Ahuila gathered the plundered treasures and captives together, first dividing the grain and valuables, then examining the captives at leisure. He hauled over the most comely of the women, drawing her into his arms, and as she trembled, burst into loud laughter: "Ah, the fair ones still take the eye."
The tribesmen around him broke into guffaws, and Ahuila laughed along with them for a while before muttering with hate: "Were it not for that rabid wolf Ganixo pushing east, how would we have fallen to such a pass? All three thousand of my Ahuila tribe's great stronghold, destroyed at his hands."
At the very mention of the name Ganixo, the tribesmen stopped laughing, the painted faces filling with fear and hate, until someone muttered low: "The southerners all say Ganixo was born to be the Wolf King who unites the Mountain Yue of the northern foothills..."
"I have even heard the man was born of the coupling of man and wolf! Fierce as a wolf, sly as a fox, sent east by the ancestors' command..."
Ahuila shuddered and cut the man off at once, bellowing: "What nonsense is that?! Bad luck!"
Then he raised his cup and cried out: "Drink! We just looted this Li clan — why not celebrate? Come! A captive for every man!"
The tribesmen brightened at once, shouting boisterously. Ahuila laughed loudly, cursing the cowardice of the Li family, while secretly thinking to himself:
"That arrow was no weak shot. After one more raid tomorrow, we had best move away from this Li clan, lest he come back for vengeance."
"Wait." Ahuila started in sudden alarm, roaring: "How long has it been since a scout reported back?!"
The tribesmen burst into laughter, shouting: "Rest easy, Great King. How could a stranger catch sight of our scouts?"
Ahuila felt a sharp sting on his cheek, and looked up abruptly — only to see a white gleam slowly kindle before his eyes. His legs gave way in terror and he toppled backward, scrambling away a step, as the arrow embedded itself before him, plunging straight into the earth, spraying a burst of sand and leaving a small hole.
Around him, shouts of slaughter erupted. Fires kindled up through the surrounding woods, and the armed clan soldiers of the Li family poured into the chaos of the Mountain Yue. The tribesmen still carousing with wine had been shot full of holes. Ahuila slowly rose, speaking in disbelief: "How is this possible?"
Seizing the great hammer at hand, he roared: "Up! Get up, all of you!"
The scattered Mountain Yue seemed to find their pillar of support and pressed toward him. Ahuila swept his eyes across them, silently counting — barely two or three hundred remained at his side, the whole tribe already cut into four or five clusters, struggling amid the blades.
"This is the end." A chill went through Ahuila's heart. Then he saw a middle-aged man walk slowly over from not far away, clad in light armor, a gray-white longsword in hand. A faint light rolled along the blade as slender gleams of sharp gray shot in and out, making Ahuila's eyelids twitch.
"Damn him!" The middle-aged man made a single light step, closing the distance in an instant, and thrust his sword at Ahuila.
Ahuila raised his hammer to block, but the blow nearly knocked it from his grip. His organs ached, terror seized him, and he realized at once that this man's cultivation was far above his own.
---
Li Xuanxuan cut down the Mountain Yue before him with a single stroke. At the third layer of Embryonic Breathing, he moved through the chaos of battle like an armed and armored adult wading into a brawl of children — a sweep of his blade felled three or four, and a casual punch was enough to kill.
There were twelve clan soldiers around him besides, the picked elite, pressing in step to guard their young heir, casting cold eyes about the field.
Li Xuanxuan slaughtered his fill, the ferocity in his bones awakened. His eyes were bloodshot as he seized an old Mountain Yue and prepared to hurl him away — only to collide, unexpected, with the old man's gaze.
Snow-white hair, deep wrinkles, a terrified stare — it hit Li Xuanxuan like a resounding slap. His limbs went numb, and staring at this old man old enough to be his grandfather, he froze in a moment of hesitation.
But the old Mountain Yue burst into tears, let out a guttural cry, and bit deeply into his arm — shattering his own rotted teeth in the process, as though drawing yet another slap across Li Xuanxuan's face. Startled, Li Xuanxuan reflexively hurled him hard.
The old man struck the ground, bones cracking, lower body spraying a torrent of blood and filth, a scream that was hardly human tearing from his throat. His two eyes fixed on Li Xuanxuan with hatred, so piercing that tears glimmered in the young man's own.
Li Xuanxuan felt dizzy, standing stock-still for two breaths, a chill running from the crown of his head straight down his spine.
The world before him suddenly went cold and empty. The clamor and cries faded away. The world, so carefully veiled from him for fifteen years, had finally lifted one corner of its curtain before his eyes.
"So... this is how it is..."
Slowly he drew the great blade from his waist. Li Xuanxuan no longer trembled with excitement. Calmly, in silence, he began to kill.
Not far away.
"Great King, retreat, Great King!" Several clansmen were shouting in terror. Ahuila shook his head, trading a blow with Li Tongya's sword — his hammer flew from his hand, and he could only curse: "How can we retreat?! We are all surrounded! There is no escaping!"
Staring at the clansmen falling one by one, Ahuila cried out in anguish: "Stop! Stop! I surrender!"
The gray light on Li Tongya's sword slowly guttered out as he stared silently at Ahuila. The tribesmen around instinctively crouched with their hands on their heads, and the clan soldiers blinked in surprise as a cry of command rang out: "Spare those who surrender! Spare those who surrender!"
Cluster after cluster dropped their weapons and knelt. Ahuila sighed, dropped the other hammer, and knelt, crestfallen. The shouting and slaughter on the battlefield gradually subsided.
One by one, the Mountain Yue were bound hand and foot. The clan soldiers of the Li family kept their discipline, leading the prisoners in silence — from frantic motion to utter stillness. Ahuila's heart rose into his throat, and he thought grimly: "Could it be that this stranger is different from the clansmen, and even surrendering means death? Then I have lost everything — better to have fought to the end..."
"Still, how did those men slip past my scouts in the hills? Enough, enough — this time I have truly fallen."
Lost in his grim thoughts, Ahuila suddenly caught sight of a pair of gray wolf-leather boots stopping before him. He looked up with a fawning smile — and ran headlong into a sharp-featured face, narrow brows and a pair of fierce eyes.
"Ganixo?!" A terror leapt up in Ahuila's heart, his lips trembling, almost springing from the ground, an indescribable shock shaking him to the core.
Looking closer, Ahuila discovered with a shudder that those eyes were not the nightmare-brown of malice he remembered, but a calm, placid gray-black.