Wolf Kissing Moonlit Night (Part 2)

The warm little courtyard beside tranquil Falling Star Lake could no longer stay out of it. Chen Qing's gaze pierced through the chaotic village and locked onto the Alpha Wolf at the village entrance, standing like a demon god and howling at the sky.

The bloodshed in the courtyard did not slow Chen Qing in the slightest. With a tap of his toes against the bloodstained mud, he shot forward like an arrow loosed from its bow, racing toward the place where the cries were most agonized—Carpenter Zhao's home!

The sights along the way were horrifying. Shattered fences, overturned chicken coops, mangled poultry carcasses scattered across the ground, and... villagers lying in pools of blood, endlessly torn apart by the wolf pack!

Several vicious wolves had their heads buried in a corpse's ripped-open belly, its intestines spilling everywhere. The thick, nauseating stench of blood spread through the entire street.

"You beasts!" Chen Qing's eyes nearly split with fury as rage, mixed with that strange inner breath, erupted from his chest! Without slowing, he spread the fingers of his right hand and pressed toward the wolves feeding on the corpse from afar!

It was not invisible Sword Qi, but an even more immense force! The air seemed to freeze and compress in an instant, transforming into an enormous invisible palm that covered more than ten feet, crashing down with Chen Qing's fury!

"Puff! Puff! Puff!"

The wolves did not even have time to scream before that terrifying force smashed them into the ground, turning them into several mangled piles of flesh and blood! Even the earth trembled faintly.

Chen Qing did not even look at the result. Swift as the wind, he charged straight for Carpenter Zhao's home.

The Zhao family's little courtyard had already become a living hell. The courtyard gate was shattered, the windows thrown open, and several wolf carcasses and the bodies of bitten-to-death household dogs lay strewn about. Blood stained the snow and mud red.

A woman's despairing sobs and children's heart-rending screams came from inside, accompanied by the excited howls of wolves and fierce sounds of fighting!

Chen Qing rushed into the courtyard and saw the scene at the doorway. A chill shot straight to the crown of his head!

Inside, Carpenter Zhao was covered in blood, wielding a broken table leg as he desperately blocked the entrance to the inner room. One of his arms hung limply at his side, clearly bitten through!

Before him, two brawny gray wolves took turns pouncing, their claws carving bloody streak after bloody streak! The inner door had already been clawed apart by more than half. A sharp wolf claw reached through a hole, scraping wildly, while behind the door Zhao's wife clutched two children in the corner, wailing in despair!

Even more urgently, a crafty old one-eyed wolf had somehow climbed onto the low roof. It was frantically tearing at the thatch, trying to break directly into the inner room from above!

"Get away!" Chen Qing roared, his voice like a thunderclap, instantly drowning out every other sound in the courtyard! The shout, infused with strange inner breath, carried an invisible shockwave that slammed viciously into the two wolves attacking at the door!

"Woooowl—!"

The two wolves seemed to have been struck by sledgehammers. Chen Qing's rage-filled roar, laced with spiritual force, left them dizzy and disoriented, halting their attack!

Seizing the opening, Chen Qing appeared before Carpenter Zhao in an instant. He ignored the two stunned wolves and abruptly raised his head, his eyes fixing on the one-eyed old wolf frantically tearing at the roof thatch!

His joined fingers formed a sword, pointing straight at the roof!

This time, the pale blue radiance gathering at his fingertips was clearly visible, like a star suddenly lighting up the night! A stream of Starforce, more condensed and swifter than the one that had slain the wolves at the courtyard gate, tore through the air.

"Screech!"

The Sword Qi pierced precisely through the one-eyed old wolf's neck! The old wolf did not even grunt. Its body stiffened, and it rolled straight off the roof, crashing heavily into the courtyard.

"Brother Zhao, hold on!" Chen Qing caught the swaying Carpenter Zhao. A gentle yet pure current of Starforce instantly entered his body, protecting his heart meridian from collapse.

The scattered look in Carpenter Zhao's eyes regained a trace of clarity. Seeing that it was Chen Qing, his lips trembled, but he could not say a single word. His eyes held only despair and pleading.

"Get inside!" Chen Qing sent him into the inner room, then struck out with a backhanded palm!

