Savage Bull Herd

Everyone lowered their bodies in unison, their backs bent into taut bows as they followed Biao forward with slow, coordinated movements.

Lin Yi copied them convincingly. His toes touched down first, then his heels; with every step, he kept the sound to an absolute minimum. He deliberately slowed his breathing as well, utterly unlike the panting from when he had run for an hour earlier.

The bushes ahead grew thicker and thicker, their branches and leaves brushing against the hunters' hide armor with faint rustling sounds.

At the very front, Biao pushed aside a clump of broad-leafed grass half a man tall. He froze, then slowly raised one hand to signal those behind him to stop.

Lin Yi poked his head through the gap between two tribesmen and followed Biao's gaze.

Ahead lay a relatively open stretch of riverbank, flat ground carpeted with pebbles and sand polished smooth by countless trampling hooves.

A narrow stream wound past one side, its water babbling softly. In the center of the riverbank, more than a dozen enormous beasts were leisurely lowering their heads to chew the grass and aquatic plants by the stream.

There were eleven Savage Bulls.

The size of every one of them made Lin Yi's pupils shrink.

They were more than twice the size of any bison he had seen in his former world. Their shoulder height nearly exceeded that of a person, and their thick grayish-brown hides wrapped their bodies like rough armor. At their shoulder blades rose hard, bulging plates of bone armor, gleaming with a bluish-gray luster like stone.

A pair of spiraling long horns extended diagonally from each head, as thick as an adult's arm. Their tips glimmered with a cold, dark sheen beneath the sunlight filtering through the canopy.

Four pillar-like legs stood firmly rooted to the ground. Every step they took left deep hoofprints in the damp soil.

"Not bad luck." Biao kept his voice extremely low, but he could not suppress the excitement in his tone. "You don't run into a herd of Savage Bulls often."

Lin Yi stared intently at the largest Savage Bull.

It was a full circle larger than the others. The bone armor on its shoulders was darker and sharper-edged, while the patterns on its spiral horns were denser as well.

Unlike the other Savage Bulls, which had their heads down grazing, it stood some distance from the herd with its head slightly raised. Its dark yellow eyes slowly swept over its surroundings, as though standing guard against something.

Biao turned his head and explained to Lin Yi in a low voice, "Savage Bulls have powerful bodies. Though they have no Divine Abilities, once they go mad and charge, even someone in the Second Blood-Qi Realm has to avoid their edge.

"It's your first time encountering them. Be careful later, and don't get too close."

Lin Yi nodded, firmly committing those words to memory.

"Eleven." Biao's gaze swept across the herd one by one, and he swiftly made his arrangements. "I'll handle the biggest one. The rest of you each hold one back. The archers will shoot from the rear. Clear them out quickly, then focus your fire and come help me."

Biao's orders were crisp and decisive, but after hearing them, Lin Yi blinked twice, a huge question mark rising in his mind.

Normally, shouldn't they lure one out first, surround it and kill it, then lure out a second one, repeating the process over and over?

All the hunting scenes he had seen before followed that pattern. A group of hunters would cautiously set traps and bait, gradually breaking apart the herd...

But Biao's meaning now was—charge straight in?

Lin Yi could not help asking in a low voice, "Brother Biao, we... aren't going to lure them out and kill them one at a time?"

Biao glanced back at him, his expression carrying the blunt straightforwardness unique to men of the Great Wilderness.

"Savage Bulls are only the lowest-grade ferocious beasts. Once grown, they have around fifty thousand jin of strength at most. Our hunting team is at least at the Tide-Chasing Realm, and we have the advantage in numbers. You want to waste the effort luring them out one by one?"

Biao grinned. "End this quickly. Taking down this herd of Savage Bulls will give the tribe enough meat for quite a few days. Drag it out too long, and the night may grow long enough for dreams to multiply."

Lin Yi froze for a moment, then understood.

Right. Savage Bulls were merely the lowest-grade ferocious beasts, with a maximum strength of fifty thousand jin—roughly the strength level of Blood-Qi Tidal Surge.

And aside from him, everyone in the hunting team had at least entered the Tide-Chasing Realm. Biao himself was an expert in the Mountain-Sinking Realm with eighty thousand jin of strength.

Eleven bulls against thirteen people and two archers gave them the advantage in both numbers and strength. There really was no need for any flashy, roundabout tactics.

Just do it.

"I understand, Brother Biao." Lin Yi tightened his grip on the spear in his hand. "Just do it."

