Awooo—!
Four Maniac Lightning Wolves threw back their heads and let out piercing howls.
Splash, splash, splash.
Rain cascaded down in torrents, curtains of water weaving together beneath a sky choked with dark clouds. The world dimmed to near-darkness, visibility reduced to almost nothing.
"Hurry! There's a breach near the east gate — Sheng Nan's squad, move up!"
"Where's the healer? We've got a critical wounded over here!"
"Kill, kill, kill! Slaughter every last one of these wolf pups!"
...
Competing with the wolf howls were the shouts of the Gu Masters.
Almost everyone was fighting drenched in blood.
Along the perimeter of the stockade, the battle lines stretched on, raging like wildfire.
Human shouts, wolf howls, the roar of rain, and the howl of wind all tangled together.
Dense swarms of Lightning Wolves crashed against the stockade walls like a tide. The pitfalls before the wall had long since been filled solid with thick layers of wolf corpses. Under the lead of Alpha Lightning Wolf after Alpha Lightning Wolf, the pack struck with terrifying momentum.
First and Second Transformation Gu Masters fought on the front lines. Moon Blades arced into the wolf pack by the dozen, toppling Lightning Wolves left and right.
But the wolves hurled currents of lightning and crackling electric balls back at the stockade, inflicting casualties on the Guye Clan.
"Elder Fang Yuan, this is the casualty report just compiled by the Medicine Hall — please review it!" A messenger Gu Master came sprinting over, bowed upon reaching Fang Yuan, and presented the document with both hands.
Fang Yuan was already a Third Transformation Gu Master. Having become an Elder, the clan had assigned him a task — to serve as the commanding officer responsible for suppressing this western sector.
Fang Yuan pulled his gaze from the battlefield, accepted the bamboo-paper report, and said to the messenger: "You may leave."
The Gu Master bowed once more before withdrawing.
He moved swiftly, activating a movement-assisting Gu insect, and was gone in moments, heading toward the next location.
Any Gu Master assigned as a messenger possessed at least one mobility-boosting Gu insect; some even had two.
Fang Yuan unfolded the report. A brief glance.
The casualty figures on the battle report were nothing short of horrifying.
By now, the wolf tide had struck the Guye Stockade nearly ten times. The clan's Gu Masters had suffered severe losses, leaving the Elders overwhelmed with anxiety. Gu Yue Chizhong, who was temporarily serving as acting Elder of the Medicine Hall, bore an especially crushing burden. He had been a middle-aged man, but Fang Yuan had caught a recent glimpse of him and noticed the first threads of white hair!
However, Fang Yuan, armed with memories from his past life, had been mentally prepared and was not surprised.
"This wolf tide is one of the most severe in the entire history of the Guye Clan. Such casualties are simply inevitable."
He thought to himself, then channeled moonlight through his palm and shredded the report to powder.
Only Elders were authorized to view these reports. If the contents were made public, they would almost certainly trigger panic.
Though, in truth, the Guye Stockade was already steeped in panic. Anxious unease grew heavier with each passing day.
At this moment, the moonlight in Fang Yuan's palm was no longer a pure, deep blue — it now carried a tint of blood-red.
This was the Third Transformation Blood Moon Gu.
Fang Yuan had failed once in refining this Gu. It wasn't until the second attempt that he succeeded.
As for the synthesis materials, they had naturally been squeezed out of Gu Yue Chilian.
Fang Yuan closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into the Empty Orifice within his body.
Inside the Empty Orifice, the walls glowed with light, flickering bright and dim, yet utterly free of impurities — a sheet of pure, pristine white.
Every drop of True Essence was white, suffused with a metallic silver sheen — the Silver True Essence of a Third Transformation Gu Master.
Water accumulates into a sea. Within the Empty Orifice lay a sea of silver True Essence.
Previously, an ink-red stain had mottled the surface of that silver sea, but now it was gone.
The Jing Shui Gu he had extorted from Gu Yue Chilian had long since been used. The aftereffects of the Human Beast Burial Gu were completely eliminated.
But it had not come without cost.
Fang Yuan's aptitude had dropped slightly. Originally Grade C at forty-four percent, it had fallen by two points due to the Human Beast Burial Gu — his Empty Orifice could now hold at most forty-two percent True Essence.
But this was a price Fang Yuan had long since made peace with.
In the end, he had Gu Yue Chilian to thank. Without that Jing Shui Gu, if the ink-red contamination had been left to fester and pollute his True Essence indefinitely, his aptitude would have dropped far worse.
A large ladybug with a white shell and black spots danced above the surface of the sea. This was the Tian Peng Gu.
The Hidden Scale Gu, shaped like a stone fish, lay resting at the very bottom of the True Essence sea.
The Four-flavor Wine Worm frolicked on the sea's surface.
As for the freshly refined Blood Moon Gu, its appearance resembled that of the Moonlight Gu. It now resided in the center of Fang Yuan's right palm, manifesting as a red crescent-shaped mark.
The Third Transformation Thunder Wing Gu, meanwhile, resided on Fang Yuan's back — like two streaks of lightning tattooed into his skin.
Worthy of special mention was the Spring Autumn Cicada.
Its condition was improving steadily, and its rate of recovery growing ever faster. This left Fang Yuan both secretly delighted and somewhat worried.
The Spring Autumn Cicada was a Sixth Transformation Gu, while he himself was only a Third Transformation Gu Master. With his current Empty Orifice alone, it would likely be unable to contain the Spring Autumn Cicada once it fully healed.
The cicada's aura was growing stronger by the day — like a paper tube trying to hold stone and iron. The Empty Orifice might not bear the strain.
"If there's truly no other option, I'll just have to keep it roaming freely by my side." Fang Yuan sighed inwardly.
This approach carried enormous drawbacks.
A Sixth Transformation Gu insect involved Dao Rhymes — it contained fragments of the natural laws of heaven and earth. Keeping one freely roaming externally for a prolonged period would trigger resonance with those laws. Unless it was dormant, the commotion would be considerable, producing all manner of strange phenomena that would inevitably attract the attention and covetousness of other powerful figures.