A powerful blast of force slammed into the two gray wolves, which had just recovered from their dizziness and were pouncing again!

"Bang! Bang!"

The two vicious wolves howled as they flew backward, smashing through a pile of firewood beside the courtyard wall. For the moment, they struggled helplessly.

Having temporarily resolved the Zhao family's danger, Chen Qing did not pause for even a moment.

He drew a deep breath, power surging and roaring within him! He leaped onto the still-intact half of the Zhao family's courtyard wall and stood high above, overlooking the village engulfed in flames and bloodshed.

As far as the eye could see, there was only hell.

To the east, Blacksmith Li wielded red-hot tongs to drive back two wolves, only for another wolf to ambush him and tear a bone-deep wound across his back. Blood streamed down him.

To the west, several young men stood back-to-back, resisting the wolf pack's siege with fishing spears and hoes. Two or three companions already lay fallen at their feet.

In the open space at the center of the village, the Alpha Wolf, built like a calf, coldly surveyed its surroundings. Every so often, it let out a short howl, as though directing its forces.

More than a dozen especially robust and ferocious guard wolves clustered around it. Farther away, a steady stream of ghostly green lights poured in from the direction of Black Pine Forest!

Despair, like icy lake water, drowned the hearts of every survivor.

This could not go on! He had to intimidate the wolf pack and crush their savage arrogance!

Chen Qing's gaze locked tightly onto the enormous Alpha Wolf standing there like a king.

He slowly raised both palms before his chest. They emanated an energy fluctuation that made hearts tremble!

The aura around him suddenly grew incomparably deep and vast! Invisible currents of air began to whirl and gather around him, sweeping up dead leaves and dust from the ground.

His robes fluttered without wind, snapping loudly!

An indescribable pressure began to spread!

The chaotic battlefield seemed to freeze for an instant.

Whether they were crazed hungry wolves tearing into flesh or villagers resisting in despair, all of them involuntarily felt a tremor from the depths of their souls. Their movements slowed by a beat.

The Alpha Wolf abruptly lifted its head. For the first time, its ghostly green eyes clearly reflected the tiny human figure on the distant wall, one that radiated a terrifying aura! It felt an unprecedented threat!

"Roar—!" The Alpha Wolf let out a roar full of warning and fury, lowering its forelegs and tensing every muscle as it stared fixedly at Chen Qing.

Chen Qing turned a deaf ear to its roar.

All his strength gathered between his palms. The two halos born from the Star Marks in his palms grew brighter and more solid, faintly emitting a deep hum! The surrounding air seemed drained away, even the light twisting around them!

The next moment, he thrust both palms forward, aiming directly at the area where the Alpha Wolf stood!

There was no earth-shaking explosion.

There was no dazzling flash of light.

There were only two silver beams condensed to the utmost, like meteors slicing through the night sky, crossing dozens of yards in an instant!

They were so fast they exceeded what the naked eye could catch.

The Alpha Wolf's pupils shrank sharply! Its beastly instincts made it react at the final instant! Its enormous body lunged violently to the side with an agility utterly at odds with its size!

"BOOM!!!"

The beams struck the ground just beside it!

The earth shook violently, as if struck by a meteorite! Centered on the point of impact, the soil was instantly vaporized, torn apart, and blasted into the air by berserk energy! A scorched crater more than ten feet wide and several feet deep was gouged into the ground!

The terrifying shockwave spread outward in a ring. Seven or eight vicious wolves within thirty feet, regardless of size, were flung away by the overwhelming force before they could even scream!

Wolves farther away were also knocked sprawling by the shockwave, whimpering and crying out!

The entire battlefield fell into dead silence in an instant!

All fighting, all crying, all wolf howls vanished at that moment. Only the howl of the cold wind sweeping through the ruins remained.

Every gaze, human and wolf alike, filled with incomparable shock, focused on the figure standing atop the broken wall, the glow on his palms not yet fully faded.

Fear! Absolute fear!

That was a terrifying power beyond mortal comprehension! Was it the wrath of a god, or the might of a demon?!

The Alpha Wolf struggled up from the ground. Though it had avoided a direct hit, merely grazing the energy's aftermath and enduring that terrifying shockwave had left its organs churning, blood flowing from its mouth and nose, and the fur over half its body scorched black. It was utterly bedraggled.