Biao patted his shoulder in satisfaction, then turned around, his voice deepening. "Brothers, creep closer. Once we're another hundred meters or so nearer, move the instant you hear my command."

No one spoke again.

Thirteen figures lowered their centers of gravity at once, like a pack of leopards moving close to the ground. Using the grass and rocks as cover, they silently closed in on the Savage Bull herd.

Following behind Biao, Lin Yi could hear his heart thudding heavily in his chest. The blood and qi throughout his body gradually accelerated, and his fingertips and soles began to grow warm.

The distance slowly closed. Two hundred meters. One hundred and fifty meters. One hundred meters.

Biao suddenly drew the broad-backed saber from his back, its blade carving a curved streak of cold light through the dappled sunlight.

Power exploded beneath his feet. He shot forward like a cannonball, leaving a shallow crater in the ground as shattered stones flew in every direction.

"Kill—!"

With a thunderous roar, he leaped high into the air, raised the saber over his head with both hands, and hacked down at the largest Savage Bull!

Almost at the same instant, the other tribesmen sprang up together. Their roars merged into one as they charged at the Savage Bull herd from every direction.

Some gripped stone axes, while others leveled bone spears. The two archers at the rear had already drawn their bows to full tension, and arrows whistled through the air.

Lin Yi moved as well.

He did not possess Biao's explosive power that could send him soaring into the sky, nor did he have the natural charging rhythm of an old hunter. But he poured all his blood and qi into his legs. One step carried him two or three zhang forward as he leveled his spear, its tip pointed straight ahead.

A tribesman beside him charged shoulder to shoulder with him in perfect coordination. Their gazes met for an instant, and both locked onto a relatively smaller Savage Bull on the flank.

The Savage Bull herd fell into chaos under the sudden attack.

Several bulls panicked and spun in place, their hooves digging up mud and gravel as they let out frightened, low bellows.

But just as the chaos was about to spread—

A deep, resounding bellow suddenly rang out.

It came from the largest Savage Bull.

It threw back its head and bellowed long and loud, its voice carrying an unquestionable majesty.

Miraculously, after hearing that bellow, the restless herd swiftly calmed down. The Savage Bulls that had been scattering in panic gathered again, turned around, lowered their spiral horns, and let out deep roars as they charged toward the oncoming hunters!

Biao's saber had already fallen.

Clang—!

An ear-splitting crash of metal against iron exploded.

The broad-backed saber struck viciously against the largest Savage Bull's spiral horn, spraying a string of dark red sparks.

Biao pressed down with the force of his descent, but the Savage Bull's neck merely dipped slightly. Its four hooves remained nailed to the ground without moving an inch, plowing four deep furrows through the soil.

Biao's pupils suddenly contracted.

Something was wrong.

He had used eighty percent of his strength in that strike. By all rights, an ordinary Savage Bull would have staggered backward from the impact even if it was not cleaved down.

Yet this beast's hooves were planted more firmly than old tree roots. Its horns had taken his full-force slash, and not even the horn tips had cracked in the slightest.

A numbing shock ran through Biao's tiger's mouth. The moment he landed, he retreated half a step to steady himself, then raised his eyes and stared fixedly at the enormous beast before him.

The dark yellow eyes of the Savage Bull no longer held the dull indifference of livestock. In its place was a cold, calculated ferocity.

Beneath its shoulder bone armor, faint dark cyan patterns emerged across its rough grayish-brown hide. It was as though something ancient had been awakened from deep within its flesh and blood, crawling out layer by layer from beneath its skin, giving off a faint and eerie glow.

Alarm bells blared in Biao's heart.

Ordinary Savage Bulls could barely be said to possess intelligence, much less such discipline that they would fall silent at a single command.

The only explanation was that the leader of this herd was no ordinary beast.

"A mutant with a Bloodline Divine Ability..."

Biao squeezed the words out through clenched teeth.

Ordinary ferocious beasts had no ability to awaken their bloodlines. Only those whose ancestors had produced high-grade exotic beasts, leaving behind a trace of ancient inheritance in their blood, could possibly activate a Bloodline Divine Ability.

And among their own kind, such mutants were often born kings, their strength and intelligence far surpassing those of their peers.

The strength of this Savage Bull King was actually enough to contend head-on with him, someone in the Mountain-Sinking Realm.

Meanwhile, Lin Yi, not far away, also sensed that something was wrong.

