A Towering Tree of Hatred

Having received two intelligence reports in quick succession, Zi Yan felt, for a moment, as though she were trapped in an unreal dream.

Before her stood the Panther Cat Army, united in purpose and surging toward them.

Ten Panther Cat Companies, each composed of ten Patrol Squads.

A hundred Panther Cat Commanders had brought nine hundred Panther Cat Soldiers to their doorstep!

Billowing yokai energy spread like dark clouds, blotting out the sun and turning the once-bright sky dim and murky.

The Panther Cat Great Elder held the Head Staff. The two enormous dog heads mounted on it made the Dog Yokai's pupils contract and their breath catch!

Still-warm blood dripped from the severed necks, soaking the dry, dust-strewn soil of the Dog Yokai's land.

And watering a towering tree of hatred upon that land!

As the Panther Cat Great Elder advanced, the two dog heads loomed like mountains on the verge of collapse. Then he swung them violently, smashing them against the fortress barrier-

Again and again!

Thick blood spattered like rain against the luminous white barrier, blooming into flowers of humiliation.

Those bloody flowers slowly trickled down the barrier, staining its once-pure surface crimson.

Every Dog Yokai's eyes instantly turned bloodshot, filled with hatred.

With each impact, their eyes reflected the two elders' heads as they gradually twisted out of shape.

Those once-familiar, imposing faces became unrecognizable beneath the enemy's brutality, until even their bones came apart.

Every scene was a sharp blade tearing at the Dog Yokai's hearts, leaving them in unbearable agony as the flames of hatred burned ever fiercer within them!

Oppressive tension.

Deathly silence.

Murderous gazes converged in the air, and words of bone-deep hatred ground out through clenched teeth.

"Third Elder, let us charge out!"

At the center of everyone's attention, Zi Yan stood in silence.

Her posture remained upright, yet she bore a weight as crushing as mountains and seas.

The fierce wind howled past, tangling her hair, but it could not dispel the gravity between her brows.

Her frozen gaze slowly, painfully began to move.

Zi Yan did not dare look at her clansmen's expressions. She knew she felt exactly as they did, and she feared she could not withstand those silent appeals brimming with grief and fury.

Zi Yan's bone-chilling gaze swept over the Panther Cats' faces, twisted with excitement, before finally settling on the Panther Cat Great Elder, who stared back at her with cold indifference.

"Was this how the Great Elder felt back then...?"

Back when she was still a Commander, she had witnessed the Great Elder stand by as hundreds of their clansmen were slaughtered by the Panther Cats outside the fortress.

Among them were her parents, who had not managed to evacuate in time.

Those bloody scenes had branded themselves deep into her mind like nightmares, impossible to banish.

After that battle, she had no idea how she had returned to their clan grounds. In a daze, she had walked straight into a certain slender, snow-white dog. Only when he barked "Woof, woof!" in protest had she snapped awake as though from a dream.

Only after becoming an elder herself had she gradually come to understand the agonizing struggle the Great Elder, who loved their clan so deeply, had endured within his heart.

She had also watched him silently bear the doubts and discontent of every clansman, and even their resentful stares.

Step by step, he had regained the Dog Yokai's love and respect, struggling all the way to the present.

Now history seemed like a fucking boomerang, driving that terrible choice straight between her brows-

If they charged out, perhaps they could avenge the fallen Great Elder and Second Elder.

They could vent the fury and humiliation pent up in their clansmen's hearts, but inevitably, more of their kin would bleed on the battlefield.

The fortress the Dog Tribe had struggled so hard to build would fall. How could she recklessly gamble with the gateway to their clan?

If she dared do such a thing, the Great Elder would have strung her up and beaten her if he were still alive!

But if they did not charge out, how could her heart remain calm as she watched two elders who had devoted themselves to the clan until their dying breaths suffer such unspeakable humiliation?

This was not merely a desecration of the dead elders, but a trampling of the entire Dog Tribe's dignity.

Each time she saw those two dog heads strike the barrier, it felt as though a heavy hammer slammed into her heart, hurting so badly she could not breathe.

The constantly trembling thread of reason in her mind made Zi Yan desperately want to escape.

The scene of her parents dying outside the fortress seemed to overlap with the splashes of blood as the two elders struck the barrier.

Tōga, Tōga...

That whisper from the depths of her heart, yearning for someone to lean on, gradually took the shape of that cocky, slender dog. Suddenly, Zi Yan's gaze regained its focus.

Compared with the Great Elder, who had had nothing back then, she was already far better off.

Outside the barrier, the Panther Cat Army's cries still rose one after another.

"Death to the Dog Tribe!"

"Kill every Dog Yokai!"

"Surrender, Dog Yokai!"

Every shout was like a handful of salt rubbed into the Dog Tribe's wounds, relentlessly tormenting their nerves.

"Panther Cats, Panther Cats, Panther Cats!"

Zi Yan's murmur grew louder and louder, until her final cry echoed inside and outside the fortress, making the air hum.

Under the Panther Cat Great Elder's slightly narrowed gaze, the purple-haired girl opposite him spat out words of hatred.

"Dig up the Panther Cat Fifth Elder for me!"

"Flay him, tear out his tendons, grind his bones to dust, and scatter his ashes!"

"Don't you dare!"

Remembering what had sparked this battle, the Panther Cat Great Elder bristled with rage, his eyes widening as yokai energy surged around him like black flames.

He watched the Dog Yokai dig the Fifth Elder Chi Yan's still relatively intact corpse out of the ground.

Before all the Panther Cat Soldiers, they carved apart the Fifth Elder whom those soldiers had worshipped as a goddess, slice by slice!

As the Dog Yokai watched the Panther Cats' cheering fall silent, their faces finally twisting with grief and fury, fierce satisfaction welled up in their hearts!

Zi Yan stepped out then and stood in midair. Her slender brows rose as she looked down upon the Panther Cat Soldiers, her cold voice ringing across the field with the sharpness of a blade.

"Old Panther Cat, I suppose you still don't know White Bone Maru is dead, and that the two Panther Cats in Wind-Thunder Gorge are dead as well?"

The former was good news sent from the clan; the latter was Zi Yan's guess.

She had complete faith that, with Tōga's ability to slay White Bone Maru, killing the Panther Cat Third Elder and Sixth Elder would be effortless, so long as he encountered them.

"You killed two of our elders, yet you're the only one here now. Could those other two Panther Cats be dead?"

Zi Yan sneered. "The Leopard Cat once had seven high-level yokai. Now all that's left is you, an old Panther Cat who'll die sooner or later!"

"Sharp-tongued little girl!"

Under the Panther Cats' shocked, horrified gazes and the Dog Yokai's delighted looks, the Panther Cat Great Elder cast the Dog Tribe elders' remains onto the ground.

The shattered dog heads rolled across the earth, becoming coated in dirt and dust.

He stared coldly at Zi Yan as the Head Staff in his hand spat tongues of blue-white flame.

"What a joke. Our elders will all gather here before long. Slaying your clan's two old dogs was nothing more than an appetizer!"

"Second Elder, attack!"