Silvermoon Wolf King

The arrow he fired was considerably slower than the previous finger strike. Though the Gold-Eating Rat King's cultivation was nearing ten thousand years, its innate fear of Ultimate Fire as a metal-attributed creature made it instinctively try to dodge. However, Meng Hongchen's poison had slowed its movements, leaving it unable to escape the attack's range in time—

"Boom—!"

The instant the flames erupted, the entire forest lit up as bright as day. Violent golden-red waves of fire swept outward from the Gold-Eating Rat King, and the scorching wind rushed at them. Even Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen, standing far away, instinctively raised their hands to shield their faces.

The lingering poisonous mist left by Meng Hongchen vanished without a trace under the intense heat. The flames gathered into a pillar of fire that shot into the sky, then exploded into a small mushroom cloud.

The smoke and dust gradually dispersed. The rat swarm had long since been reduced to nothing, while the Gold-Eating Rat King, with cultivation nearing ten thousand years, was now only a charred heap of remains. Its savage appearance from before could barely still be recognized. A purple soul ring slowly rose above the wreckage.

"Holy crap..."

Xiao Hongchen rarely swore. He stared at the soul ring, then looked at Ye Chenxing.

That power... had already surpassed a Class Five fixed-installation Soul Guidance Cannon shell, hadn't it?

Seeing the other boy's calm expression, Xiao Hongchen swallowed hard.

When school started, should he still fight him? Maybe they ought to switch to intellectual contests instead? Making soul tools was pretty nice. What was so fun about fighting and killing?

Before he could reach a conclusion, Meng Hongchen had already hurried forward. She dismissed her martial soul possession, her white hair returning to wine-red and her eyes fading back to icy blue. Her face was filled with concern. "Chenxing, are you really all right? My poison—"

"I'm fine." Ye Chenxing waved a hand and said casually, "Don't worry. Did you forget? I have Ultimate Fire. I naturally have strong resistance to poison attributes, not to mention your Icefire Venom."

He paused, then suddenly curled his lips into a smile. Looking at the Hongchen siblings, he made a rare joke. "By that logic, it seems both of you are completely countered by me."

He had expected Meng Hongchen to be upset. But her reaction caught Ye Chenxing somewhat off guard.

"That's great!" Genuine delight bloomed across Meng Hongchen's face. "Then we can fight side by side! I've always been afraid to release large-scale poison mist around my teammates because I might drag them down with me. You aren't afraid of my poison, so I won't have to hold back anymore! We're definitely perfect teammates!"

As she spoke, she suddenly released her martial soul again. Her long hair turned white and her eyes became red. With hair and eyes nearly identical to Ye Chenxing's, she leaned close to him, tilted her head, and asked with a bright smile:

"How about it? Don't I look more like your older sister than Ye Xue does now?"

Ye Chenxing did not know whether to laugh or cry. He lightly tapped her forehead. "Why are you always thinking about Ye Xue? Did she ever do anything to you?"

"It's because..." Meng Hongchen covered her forehead, about to retort, when Ye Chenxing's expression suddenly changed.

His smile vanished. His gaze passed over her and fixed tightly on the depths of the forest behind her.

"Trouble."

The moment he spoke, a massive golden figure suddenly burst from the trees. Its limbs were as thick as pillars, its fangs exposed, and a pair of scarlet wolf eyes stared fixedly at the three of them.

Xiao Hongchen's pupils constricted. As a wolf, this Golden Wolf King was actually larger than the two Thousand-Year Golden Tigers they had encountered the day before.

It merely stood there, yet the pressure radiating from its body made the surrounding air seem to freeze. Its nearly tangible aura was heavy and violent, carrying the characteristic sharpness of the metal attribute—there was no doubt that this was a genuine ten-thousand-year soul beast.

"It's a ten-thousand-year Golden Wolf King!" Xiao Hongchen cried out.

No matter how arrogant he usually was, he did not dare show the slightest carelessness before a genuine ten-thousand-year soul beast.

If this had been ten thousand years ago, a Soul King or weaker would have had almost no chance of victory upon encountering a ten-thousand-year soul beast.

But things were different now. With soul tools enhancing him, it was not impossible for him to fight. Besides, his sister and Ye Chenxing were at his side. If the three of them joined forces, they might not have no chance at all. He could not help feeling eager to try. Turning back, he was about to ask Ye Chenxing's opinion when he saw that the other boy was not even looking at the Golden Wolf King. His gaze remained locked on the depths of the forest behind it.

Then, a slender silver figure silently emerged from behind the Golden Wolf King.

Silvermoon Wolf King!

Both were ten-thousand-year soul beasts. This was their first encounter with ten-thousand-year soul beasts, yet two had appeared at once.

