"A fight?" Yang Kai raised his eyebrows, a savage grin spreading across his face. "Bring it on!"
The words had barely left his lips before incantations tumbled forth. With a wave of his hand, a halo of light suddenly bloomed outward, enveloping his thousand warriors.
A crimson glow seeped from the skin of all thousand fighters, wrapping them in what looked like a haze of blood. Not only that — the bodies of Ah Hu and the others erupted with crackling pops, and their already towering frames swelled another three-tenths taller, straining the beast-hide garments they wore until the leather creaked. Every pair of eyes blazed red as blood, utterly fearless, as though even a Shaman Saint stood before them they would still raise their weapons and charge.
The killing intent of a thousand warriors fused into one, a pressure that seemed to tear through the clouds.
Endless power surged through their bodies in an unceasing torrent. All thousand gripped their weapons tighter as if reborn — every face flushed with wild excitement, eyes wide and glassy, unable to believe the sheer strength now coursing through them.
Bloodlust Art!
And a supremely high-grade Bloodlust Art at that! Though the thousand warriors' eyes blazed crimson and they radiated fearlessness, they had not lost their minds. Only the most profound Bloodlust Art could achieve this. An ordinary Bloodlust Art might make barbarian warriors stronger and dull their senses, but it also impaired their judgment to varying degrees — in severe cases driving them into a frenzy that damaged the soul. Even after the art faded, lingering side effects could remain.
But the Bloodlust Art cast by this Shaman Bull was different. This was something that only a Shaman King-level Great Shaman could pull off.
The assembled Great Shamans watched with stunned expressions. The Bloodlust Art alone was enough to make them rethink this Shaman Bull — this was not something just anyone could execute.
What was especially remarkable was how effortlessly he had enveloped exactly a thousand people — not one more, not one less. The precision of control required was staggering, and it looked as though he was nowhere near his limit.
Were they really going to war?
With the Bloodlust Art already deployed, the arrow was nocked and the string drawn taut.
But that was not all.
After the Bloodlust Art, Yang Kai's incantations continued without pause, his hands rising and falling ceaselessly. With each motion, a new burst of light in a different color exploded outward and washed over the thousand warriors.
Lightness Art, Stone Armor Art, Giant Strength Art...
Layer after layer of light enfolded every warrior of the Shaman Bull tribe. Their bodies shimmered with a crimson glow shot through with earthy yellow, as though clad in a suit of heavy armor, impenetrable to blade and spear. A gentle breeze coiled around their legs, lending them speed and ferocity. The golden radiance of the Giant Strength Art boosted their physical power by thirty to fifty percent.
A thousand warriors drew heavy, ragged breaths, their fighting spirit fully ignited.
The three or four thousand warriors gathered around them were so intimidated by this display that they involuntarily stumbled back several steps, faces taut with wariness.
No fighting necessary — one look at the formation told you everything. Every warrior in the Shaman Bull tribe could now match two opponents, possibly more.
Wutu and the other Great Shaman wore expressions that had turned hideous. They had expected that parading their own warriors would rattle the Shaman Bull and throw him off balance. Who could have guessed this fellow would respond with such ferocity — showing not a shred of fear and instead layering blessing after blessing onto his people?
Now these two Great Shamans were just as shaken as all the others, lost in stunned silence.
To cast so many large-scale spells in rapid succession, all by himself — even a Shaman King would struggle. This Shaman Bull was merely a low-grade Great Shaman. Where on earth was he drawing that much shamanic power from?
Only now did they realize they had truly underestimated this Shaman Bull. The sheer volume of shamanic power he carried far exceeded what any ordinary Great Shaman could possess, and he was still only a low-grade Great Shaman at that. What would it look like if he advanced to the high-grade rank?
While the two stood in shock, Yang Kai's incantations rang out once more, and yet another halo of light descended.
The instant that light fell, all thousand warriors shuddered as one. The crimson glow emanating from their bodies came alive, merging and fusing together.
In the blink of an eye, a thousand individuals seemed to merge into a single entity, indistinguishable from one another. The combined aura that surged skyward was so overwhelming that heaven and earth themselves seemed to tremble.
"Chains of Life!" Wutu's face drained of color, and he swallowed hard, staring at Yang Kai as though looking at a monster.
Chains of Life — that was a genuinely profound shamanic art, one that only Great Shaman-level practitioners were qualified and capable of mastering. This art could link the life force of a varying number of barbarian warriors into one. Under the effect of Chains of Life, any damage sustained by any individual was distributed across the entire group, allowing the warriors to endure blows far beyond what any single person could survive.
It was the single most relied-upon shamanic art in large-scale warfare across the entire barbarian clans.
However, though Great Shamans could learn and cultivate Chains of Life, actually casting it typically required assistance from other shamans.
With fewer people it was manageable — a high-grade Great Shaman casting Chains of Life could link roughly two hundred warriors' life forces together. But with the support of shamans of various ranks, the number could be expanded several times over, even a dozen times. The more shamans assisting, the greater the effect.
And just now, when this Shaman Bull had cast Chains of Life, he had done it entirely alone.