As he spoke, he rallied his will, and in an instant the heavenly steeds soared upward, rising like a swelling cloud of white.
These godlike heavenly steeds, each with coats as white as snow and manes that streamed in the wind, spread their gleaming wings to the fullest.
These heavenly steeds were the pride of the Ma family.
Seeing them, a surge of valor rose in the hearts of the Ma clan members, and their panic quickly subsided.
"That's right, we still have the heavenly steeds—ah!?" Ma Yingjie's words had barely left his mouth before they turned into a horrified scream!
Fang Yuan was hurtling toward them like a meteor, without the slightest intent to dodge, and slammed straight into the herd of heavenly steeds.
One after another, heavenly steeds whose combat strength rivaled that of a Fourth Transformation Gu Master burst into sprays of crimson.
The herd let out panicked, pitiful whinnies. Their pristine white coats were ravaged, feathers drifting down alongside horse carcasses, helplessly scattering through the air.
He tore through, unstoppable, unopposed!
Fang Yuan plowed through the herd with brute force and arrived directly above Ma Zun and the others.
Ma Zun stood stunned. The Gu Masters around him gazed up at Fang Yuan with mouths agape, their hearts consumed by extreme shock, helplessness, and terror.
Fang Yuan's spectral, godlike silhouette was seared deeply into their minds, never to be erased!
"No—I haven't lost yet!" Ma Zun shrieked, losing all composure, and was about to activate his killer move when Ma Yingjie stopped him.
"Uncle, let me handle this. If you activate that killer move, your cultivation realm will drop. The Ma family can do without Ma Yingjie, but it cannot do without you, Uncle!" Ma Yingjie shouted, his eyes blazing with resolute determination.
"Yingjie!" Ma Zun's powerful frame trembled. He stared at this disciple—the one he admired most, the one who brought him the greatest pride—and felt the young man's resolve to die fighting.
Of course Ma Zun did not want his own nephew to sacrifice himself on his behalf.
But just as Ma Yingjie had said, the Ma family could survive without him, yet needed Ma Zun to command the herd. Now the eagle flocks had collapsed, the rat swarms were useless, and if they lost the heavenly steeds as well, the Ma family would be finished!
"Besides, I might not die. Uncle, run!" Ma Yingjie finished speaking, then steeled his mind and frantically mobilized his True Essence, channeling it into several Gu Insects.
Killer move—Dragon Horse Spirit!
This was a killing technique prepared especially for them by Xuesongzi, a demonic path Gu Immortal from the Great Snowy Mountain.
Neighhhhh neighhhhh...
The many fine horses around him reared up on their hind legs, letting out savage, maddened cries.
Great rivulets of bloody sweat poured from their bodies. One by one they collapsed, life extinguished.
But at the same time, horse souls—each one a dazzling rainbow of seven colors, brilliant as an arc of light—drilled out of the corpses.
"Mutated horse souls..." Fang Yuan's pupils contracted slightly.
Ordinary souls were nearly impossible for the naked eye to perceive.
But these horse souls had grown pairs of coral-like dragon horns on their heads, came in various sizes, and looked much as the horses had in life. Moreover, they shone with a seven-colored radiance—only a blind man could miss them.
The dragon horses floated upward at blistering speed, hurtling toward Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan retreated through the air, keeping his distance while continuously probing with attacks.
These horse souls were exceedingly troublesome. Being spectral bodies, ordinary physical attacks were useless against them. And if they self-destructed, each one packed the explosive force of that fin-wolf's soul detonation!
Though Fang Yuan's killer moves were formidable, they were not of the Soul Path. Three horse souls detonating simultaneously was more than he could withstand.
After all, he still only possessed a thousand-man soul.
"But why would I fight them head-on?" Fang Yuan scoffed, descending leisurely from the sky to the ground.
He was not merely a Strength Path Gu Master—he also had Slave Path techniques at his disposal.
In the next moment, wolf smoke roiled and surged, healing the wolf pack at his side. Wolf howls rang out, and the pack's combat power soared severalfold.
The wolf pack surged toward Ma Yingjie and Ma Zun like famished sharks.
"Despicable!!" Ma Yingjie was suddenly made to fully appreciate the depth of Fang Yuan's cunning and shamelessness!
He had sacrificed the majority of the horse herd around him to activate the killer move "Dragon Horse Spirit," producing the mutated horse souls.
But Fang Yuan refused to clash with the horse souls directly. Instead, he sent the wolf pack forward to throw their lives away.
The wolves traded their lives to drain the horse souls' power. The mutated horse souls, forced to fend off the wolves' frenzied assaults, grew dimmer with each passing moment. Some dissipated entirely; others self-destructed.
Massive numbers of wolves fell, but in exchange the number of horse souls plummeted.
Fang Yuan had pushed the essence of the Slave Path to its absolute limit.
A Slave Path Gu Master used expendable fodder to trade against the enemy's precious power—whether that meant draining the True Essence in their Empty Orifices, or, as now, trading lives to annihilate the horse souls.
Ma Yingjie was utterly helpless against Fang Yuan!
The mutated horse souls, though powerful and capable of slaughtering huge numbers of wolves in a short time, posed no further threat to Fang Yuan.
"Uncle, run! You are the Ma family's hope—go!" Ma Yingjie screamed hoarsely, desperately urging Ma Zun to flee once more.
Ma Zun's tears streamed down his face, his heart wracked with pain, hatred, fury, and anguish.
In the end, teeth gritted hard enough to nearly shatter, he forced his body to move. Driven by reason, he led a contingent of heavenly steeds away from Ma Yingjie and retreated toward the main Ma army.
"Hm?" Fang Yuan immediately sensed Ma Zun's movement.
Ma Zun was a Slave Path grandmaster—a hundred times more important than Ma Yingjie! Fang Yuan instantly beat his wings and shot skyward, abandoning Ma Yingjie to give chase.
"The Wolf King, don't you run!" Ma Yingjie cried out in alarm, hastily commanding the horse souls to rise and block Fang Yuan's path.