So the Gold-Eating Rat swarm had not come to attack them on its own initiative. It had been driven from its territory by these two wolf kings.

Xiao Hongchen's expression changed instantly. One ten-thousand-year soul beast was worth attempting. Two were an entirely different matter. Yet he did not want to appear weak, much less show fear before these two, so he forced himself to ask, "Chenxing, what do we do now?"

In his eyes, the always rational Ye Chenxing would definitely choose to retreat or directly call Jing Hongchen for assistance.

"That one."

"Huh?"

"My second soul ring."

Ye Chenxing did not choose to retreat as Xiao Hongchen had expected.

The Silvermoon Wolf King had cultivation just over ten thousand years.

If it had been the lineup Huo Yuhao encountered in the original story—a Silvermoon Wolf King, three Golden Wolf King guards, and a pack of lesser wolves—then Ye Chenxing would definitely have called Jing Hongchen without another word. But judging by the situation now, these two were obviously a pair. Wolves were faithful to wolves, one male and one female.

Against a lineup like this, he felt they could give it a try.

Xiao Hongchen's expression completely changed. "Are you crazy?! Those are two ten-thousand-year soul beasts! Not thousand-year ones! Meng, talk some sense into him—"

He turned, intending to get his sister to help persuade Ye Chenxing, only to see that Meng Hongchen had already released her martial soul. Her wine-red hair turned snow-white, her eyes became scarlet, and she entered a battle-ready state. The rest of Xiao Hongchen's words caught in his throat.

He gritted his teeth, took out his weapon, and cursed under his breath.

Let's do it!

Grandfather was here, anyway.

Xiao Hongchen was the first to retreat. Releasing his martial soul, the phantom of a three-legged golden toad appeared behind him. Without any hesitation, he immediately widened the distance.

He knew that with his current strength, it would likely be difficult for him to inflict any effective damage on these two ten-thousand-year soul beasts through ordinary means. So he chose to pull back immediately, preparing to charge an attack capable of deciding the battle while observing Ye Chenxing's movements.

Without a single unnecessary word, the three of them displayed astonishing coordination in their first actual battle together.

Meng Hongchen's first two soul rings lit up at once, and blue-white streams of deadly poison rapidly spread in every direction.

Meanwhile, Ye Chenxing did not choose to charge up as he had when killing the Gold-Eating Rat King. He stomped the ground and charged straight at the ten-thousand-year Silvermoon Wolf King!

He actually wanted to engage a ten-thousand-year soul beast at close range!

This was simply the act of a madman. Ye Chenxing's physique might be monstrous, enough to rival that of a Soul King, but even an ordinary Soul King would only choose to keep their distance and slowly wear down a ten-thousand-year soul beast.

The physical strength of a ten-thousand-year soul beast was far beyond anything a thousand-year soul beast could compare to.

A flash of humanlike surprise crossed the Golden Wolf King's scarlet eyes. These three weak humans had seen it, yet they had not immediately turned and fled.

The mist released by the white-haired woman made it deeply uneasy. But what angered it was that the weakest among them actually dared charge toward its mate.

As a ten-thousand-year soul beast, its intelligence was already considerable. In an instant, it made its judgment: the Silvermoon Wolf King could handle that weak human. What it needed to do was tear apart the two troublesome ones in the rear first.

The giant golden figure leaped into the air and pounced directly at Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen behind them. At the same time, Meng Hongchen's third soul ring lit up. A mirror-like disk of ice roughly five meters in diameter silently formed beneath her feet, smooth as a mirror and clearly reflecting her figure.

The Golden Wolf King reached them in an instant, its claws slashing down amid a foul wind. If that strike landed, the consequences would be unimaginable.

But at that very moment, something bizarre happened—two Meng Hongchens appeared upon the ice disk at once. A flash of white light passed, and the Meng Hongchen in front was pierced by the claws, only to disperse like smoke. The real Meng Hongchen had already appeared elsewhere behind the Golden Wolf King.

Ice Reflection. This was Meng Hongchen's third soul skill, allowing her to shift freely across her mirror-like ice disk through refraction of light and shadow.

Though the Golden Wolf King was quite intelligent, even experienced Soul Kings might not see through this technique at first glance, much less a soul beast. Its attack missed, and it immediately changed direction to pounce again, only to strike another afterimage.

Unable to use its strength effectively, the Golden Wolf King let out an irritated growl.

On the other side, Ye Chenxing had already closed in on the Silvermoon Wolf King and summoned his Sun Martial Soul.

