Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 75
Slaughtering the Nether Blood Wolves
The murky, crimson blood rain cascaded down in a relentless torrent, churning the dirt alley leading into the impoverished South Street slums into a slick, treacherous morass of red mire. The wailing of the crimson blood-hazard alarms from the heart of the city rose in choked, agonizing sirens, mingling with the distant, concussive thunderclaps of shattered defensive barrier arrays being torn asunder along the Cang Lei Ridge Forward Outpost. The atmosphere reeked suffocatingly of rusty, rancid rainwater, foul mildewing clay, and the heavy, suffocating stench of death radiating from two massive, pitch-black silhouettes barricading the single fork in the alleyway.
Two Nether Blood Wolves!
They loomed like twin monoliths of blackened steel in the middle of a passageway barely four meters wide. Stretching nearly five meters in length from snout to tail, these peak Servant-class monstrosities completely sealed off the narrow thoroughfare, corded, hulking slabs of muscle bulging beneath their dark hides like jagged boulders. Their jet-black fur stood on end, bristling like hardened iron spikes that gleamed with an eerie, predatory sheen beneath the veil of crimson rain. From their foreheads protruded razor-sharp, spiraled horns of pure obsidian, from which droplets of virulent, corrosive venom continuously dripped, sizzling and hissing as they ate into the sodden soil and belched acrid wisps of foul gray vapor.
Stimulated by the Frenzy Blood Spring, their eyes blazed blood-red like four burning pits of hellfire. Thick, bruised-purple veins writhed across the bridges of their snouts and temples, pulsing in violent, manic spasms. Lowering their massive forequarters, their tree-trunk paws sank deep into the mud, talons gouging through stone and rubble. The guttural, bass-heavy snarls rumbling from deep within their barrel-chested torsos unleashed sonic shockwaves that vibrated through the air, knocking crumbling sheets of plaster and mortar from the dilapidated perimeter walls flanking the alley.
Less than fifty meters behind these two hulking beasts, the rusted iron gate of House No. 47 hung slightly ajar, swallowed in eerie, silent shadow.
Lin Feng’s eyes flushed crimson with pure, unadulterated killing intent!
He had not the slightest intention of yielding even half a step.
His heart and mind felt as though they had been cast into a boiling cauldron of oil. His father was an ordinary mortal without a trace of magic; his little sister, Xiaomo, was crippled, bound to a wheelchair. And yet these two foul beasts dared to squat precisely here, severing the lifeline between him and his family!
Towering rage fused with suffocating dread, transforming into a violent, scalding torrent that surged straight up Lin Feng’s spine. Every meridian throughout his body buzzed with electric tension; the magical energy of both his Fire and Lightning elements roiled tempestuously within his sea of consciousness. He ground his molars so hard that fresh blood seeped from the corner of his lips, his right fist clenching until his knuckles popped with brittle cracks.
“Out of my way!”
A bone-chilling roar ripped through the curtain of rain!
“ROAAARRRR——!!”
A savage, bestial howl answered instantaneously!
The Nether Blood Wolf on the left slammed its hind legs into the slick mud, launching forward like an armored siege engine careening downhill! Its front claws splayed like a colossal iron rake, slashing through the rain and stirring a biting gale aimed straight at Lin Feng’s chest!
Simultaneously, the demon wolf on the right skimmed low to the ground at terrifying velocity, its pitch-black venomous horn leveled like a lance aimed directly at his lower right flank!
Two peak Servant-class behemoths executing a pincer ambush in tight quarters, sealing off every conceivable path of retreat! The violent gale compressed the air in the narrow alley into a suffocating vortex, sending gravel and loose masonry clattering against the brick walls on either side.
Faced with this lethal pincer strike, Lin Feng did not flinch in the slightest. Life-or-death instincts forged through dozens of savage clashes with wild beasts beyond the safety perimeter whispered a cold truth: retreat meant death!
The instant the razor-sharp talons of the left beast were less than two spans from the bridge of his nose, Lin Feng slammed his right heel violently into the sodden mud, planting an anchor as unshakeable as bedrock. His entire torso twisted with blinding velocity, abruptly pivoting forty-five degrees to the right!
SWOOSH!
The beast’s claws tore through empty air, brushing past Lin Feng’s ear with a screeching draft. The freezing wind sliced away several stray strands of hair across his brow before the claws buried deep into the brick wall behind him, blasting mortar and stone shards in all directions!
A miss by a mere tenth of a second!
