Who knew how much time had passed? Chen Xiaojun's consciousness suddenly loosened, and he came to. He felt his Soul Power filling his Small Heavenly Circulation Meridians, and his mind felt clear and refreshed.
He planned to go deeper into the woods tomorrow, near the Black Moon Wolf Pack's residence in the mountain hollow, and challenge the Black Moon Wolves.
In the middle of the night, Chen Xiaojun suddenly heard a series of wolf howls, incredibly chaotic.
He walked out of the cave entrance, and waves of immense force came surging toward him like an overwhelming tide.
Even though they came from several miles away, they still made him feel quite uncomfortable, as if his soul could scatter and vanish at any moment.
"That's not right. Wolves are highly disciplined beasts. How could their howls be so chaotic? And there aren't this many Black Moon Wolves-at most a hundred. This little patch of woods couldn't support any more."
"With so many wolves howling, and these shock waves clearly spreading out from a large-scale battle, could there be another wolf pack? An invading pack? Ah, could it be the Gale Wolves?"
During the day, Chen Xiaojun had also wondered why a lone Gale Wolf had appeared.
Seeing this, Chen Xiaojun narrowed his eyes. Two streaks of white light settled over them. Although he had only just begun training his Sword Eye, his vision had still improved.
He could vaguely make out the battle several miles away. Soul Power shot through the air, row upon row of trees flew wildly, and sand and dust filled the sky. He could just make out one pack of wolf Soul Beasts swarming another.
A few minutes later, a loud bang like a firecracker rang out, and a giant yellow Seven Kill Sword pattern appeared in the sky as a firework. It could be seen within a radius of more than a dozen miles.
Chen Xiaojun recalled what Second Granduncle had said when he'd brought out the Red, Yellow, and Blue Warning Firework Tubes during one of their lessons at the Martial Hall.
"Xiaojun, these are the Chen Clan's emergency signals. There are three colors: red is the highest, yellow is next, and blue comes after that."
"Blue means the intruder has, or is close to having, the strength of a Soul Saint, and the clan needs to send a Soul Saint into battle. Yellow calls for a Soul Douluo, and red for a Titled Douluo."
"As for anyone below Soul Saint, there's no need!"
Chen Xiaojun reacted quickly, and kept a cool head. "It's Uncle Wu. He must be the one sending the warning from these woods. That direction is the Black Moon Wolf residence."
"My Soul Power is only Level Ten right now. I can't join in. The shock waves alone could knock me off my feet. I wouldn't even count as cannon fodder."
"This place is seven or eight miles from the woods' exit, and the exit is only five or six miles from the stone wall at the village's North Gate. That's about fifteen miles in all."
"With the Garrison Team Members on the stone wall, it'll only take a few minutes to get here. The clan's experts will be even faster."
"As long as I don't wander around, I'll be safe."
With that thought, Chen Xiaojun gripped the Wind Luan Sword, leaned against the stone by the cave entrance, and closed his eyes to rest.
A Dark Azure tornado rose in the distance, twenty or thirty meters in diameter. Its violent, bloodthirsty aura surged outward.
Then a Seven Kill Sword, twenty or thirty meters long, appeared in the sky above that place.
Next, a vast number of Seven Kill Sword Qi blazed with immense, surging power, gathering into a spherical mass of light as dazzling as the moon, like a bright moon rising over a vast sea.
It sent out thousands of streaks of blue light, illuminating the woods until every corner was clear.
The trees in the Black Moon Woods swayed violently, as if unable to withstand these two immense forces, and looked ready to topple.
"Could this incredible sight be Uncle Wu activating his Seven Kill True Body and using one of his Sword-Controlling Art's ultimate moves, 'Blue Sea, Bright Moon'?"
"That grayish-green tornado must be the Dark Azure Hurricane of the Gale Wolf King-class Hurricane Demon Wolf."
"Sure enough, battles between High-Rank Soul Masters and Soul Beasts are terrifying to low-rank Soul Masters like us."
As the two forces collided, a strange halo spread outward at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Even though Chen Xiaojun was several miles away, he was still within its reach. A drowsy, heavy feeling rose in his heart.
He felt as if he'd been buried alive, unable to breathe, oppressed to the extreme, and unbearably stifled.
