The generals in Chinese chess

Su Lin's gaze lingered briefly on each of the two wolves, one large and one small. He hurriedly turned to Sean beside him and asked under his breath, "Uncle Sean?"

The instant he got a clear look at the wolf king, Sean's heart sank halfway. His face looked a little pale in the firelight, and he could not help cursing quietly, "Damn it, how is there a nine-hundred-year Night Shadow Ghost Wolf king in the Soul Hunting Forest?"

A nine-hundred-year wolf king, a wolf queen over seven hundred years old, and more than thirty ordinary Night Shadow Ghost Wolves approaching a hundred years old.

In the Soul Hunting Forest, a pack like this truly belonged at the very top of the food chain. No wonder they had walked through these woods all day without encountering any large Soul Beasts. The wolves had probably already cleared out their territory for several miles around.

Sean had thought it was merely an ordinary hundred-year wolf pack, led at most by a five-hundred-year wolf. His strength at level twenty-seven would have been more than enough to handle that easily.

Yet now a nine-hundred-year wolf king and a seven-hundred-year wolf queen had appeared together...

Against either the wolf king or the wolf queen alone, he was confident he might stand a fighting chance. But now both were here, and he still had Su Lin and Xiao Wu behind him to protect...

Gritting his teeth, Sean shifted sideways to shield Su Lin and said quietly, "Young Master Little Lin, when I tell you to run, take Xiao Wu and break out. Head south, back the way we came. Don't look back. Once you get out of this pack's territory, they generally won't chase you much farther."

At this point, there was no other way.

Grant had saved his life. Even if it cost him that life, he had to get the two children out.

"Uncle Sean, it hasn't come to that yet." Su Lin reached out and caught Sean's taut arm, saying calmly, "Leave the wolf king to Pikachu. You hold off the wolf queen. Xiao Wu will work with the others to handle the remaining little wolves."

"But..." Sean's brow furrowed deeply, and he wanted to keep arguing. In his view, however strong Pikachu might be, he was still only a three-hundred-year mutated Lightning Rat. Lightning might counter the wolves' attribute, but the gap in their ages was right there. How could a nine-hundred-year wolf king be so easy to deal with?

But when he looked down and met Su Lin's eyes, reflecting the campfire, an inexplicable sense of reassurance suddenly welled up inside him. He swallowed the words on his tongue and nodded firmly. "Understood!"

"Xiao Wu! Pikachu! Get ready to go!"

With the deployment settled, Su Lin gave a low shout and focused his attention entirely on the wolf king atop the rock.

"Pika!"

Pikachu answered with a short cry, tilting his little head up to stare at the giant wolf. His four little paws dug firmly into the leaf litter, and his short golden fur stood completely on end from root to tip. Lightning surged like flowing water from beneath his fur. Crackling arcs spread along his spine all the way to the tip of his tail, and even the air around him twisted slightly under the electricity. The burnished golden light was especially dazzling in the dark night.

Xiao Wu was likewise poised to strike. She bent her knees slightly, lowering her center of gravity as far as she could, her hands assuming the opening stance of her grappling techniques. Her gaze swept across the encircling wolves without the slightest trace of fear. A pale yellow Hundred-Year Soul Ring slowly revolved beneath her feet, its gentle glow spreading along her waist and abdomen.

Close-quarters grappling was her greatest strength. These ordinary Night Shadow Ghost Wolves might be fast, but once they got close, they would be absolutely no match for her grappling techniques.

Around the encirclement, the wolves' low howls grew increasingly frequent, their eerie green eyes rising and falling in the darkness. Atop the rock, the wolf king slowly stood. The edge of the firelight traced its massive outline in a dark silhouette, the dark mane around its neck bristling strand by strand as a growl rolled from deep in its throat.

The next instant, the eight Night Shadow Ghost Wolves on the left attacked first. They lowered their heads and raced forward almost flat against the ground. Though all were less than a hundred years old and not much different from ordinary wild wolves, their coordination could still pose a considerable threat to Soul Beasts a little over a hundred years old.

"Form up!"

At Sean's command, he charged out first. Two Soul Rings, one white and one yellow, lit up beneath his feet in succession, empowering him.

"First Soul Skill, Sharp Claw!"

"Second Soul Skill, Shadow Leopard Sucker Punch!"

In the blink of an eye, Sean became a gray-black afterimage and met the three Night Shadow Ghost Wolves on the far left. His claw blades, coated in the iron-gray sheen of Soul Power, whistled through the air and sliced unobstructed across the wolves' waists. Two white Soul Rings immediately appeared where they had stood.

The twelve guards did not hesitate either. They swiftly formed a back-to-back circle, their long blades slashing horizontally and blocking vertically, weaving a dense net of cold steel in the firelight.

