, because its front and rear halves could no longer move in harmony, Old Ma seized the opening and slashed his blade into the injured spine at the wolf’s lower back. With his air sea stage at perfection and a full-force strike, the already shattered spine finally broke.

The third-rank wolf demon chieftain let out a miserable howl before crashing to the ground. Before everyone’s eyes, it gradually lost all sign of life and breathed its last.

With the wolf demon chieftain dead on the spot, everyone let out a breath of relief. Du Long immediately arranged for men to begin dissecting the wolf demons. Their tough hides, together with the demon cores from the first to third ranks, were all valuable treasures.

The bodies of the more than ten wolf demons could not be wasted either. The meat of such beasts was highly nourishing, far superior to ordinary domesticated livestock. With hundreds of subordinates at hand, they directly butchered the wolf meat into chunks of twenty or thirty catties each and carried it away.

While everyone was processing the carcasses, Du Long called over the few men who had led the way and barked at them, "What exactly is going on? Why did we run into such powerful beasts not long after entering the beast forest? If you don’t explain this clearly today, I’ll kill you all on the spot!"

Those fellows were terrified by his fury. Their legs went weak and they dropped to their knees together, crying, "Lord, we are innocent!"

"Hmph! Speak honestly at once. Were you leading the whole group onto a deliberately dangerous route? Otherwise, how could a third-rank beast appear in the outer reaches of the beast forest, where only low-rank beasts are supposed to roam?" Du Long said coldly, his gaze icy.

"Lord! We are truly innocent! This is absolutely the route we usually take. We have never encountered anything like this before. It was just an accident!" one of them pleaded, his face twisted with grief as he answered with what courage he had.

"By your logic, if we happen to run into a beast with strength above the fourth rank again, would that not mean the entire army is doomed here?" Du Long snapped in anger.

"Absolutely impossible! In the outer regions of the beast forest, it is possible to encounter a third-rank beast if one is unlucky. I myself encountered such a thing once over all these years. But a beast above the fourth rank? In all these years, I have not only never seen one, I have never even heard of anyone encountering such a creature this far out!" the guide said with certainty.

Du Long studied the man for a long moment, and from his expression judged that he was probably not lying. They still needed these people to lead the way if they were to find the location of the gold mine accurately, so for the moment, he truly could not kill them.

"Very well. This lord will trust you this once. Do not dare deceive me, or you know what the consequences will be. All of you go and prepare. We will continue on shortly!" In the end, Du Long could only accept their explanation.

After the large party finished reorganizing everything, and seeing that it was still early, they continued on, planning to follow the original schedule and camp at one of the rest points with a water source.

After the wolf demon ambush, the entire team clearly became tense, no longer as relaxed as before. In the two hours between the attack and their arrival at the rest point with water, they encountered several more waves of beasts.

Among them, there had even been a third-rank horned bull demon. Fortunately, that fellow appeared alone, and Old Ma, Du Long, and the others drove it away together.

Its hide was thick and resistant to punishment, with almost no weak point to be found anywhere on its body. Even Old Ma could not leave a wound on it, and in the end they could only drive it off. Fortunately, this enormous creature was a herbivorous beast and not particularly violent in temperament; otherwise, even driving it away would have been difficult.

As for the one- to two-rank beasts encountered along the way, they were much easier to handle. As long as the beasts did not provoke them first, Du Long and his people would not go looking for trouble. But if they dared to attack, then no mercy was shown.

At the rest point, Du Long and the others discovered that quite a few human squads had already set up camp there. Human travelers entering the beast forest had scattered the droppings of high-rank beasts around the rest area. After catching those scents, low-rank beasts would generally detour around the place, making it a relatively safe haven for humans.

The appearance of Du Long’s party of several hundred immediately drew the attention of the human squads that had arrived earlier. Once they made out the banners of the royal guard as well as the lord’s standard, the human camps, which had been somewhat noisy, fell silent.

Having entered the beast forest from the direction of Gold Mountain Town, these people naturally had some understanding of the major events that had taken place in Prosperous Harvest County over the past days. Most of them knew that the master of this force was no soft touch.

Twenty or thirty heads of corrupt officials still hung high in Prosperous Harvest County, securing Du Long’s reputation as the iron-blooded lord. News of this had long since spread through the adventuring squads. Many people felt both admiration and resentment toward this iron-blooded lord.

His iron-fisted punishment of corrupt officials and his reopening of the market had greatly lowered the cost of replenishing supplies, which greatly impressed the adventuring squads. But as soon as he took office, he issued a strict ban against privately opened gold mines, and that cut off the income of many adventuring teams.