The air was searing, thick with the acrid smell of gunpowder.
In the forest of jagged rocks, the Thunder Clan elder slammed his Thunder Staff into the ground, sending gravel flying.
"Ignorant brat."
Deep in the Great Wilderness, anyone who dared bargain with the Thunder Clan was either a dead man or a regional overlord.
The boy before him, black as charcoal with a battered pot on his back, clearly wasn't the latter.
"Since you won't give it to me, I'll take it myself."
The elder raised his withered palm.
Silver light exploded in its center.
It was a bolt of lightning.
Only as thick as a child's arm, it was condensed to the utmost limit. The air around it instantly ionized, crackling with a scorched hiss.
"Go."
He flicked his hand.
The lightning shot out like a silver snake leaving its den, heading straight for Kang in Shi Hou's arms.
If that strike landed, the boy would be crippled and the pig knocked unconscious.
His control was precise.
Shi Hou stood unmoving, still stroking the Black Pig in his arms without so much as lifting his eyelids.
"Picking on people?"
A childish voice rang out through the rocky forest.
A tiny figure darted in from the side, moving so fast he left a string of afterimages.
Shi Hao planted himself in front of Shi Hou.
His little face was solemn. He raised his right hand high, and a crescent of azure light abruptly appeared in his palm.
After all his recent practice, the Green-Scaled Eagle clan's Primitive Treasure Technique had begun to take shape in the child's hands.
"Break!"
Shi Hao roared, launching the azure crescent from his hand.
The silver snake collided with the azure crescent.
Boom!
The glare stabbed everyone's eyes. The shock wave peeled up the ground, sending stones shooting everywhere like shrapnel.
The dust cleared.
The Thunder Clan elder stepped back half a pace. A small slit had been cut into his purple beast-hide robe.
Across from him, Shi Hao's feet had sunk three inches into the earth, but he hadn't retreated a single step. He shook his tingling little hand, his gaze stubborn and the corners of his mouth rising.
"Old man, your lightning's got no kick. Even listening to thunder on a rainy day is more satisfying."
Dead silence.
The Thunder Clan's experts looked as though they had seen a ghost.
The elder's eye twitched violently as he stared fixedly at Shi Hao.
Blood Moving Realm?
A baby who hasn't even been weaned actually took a Thunder Punishment strike at thirty percent of my strength head-on?
"Good... very good!"
The elder laughed in his fury. Brilliant purple light flared from his Thunder Staff. "To think such a monster has appeared in the Great Wilderness! Since we've made enemies, I cannot let you live today!"
Crackle, crackle.
This time, he was no longer testing them.
The phantom of a thunder beast appeared behind the elder, a manifestation of the Thunder Clan's clan-guarding Treasure Art. Terrifying pressure instantly engulfed everyone.
The people of Stone Village paled.
Just then.
"Oink-snort!"
An utterly ill-timed pig squeal rang out.
It was Kang, frightened by the explosion.
The creature was timid to begin with. That shock had churned up its stomach, unsettling the Spirit-Medicine Carrot it had just eaten.
High-level energy rampaged through its belly, compounded by a stress response from the fright.
Every black bristle on Kang's body stood on end, and its Demon Flesh Wings snapped open.
It broke free of Shi Hou's arms and hovered in midair.
Its nostrils flared as wide as they could, aimed at the thickest gathering of Thunder Clan members and Bei Village Villagers ahead.
At the sight, Shi Hou's expression changed. He expertly dropped flat, remembering to drag Shi Hao down in front of him, then whipped the black pot off his back and clapped it over their heads.
"Everyone, get down!"
Though Shi Yunfeng and the others had no idea why, their trust in the "black pot" sent them diving to the ground almost by reflex.
The next second.
Ratatatatat!
A familiar sound.
But not the familiar recipe.
This time, what sprayed from the pig's nostrils was no longer a stream of pure blue beams.
It was a mixed energy storm laced with lightning arcs, poisonous mist, and even bits of carrot pulp.
This was an indiscriminate saturation bombardment.
"What the hell is th-"
The Thunder Clan elder was only halfway through preparing his Treasure Art and hadn't released it when several streaks of Blue Light plastered his face.
An intense numbness instantly cut off the flow of runes through his meridians.
The thunder beast phantom behind him wavered twice, then vanished with a puff.