He was currently tangled up with the smaller Savage Bull alongside a tribesman. Several thrusts of his spear had been bounced away by the bull's thick hide, leaving behind only a few shallow white marks.

When he heard the Savage Bull King's furious bellow and the metallic crash caused by Biao's strike, Lin Yi glanced over from the corner of his eye and happened to see the dark cyan patterns emerging across the Savage Bull King's skin.

The patterns flickered in and out beneath the sunlight, like living things slowly breathing.

Something was wrong. Far too wrong.

"Don't worry about me!" Biao's roar drowned out every other sound on the battlefield.

"Clear out the other Savage Bulls first! End this quickly!"

Lin Yi gritted his teeth and pulled back his gaze. He exchanged a look with the tribesman, and both of them intensified their attacks at once.

The tribesman darted to the Savage Bull's side. He swung his stone axe in a full circle and smashed it into the bend of the bull's knee, making the beast stumble in pain.

Lin Yi seized that fleeting opening. The blood and qi throughout his body erupted violently, and all twenty thousand jin of strength poured into his arms. His spear shot out like a gray-black bolt of lightning.

Pshht.

The bone spearhead pierced precisely into the Savage Bull's wide-open left eye, punching through the socket and deep into its skull.

The Savage Bull let out a brief, shrill cry. Its massive body convulsed twice before crashing to the ground, splashing mud and water everywhere.

"Move!" Lin Yi and the tribesman did not pause for even a moment. They pulled out the spear, turned, and rushed toward the nearest group of tribesmen. Three against one, four against one—they rapidly whittled down the remaining ordinary Savage Bulls.

With the strength of Initial Blood Resonance supporting him, every thrust Lin Yi made was several times more accurate and powerful than before.

The spear was no longer a clumsy wooden shaft in his hands. It had become a nimble extension of his limbs. Coordinating with Old Zhao's restraining and blocking, their hunting speed was astonishing.

One. Two. Three.

In less than a quarter of an hour, all ten ordinary Savage Bulls had fallen across the riverbank.

Their huge grayish-brown bodies lay scattered everywhere. Puddles in the muddy ground had been dyed dark brown by crimson bull blood, while the air was thick with a cloying, choking stench of blood.

Eleven men gathered in from every direction, surrounding the Savage Bull King whose entire body shone with Divine Markings.

The Savage Bull King's breaths were heavy and slow, two streams of white mist blasting from its nostrils.

Its four hooves lightly pawed at the ground. The tips of its spiral horns pointed toward Biao, and the ferocity in its dark yellow eyes had not diminished, though it had clearly lost its earlier composure.

The light of the Divine Markings grew increasingly brilliant, spreading from its shoulders across its spine and ribs, like an ancient totem surfacing from within its flesh and blood.

Everyone tightened their weapons, adjusted their breathing, and searched for the right moment to strike.

But Lin Yi, standing at the outer edge of the group, kept his gaze locked tightly on the pulsing dark cyan patterns across the Savage Bull King's body.

In those few breaths, his Super Brain entered a nearly instinctive state of high-speed operation. The direction, turns, and nodes of those patterns—every detail was infinitely magnified in his eyes.

He vaguely sensed that these were not random markings on its hide. They had rules and structure. Every line resembled a fragment left behind after some older, grander pattern had been broken apart.

The Savage Bull King's explosive increase in strength, its enhanced body, and its abnormal ability to clash head-on with Biao without falling behind—all of it originated from these patterns.

Lin Yi's heart suddenly jolted.

His gaze traced the main veins of those patterns, while his mind simultaneously constructed their complete outline, trying to piece them together. But too much information was missing. He could only record them exactly as they were, with no time to decipher their meaning.

Even so, the instinctive intuition within him hammered madly against his consciousness. This was a fortuitous encounter.

What lay hidden behind these patterns might run deeper than anything he had seen in this tribe.

Lin Yi's eyes clung unblinking to the Savage Bull King. His eyes reddened slightly from concentration as his brain completely recorded the dark cyan patterns, line by line and inch by inch, storing them in his mind.

In the brief silence on the battlefield, the Savage Bull King suddenly lowered its head, its horns aimed forward.

Biao held his saber horizontally before his chest and bared a fierce grin. "Brothers, slaughter it."

And in Lin Yi's mind, the final pattern was recorded and fixed in place.

The Savage Bull King roared as it charged forward, its hoofbeats like thunder, making the earth tremble.

Lin Yi came back to himself, clenched his spear, and stepped forward to follow.