The Silvermoon Wolf King was more slender than its mate, its silver fur flowing with moonlike radiance beneath the sunlight. Its icy blue eyes stared intently at the sun behind the approaching young human. The intimidation brought by Ultimate Fire kept it from underestimating him. With the fear from attribute suppression rooted deep in its bloodline, it immediately wanted to use its greatest specialty—elemental control—to bombard him from afar.

A layer of light containing seven colors—blue, red, yellow, cyan, gold, black, and purple—suddenly burst from its head. Seven elemental attacks had already locked onto Ye Chenxing.

But Ye Chenxing was faster than it had anticipated. This was the soul skill Qian Renxue had given him: Angel Assault.

Even without summoning wings, it allowed Ye Chenxing to instantly cross the distance and charge directly before the Silvermoon Wolf King. The extreme heat distorted the surrounding air violently, making the already attribute-suppressed Silvermoon Wolf King react half a beat too slowly. And half a beat was enough.

Ye Chenxing's first soul ring lit up for the first time.

Deprivation of Fate, activate!

An indescribable force descended upon the Silvermoon Wolf King. It was neither a spiritual attack nor a physical attack. It was the power of rules, stripping away all its defenses. Terror of the unknown surfaced on the Silvermoon Wolf King's face.

It could only feel that something incomprehensible was happening to its body. Yet its beastly instincts told it that death would come next.

Instinct drove it to make a choice. It abandoned its attack and converted all the elemental power it had just gathered into barriers. Layers of silver halos lit up before it, seven elements intertwining into a seemingly impregnable shield.

The corners of Ye Chenxing's lips rose slightly. This response was exactly what he wanted. He formed his left hand into a claw, and dark golden light suddenly erupted between his five fingers. An aura even more violent and primal than his Sun Martial Soul spread from his body—the aura of the hundred-thousand-year Dark Gold Dreadclaw Bear left palm bone.

The Silvermoon Wolf King instinctively sensed that something was wrong, but it was already too late to make any adjustment. Borrowing the remaining momentum of Angel Assault, Ye Chenxing swung his left claw. Five dark golden claw strikes tore through the air and slashed viciously against the layered elemental defenses.

The might of a hundred-thousand-year soul bone made the Silvermoon Wolf King's hastily formed defenses as fragile as sheets of thin paper before the Dark Gold Dreadclaw.

Ye Chenxing only felt his Dark Gold Dreadclaw halt seven times in succession. Only after seven explosions did it finally run out of force and strike the Silvermoon Wolf King.

During those seven explosions, the shield successively displayed seven transformations: rippling water, soaring flames, a resilient barrier, a rapid wind vortex, a radiant shield, darkness blocking the way, and a web of lightning. Seven different elements had forcibly consumed more than ninety percent of the Dark Gold Dreadclaw's terrifying attack power.

As a result, although Ye Chenxing's strike hit the Silvermoon Wolf King's flank and tore open a bone-deep wound, blood spraying as its silver fur was dyed red, it failed to kill it outright.

Had it not used those seven elements to defend itself in desperation, the combination of Deprivation of Fate and the Dark Gold Dreadclaw would likely have killed it on the spot. Now, it was merely heavily wounded.

The Silvermoon Wolf King let out a pained, mournful howl that echoed through the entire forest. The Golden Wolf King, which Meng Hongchen had been toying with, abruptly turned its head. When it saw its mate drenched in blood, its scarlet eyes instantly became crazed. Without hesitation, it abandoned its prey, turned, and lunged at Ye Chenxing like a golden cannonball.

Ye Chenxing was not in good condition at the moment. He had first killed the Gold-Eating Rat King with an Ultimate Fire arrow, then consecutively used Angel Assault, Deprivation of Fate, and the hundred-thousand-year Dark Gold Dreadclaw within a very short time. His soul power had been greatly depleted, and his physical strength was also nearing exhaustion.

It was too late to turn and evade, while taking the blow head-on would be suicide. Yet surprisingly, he showed no fear despite being in such dire straits. He remained calm and shouted:

"Close your eyes!"

Naturally, he was not shouting that to the Golden Wolf King. Without a moment's hesitation, Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen both shut their eyes at once.

They had not known Ye Chenxing long, but their battles together over the past two days, along with the strength and combat intelligence he had displayed, had already earned their absolute trust.

Ye Chenxing swiftly raised both arms, lifting his hands to either side of his forehead. His ten fingers spread fully open, as though he had opened two fans beside his face.

"To be honest, I've wanted to try this move ever since I was a kid."

As the Golden Wolf King drew closer and closer, the Sun Martial Soul behind Ye Chenxing slowly rose. But unlike before, this time it no longer gave off the impression of scorching destruction. Instead, it radiated sacred light.

"So—lar—Fist—!!!"