"Urgh-"
The elder went rigid. His Thunder Staff fell to the ground, and he toppled backward as stiffly as a wooden post.
The Thunder Clan elites behind him fared even worse.
One opened his mouth to shout, only for a beam to shoot inside. His tongue instantly swelled with numbness, blocking his throat and leaving him able to make only hoarse "huh, huh" sounds.
Some of the Bei Village Villagers were already wounded; now frost piled onto snow.
The one-eyed chief had just pulled out his Iron Balls for a sneak attack when a beam swept across his wrist. Both balls slipped from his hand and smashed onto his insteps. He wanted to hop in pain, only to discover that his legs were already too numb to feel.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The sounds of bodies hitting the ground rose one after another through the rocky forest.
In just three breaths.
Apart from the people of Stone Village, the only figure left upright was a Black Pig still twitching wildly in the air and spewing blue light.
And its now-smoking snout.
"Oink..."
One last weak squeal.
Kang rolled its eyes back and dropped from the air like a stone.
A black hand caught it steadily.
Shi Hou stood up with the black pot over his head.
He glanced at the ground strewn with "corpses" and grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.
"I told you that carrot packed a punch. You've got to eat it with meat."
He casually tossed Kang into the pot.
Then he moved.
His blood energy erupted, and Shi Hou charged into the limp crowd like a humanoid tyrannosaur.
"This Thunder Staff's nice. Mine."
Passing the still-twitching Thunder Clan elder, Shi Hou scooped up the staff from the ground and yanked the bulging Beastskin Bag from the elder's waist.
"Hand it over."
His movements were so practiced it hurt to watch.
He casually tossed them backward, landing them precisely inside the black pot's storage space.
Next came Bei Village.
"This Iron Bow's broken, but the material's still usable. Salvage."
"What's in these bags? Whatever, I'll take them first."
Wherever Shi Hou passed, it was like a swarm of locusts sweeping through.
Weapons, medicinal herbs, travel rations, dried meat-anything he could carry that had the slightest value went into that bottomless pit of a black pot.
The one-eyed chief lay on the ground, watching helplessly as the dark-skinned brat ripped the Wolf-Fang Necklace right off his neck and took it.
He wanted to curse, but his tongue was numb. All he could do was widen his lone eye and shed tears of humiliation.
Bandit!
Now this was a real fucking bandit!
In less than half the time it took to drink a cup of tea.
Everyone in the rocky forest had "slimmed down."
The formerly well-equipped Thunder Clan members and Bei Village Villagers now wore nothing but their inner shirts. Every remotely valuable possession had been stripped clean.
Shi Hou patted the black pot on his back in satisfaction.
Heavy.
Now this was what stocking up should feel like.
He walked over to Shi Hao, who was crouching on the ground, examining a dagger seized from a Thunder Clan member.
"Let's go."
Shi Hou pulled Shi Hao up.
Just then.
Rumble-!
A thunderous crash erupted deep in the mountains.
The entire earth began to shake violently, and the boulders in the rocky forest rocked and tumbled.
In the distance, a golden pillar of light shot into the sky, tearing through the dark clouds overhead.
That was the direction of Suanni's lair.
"Roar-!"
Ten thousand beasts fell silent.
A vast, mournful aura spread swiftly through the Great Wilderness as the golden light faded.
It was the final curtain for a Supreme Being.
"Suanni's dead!"
Shi Linhu sprang up from the ground. Ignoring the enemies scattered around him, he roared, "Our chance! Run!"
No reminder was needed.
The rumble of pounding feet already echoed from the distant mountain forests.
The beast tide had begun.
The terrifying Fierce Beasts that normally hid deep in ancient mountain forests now charged madly toward the place where the golden light had faded, their eyes bloodshot.
Arrive too late, and there wouldn't even be a sip of broth left.
"Chief, Uncle, let's charge too!"
Shi Hou glanced at the Thunder Clan elder still twitching on the ground and added one last kick, wedging the bastard into a crack between the rocks.
"The real buffet is open!"
He set Shi Hao on the black pot, hoisted the great pot brimming with loot onto his back, and flexed the bulging muscles of his legs.
Bang!
Two huge craters burst open in the ground.
The black figure shot forward like an arrow loosed from its bow, carrying an unstoppable greed toward the battlefield that would soon be dyed red with blood.
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