Road Lord (Part 2)

Are those people gone?

It didn't know. It would have to wait a while longer.

The next day, it lay on the ridge again, looking down.

The mountain path was empty, not a single figure in sight.

The Wolf Demon lay there the whole day, and only when it was certain those people had truly left did it slowly descend the mountain.

It returned to that same rock.

It lay down on it, letting the moonlight soak through it, but its heart could not settle no matter what.

It thought of those people holding their spears, thought of those bronze gongs ringing, thought of the face of the gong-beater, drenched in tears.

Suddenly, it understood that tiger a little.

That beast wasn't stupid—it just hadn't expected humans to be this much trouble.

Kill one, and two come. Kill two, and four come. Kill four, and a whole crowd comes.

No matter how many you take down, they never end. No matter how many you slaughter, they never run out.

The Wolf Demon was different.

It had lived these decades on three legs, and its survival depended on hiding. If it couldn't hide, it ran. If it couldn't run, it burrowed.

This mountain was vast, the forest thick. Once it slipped inside, who could find it?

When those people left, it would come out. When those people came, it would hide again.

Anyway, it had all the time in the world.

It had lived for decades, and living a few more decades was no problem. How long could those people last?

A few decades at most.

Once they grew old and died, it would go down the mountain, dig up their graves, and eat their flesh.

The Wolf Demon lay on that rock, squinting, gazing at the faint village below the mountain. Suddenly, it bared its teeth, revealing that row of fresh, white fangs.

It was smiling.

Later on, the Wolf Demon could spew Black Wind from its mouth.

It had tried it on a wild boar in the mountains. One puff of Black Wind, and the beast's eyes went blind on the spot. It crashed around the mountain wildly until the Wolf Demon bit it to death.

It was very satisfied with the changes in its body. It felt that eating human flesh really worked better than basking in the moonlight.

But gradually, those people stopped coming up the mountain.

It crouched behind the rock, licking its lips.

It had been a long time since it had eaten a human. The taste of that sweet, bloody tang was almost forgotten.

Sometimes it thought about going down the mountain, taking a stroll through that village, snatching one and running.

But it was also a little afraid.

There were too many of those people. They carried hoes and scythes. No matter how strong it was, it couldn't take on a whole crowd.

It really didn't want to get hurt.

It could only wait.

Wait for some reckless fool to come up the mountain again.

And then, that person came.

The Wolf Demon squinted, staring at that fair-skinned man.

His way of walking was different from the woodcutters'. His back and waist were straight, step by step, unhurried, as if he were strolling in his own courtyard.

It watched that man, and something stirred inside it.

That man made it uneasy. It couldn't say why, but it felt that getting close to him would mean trouble.

But that pale, tempting flesh...

It swallowed another mouthful of saliva.

Then it would push a rock to crush him.

It thought to itself.

If he dared to chase after it, it would spew Black Wind and blind his eyes.

Anyway, this mountain was all its own. It had lived here for decades; it could find a hiding place with its eyes closed.

It watched that man draw closer and closer, and the unease in its heart was gradually buried by something else.

It was hunger.

It was a craving squeezed out from the marrow of its bones.

It pressed its body lower, digging its claws into the snow, into the frozen earth beneath the snow.

That decades-old lame leg trembled uncontrollably, but it didn't care.

It could run now, spew black wind, and even speak human language.

It stared at that fair-skinned man, with only one thought in its mind:

He must taste delicious.

It had to eat him.

The man approached slowly.

He walked unhurriedly, glancing around as he went, as if searching for something.

The Wolf Demon narrowed its eyes and pressed its body lower.

Closer.

Even closer.

The man had already reached the spot directly below, no more than a dozen paces from that boulder—it could even make out his face.

Pale and clean, nothing like those woodcutters with their wrinkled mugs.

He even looked up toward the mountain, glancing exactly in the direction where it was hiding.

The Wolf Demon's heart leaped, thinking it had been discovered.

But the man only looked once, then lowered his head again and kept walking.

Fool.

