The path of the strong

"Let me go! I want to return to my tribe!"

Hai Chen roared in fury, hurling himself like a madman against the White Wolf Tribe experts blocking his way.

"Going back will only get you killed! Your Clan Patriarch has already entrusted you to our White Wolf Tribe!" Wu Yuan snapped. "You will receive the same treatment as our core tribesmen!"

"I spit on that! In life or death, I, Hai Chen, belong to the Haibei Tribe. Who cares about being one of your core tribesmen?" His eyes bloodshot, Hai Chen summoned his Divine Crow soul spirit and sent it crashing forward.

"Our Haibei Tribe paid you tribute every year for nothing! Yet when disaster struck, you stood aside, caring nothing whether we lived or died. I want to kill you all-how could I take a thief for my father!"

"Hmph! You don't know what's good for you. Taking you in is already an enormous favor!"

Wu Yuan struck out with his palm, shattering the Divine Crow outright.

"Keeping you here will at least preserve a thread of the Haibei Tribe's bloodline!"

"Our tribe's bloodline needs no charity from petty men like you. One day, I will trample your White Wolf Tribe beneath my feet!"

Hai Chen climbed up again and again, throwing himself against the experts blocking his way as the hatred and fury erupting in his heart grew ever fiercer. He would leave this place at any cost and return to fight alongside his tribesmen, to live or die with them!

"Brash little brat, you certainly talk big. Get past me first!"

Hai Chen spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and gathered every scrap of soul power in his body, veins bulging across his forehead. With gritted teeth and a furious roar, he hurled himself at Wu Yuan. Wu Yuan merely struck out with his palm, knocking him back to the ground with a single blow.

"Again!"

Hai Chen climbed up, resolutely wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and charged forward once more, only to be ruthlessly driven back again.

"Again!"

Like a maddened beast, like a moth throwing itself into a flame, Hai Chen charged again and again, and was knocked down again and again. Once, twice, ten times, a hundred times... until he could barely stand, yet still he staggered forward.

Seeing Hai Chen's frenzy, even Wu Yuan could no longer bear it in the end. He thought to himself, This boy has already gone mad. Keeping him is pointless. I might as well let him go!

He struck Hai Chen down once more, and Hai Chen struggled to his feet again. Wu Yuan barked in a deep voice, "Today, I'll let you go. But once you leave our tribe, your life and death are your own responsibility!"

"I spit on that! My life and death are mine-what right have you to bear responsibility!"

Hai Chen wiped the blood from his mouth, shoved aside the man blocking his way, and crashed through the door with a clang before staggering straight out of the White Wolf Tribe.

There was no moonlight, and the rain had grown heavy. After leaving the White Wolf Tribe, Hai Chen stumbled and fell into the mud, crawling forward with difficulty, constantly coughing up blood and murmuring of his tribe, murmuring of his loved ones.

Many members of the White Wolf Tribe witnessed this scene in the rain, and every one of them felt an aching pain in their hearts. Many shed tears. He was still a child-a child whose loved ones had been slaughtered, utterly alone and helpless, yet still risking his life to return to his tribe.

Agony wracked Hai Chen's entire body. He had not a trace of strength left, yet still he dragged himself forward through the muddy water, inch by painful inch. This child of only thirteen did not even know the way back to his tribe. Amid the torrential rain and endless mud, only one thought remained firm in his heart: crawl forward, keep crawling, return to the tribe, protect the tribe!

Had heaven possessed feelings, even heaven could not have borne it. Rain poured in torrents! A child crawled painfully through the rain, toward the tribe in his heart!

If he survived, he would slay gods and slaughter demons!

Half a month later, at the Haibei Tribe. Mu Bai and Ling’er knelt before the tribal gates. Broken walls and ruins filled their sight, corpses strewn everywhere. Vultures circled low, tearing at bodies already mangled beyond recognition. Mothers had died clutching their children, cultivators' limbs lay shattered, and the elderly had died before their ancestral homes...

The sight stabbed into Mu Bai's and Ling’er’s hearts like sharp swords, leaving them suffocating with grief, able only to weep without end.

"We shouldn't linger here. People from the Eastern Nether Tribe may still be lurking nearby."

Mi Yan stepped forward, intending to help them up.

Mu Bai rose without a word and walked straight into the tribe. He gathered up his familiar loved ones, gazing through tears at one familiar face after another, and carried them toward the mountain behind the village, toward their final resting place.

Again and again, he saw the faces of his tribal family: the little children who had once toddled about, the aunts who had often called him home to eat, the uncles who had taught him to hunt and fish, the kindly elders beneath the eaves. Mu Bai's heart was unbearably heavy with grief, his mind dazed. He seemed to see cooking smoke rising over the tribe, seemed to see his tribesmen come alive, smiling, smiling as they appeared before him, one by one.

One day, two days... Mu Bai carried his tribesmen's bodies into the mountain behind the village, then scraped out a deep pit at its foot, little by little, handful by handful.

He would bury his tribesmen. With his own hands, he would bury the Haibei Tribe in his heart. As for the Clan Patriarch, he had already turned to drifting ash, accompanying him from every corner of the world.

Among the bodies of his tribesmen, Mu Bai did not find Hai Zhan, Hai Chen, or the others. He asked Mi Yan, but she had no news of them either. Mu Bai was certain they were still alive. One day, he would find them, and together they would raise bloodstained blades of vengeance against the Eastern Nether Tribe!

