Boom~
As the rumbling continued, the sound only grew louder. Not even the chaos of battle could drown it.
Luo clan and Drifting Flowers Edifices stopped their charge. So too did Yan Bangui and You Yushan cease attacking their flanks.
Ally and enemy alike watched dumbstruck at the source of the noise. What dreaded creature could make such a ‘riveting’ entrance?
Roar!
They got their answer in the form of an endless stampede of blood-red creatures crawling towards them from behind Huangpu Qingtian. Regardless of where one looked, all they saw was a crawling red mass.
Now that they got a closer look, the creature was a fanged blood crocodile of five meters in length. They were pack animals crawling on the ground, yet that didn’t stop them from having incredible speed and tough bodies like peak Bone Tempering experts.
“3rd level spiritual beast, Blood Croc!”
Everyone cried out in alarm. Who wouldn’t, when watching ten thousand Blood Crocs marching towards them with relentless force.
A lucky few Profound Heaven experts would just fly out, while the rest were doomed to be ripped limb from limb in the jaws of a croc.
Luo Yunhai turned grave, “Godfather told me the Quanrong are expert beast masters, sweeping the battlefield with their beast army. This army can use formations and could hold its own at a numerical disadvantage, but I never imagined Huangpu Qingtian would resort to the likes of this. This is bad!”
“What, Huangpu Qingtian called them?” Long Xingyun snapped his head at the smirking figure, just as the Blood Crocs simply bypassed him. Now a believer, his face sank, “This monster is already strong enough, but now he can call upon a beast army as well? We can’t fight them. Our only choice is to run or get trampled!”
The others took one last fearful look at Huangpu Qingtian and nodded. Huangpu Qingtian’s talent had reached a godlike level!
But was running that easy? Sure, the few flying ones could take some passengers, but what about the other couple thousand?
They were fated to end up as broken corpses under the Blood Crocs’ stampede.
Chu Qingcheng frowned and sighed.
Yan Bangui, You Yushan and Lin Xuanfeng snickered as they flew away with their Profound Heaven experts, uncaring to the fate of the rest.
Xie Tianyang looked at Zhuo Fan’s broad and straight back, “Our fate now rests solely in his hands.”
Everyone looked at Zhuo Fan in frustration and helplessness.
Zhuo Fan’s abilities were eerie, to say the least, of great power, but could one man stop the flood?
They held no hope in Zhuo Fan.
Even Luo Yunhai, always confident of Zhuo Fan’s invincibility, faltered, “I and big brother Zhuo had anticipated the enemy launching a frontal assault. It was our ignorance that led us to assume they’d be men and not thousands of Blood Crocs! Humans are susceptible to fear. A bit of trick here and there from big brother Zhuo would be enough to buy us plenty of time. But when facing a horde of savage spiritual beasts, they won’t falter for anything…”
“Damn it! Is there no other way?” Xie Tianshang cut him off in anger. His eyes were burning from rage, “Huangpu Qingtian is inhuman!”
The others got what he was saying.
Yes, he was inhuman. No man was able to subdue a Blood Croc horde and use it for himself. No one would be so cruel to his fellow men, to even throw away his own men’s lives to be ground beneath the marching horde of his beasts.
Then it dawned on them, [Eh? Isn’t that strikingly similar to Zhuo Fan?]
They turned to him now. The man was taking a deep breath and looked on heavily. Like a cold-blooded monster, he also possessed power no man could.
But how much could this monster slow the horde down? [We don’t ask for much, just enough to let us get out alive.]
They held little hope for Zhuo Fan pulling through for them, but they still did hope!
His talent was unseen in this world as well, but he was a human like the rest. How could he possibly slow the beast flood down?
Well, one delusional girl thought this was right up his alley. Xue Ningxiang clenched her fists and said, “No worries. Big brother Zhuo can do it…”
She had now crossed the point of no return, becoming an eternal Zhuo Fan’s, uh, fan. She didn’t care about hows or whys, just as long as Zhuo Fan did something, everything would be alright.
