Suddenly, heaven collapsed and earth shattered.
Across the gloomy sky, cracks spread and surfaced as if battered ruthlessly by an iron hammer. Piercing rays of intense light thrust inward, tearing through everything with crushing ruin.
The earth shuddered as if trembling in terror, gales raged like mournful wails, and blood-rain poured down like tears.
The desolate world instantly sank into destruction.
It was impossible to see what was happening in the dark beneath the colossal tree; the silent ruins of the ancient capital had already been swallowed by streaks of blazing light and crimson blood.
The battle had begun!
Ji Jue sprang up in shock.
For the moment, he had no time to pay attention to that old ghost Ciji, who could only keep him company for a chat. Bolting out the door, he sprinted from the vehicle.
The campsite was in utter chaos. Boulders tore through the howling gales, smashing the flimsy perimeter walls and shacks to pieces.
Screams rose and fell in rapid succession.
Boom!
The gale, the blood-rain, and the earthquake ground to an abrupt halt—or rather, were sealed outside.
Telekinesis churned, cloaking the entire camp like a dome. Fractures surfaced continuously, fissures spreading amid the chilling sounds of splintering.
"Brother Shan, what's going on?" Ji Jue finally located Tong Shan.
"The Federation and the Empire have made their move." Tong Shan's expression was grim. "Don't ask questions. Pack up, get in the vehicles, and evacuate immediately!"
"Everyone, abandon all non-essential baggage! The convoy moves out in thirty seconds!"
With an expressionless wave of his hand, telekinesis surged, clearing every useless burden from the trucks. They shed weight frantically, racing against the clock to pack everything away.
What else was there to say?
Looking at the spectacle before them, wasn't everything obvious?
Bad news: the Kingdom of the Woods was acting!
Good news? Tianyuan was fucking acting, too!
From start to finish, both sides had been performing, so thoroughly immersed in their roles that they could hardly tell heaven from earth anymore.
Tianyuan pretended to test the waters step by step, while secretly gathering its strength.
The wolves were acting too, pretending to struggle through their Metamorphosis, when in truth, they were already on the verge of completion.
Amid what seemed like a tense stalemate and constant probing in the shadows, the undercurrents surging beneath the surface had erupted completely the moment one side broke the balance, turning into a sky-covering deluge that completely submerged the entire Kingdom of the Woods.
Now, massive detonations boomed in succession as sirens wailed across the outpost.
Everyone turned pale, not even fully grasping what was happening yet.
Just like that... the battle had started?
It could only be said that people always overestimated their own importance, breeding unrealistic expectations and delusions, falsely believing they possessed real worth and utility.
Unfortunately, their chance was gone.
Once the pack of wolves refused to take the bait, the bait lost all its value.
Reality was always intricate, chaotic, and beyond words; no one knew what the next moment would bring, not even Tianyuan.
Plans that were too intricate or too pretty were never of any use. Blindly sticking to a plan when an emergency struck was simply seeking death.
The key lay in adapting to the situation, countering each move as it came—and most importantly, cutting ties decisively when the time came!
And so, they had been cut loose.
Or rather, they had successfully fulfilled their purpose as sacrificed pawns, slightly lulling the Kingdom of the Woods and forcing it to divert considerable attention toward dealing with the trouble caused by this vanguard.
And once preparations were truly complete, the bait that had outlived its usefulness no longer mattered.
So why keep it around?
The Federation and the Empire had chosen to flip the table directly.
You thought I had a conscience?
Sorry, I was faking it!
Whether it was repairing the gallery roads in the open while sneaking through Chencang in secret, or feinting east while striking west, now that they had struck, the entire outpost had been reduced to a decorative prop.
No, even a decorative prop was better off than they were—at least nobody picked a fight with decorations. Now, they could only fend for themselves.
If they didn't run now, what were they waiting for?!
Waiting to die?!
If the Federation and the Empire won, at most they could return later to await commendations and rewards. But if the Federation and Empire's operation went even slightly awry, someone was going to face disaster!
Tong Shan didn't even need to say a word. The moment Ji Jue bolted out, he had already activated Deus Ex Machina. The workshop he had just set up rapidly contracted as countless mechanical parts scurried like spiders, returning to their places.
