Fang Yuan soared into the sky.
"Yang Poying, Jiang Baoya, Ma Zun—today is the day you lose your heads," he said coolly, yet his voice was vast and resonant, reaching the ears of ten thousand people.
Ma Zun: "..."
Jiang Baoya sneered, "Hmph, what empty bluster!"
"Peak Fifth Transformation—Chang Shanyin, you've hidden yourself well." Yang Poying's expression turned grave, flames blazing in his eyes. "But this only fires my will to fight even more! A battle like this—that's what makes it worth fighting!"
Yet the next instant, when the wolf packs surged forth in endless waves, his battle intent froze.
Many.
So many.
Far too many!
A vast sea of wild wolves, like the tide of an ocean—first one wave crashed forward, then a second, then a third… as if stretching from earth to sky, endless and boundless, infinite in number!
Ma Zun's expression changed!
The eagle swarm's momentum stalled. Yang Poying's face went rigid.
"An army of wolves this large—gods above—five hundred thousand? Eight hundred thousand? No, at least a million!" Jiang Baoya's face drained of all color, his battle intent plummeting to rock bottom. "Retreat! At most, my rat swarm has ever numbered six hundred thousand. After multiple great battles, with no time to replenish, I've got fewer than two hundred thousand now! This is my last reserve—I can't afford to lose it! Retreat, retreat, retreat—I must pull back!"
Jiang Baoya was a Demonic Path cultivator, driven entirely by self-interest. He immediately turned around and led his rat swarm in a rapid withdrawal.
Three factors influenced the combat power of a slave-path Gu Master. First was the scale of the beast swarm under one's command. Second was the composition of slave-path Gu Insects. Third was the depth of one's soul.
Fang Yuan's soul depth, thanks to the assistance of the Soul-Shaking Mountain, was on the same level as these three slave-path grandmasters.
The slave-path Gu Insects he carried were weaker than those of the three, though only by a narrow margin.
But the scale of the wolf packs under his command was a staggering 1.56 million!
In contrast, the three of them—having fought battle after battle, especially the previous two engagements—had suffered massive losses to their swarms. Jiang Baoya's rat swarm had only 200,000. Yang Poying's eagle swarm had 180,000. Ma Zun's horse swarm was the largest, with 360,000. Together, they totaled a mere 740,000!
Seven hundred forty thousand—less than half of 1.56 million!
But could different beast swarms simply be added together?
As had been explained before—absolutely not!
Different species of beast swarms mixed together, unless aided by methods like Three Hearts Soul Fusion, would only throw one's own ranks into disarray.
Massive wolf packs poured out in torrent. Some had been hidden in underground pits, some concealed by Gu Insects that erased their traces, some stowed inside wagon carriages. Now they all revealed themselves at once!
Even the taciturn Ma Zun couldn't help but cry out in shock: "How can there be so many wolves?!"
Originally, they had deployed on three fronts simultaneously, joining forces to bully Fang Yuan alone. But with wolves beyond counting, what had been the Black Family's weakness had suddenly become a wall of iron!
The Gu Master guards around Ma Zun were all shouting: "Lord Ma Zun, we must retreat immediately! The enemy's force is overwhelming—we cannot engage head-on!"
Ma Zun was not the type to lose his head in a panic. He immediately drove his horse swarm forward and reversed direction to begin a retreat.
But horse swarms and rat swarms were fundamentally different. Rats were mostly small-bodied and could change direction with ease. Horses, once they got up to speed, were far harder to stop.
What's more, Fang Yuan had deliberately held back earlier, waiting for the horse and rat swarms to charge right up to the Black Family army before suddenly unleashing his wolf packs—a truly sinister stratagem.
But Ma Zun was, after all, a slave-path grandmaster of astonishing skill. He knew the condition of every horse under his command inside and out. With careful maneuvering, his horse swarm traced a sweeping arc across the earth, grazing the edge of the Black Family army as they slanted outward, attempting to break through the encirclement.
However—how could Fang Yuan ever let such fat prey fly away from his jaws?
Ma Zun was a slave-path grandmaster. So was he.
With a shift of will, the variant beast wolf packs roared forth and launched their pursuit.
"Variant beast wolves? This many?!" The guard Gu Masters around Ma Zun turned to look and went pale.
Ma Zun also possessed a variant beast swarm—called Heavenly Horses—but their numbers were far inferior to the variant wolf packs chasing them.
The majority of his forces were still ordinary horse types like Fear-Claw Horses. How could those ever outrun variant wolves?
Ma Zun repeatedly adjusted the direction of his horse swarm, trying to甩 off the wolf packs.
But the variant wolf packs suddenly split into two flanking forces, closing in from both sides, and finally cut the horse swarm off.
Then the massive tide of ordinary wolves pounced in, surrounding the horse swarm on all sides.
"What a spectacular interception—as expected of a grandmaster!" Seeing this scene, Hei Loulan was overjoyed, finally releasing all his earlier worries about Chang Shanyin.
As for the other front—the Rat King was fleeing in desperation, with a variant wolf pack leading a vast horde of ordinary wolves in hot pursuit behind him. They continuously devoured those rats that couldn't escape fast enough, like a great beast trampling and crushing its prey, biting the rat swarm apart mouthful by mouthful.
Fang Yuan glanced over, then paid the Rat King no further attention. Instead, his gaze locked onto the sky ahead.
The wolf packs ruled the earth, but the eagle swarm soared through the heavens. To directly confront the eagle swarm was beyond the wolves' ability.