Yet for Lin Feng, evasion was nothing more than the prelude to an annihilating execution!
In the exact instant the massive bulk of the left demon wolf barreled past on sheer momentum, its soft, unarmored underbelly was laid bare before his eyes!
Inside his mental cosmos, seven Fire Star Cores flared with incandescent magma-bright brilliance, linking instantly into a flawless, unblemished Star Path! Lin Feng’s spellcasting speed had reached a terrifying realm of effortless instinct!
Thrusting out his right hand, ferocious crimson flames surged from his fingertips!
“Fire Burst: Rupture——Dual Flame Surge!!”
WHUUUUM——!!
Deep crimson fire rimmed in ominous black exploded in the palm of his hand, unleashing blistering heat that instantly vaporized the freezing blood rain around him. Lin Feng did not cast the fireball at range. Instead, he drove the full, volatile payload of explosive fury directly into the center of the Nether Blood Wolf’s abdomen!
BOOOOOM——!!
A deafening detonation rocked the entire alleyway!
The point-blank conflagration bored straight through the beast’s thick hide and dense muscle fibers! Horrific thermal energy incinerated fur, blasted apart sinew, and caved in a gaping crater the size of a washbasin, blasting clean through from its underbelly to its spine! Internal organs and rib bones were reduced to smoldering cinders before they could even splatter outward!
The concussive shockwave sent the half-ton behemoth cartwheeling backward through the air over ten meters, slamming violently into the brick facade of an abandoned house! The masonry collapsed inward with a roar, burying half of the charred, smoking carcass under a heap of rubble.
An instantaneous, one-hit execution!
Yet mortal peril descended the exact microsecond the flames detonated!
The right Nether Blood Wolf proved diabolically cunning. Sensing that Lin Feng had committed all his momentum and focus into obliterating its packmate, it kicked off the cracked brick ledge, rebounding from his blind spot directly behind his back!
Its foul, blood-dripping maw unhinged wide, dagger-like fangs sinking toward Lin Feng’s left shoulder! Its foreclaws clamped around his arm, slamming its massive, crushing tonnage downward to pin the youth into the red mud!
The distance was zero! The cooldown for his Fire mana had not yet reset!
The beast’s putrid breath scorched his cheek, and those executioner’s fangs clamped down with crushing force to grind his shoulder blade into splinters!
Yet the moment claws and fangs met Lin Feng’s flesh, an earth-shattering anomaly erupted from his chest!
HUMMMMMM——!!
Pressed firmly against his sternum, the Primordial Dragon Pendant unleashed a deep, sonorous reverberation—an archaic dragon’s roar echoing from ten thousand years in the past!
A surge of abyssal black radiance imbued with supreme Draconic Majesty spilled from the carved jade, enveloping Lin Feng’s entire body in a fraction of an instant!
Black Dragon Ward!
An invisible layer of arcane, obsidian dragon scales materialized just beneath the surface of his skin, as unyielding and ancient as the hide of a primordial dragon!
CLAAAANGGGGG——!!
A crisp, ear-splitting metallic chime rang out, resembling a heavy broadsword striking an ancient meteorite!
The wolf’s razor fangs clamped down with monstrous force, yet could not penetrate the invisible draconic ward by a single millimeter! On the contrary, the horrific kinetic recoil channeled by the draconic aura snapped the beast’s upper fangs clean in two with a sickening CRACK!
Thick, blackish-red gore sprayed from its shattered gumline! Its front talons scrabbled furiously across Lin Feng’s shoulder, throwing off showers of blinding sparks without leaving so much as a scratch on his flesh!
“YELP——!!”
An agonizing screech tore from the predator’s throat. For the first time, its bloodshot pupils dilated with bone-deep terror before an aura of supremacy that far eclipsed anything known to ordinary beasts. It realized with primal horror that the creature before it was no prey—it was an apex predator far more ruthless, merciless, and terrifying!
In a panic, the wolf kicked against the mud, desperately scrambling to disengage and flee!
But it was already too late!
“Done biting? My turn.”
Lin Feng’s voice was low, rasping, and cold as an executioner’s scythe reaching from the underworld!
He whipped his head around. His bloodshot eyes, dripping with lethal malice, locked onto the gory skull of the retreating beast!
Lin Feng raised his left arm toward the weeping sky, his five fingers splaying wide before clamping into a fist of hardened steel!