In just a few seconds, leaving behind a ground covered in discarded scraps, he retreated into Little Niuma's cabin, followed immediately by An Ning refreshing into the passenger seat.
Ji Jue stomped on the gas pedal. Amid a ferocious roar, he pulled right behind the truck of Tong Shan's team, preparing to retreat.
Yet at that very instant, amid the wind, the thunder, and the dull rumbles of collapse, he suddenly heard a crisp chime:
Ding—
It was like a faint bell ringing from the deepest depths of the dark.
Ji Jue's vision went black.
Ding—
When the second sound—like a bronze bell—rang out, he was swallowed by the oncoming darkness. In a daze, he seemed to hear the old ghost Ciji's soft sigh and warning: "Be careful."
Be careful of what, you bastard?!
Where was this warning earlier?!
Ji Jue instinctively wanted to curse, but in his haze, within the chaotic darkness before him, the shadowy contours of a dense forest seemed to surface. Amid lightning and thunder, crimson rain poured from above. Grotesque, ferocious silhouettes of tree branches overlapped like a dance, swallowing everything.
Through the resonance with Shangri-La, he had fallen into an illusion!
Or rather—
Plunged into the Woods!
Countless phantom images rose before his eyes: withered fallen leaves, rotting corpses, lightning, incineration, flames, colossal trees, pythons, bugs, distorted faces, and wild beasts.
In the flash of lightning, in the deepest depths of Shambhala, agony churned and despair surged; endless visions emerged from this fleeting delusion.
It was truly as if he had fallen, unarmed and defenseless, into a forest surrounded by prowling beasts.
At last, he felt the hungry gaze cast from the deepest darkness of the forest!
When Ji Jue whipped his head around in horror, he saw the ferocious silhouette illuminated by a split-second flash of lightning.
Those scarlet pupils burned like blazing fire, swirling with malice, bitter hatred, despair, and madness, resolving into a chaos of ravenous hunger.
A colossal body towered in the dark.
Long since broken and torn.
Beneath torn flesh, pale bone lay exposed. Internal organs had long rotted and ruptured, spilling from the gaping wounds—no, those were not organs, but iron-cast bells!
Large and small, intact and fractured.
Soaked in blood.
When cold wind blew from the dark, the bloody bells hanging like viscera swayed with the breeze, letting out sharp, shrill chimes—like choking sobs, like weeping, like shivering roars.
That was—
The Wolf of the Forest!
For an instant, Ji Jue even felt as though he would be devoured whole by the awakened wolf. Yet the Wolf of the Forest merely stared at him coldly, its fangs and claws vicious, never pouncing.
Or rather... it couldn't?
In a sudden flash of insight, Ji Jue couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, recalling Ciji's words—three days! No more than three days, but that didn't mean right now, this instant...
Which meant the Priest-King had not yet revived, and the Wolf of the Forest had not fully completed its Metamorphosis!
Yet immediately, he realized he had rejoiced too soon—for when he looked up, above the hallucinatory dense forest, in the sky beyond the storm, hung two blood-red suns and a pale moon, shining in silence.
Like two pairs of ravenous, insatiable eyes, they stared unblinkingly at the Wolf of the Forest that was about to complete its Metamorphosis, and at everything in the dense woods!
Boom!
The forest trembled. In the deepest dark, the Wolf of the Forest opened its maw and roared with fury, forcibly dispelling everything that did not belong here.
The illusion shattered; the delusion ended.
Ji Jue fell once more, awakening from the resonance of Shangri-La. Only a single second had passed, yet his back was drenched in cold sweat.
Looking over at the passenger seat, he found An Ning's face deathly pale, drained of all color.
It was as if her soul were on the verge of being crushed by an invisible pressure. Unlike Ji Jue, who had only suffered a fleeting delusion, the pressure borne by the White Deer hunter was far more extreme than he could ever imagine.
Merely perceiving a fraction of it had already pushed her to the brink under the erosion and suppression of the Kingdom of the Woods.
