Hu Xiaotian had already reached the northwestern courtyard when the wolves parted to form a passage. Yan Huxiao seemed to have no desire to keep fighting. Riding his black tiger, he raced through the passage straight toward the stone chamber ahead.
Hu Xiaotian tried to follow him into the stone chamber, but more than a dozen blue wolves blocked its entrance. At a strange shout, all of them thrust off with their hind legs, leaping from the ground to pounce on Hu Xiaotian while he was still airborne.
Hu Xiaotian saw them clearly and kicked one blue wolf in the jaw. With an agonized howl, it flew sideways into the wall, its skull bursting open and its blood spilling across the ground. His long saber whirled, cutting two more wolves in half at the waist as they approached.
The remaining wolves missed their target and landed one after another. Seizing the opening, Hu Xiaotian swept into the stone chamber. Only then did he discover that it truly concealed another secret. Built against the mountainside, the chamber had a cave opening in its rear wall, roughly twenty feet wide and thirty feet high. From outside, no one could have guessed that another world lay within. The Beast Demon, Yan Huxiao, had clearly fled into the cave.
Hu Xiaotian had no time to think it over. His sole concern was to catch Yan Huxiao and kill him. If the information Hu Buwei had given him was accurate, his maternal grandfather, Xu Lingkong, was almost certainly imprisoned here. Steeling himself, he strode into the cave.
Outside, four Beast Tamers directed the wolves in their battle against the Bird Flock overhead. Under their command, the wolves supported one another and coordinated their movements, gradually regaining their footing and control of the situation before launching