At the same time, more than ten Soul Masters sat cross-legged atop the village's hundred-meter-long North Gate stone wall, looking up at the fireworks in the sky.
The middle-aged man at their head wore a blue Cloud Brocade robe. He was slender, with a face like a painting and a gentle gaze, and he carried an indescribable air of grace and elegance.
He was Chen Xiaojun's great-uncle-in-law, Ling Yunxiao, Chen Hanxin's husband, and a Level 79 Soul Saint.
"Chen Wu, Xiaojun is in the woods."
"Cheng Hao, go check what's happening first. Ding Laosan, Chen Chen, come with me."
"Old Zhao, I'm leaving this place to you. Stay alert. When people from the village arrive, have them come support us."
Cheng Hao, Ding Laosan, and Old Zhao were all Follower families who had served the clan for generations. They belonged to the North Gate Garrison Team.
Old Zhao was Zhao Lin, the Deputy Battalion Captain in charge of the North Gate.
Ding Laosan was also the maternal uncle of the chubby Zhu Wuneng-the younger brother of his mother, Ding Dang-and his name was Ding Lang.
As for Chen Chen, he was Ling Yunxiao's son. He was thirty-five years old and already a Soul Emperor.
At those words, Cheng Hao, a Soul King, activated his Azure Shadow Divine Eagle Martial Soul and flew toward the fireworks. Ling Yunxiao, Ding Laosan, and Chen Chen followed right behind him.
At that moment, the Black Moon Wolf residence on Black Moon Ridge was in ruins. Broken trees lay everywhere, gullies crisscrossed the ground, and wolf corpses covered the earth.
Around three hundred Gale Wolves and Azure Wind Cang Wolves were surrounding and killing seventy or eighty Black Moon Wolves and Black Moon Gray Wolves, with the fighting split across several battlefields.
The Wolf Clan was a great Soul Beast clan with more than a dozen branches. The Gale Wolves ranked near the bottom in fighting strength, but they were the most numerous.
At one edge of the battlefield, the Black Moon Wolf Leader, Old Black-the Black Moon Shadowkiller Wolf-was pitch-black all over, with a silver moon mark on his forehead and blood-red light in his eyes. He was seven or eight meters long and over three meters tall, his expression hideously savage.
Old Black used his Innate Skill, Shadow Moon Illusory Kill, constantly conjuring clones and phantom images as he fought two Hurricane Demon Wolves wrapped in grayish-green energy, each over four meters tall.
One was more than thirty thousand years old, and the other more than ten thousand.
Several hundred meters away, a slightly smaller Black Moon Shadowkiller Wolf fought an Hurricane Demon Wolf and a Deep Azure Azure Wind Gray Wolf King. She was already covered in wounds: the Black Moon Wolf Queen.
(PS: In a wolf pack, a dominant male theoretically has access to all the females, but a dominant female will also stop the dominant male from mating with other females. As a result, mating and reproduction generally take place between the two strongest individuals in the pack, the dominant male and female, which is why wolf packs have a Wolf Queen.)
The Azure Wind Gray Wolf King was another evolutionary path for the Azure Wind Cang Wolf, besides the Hurricane Demon Wolf.
More accurately, it was a path of enhancement, but its potential was not as great as the potential brought by the Hurricane Demon Wolf's qualitative evolutionary transformation.
Black Moon Wolves somewhat countered Gale Wolves. This might be one reason the two clans had a bad relationship.
First, Black Moon Wolves had very high resistance to Wind Type Soul Power.
Second, the disparity in physical strength was growing. Gale Wolves were small: two meters at a century old, three meters at a millennium, and four meters at ten thousand years. They were much smaller and weaker than Black Moon Wolves, which started at four or five meters, with the larger ones reaching six or seven.
Third, Black Moon Wolves excelled at phantom images and ambushes, so Gale Wolves often attacked empty air and got killed.
Fourth, it was right in the middle of the night, with moonlight shining down and boosting the Black Moon Wolves' battle strength. That let Black Moon Wolves fight two or even three opponents of the same rank at once.
Apart from being caught off guard at the start, this was why the Black Moon Wolves had managed to hold on.
In theory, the Gale Wolves would have been better off attacking the Black Moon Wolves during the day, but they had no choice. Wolves were nocturnal animals, and they were weaker by day than at night. Besides, with so many wolves, they would be spotted easily.
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