"Brother Ji Jue, be careful," she squeezed out through gritted teeth, panting with all her might. "It's not just the forest... it's the Mountain Wolf and the Wolf of the Heart! They're the ones behind the scenes..."
"Shut up, don't talk!"
Without a second thought, Ji Jue reached out and pressed his hand against her head. Dissociation Art erupted, violent spiritus oscillations spreading through the matrix of Flying Light. Not destroying, but forcibly stripping, dispersing, and siphoning away every haze of erosion.
There was no time to deal with it gently; he had to use drastic measures to suppress the condition first!
An Ning grunted, blood seeping from her nose and mouth, but within her dim eyes, a flicker of familiar vitality finally reappeared.
Before she could even open her mouth to speak—
In their mad sprint, Ji Jue's amplified Wolf Sin perception suddenly caught the malice blowing from ahead like a surging tide.
Like a tsunami—
Ji Jue's eyes widened. Staring at the chaos within the outpost, he yelled:
"Brother Shan, watch ou—"
Silence.
No explosion could be heard. The only thing visible was blazing light rocketing into the sky from the dead center of the outpost. Like an ocean surge, endless thunder and flame expanded in all directions, engulfing everything.
Was that an explosion?!
It was far too blinding.
Merely staring at it sent sharp stabs of pain through Ji Jue's eyes. The intensely scorching light pierced through the windshield, making him feel as though he were trapped in a crucible.
Yet that slight shift in temperature was completely negligible compared to what was truly terrifying: the colossal shockwave sweeping toward them and the berserk heat trapped within it.
Before being swallowed by the surge, Little Niuma transformed abruptly. Giant claws slammed into the earth, anchoring the vehicle firmly. Then—Immovable as a Mountain!
The wave swept past with a roar.
A sinister mushroom cloud surged up from the ground. The blast wave tore through the entire outpost like crushing ruin, while the rolling high heat from ground zero melted everything that had been blown apart.
The only thing Ji Jue could do was pour everything into Earth Bears and Sea Embraces!
The outer armor melted and solidified, solidified and melted, rapidly vaporizing and cracking, sinking inch by inch as though kneaded by an invisible giant hand.
When the devastation finally roared past, Little Niuma's outer armor had completely melted, and its entire frame glowed cherry red. Fortunately, the main structure remained intact.
They had held!
Tong Shan's side had not been so lucky. The lead truck blazing the trail had been pulverized immediately; caught off guard, nearly everyone inside was wiped out.
The only survivor was Tong Shan, who had reacted first.
He hadn't even needed Ji Jue's warning; his family's inherited ether granted an even sharper sense for danger!
Now, he was severely burned.
Charred like charcoal.
At this cost, the siblings Ji Liu and Ji Xue behind him were unharmed, merely unconscious.
Amid the crushed and twisted wreckage of the truck bed, he slowly stood up, looking around blankly at the scene of devastation, severed limbs and shattered remains, and the continuous wails of agony.
When he turned and saw Little Niuma with its melted plating, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Dizzy and breathless, Ji Jue was equally dazed.
A fusion bomb?!
No. If it really were a fusion bomb, not a single soul at ground zero would have survived... But if not a fusion bomb, then what was it...?
"Ha..."
Stunned into utter disbelief, Ji Jue couldn't hold back a laugh.
At the dead center of the explosion, a figure slowly rose into the sky. Scarlet pupils looked down on it all. The face remained the same, but the demeanor had turned completely unrecognizable.
Ferocious and ravenous, like a beast.
Poised to devour anyone in sight.
Jin Wuyan!
"..."
In that frozen instant, Ji Jue snapped his gaze around. Amid the ruined wreckage strewn with devastation, the intermittent moans and groans were gradually... vanishing.
Replacing them were hoarse panting and howls like those of wild beasts!
One strange, stumbling silhouette after another crawled out of the ruins, rapidly restoring themselves. Old or young, male or female, their only common trait was those pairs of scarlet eyes!
With the upheaval of the Kingdom of the Woods, one wolf after another tore away its disguise.
Or rather, one human after another had fallen, becoming a wolf!
Wolves of the Heart?!
No, even a Wolf of the Heart couldn't be this ridiculously broken! Corrupting and transforming so many people with Great Sin at the exact same time without leaving a trace, and without triggering any backlash?!
