Liu Wenwu had lost.
He was deeply unwilling, but iron facts did not bend to one's wishes.
Liu Wenwu, Ouyang Bisang, and Mo Shikuang all possessed methods of flight. But in terms of aerial expertise, they were far inferior to Fang Yuan.
The sky was different from the ground. In the air, one could soar freely, dodge and weave in every direction — up, down, left, right, north, south, east, west. On the ground, however, one's space for evasion was far more limited.
No matter how the three Liu brothers encircled and cut off Fang Yuan, they simply could not touch him.
Meanwhile, even as he dodged, Fang Yuan commanded his massive wolf army, slaughtering and butchering vast swathes of the Liu family's forces.
Left with no choice, the three Liu brothers abandoned their pursuit of Fang Yuan and went to support the low-ranking Gu Masters, culling the wolf packs instead.
But this was exactly what Hei Loulan, Fang Yuan, and the others wanted!
Using the lives of wolf kings and mutant wolf packs to drain the precious True Essence of the three Liu brothers — this was an extremely favorable trade, one that greatly benefited Fang Yuan.
A Gu Master who had not yet ascended to Immortal status possessed only a limited reservoir of True Essence. Once a Gu Master's True Essence was completely depleted, his combat power would plummet drastically, crashing to rock bottom.
The wolf tide surged on without end. The more wolves the three Liu brothers slaughtered, the more violently their True Essence was consumed.
The wolf packs were enormous in number, coming in endless waves. The three Liu brothers killed until their hands went soft, and their True Essence bottomed out.
Once they needed to conserve their True Essence, they could no longer fight as they pleased. The Hei family's high-level combatants finally gained the upper hand, suppressing them completely.
"Hei Loulan, today I was not defeated by you. I was defeated by Tai Bai Yun Sheng and Chang Shan Yin!" Liu Wenwu's hair was in disarray, his body covered in wounds, all trace of his former elegance gone. He let out an unwilling roar.
He believed: with their trio's killer move, "Three Heads, Six Arms," their combat power was tremendous, enough to crush the entire battlefield. If they had targeted Fang Yuan back then, with their absolute speed advantage, they could certainly have killed him, causing the wolf packs to collapse. A great victory over the Hei family army would have followed.
But Tai Bai Yun Sheng's Fifth Transformation healing Gu Insect, "Ren Ru Gu," was simply too extraordinary in its effects, greatly diminishing the power of their killer move.
When they tried to make amends and pursued the wolf king, they discovered in despair that Chang Shan Yin — a master of the Enslavement Dao — was also a flying master!
The three brothers could not catch up, and could only watch as the situation collapsed. In the end, the Liu family suffered a catastrophic rout. The Hei family pursued them in victory, inflicting devastating casualties, with countless soldiers surrendering.
And Liu Wenwu, as the alliance leader, along with the others, had their True Essence fully depleted and were all captured.
The Hei family and the Liu family had always been in competition. The tense relationship between the two great super-clans was well known throughout the Northern Plains. But although Hei Loulan had captured Liu Wenwu and the others, she did not kill them. Instead, she wisely used them as leverage to extract massive war reparations from the Liu family.
Liu Wenwu was one of the Liu family's candidate Immortal Gu Masters. Killing him would have crossed the bottom line of this contest for the Royal Court.
More critically, the Hei family had barely won this battle, suffering enormous losses themselves. Without Liu Wenwu as a key bargaining chip for reparations, ordinary war indemnities alone would be insufficient to restore the strength of the Hei family's alliance. This would be extremely disadvantageous for the upcoming battle for the Royal Court.
Three days later, the Liu family's envoy arrived, leading the Liu tribe and all the families that had pledged allegiance back to their blessed land.
Meanwhile, the Hei family army — battered, exhausted, and drained — made camp on site. They reorganized the surrendered troops, rebuilt the alliance, tallied war merits, distributed supplies, and digested their victory.
Inside the Big Lizard House Gu, Fang Yuan sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion, eyes closed, cultivating intently.
A Fourth Transformation Wolf Soul Gu was drawn from his body at his mental command.
The Wolf Soul Gu was only the size of a thumb, resembling a small grey cloth doll in the shape of a wolf. It now hovered in the air, its entire form enveloped in a layer of ethereal blue luminescence.
The True Essence sea within Fang Yuan's Empty Orifice dropped slightly as the Wolf Soul Gu received the influx of True Essence, rapidly swelling in size.
Awoooo!
The Wolf Soul Gu expanded and grew, transforming into a pure grey wolf spirit the size of an elephant.
Immediately after, the wolf opened its mouth and released a soundless howl, charging straight at Fang Yuan's body.
Fang Yuan smiled faintly. A thousand-person-level soul — could it be shaken so easily? The wolf spirit crashed directly into his thousand-person soul and immediately faltered, thoroughly suppressed by the thousand-person soul.
The two souls tumbled and churned, forming a soul mist. After a short while, the thousand-person soul merged with the wolf spirit and reappeared.
The thousand-person soul now had a pair of slender wolf ears on its head. Its entire frame was leaner and more gaunt than Fang Yuan's physical body, and its nose had become more prominent. However, it had not yet manifested the waist-length hair, or the wolf eyes and wolf tail.
"Ever since the battle for the Royal Court began, I've been consuming the Wolf Soul Gu every day to refine my soul. I've already achieved partial results — roughly thirty percent wolf-person soul."
Once he fully transformed his soul into a wolf-person soul, his control over the wolf packs would undergo another qualitative leap. Not only would the number of wolves he could command skyrocket, but he would be able to direct them with the ease of moving his own limbs, exactly as he wished.
After an intense battle, the degree of soul fatigue he suffered would also be significantly reduced.
"However, at this rate, by the time I complete the wolf-person soul refinement, the battle for the Royal Court will already be over. I only have a Fourth Transformation Wolf Soul Gu — the efficiency of soul refinement is far too low." Fang Yuan sighed.
If he had a Fifth Transformation Wolf Soul Gu, it would be somewhat better, matching his current situation. But a Fourth Transformation Wolf Soul Gu felt like a strongman trying to chop down a great tree with a small knife.
In truth, Fang Yuan's efficiency in soul cultivation was already extraordinarily fast.