Those two words surfaced in the Wolf Demon's mind.

It leaned forward, pressing both front paws against the boulder, straining with all its might to pry it out of the snow hollow.

The rock shifted, but only rolled half a foot before catching on a clump of bushes and stopping.

The Wolf Demon's heart jolted, afraid the noise would startle the man, and afraid he might walk past the right spot.

It peered down and saw the man was still looking around.

Ha, what a fool.

It put in more effort.

The rock finally broke free of the bushes and rolled down the slope.

Slow at first, then faster and faster, crushing snow, knocking aside pebbles, rumbling with a dull roar as it hurtled unstoppably toward the man.

The Wolf Demon no longer hid. It stood up boldly on the slope, its eyes fixed straight on its prey.

It saw the man lift his head, looking at the rock rolling toward him, and also looking at it.

It thought he would run, dodge, or piss himself in terror like those woodcutters.

But the man did not.

He only raised a hand, his fingers forming a strange gesture, muttering something under his breath.

Scared stupid?

That thought had just arisen when a vertical line of fire appeared out of thin air.

The line of fire was as thin as a cotton thread, as red as molten iron, flying straight toward the rolling rock.

It was impossibly fast—so fast that before the Wolf Demon could even blink, it heard a soft hiss.

The rock split clean in two!

The Wolf Demon was dumbfounded.

The two halves of the rock brushed past the man, landing in the snow behind him, gouging out two large pits.

The cut was perfectly smooth, still smoking, and the snow sizzled as it hit, instantly turning to white steam.

Rocks could smoke?

That thought flashed through the Wolf Demon's mind.

Then it instinctively looked at the man again, only to find him staring straight back at it.

The Wolf Demon froze.

It felt that the man's gaze was truly strange—neither fear nor anger in it, only a lofty, detached coldness.

The feeling was like... like looking at a rock, a dead branch, a rotten leaf fallen in the snow.

In its decades of life, the Wolf Demon had never been looked at that way by a human.

An inexplicable fear rose from the depths of its heart.

This fear came so unreasonably.

It could spew black wind from its mouth, it could bite a wild boar to death with one snap, it wasn't even afraid of tigers—so why should it fear such a slender man?

But the fear had appeared abruptly, leaving it utterly bewildered and grasping for a thread of understanding.

It was like a bamboo shoot, pushing aside the greed piled deep in its heart, suddenly bursting forth from a layer of withered branches and dead leaves.

And indeed, something had burst forth from its heart.

But it wasn't a shoot.

First, it felt a searing heat in its belly, as if it had swallowed a red-hot ingot of iron.

Then a fiery sting shot up its throat, as though something was about to rush out from within.

It opened its mouth, trying to spew Black Wind, but no Black Wind came—instead, a wisp of flame emerged from its throat.

Then fire poured from its nostrils, from its ears.

The Wolf Demon's eyes bulged wide. It wanted to scream but no sound came. It wanted to run but its legs wouldn't move.

It could only feel the fire burning inside its body, scorching its organs until they smoked, boiling its very brain, and consuming the meager Dao Xing it had painstakingly accumulated over decades, scattering it into nothing.

In an instant, the Wolf Demon's world was reduced to a single word.

Pain wracked its body, making it tremble violently, its eyeballs nearly bursting from their sockets.

It strained to open its mouth, but in the end, it could only force out two words:

"It hurts—!"

The sound was human speech, but more like a wolf's howl.

Then it saw another line of fire flying toward it, slicing horizontally across its neck.

The Wolf Demon floated upward.

It saw its own body lying on the slope, its four legs still twitching, flames rising from the severed neck.

It saw its head tumble from its body, rolling down the hillside, faster and faster, until it finally came to a stop at that person's feet.

It saw that person lower their head, expressionless, staring down at it.

It saw.

Those were icy eyes, cold as snow.

Then it saw nothing more.

It was dead.

If you can't find the book by its title, try searching by the author—maybe it's just been renamed!

In response to our readers' requests, we now offer a VIP membership ad-free feature.

Click to view.