They were all elite village guards Sean had trained personally. Though they were not Soul Masters, each was strong and sturdy, and their coordination was seamless. Handling Soul Beasts under a hundred years old was no problem at all. As their blades rose and fell, two hundred-year wolves were struck in their vulnerable bellies and killed outright on the spot.

Seeing things turn against them, the remaining Night Shadow Ghost Wolves immediately retreated several zhang, prowling and circling through the shadows again as they searched for gaps in the formation. The guards did not pursue. They simply maintained their circle, blades facing outward, covering one another's backs and flanks.

"Roar!"

Seeing its pack members killed, the wolf king let out a furious howl and moved to join the fight. But when it came to speed, how could it possibly outpace Pikachu?

Lightning cracked, and a burnished golden arc drew a dazzling streak through the night, shooting straight toward the wolf king on the rock.

The wolf king growled and slammed down its right paw, wrapped in thick black mist. Pikachu twisted in midair, narrowly skimming past the tips of its claws, then flicked his tail. Three bowl-thick arcs of electricity crashed into the wolf king's forepaw. Golden currents raced wildly along its black fur. In pain, the wolf king threw back its head and let out a deafening howl, and even the black mist around its forepaw thinned somewhat.

"Pika, pika, pika!"

Pikachu landed atop a stone about four zhang below the wolf king. Rather than taking a defensive stance, he turned around and pointed his round rump at the wolf king, holding his tail high and wriggling his hips nonstop. It was all about mockery plus provocation.

The sheer absurdity was on par with flashing "too weak" in League, shooting corpses in Valorant, or recalling on the spot in Honor of Kings. No intelligent creature with any self-respect could remain unmoved by mockery on this level, much less a wolf king with an extremely strong sense of territory.

Its eerie green slit pupils grew even colder than before. After less than a second's thought, it drove its hind legs against the rock and lunged fiercely at Pikachu.

It would tear this thing to pieces and chew even its bones to bits!

Pikachu had no intention of meeting it head-on. Just before the huge black shadow descended, he had already shot away in a streak of golden light, accelerating sharply along the gentle slope to one side and nimbly bounding between roots and stones.

The wolf king pounced on empty air, its forepaws plowing two deep furrows into the ground as it landed. It immediately wheeled around and gave chase, its massive body displaying an agility at odds with its size.

And the very next moment after Pikachu lured the wolf king away, Sean had already adjusted his angle and position.

The explosive power granted by his Iron-Spined Cheetah Martial Soul Possession allowed him to launch his attack from almost directly in the wolf queen's blind spot. His figure flashed across the ground, appearing behind its flank almost as though he had teleported.

His sharp claws tore five dark gray trails through the air, raking diagonally into the back of the wolf queen's left shoulder. They split fur and skin and sliced through muscle, leaving a deep wound nearly a handspan long beneath its shoulder blade.

The wolf queen let out a sharp, agonized howl. The diagonally upward impact sent it staggering two steps forward and to the right. Dark red blood gushed from the wound beneath its shoulder blade, winding down the outside of its foreleg.

The intense pain abruptly narrowed its pupils into even thinner slits, but it did not interrupt its counterattack. The instant it lost its balance, it whipped its head around, kicked its hind legs fiercely backward, and opened its fanged jaws to bite at Sean's waist and abdomen.

Sean sidestepped and lowered his shoulder, avoiding the fangs by a distance that almost brushed its fur. His claws immediately swept upward from below, leaving another three shallow, long bloody marks along the outside of the wolf queen's foreleg.

The wolf queen's ferocity was fully unleashed. Ignoring its own wounds entirely, it spun around and swiped, adding a wound to Sean's abdomen as well.

Man and wolf traded blows like this, neither giving the other an inch.

Unsurprisingly, the wolf king's and wolf queen's bloody battles also drove the pack into a frenzy.

The Night Shadow Ghost Wolves that had still been prowling outside the formation grew restless the instant they smelled their companions' blood. Their low howls became short, rapid barks, followed immediately by a fearless charge.

The waves behind drove those ahead forward. The guards' outer line collided with the first wave of wolves, blades and fangs clashing at close range. The impacts of metal against bone mingled with the beasts' muffled growls and the men's low shouts.

But Soul Beasts were Soul Beasts, after all, and the guards were ultimately not Soul Masters. Their stamina was limited, and they also had to protect the two people behind them. Inevitably, guarding one thing left another exposed.

Soon, a powerfully built ghost wolf seized an opening. It twisted aside to evade a descending blade, leaped over the defensive line, and lunged straight at Su Lin beside the campfire, its bloody maw gaping wide.