It stared fixedly at Chen Qing. For the first time, clear, humanlike terror and disbelief appeared in its ghostly green wolf eyes!

"Wooo—owww—!"

The Alpha Wolf threw back its head and released a long howl, shrill and unwilling, yet full of retreat!

That howl was like an order to withdraw.

The wolf pack, which had been ferocious beyond measure and fearless of death, had witnessed their companions turn to ash in an instant and their leader suffer such a miserable wound. The last remnants of their savagery were finally extinguished by boundless terror! The surviving wolves tucked their tails and whimpered in panic, turning like a receding tide and scrambling toward Black Pine Forest, abandoning even their injured companions.

The black tide had come swiftly and retreated even faster.

In the blink of an eye, the densely packed ghostly green lights vanished like an ebbing tide at the dark edge of the forest, leaving behind only devastation, blood stench too thick to disperse, and villagers who had survived the calamity, stunned as wooden chickens.

The Alpha Wolf staggered and collapsed to the ground. It no longer had the strength to flee.

Chen Qing slowly lowered his hands. The light of the Star Marks in his palms faded, returning to normal.

He stood atop the broken wall, his figure seeming somewhat thin amid the firelight and cold wind. Those two earth-shaking strikes had consumed a great deal of his spirit and inner breath, and a profound exhaustion washed over him.

He looked around. The surviving villagers supported one another, looking at the wolf corpses scattered everywhere, the mutilated remains of their companions, and that terrifying crater. Finally, all their eyes gathered on Chen Qing.

Those eyes were filled with the bewilderment of surviving disaster, fear etched into their bones, and a kind of... reverence and distance toward something inhuman.

Supported by his wife, Carpenter Zhao struggled out of the house. Looking at the massive crater in the courtyard and Chen Qing on the wall, his lips trembled. In the end, he simply bent deeply, deeply at the waist.

Then came Blacksmith Li, the surviving young men, the women and children on the ground... one, two, more and more people silently bent their backs toward the figure who had saved them in their darkest hour.

This was not gratitude. It was more like an instinctive worship before an unknown, overwhelming power.

The cold wind swept past, bringing a bone-piercing chill.

Chen Qing's gaze passed over the kneeling crowd and came to rest on the Alpha Wolf. The Alpha Wolf slightly raised its head, but its eyes seemed to hold more than mere fear of Chen Qing's power...

Just then, a suppressed, trembling whimper came from behind him.

Chen Qing spun around.

At the entrance to Uncle Po's little courtyard, A Ning had somehow run outside. Her small body stood in the cold night wind, looking exceptionally lonely and desolate.

She did not look at the kneeling villagers, nor did she look at the bloodshed all around. Her black eyes were fixed on a huge wolf carcass not far away, one that Chen Qing's first invisible Sword Qi had split in two.

Its organs had spilled all over the ground, and it had died horribly.

A Ning's body trembled violently. Her face was so pale that not a trace of blood remained. She bit her lip hard, her small body swaying before she finally could not hold herself up any longer. Her legs gave way, and she dropped to her knees on the cold mud.

She did not cry aloud. Her shoulders only shook violently as silent tears rolled down in large drops like pearls from a broken string, splashing into the bloodstained earth.

Chen Qing leaped down from the broken wall and hurried to her side, wanting to pick her up.

But A Ning abruptly raised her head. Through tear-blurred eyes, she looked at him and, for the first time, clearly spoke two syllables, her voice thick with sobs and an indescribable sorrow:

"Don't... kill..."

Chen Qing's outstretched hand froze in midair.

The Wolf King struggled to its feet. Its gaze passed over Chen Qing and settled on A Ning's slight figure. It lowered its head faintly, then turned unsteadily and walked toward the dark forest.

Seeing that Chen Qing did not strike, some nearby villagers tried to take advantage of the Wolf King's weakness. They advanced slowly with hoes in hand, intending to kill it, but a low growl from the Wolf King frightened them back. They could only watch it leave in silence.

The cold wind blew past, carrying the distant sobbing of the pine forest, as though the dead souls of the wolf pack were whispering. That night, blood and fire were branded upon the shores of Falling Star Lake, and something seemed to quietly change with the tears A Ning shed.