Waiting

"To tell you the truth, I couldn't stand you from the very beginning..." Shehri looked down expressionlessly. "You did nothing at all, yet you acted as though you alone were clear-headed! "Loudly denouncing me as a traitor, as if I were the sole perpetrator of evil... "When I was up to my ears in wickedness and stopping at nothing, weren't you the one doing nothing? When everything collapsed, wasn't it useless trash like you who stood by and watched with folded arms?! "Tell me, Lord Ni Lin, just what did you ever do? "You did nothing at all, yet somehow you ended up being the cleanest and most innocent of all, while what the fuck am I?" Shehri roared, raising his hand to point toward the Kingdom of the Woods. "Look! Is this solely my evil karma? This is clearly what all of you created after struggling at death's door for so long! "Was I the only one who destroyed the White Nation with my own hands?!" He turned back, coldly glaring at the exhausted White King, and delivered his final accusation: "Wasn't it our king, constantly wavering, straddling the fence, and hesitating, who brought all of this about?!" "Enough, Shehri—" Just as the blade was about to sever his neck, the White King closed his eyes. He said, "Release him." And so, the blade halted before Ni Lin's eyes. Then, inch by inch, it lifted... Shehri smiled silently and held his head high. Ni Lin, however, felt as if he had been cast into an icy abyss. His remaining eye widened as he looked at the Priest-King's raised hand grasping the hilt at his chest. Slowly drawing it forth. Ni Lin froze, numb and stunned, with only bloody tears meandering down his face. "Your Majesty! Your Majesty!" In silence, the White King drew the sword. The final shackle was completely undone. The blade, long since fused with flesh and bone, was drawn out inch by inch, producing a sharp screech like grinding steel. Immediately afterward, faint rustling sounds of growth came from his shattered, withered body. Boundless offerings fell from the branches of the giant tree, transforming into bloody light that coiled and wound around the Priest-King's ruined frame. Crimson thorns born of the Wolf Blood Oath functioned like dense sutures, knitting his broken body back together. Seeping into marrow and soul. Across the vast Kingdom of the Woods, a hoarse howl echoed once more. A crimson crown sprouted from the thorns, piercing into his skull. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" The last remnant of his human face slowly lifted, showing neither sorrow nor joy. "Once I am dead, take it as you please... I imagine you must have prepared thoroughly." Shehri smiled faintly and waved his hand dismissively. "Your Majesty flatters me." At this moment, the traitor and the White King were within arm's reach. Just like when a minister once presented strategies to save the nation to his Priest-King—yet unfortunately, it could no longer move or rattle Shehri in the slightest. He stepped aside with contempt, inviting the White King to step onto this destined path sooner. Yet the White King paused. He turned back one last time, glanced at him, and said, "Actually, back then, I knew that your so-called counsel was for your own sake..." For a split second, Shehri froze. Involuntarily, he looked up at him. "It doesn't matter. None of it matters. Regardless of your motives, so long as it could preserve the White Nation, whatever happened to me was fine... Even living like a dog didn't matter." The White King withdrew his gaze. "Even if it meant barely clinging to life..." Death was worse than life; among all the tribulations of the mortal world, only death was truly terrifying. As long as more people could continue living, it didn't matter even if there was neither future nor hope... "Utterly foolish!" Shehri's face twitched for an instant, unable to contain his rage. The dignified Priest-King had gone to such great lengths, pretending he wanted to become a wolf to deter all enemies, but in the end, he was merely an old watchdog snarling, baring his fangs, and barking... Just to stall for one more day... He hadn't hesitated to hang his own corpse before the gate! "Since you couldn't do it yourself, why didn't you abdicate sooner and yield to someone worthy!" Shehri demanded. "What you couldn't achieve, why couldn't you hand it over to me?!" The White King said nothing. He merely walked down the steps one by one, striding through the thick, viscous blood. At last, he stopped beside Ni Lin. "Thank you for coming to kill me, Inayat." He reached out, pulling out the shackles binding Ni Lin, and offered a final smile. "You kept our pact. From beginning to end, you never wavered... "Instead, it was I who let you down." He continued forward. Behind him came Ni Lin's cries and wails of sorrow. The Priest-King never looked back again. Step by step, he advanced. With every step, the traces of his former humanity faded another fraction, while the soul's hunger surfaced endlessly alongside the boiling wolf blood. At last, he stepped once more onto this path of no return. Beneath the blood-red sky, under the gaze of countless callous stars, step by step, he walked toward the doom he had reserved for himself. When he looked up into the distance again, he saw—wolf eyes like the sun and moon, blazing light as though tearing the cosmos apart, a cruel cage-like blockade, and a lofty gaze looking down after decreeing fate... High in the heavens, the battle between Tianyuan and the wolves had long since begun. The cruel light of the White Stag cut back and forth, flashing and fading, clashing repeatedly in all directions. Amid the roars of the Wolf of the Heart and the Mountain Wolf, the vile fiends of Blood Eye and Decaying Wind revealed themselves as well. The sky over the entire Kingdom of the Woods had long turned into a battlefield, blood raining down without cease. Federation, Empire, Wild