But before it could reach Su Lin, a pink figure suddenly shot out from beside the campfire, the yellow Soul Ring beneath her feet lighting up instantly.

"First Soul Skill, Waist Bow!"

Xiao Wu twisted her waist sharply, unleashing the power of Waist Bow in an instant. Her full-body strength doubled at that moment. Like a spring compressed to its limit suddenly snapping free, she leaped into the air and drove a vicious kick into the ghost wolf's soft belly.

With a dull thump, she sent the nearly hundred-jin wolf flying outright. It traced an arc through the air and slammed heavily into another ghost wolf charging forward. The two wolves tumbled into a heap and could not get up for quite some time.

Watching the situation slowly progress in the direction he had anticipated, Su Lin's tense expression relaxed a little.

He understood his own role very clearly. Right now, he was like one of the generals in Chinese chess, with only limited moves available. Without his "chariot," Pikachu, and his "cannon," Sean, beside him, he could only tremble under the protection of a group of "soldiers" and Xiao Wu, his "advisor."

The fighting continued for about another incense stick's worth of time before the battle on their side was more or less over. At the cost of three seriously wounded and nine lightly wounded, the twelve guards finally worked together with Xiao Wu to finish off these adult Night Shadow Ghost Wolves under a hundred years old.

Corpses littered the battlefield. Wolf blood soaked the rotting leaves beneath their feet, and a heavy bloody stench filled the air.

Things were much the same on Sean's side. As his claw blades cut through the wolf queen's hide and muscle and reached its heart, it finally collapsed amid a series of spasms, turning into a pale yellow Soul Ring beneath the night sky.

By then, the only ones still locked in fierce combat were Pikachu and the Night Shadow Phantom Wolf King.

Their battlefield had shifted roughly fifty or sixty zhang away from camp, winding uphill along the slope.

By ordinary reasoning, one was merely a three-hundred-year mutated Lightning Rat from the lower-middle ranks of the Soul Hunting Forest's food chain, while the other was a nine-hundred-year dark-night wolf king that dominated its own territory. However one looked at it, the latter should have won by an overwhelming margin.

Yet the truth was exactly the opposite.

Within the dense woods, lightning kept erupting, illuminating the trees in alternating flashes of light and darkness.

The wolf king's furious roars had long since lost their initial arrogance. Instead, they carried traces of agitation and frustration.

Whenever the black mist formed from its dark-attribute Soul Power touched Pikachu's golden arcs, it rapidly melted away like ice and snow beneath a blazing sun. The attribute counter had it firmly pinned down.

FGO had a saying that put it well: compatibility trumped the heavens, and Special Attack screwed even gods.

Not to mention that Pikachu now possessed a full three skills, just like a human Soul Master.

[Your battle report has been generated]

[Your Pokémon Lightning Rat experienced a thoroughly satisfying battle, defeated a powerful opponent, and gained 20 experience points]

[Lightning Rat: lv23 (2120/10000)]

Ten minutes later, when the thunder completely drowned out the wolf's low howls, the battle ended as well.

Pikachu turned into lightning and bounded back to Su Lin in a few leaps. He tilted his little head up to look at him and proudly patted his round little belly.

Fortunately, it was past midnight. Otherwise, those twenty experience points would have gone to waste.

"All right, all right, all right. I'll give you two extra chicken drumsticks when we get back." Smiling, Su Lin rubbed the little fellow's furry head. A faint light flashed at his fingertips, and he recalled him into the Poké Ball.

The little fellow had not had a proper rest all day. It was time to let him get a good sleep.

The Poké Ball was far more than a simple container. Within its space, Pikachu recovered both stamina and Soul Power far faster than he did outside.

He turned to look around. The guards were already tending to their wounds. Some leaned against tree trunks, tearing strips of cloth to bandage the wounds on their arms; others had their heads lowered, using small knives to trim away the blood-soaked edges of their sleeves. The three seriously wounded guards had also been settled on the other side of the campfire, where it was warmest. Emergency medicinal herbs had already been applied to their wounds. Though their faces were pale, their breathing was steady, and their lives were not in danger.

"Young Master Little Lin." After directing several lightly wounded guards to carry back the wolf queen's corpse, Sean said excitedly, "These two wolf carcasses are good stuff. Once we're back, I'll get the old leatherworker in town to skin and tan them, then make a set of winter clothes each for you and Miss Xiao Wu. With those on, even the cold winds of the harshest winter days won't get through."

"Uncle Sean, this isn't the time to talk about that." With black lines all over his forehead, Su Lin pointed at the strip of cloth around Sean's abdomen, which was still seeping blood. He used to think Uncle Sean was pretty aloof. How had one fight made him so comical...?