Deep within his mental cosmos, the Lightning Stardust—already brimming with volatile energy—erupted into a violent tempest! Seven violet-blue Star Cores danced in manic frenzy, snapping together into a razor-sharp Lightning Star Path in the blink of an eye!
“Lightning Strike: Wrath!!”
KRZZT! BOOM, BOOM, BOOM——!!
The suffocating darkness above the alley was violently illuminated by jagged flashes of violet-black thunder!
Dozens of thick, purplish-black electric arcs, coiling like draconic serpents, struck down from the heavens, converging violently around Lin Feng’s left arm! High-voltage discharge crackled and boomed, the atmosphere choking on an overwhelming stench of ozone!
Lin Feng did not discharge the lightning at distance. Lunging forward in a single predatory stride, his left arm enveloped in a vortex of violet-black thunder surged forth, his hand clamping around the Nether Blood Wolf’s throat like an iron vice!
CRUNCH!
Chains of crackling violet-black lightning wrapped instantly around the beast’s neck and cranium, biting into muscle and sinew! Lethal high-voltage surges coursed through its anatomy, incinerating meridians, roasting its vital organs, and scorching pelt and flesh into a smoking char!
The massive beast, weighing hundreds of kilograms, convulsed violently amidst the blinding electric glare, its desperate whimpers strangled in its crushed windpipe.
Lin Feng’s gaze was glacial, devoid of mercy. His right hand lashed out simultaneously, seizing the beast’s lower jawbone in an unbreakable grip!
Raw, conditioned muscle power fused with the concussive force of thunder coursing through his limbs. Lin Feng exerted his full strength, wrenching his hands in opposite directions through ninety brutal degrees!
SNAP——!!
A sickening, dry fracture echoed sharply through the desolate alleyway!
Every cervical vertebra in the peak Servant-class beast’s neck was snapped clean in half!
The wolf’s massive head lolled unnaturally to the side at a grotesque angle. Its crimson pupils rolled back, the spark of life extinguishing instantly. Its limp, massive frame collapsed into the sodden mud at Lin Feng’s feet like a sack of stones, smoking and hissing beneath the unrelenting sheets of blood rain.
The slaughter had concluded in the span of a breath!
In less than thirty seconds, two of the most ferocious peak Servant-class beasts had been reduced to lifeless carcasses lying motionless beneath the youth’s boots!
Wuuu... wuuu...
Just then, from the corpses of the slain Nether Blood Wolves, two pale, grayish-cyan motes of spectral light detached from the mangled flesh, drifting upward into the damp night air.
Remnant Souls of peak Servant-class beasts!
Imbued with the lingering malice and soul essence of the two predators before dissipation!
At Lin Feng’s chest, the Primordial Dragon Pendant warmed subtly. Its obsidian jade surface generated an invisible, overwhelmingly tyrannical gravitational vortex.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Like moths drawn to an inescapable flame, the two grayish-cyan Remnant Souls could not resist in the slightest, plunging straight into the heart of the Dragon Pendant as twin wisps of light!
A refreshing, revitalizing stream of spiritual energy flooded Lin Feng’s sea of consciousness, soothing the mana depletion from his dual casting. The two peak Servant-class Remnant Souls had been thoroughly swallowed by the Dragon Pendant, stored as precious nourishment to be refined into Soul Essences later!
Yet Lin Feng did not spare even half a second to savor his harvest.
Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he smeared away the fresh blood trickling from his lip. Without sparing a single glance at the two twisted carcasses at his feet, Lin Feng spun around, his long strides kicking up red mire as he sprinted straight toward the entrance of House No. 47!
This was his home! Where his father and sister were waiting for him!
But the moment Lin Feng’s eyes fell upon the gateway, his heart seized as if gripped by an invisible iron talon!
The flimsy iron gate leading into the small courtyard hung crookedly from a single rusted bolt, knocked off its hinges. Gouged deep into the concrete threshold were savage claw marks that had pulverized the mortar, while thick smears of crimson blood dragged across the porch, diluted by the downpour and trickling into the drainage trench!
The main wooden door was left slightly ajar, its lower corner mauled and splintered, exposing jagged, pale wood shards!
Seeing those brutal tears and the warm, smoking bloodstains, every drop of blood in Lin Feng’s veins turned to ice! A paralyzing chill surged from his heels straight to his crown, constricting his lungs until he could barely draw breath!
BANG!!
Without hesitation, Lin Feng unleashed a crushing kick that blasted the splintered wooden door open, his silhouette hurtling into the pitch-black living room!
“Dad! Xiaomo!! Where are you?!”