Funnily enough, she was right!
Luo Yunhai begged to differ however. Zhuo Fan had no problem dealing with a bunch of men charging over, but as for spiritual beasts…
In the face of the ravenous flood, Zhuo Fan looked like a dinghy floating about, ready to tip at any jolt.
However, this dinghy was quite calm, and smiling, “Young master Huangpu, who knew you can tame beasts.”
“Ha-ha-ha, you’re too kind. It is but a mere parlor trick.” Huangpu Qingtian acted casual but couldn’t hide the conceit in his eyes from Zhuo Fan.
As Zhuo Fan took pride in his blinking art, Huangpu Qingtian was confident of his beast taming skill.
It was akin to providence. As if Heaven went out of its way to lay everything at this king’s feet so that no man, or beast, could defy his righteous conquest.
Zhuo Fan could tell what he was thinking and grinned, “Young master Huangpu, you sure are confident in your ability.”
“Not confidence, but a given!” Huangpu Qingtian smiled with his head held high. The Emperor declared, “In this world, be it armies, the ground beneath their feet, the officials, and even these savage beasts, all are fated to bow before their true king!”
[Show off!]
Zhuo Fan’s inner outcry summed it up nicely. While his reply was a snort and shake of the head, “What do you say to a wager then?”
“On what?” That got Huangpu Qingtian’s attention. [The kid has time to bet when his life is at stake? What’s he up to?]
Bang! Zhuo Fan drew a heavy line with his foot, sneering at Huangpu Qingtian, “I wager your beast army won’t cross it. Even if just one of them does, I lose.”
“Pretentious!” Huangpu Qingtian only had anger for his haughty boast.
He knew what Zhuo Fan was capable of, but never once believed the punk had the power to quell the beast tide of tens of thousands! Huangpu Qingtian only managed to do it with that little secret deep within him. As for power alone? Impossible.
Zhuo Fan’s crass words undermined his authority. Was the ability of a regent that easily dispelled?
Zhuo Fan only mocked him, “Well then, oh young master Huangpu, do you accept? The stakes are the Brimming Sacred Pills we each hold. The winner gets the other’s pill!”
Huangpu Qingtian mulled over the trickery Zhuo Fan planned to include in this wager, but still held supreme confidence that nothing the punk did could change anything. As such, for honor and hubris, he nodded, “Show me then your futile attempts to stop tens of thousands of spiritual beasts!”
“My pleasure!” With a crafty grin, Zhuo Fan turned to the charging Blood Croc tide.
Filled with barbaric and unrelenting savagery, these Blood Crocs had only one answer to this suicidal kid, gaping maws filled with teeth and sharp claws.
Chu Qingcheng, Xue Ningxiang and the rest watched on unnerved. Huangpu Qingtian had a cold smile, calm and uncaring to the lonely man facing a flood.
Hum~
Zhuo Fan’s eyes then flashed in a strange light.
The Blood Crocs were about to tear into him, with one of them even having his head in its maw. It only needed to chomp and that would be the end of Zhuo Fan.
But the Blood Crocs’ eyes shrank in fear. Under the astonished looks of the bystanders, the beast army began to shiver.
Roar!
A mewling cry from somewhere among them signaled the rest of the Blood Crocs to turn tail and scamper from whence they came.
The wild eyes and stumbling gait only hinted at the horrors these beasts had seen. They were even faster in retreat!
This spectacle left everyone slackjawed. Chu Qingcheng was dumbstruck, Xie Tianyang was shell shocked, You Yushan was speechless, Lin Xuanfeng jumped out of his skin and, naturally, Huangpu Qingtian was floored.
He still had a clear picture in mind, of Zhuo Fan being torn apart, only to be replaced with an image of a cowering beast army.
What made it worse was the unknown element of how he’d done it.
Huangpu Qingtian stood there like a statue, his eyes lost, mindless of even the fleeing spiritual beasts zipping by…