"Lightning Spears, ready!" The Zheng Family Patriarch personally arrived at the front line and roared at the top of his lungs.
The army led by Fang Yuan, after crushing the Bei Family, pressed on without rest, charging straight toward the Zheng Family camp.
A brutal battle of attack and defense erupted in an instant.
Fang Yuan deployed two Myriad Wolf Kings in a combined assault, smashing through the Zheng Family's first two defensive lines in one go. But at the third line, they were finally checked.
What halted the wolf tide was the Zheng Family's trump card known throughout the Northern Plains — the Lightning Spear Corps.
These Second Transformation Gu Masters stood atop the third wall, lined up shoulder to shoulder, their sharp and formidable aura coalescing into a living rampart of flesh and blood.
Hearing their patriarch's roar, these Gu Masters immediately extended their right hands. True Essence was drawn from their Empty Orifices and channeled into the lightning mark embedded in their right palms.
This was the mark of a parasitic Lightning Spear Gu.
Then the Ge Family contingent watched as lightning erupted from the Gu Masters' palms, instantly coalescing into silver-blue spears.
Each spear was a full four feet long, formed entirely of crackling lightning, its surface flickering with electric arcs while emitting a faint sizzling hum.
"Fire!" The Zheng Family Patriarch bellowed again.
Bzzt!
In the blink of an eye, five hundred and eighty lightning spears shot out in unison, tracing dense arcs through the air.
The blazing electric light illuminated the entire battlefield. Blue radiance reflected off every face.
The difference was that Ge Guang and the others' faces were ashen with dread, while the Zheng Family Patriarch wore a look of proud satisfaction.
The lightning spears hurtled down like a torrential storm, plunging into the charging wolf pack.
Even the tough dorsal armor of Turtle-back Wolves could be pierced clean through by a single lightning spear, to say nothing of Wind Wolves and Night Wolves with their far weaker defenses.
The volley of lightning spears was devastatingly powerful, instantly clearing a vast swath of the battlefield.
The once-dense wolf tide thinned dramatically in an instant.
Over five hundred wild wolves collapsed simultaneously, reduced to corpses, and the wolf pack's entire offensive ground to a halt.
"Hahaha! Look — this is my clan's Lightning Spear Corps!"
"With such a mighty army, who would dare look down on our clan?"
"This is our clan's strongest wall of flesh and blood! So what if there are even more wolves?"
Watching this scene, the Zheng Family Gu Masters shouted excitedly one after another, their morale surging. The Ge Family members, by contrast, all wore grim expressions.
"Chang Shanyin." The Zheng Family Patriarch activated an Amplification Gu, his voice amplified several times over, drowning out the clamor of the battlefield.
"Without cause, you invade my clan. The Heroes' Assembly hasn't even begun yet, and you've already run wild, igniting hostilities — this is nothing short of lawless. This frenzy of slaughter will bring down the joint punishment of every clan in the Northern Plains upon you. It's not too late to turn back before you've made an even graver mistake. Withdraw immediately! Otherwise, I will expose your atrocities to all, and make you and the Ge Family behind you nothing more than rats that everyone in the Northern Plains hunts down!" the Zheng Family Patriarch rebuked and warned.
"Esteemed Grand Elder..." The Ge Family Elders all turned to look at Fang Yuan, their expressions growing hesitant.
Fang Yuan's frenzied assault had indeed violated the rules. Although the three-family alliance intended to move against the Ge Family, that had not yet materialized. The evidence the Ge Family had gathered alone was insufficient to prove anything.
The Gu Masters of the Northern Plains were warlike, but they were not reckless madmen who fought without reason. Everything had to be justified.
The more righteous and noble the justification, the better.
Moreover, the Battle for the King's Court had not yet begun, and the various tribes were still exercising mutual restraint. Back when the Ge Family was at Red Flame Valley, the Man Family clearly possessed far greater strength, yet still had not acted directly. Instead, they resorted to scheming and manipulation to trigger the wolf tide. This was because the Man Family had not found a legitimate reason to devour the Ge Family.
This was the Righteous Path's rules — the game that governed the Northern Plains tribes.
Fang Yuan's current campaign leading the Ge Family to invade the three-family alliance was a clear violation of those rules. Without a just cause, there was no righteous mandate.
Such aggressive conduct by the Ge Family would lead to diplomatic isolation, and quite possibly become a target that the major tribes guarded against, despised, and perhaps even mobilized to crusade against.
For this reason, the Ge Family's leadership was deeply worried. They simply did not openly oppose it out of deference to Chang Shanyin's strength and prestige.
Now that the wolf pack's assault had been checked, their concerns were beginning to surface.
Fang Yuan sat expressionless atop the mutant White-Eyed Wolf, his gaze fixed on the Gu Masters atop the wall.
"The Lightning Spear Corps is no ordinary force."
His eyes flickered as he spotted the key detail.
Of the Zheng Family's entire Lightning Spear Corps, over five hundred participated in the attack, but the true linchpin was over a hundred auxiliary Gu Masters hiding in protected positions behind the lines.
These Gu Masters used the Gu Insects in their hands to amplify the power of the lightning spears, or to condense their energy into even more devastating offensive means.
Fang Yuan shifted his gaze to the Night Wolf Myriad Beast King and the Turtle-back Myriad Wolf King.
These two wolf kings had been forced to retreat after bearing the combined assault of the Zheng Family Patriarch personally and the Lightning Spear Corps together.
Their bodies were covered in wounds. The Turtle-back Myriad Wolf King was somewhat better off, but the Night Wolf Myriad Beast King's defensive Gu had been destroyed in the bombardment. Its entire body was drenched in blood, with several gashes so deep the bone was visible.
Although Fang Yuan had already used Wolf Smoke Gu to treat most of these injuries, the Night Wolf Myriad Beast King's overall combat strength had genuinely dropped a full tier.
Retreat?
Would the enemy simply let them go if they withdrew?
Fang Yuan sneered coldly. Retreat was the true path to ruin.
Only by pressing forward relentlessly, by smashing through the three-family alliance and leaving no aggrieved party behind, could the fallout from breaking the Righteous Path's rules in the Northern Plains be minimized.
Right now, the Ge Family was like an arrow that had already left the bowstring — there was no turning back.
The Ge Family's elders were shortsighted and unable to grasp the bigger picture, but Fang Yuan possessed five hundred years of experience. Naturally his judgment was extraordinary, his mind as clear as a candle illuminating the dark.
"All of you, listen well — this is the critical moment. The entire Ge Family, all forces forward. Fight to the death, and not one step back. Anyone who dares retreat will be executed without mercy!" Fang Yuan commanded in a cold voice while actively marshaling his remaining forces.
Aooow!