Late at night, the bright moon hung high.

"Mu Bai, are you really not coming back to the Merchant Guild with me?"

"Sister, I will repay your great kindness someday. But I have sworn to make the Eastern Nether Tribe repay its blood debt in blood. I have no wish to drag your Taiyuan Merchant Guild into this!"

Mi Yan fell silent. Clearly, she too understood that this matter carried grave implications and was not hers to decide.

"I have one request. I hope you will agree, Sister."

Mu Bai cast an affectionate glance at Ling’er, then spoke solemnly to Mi Yan.

"You mean Ling’er?"

"Yes. I know the road ahead will be filled with bloody winds and rains of gore. Let me walk it alone!"

"All right, I promise. I will send Ling’er to the main guild and strive to secure the best cultivation resources for her."

"Sister, I will remember your great kindness until death!"

Mu Bai bowed deeply and cast another affectionate glance at Ling’er, who was fast asleep in the carriage. Then he turned and strode away, setting out on a road to strength, a road to avenge a hatred as deep as a sea of blood!

At that moment, Ling’er dreamed that Mu Bai was leaving her, and she desperately tried to make him stay.

"Look at the mountain bird flying out of the woods. When night falls, it will naturally return. Ling’er, wait for me..."

Watching Mu Bai's retreating figure vanish into the night, Mi Yan sighed deeply. "May your wish come true!"

The road ahead stretched endlessly, with no end in sight. The world was vast, with places to go everywhere.

Before setting out, Mu Bai had already made his decision: he would begin with alchemy. This was also the path the Clan Patriarch had shown him. The elder had sacrificed his life to obtain the Compendium of Pills and Herbs for him from the Eastern Nether Tribe. It was also precisely his identity as an Alchemist that had brought the calamity of annihilation upon his tribe.

At the thought, Mu Bai's heart bled with pain. As an Alchemist, not only had he failed to help his tribe grow strong, he had instead dragged down the Clan Patriarch, his tribesmen, and the Haibei Tribe.

"Heaven, if you see me as a bone lodged in your throat, why not let me die? Why leave me alone alive!"

Mu Bai threw back his head and roared at the sky, tearing madly at his long hair as furious cries burst from him.

"Since alchemy was the cause, I will refine every pill beneath heaven to reclaim this debt of blood!"

With the Crow Cauldron and the Compendium of Pills and Herbs in his possession, along with the medicinal herbs and beast materials he had purchased at the White Wolf Tribe market, Mu Bai strode toward the Silver Frost Forest beneath the cold moonlight.

Here, he would embark on the road to strength!

The Silver Frost Forest was the largest wild, primeval forest Mu Bai knew of. It lay north of the tribe and was said to stretch for millions of li, home to all manner of powerful fierce beasts. There were even rumors of demonic beasts above the fifth tier.

Of course, these existed only in hearsay, excited topics of conversation among tribesmen after drinking. No one had ever dared approach, much less enter the Silver Frost Forest to capture those rare and wondrous beasts.

Now that his tribe was gone, Mu Bai chose to brave the Silver Frost Forest alone.

A treasured sword gained its edge through grinding. Without entering peril, how could one speak of walking the path of the strong!

Heading north all the way, Mu Bai crossed steep mountains, traversed lakes, and passed through dense forests. After half a year, he was no longer the simple-hearted youth he had once been.

During that half-year's journey, he grew accustomed to solitude, came to understand what to keep and what to relinquish, and learned to be decisive, striking like thunder without the slightest mercy. Along the way, he killed fierce beasts whenever he encountered them and gathered medicinal herbs wherever he found them. The light in his eyes grew ever more resolute and tenacious.

When faced with powerful fierce beasts, Mu Bai did not keep his distance and hide. Instead, he chose to step forward and fight. Even if he was no match for them, he would temper the fearless courage of the strong, daring to strike, daring to battle.

After countless desperate battles between life and death, Mu Bai was left covered in scars, but he had also forged a powerful body and gained extensive combat experience. This tempering through life and death was precisely what the favored talents of the great tribes lacked.

They had countless pills, high-tier cultivation methods, and Soul Soldiers, but they lacked battles decided in an instant between life and death and the merciless tempering of their wills.

He recalled how, half a year earlier, the White Wolf Tribe had used the grand tournament as a pretext to sit back and watch the talented youths of the tribes slaughter one another, even tempting their prodigies to join the White Wolf Tribe with cultivation resources. I refuse such a road of bending the knee for glory! Only by fighting on, never bowing to heaven and earth, can I carve out the true path of the strong.

As he continued crossing the mountains northward, the chill gradually deepened, and Mu Bai began to sense the presence of the Silver Frost Forest. It was a boundless, sweeping vastness, an ancient and untamed grandeur that shook the heart.

Standing on a mountaintop and gazing into the distance, Mu Bai saw endless lofty mountains rolling on and on. Densely packed, towering trees stood like warriors who had marched out of antiquity, arrayed in ranks, radiating an unyielding fighting spirit toward heaven and earth. A mighty, surging river followed the ravines of the distant mountains, heaping up enormous snow-white waves as it rushed ceaselessly eastward.

On the wilderness nearby, tens of thousands of ming deer raced along, pursued by gigantic saber-toothed tigers. Golden eagles more than a zhang in size circled overhead, screeching piercingly. What a scene of wild, primeval forest!

"What a Silver Frost Forest-just as I wished!"