How on earth did they do this?!
He whipped his head around, glaring furiously at the old ghost Ciji.
Ciji's residual shadow shook his head slowly. "Shangri-La is indeed indispensable to this, but it slipped beyond my control long ago. None of this has anything to do with me.
"Besides, the essence of the name 'Wolf of the Heart' lies not in the wolf, but in the heart."
He let out a regretful sigh, gazing at those gradually mutating faces. "Is the nature of a wolf truly defined by claws and fangs? Whose heart does not harbor a beast?"
Ji Jue was so furious he almost laughed.
Fine, fine, fine. Your fingerprints are all over everything, yet somehow none of the blame sticks to you, huh?!
"The key to enlightenment lies in one's own awakening; why would I need to paint feet on a snake?"
The King of Benevolent Relief looked upon all of this, calm as before, showing neither joy nor grief, not even a trace of mercy or pity. He was simply detached, simply watching.
"Whether you call it seeing into one's true nature or falling into demonic obsession, it is nothing more than manifesting one's own true form. This insight is like a lamp passing flame from heart to heart, needing neither words nor script.
"Do you remember what I told you?
"The key has never been the distance traveled, but taking the first step.
"The moment they accepted that gift from the Kingdom of the Woods, the seed of the wolf was already planted in their hearts, no matter how insignificant it seemed. And aren't you included in that as well?"
Ji Jue fell silent.
He didn't want to say another word.
Who said this old bastard had no tricks up his sleeve?
He's been dead for thousands of years, yet his poison still lingers endlessly, leaving behind a Shangri-La that stirs up this much chaos?
Why can't you Kings of Chaos just die a clean, thorough death?!
Perhaps this was the true face of a Lord of Enlightenment.
Generous yet cruel, merciful yet cold. Whether ascension or depravity, he regarded both as identical; wherever the bestowed realization led, he did not care in the slightest.
No matter how genial and considerate he appeared, how approachable he seemed, he was ultimately not human.
Even if the shadow here was not a mere residual husk and Shangri-La remained fully under his control, he still wouldn't care about anything happening before him, much less lend a helping hand.
He would only stand by and watch coldly, just like this, waiting to see what bullshit enlightenment those sinking into hell might achieve—
"I'll have to trouble you."
A raspy voice drifted through the wind. Tong Shan turned back one last time, his telekinesis lifting the unconscious Ji Xue and Ji Liu and placing them into Little Niuma's cabin.
Drawing his sword, he strode forward step by step.
Hovering in midair, Jin Wuyan sneered silently, waiting for the prey to deliver itself.
And Ji Jue pushed open the door and stepped out. In the scorching air, he stood in front of Little Niuma, looking around at the pairs of scarlet eyes staring back at him.
Those maniacal expressions were already no different from living corpses!
"I'll assume you still have some reason left in you..."
Ji Jue suddenly asked, "Before we begin, does anyone want to back out?"
No one answered, only raspy howls and heavy panting.
Mutated figures closed in slowly, one by one.
From even farther away, howls rang out from all directions as the wolf pack across the wilderness converged on them!
And so, Ji Jue let out a silent sigh.
"Never mind. Pretend I didn't ask."
Amid shrieking roars, someone could no longer suppress their ravenous hunger, charging forward like a dark blur right at him!
In an instant, it was right before his face.
And then, came to an abrupt halt.
Ji Jue reached out his hand.
With effortless ease, he grabbed that twisted face and clenched his grip, as if the attacker had thrust their own face right into his hand!
He lifted it slowly.
"Consider it a going-out-of-business sale."
Ji Jue looked around at the monsters continuously lunging forward and made a final announcement: "Cremation services are on the house today."
Bang!
The shriek stopped dead.
The figure in his grip convulsed violently, shivering, swallowed by viscous flames, turning inch by inch into flying ash.
From the ashes, a streak of dazzling violet lightning soared into the air, illuminating every single scarlet eye!
Zhanlu unsheathed, casting aside all restraint. The fierce, savage nature forged and honed within the cataclysm erupted here and now.
Slash!
Chapter 633