Gathering, wolf packs, Wulou Temple, Blood Eye, the Insects... clashing head-on or fishing in troubled waters, fighting fiercely or watching from the sidelines to gauge the tide. Unseen vortexes and visible vortexes overlapped into sheer chaos. They were waiting, and they too were waiting. Waiting for the true birth of the third Wolf Sin... Among the gazes cast toward him now, some were filled with hatred, some with delight, but behind those varying expressions, all were written with wolf-like hunger and greed. Waiting for the moment the third wolf truly completed its Metamorphosis! "Heh, hehe, hahahaha..." Hunched over, the White King bent his back, unable to help laughing—laughing in mockery of himself. "In the end, there was never any choice." All those years of futile struggle. Bowing and scraping, serving as a slave to both sides, discarding worthless dignity, discarding meaningless shame, discarding everything, discarding even life itself... Yet he had failed to earn a single choice in return! He had no choice. He had never had a choice. Federation, Empire, Wolf Sins, even the Wild Gathering... everyone had pushed him forward. And when he looked back now, he found that among so many choices, there had never been a path to take at all. "What crime did the White Nation commit to fall to this!" He roared hoarsely toward the heavens: "What crime did the Mid-Continent commit to suffer such torment?!" His face, gradually degenerating into a wolf's, twitched as he poured all his strength into demanding of them: "All these years... no matter how immense the debts, no matter how immense the sins, shouldn't they all be paid in full by now?!" No one replied. Nor did anyone care. The wolf blood transformed silently, gradually eroding his flesh and utterly warping his soul. Only a single line of bloody tears trickled down, dripping onto the parched wasteland. Drip, drip, drip... Fire ignited within the bloody tears, spreading and swiftly surging outward until it covered the entire Kingdom of the Woods, fully setting the murky, dense forest ablaze. From within the burning forest came hoarse laughter, frenzied roars, and heart-wrenching wails of grief. Even the low, mournful chimes of souls weeping... "Then come at me!" The Priest-King laughed with hysterical abandon, fully unleashing the final fetters. The rotting Bell-Hanging Wolf of Corpse and Bone stepped out from the burning forest. No longer holding back. Recklessly overreaching, it soared into the sky! At the very least, he could fight one more battle... Boom! "It's begun?!" Outside the Kingdom of the Woods, in the Federation's forward base, two middle-aged men on reclining chairs couldn't help but straighten their bodies. Their eyes went wide as they stared at that roiling, crimson firmament. Blood poured down like torrential rain. The Bell-Hanging Wolf of Corpse and Bone charged into the heavens, baring its fangs and claws, lashing out frantically without distinguishing friend from foe... The clash between numerous Celestial-Humans churned a tempest so violent it was nearly impossible to see clearly. All that could be felt was the bone-piercing chill bursting ceaselessly from those turbulent waves... Just listening to it sent chills down their spines. Their guts tore with terror! Amid the dead silence, An De and An Neng exchanged a quiet look. Glancing at each other's condition, they sighed wordlessly... One was missing both arms, the other was missing a leg; watching was all they could do. "Where's A'Ning?" An Neng asked, "Still no news?" "...Haven't seen her. Probably couldn't get out in time." An De puffed on his cigarette and muttered in a muffled voice, "Still, that kid's life is tough as iron. She might not be in trouble. The Old Master is there; maybe he'll bring her back while he's at it." An Neng didn't speak. The Kingdom of the Woods was now a battlefield where even the head of the An family had to wager his life to enter. Fate, life, and death—who could say for sure? Inside and out, who knew how many pairs of eyes were watching. Those who had shown themselves were by no means all of them. The chaos right now couldn't even be called real chaos; when the true shift and resolution arrived, who knew how much crazier it would get! When the daggers were revealed, when people tried to pull chestnuts from the fire and fish in troubled waters, stirring into one massive brawl, more than half of the White Nation would probably be smashed to pieces! And now, just as the two were about to speak, their expressions froze simultaneously. Their bodies stiffened, turning deathly pale. At last, they sensed it: in the distance, beneath the crimson sky, a terrifying aura approached slowly like a storm... making no attempt to conceal its presence, disdaining disguise or subtlety. Within the crimson tempest, countless deaths drifted down like black snow. Step by step, it drew closer to the Kingdom of the Woods. Its mere presence tore through every obstacle. Brazenly driving straight in. When the two stiffly turned their heads, they saw an emaciated, sickly old horse trudging forward step by step as if utterly reluctant, bearing an equally emaciated, withered old man. In the old man's hand, a long spear covered in scratches and gashes trailed along. With every couple of paces forward, it scraped against the ground with a rhythmic clatter and crunch. Swaying along with the horse. With his messy beard and bald head, that half-dead appearance made one worry he might drop dead right here the next instant. Or... that they themselves might drop dead right here the next instant! The foremost figure of the Swarm in the world! The archfiend spawned from the Mid-Continent's endless warfare and strife, a butcher whose slaughters filled the fields, a Dragon of the Swarm that made people wonder how he had not yet fallen to Frenzied Slaughter! —The Master of Soldiers!