Chapter 115: This fucking beasts have intelligence!

Lin Yuan stood with his hands held against his knees, his chest heaving in exhaustion.

Beside him, Bai Ning’s Three-Tailed Frost Fox lowered its head, letting out a breath of pale mist that smeared its front paws in frost.

And lying on the ground before them was the large corpse of the Rank 4 mutated monkey commander. The final, devastating attack from Lin Yuan’s White Tiger had struck in its ribcage frenziedly.

Ten paces back, Elder Mo Tianhe called his Kun Peng back, his old face frantic. He looked toward Lin Yuan.

"Can you stand, brat?" Mo Tianhe asked, his voice calm.

Lin Yuan smeared a splash of dark blood from his lower lip with the back of his hand. "Yeah."

Bai Ning looked sideways at him, gasping slightly. "You were a second away from becoming dead meat."

Lin Yuan looked into her eyes. "So were you."

"Argh..." Bai Ning paused, her expression unreadable. "Fair."

Before another word could be spoken, a loud, trembling roar boomed across the southern ridge. Everyone jolted their heads toward the roar.

Across the field, the remaining mutated Rank 4 monkeys abruptly rumbled. There were still twenty three of the terrifying monstrosities standing, their frenzy muscles soaked in black blood.

Roar!

Another roaring command boomed across the area. Then a third. Slowly, all the mutated commanders turned their heads backside.

For a few agonizing moments, no one moved. Then, the whole monkey horde turned back and sprinted away.

The remaining thousands of monkey beasts turned around, scrambling down the rocky slopes and vanishing into the bushes immediately.

The earth shook as the beasts rushed back. Rank 1, Rank 2, Rank 3, and even the terrifying Rank 4 mutated commanders fled at same time, slamming through the trees like a herd of spooky wilderness.

The outer disciples lowered their weapons and called their beasts back, squinting in shock.

"What the hell...?"

"They’re running!"

"We scared them! We won!"

The exhausted cheers lingered out across the area. After hours of brutal battle, watching the swarm vanish into the trees felt like an achievement. The disciples dropped to their knees, laughing in relief.

And the few frontline elders released their tense shoulders to drop.

Xue Hongzhao stood among the senior elders, lowering his black bow as he watched the dust settle over the southern pathway.

One elder let out a laugh, sheathing his blade. "It seems even mutated beasts know when their casualties are terrible. They ran away!"

"We should reform and march the disciples back to the sect immediately. The wounded people need proper treatment," Another elder murmured, nodding in approval.

Behind them, the whole forest was a bloody carnage.

The ground was fully filled with mangled corpses. The pools of thick, foul-smelling blood sprawled across the ground. The white bones tore out from monkey beasts’ flesh, the splashed eyes balls laid on the ground frantically, and brain matter was smeared across the stones. The smell of blood and scorched flesh lingered across the area enough to choke on.

Xue Hongzhao raised his hand, his voice grasping the attention. "Everyone—"

"Hahahaha!" A sudden laugh boomed, interrupting the Sect Master’s words.

Every head turned toward the laugh. Lin Yuan stood ten paces back, leaning casually against a splintered tree trunk. He looked at the enjoying disciples, then toward the empty southern ridge, shaking his head with an incredible smirk.

"Idiots," Lin Yuan muttered, nodding his head while laughing.

An eerie silence lingering across the area.

The enjoying disciples froze, petrified. The elders jolted toward him with frantic expressions.

Lin Yuan pointed a bloody finger toward the empty pathway. "That monkey bastards are fucking weird!"

His expression changed into serious. "You really believe beasts that just butchered two villages and strolled toward our sect territory suddenly retreated cowardly?"

A senior disciple muffled, but an elder stepped forward, his voice cracking with irritation. "Watch your tongue, brat. What are you trying to imply?"

Lin Yuan didn’t blink.

"I’m saying we just slaughtered thousands of their mates. Do you truly think the mutated commanders who are capable of coordinating an army of many beasts get scared like rogue bandits?" He crossed his arms, his voice lingering through the silence. "Something is wrong with that retreat. If we pack our bags and take our wounded mates back to Red Talon Hall right now, we leave our backs exposed."

Lin Yuan paused and looked calmly at Xue Hongzhao.

"What happens if they attack back through the ridges the moment we drop our guard in the night?" Lin Yuan asked, a serious grin appearing on his face.

A terrifying chill settled over the area. Nobody spoke. The junior disciples gasped, looking at the dark forest with fear.

Xue Hongzhao’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the southern ridge, analyzing the atmosphere. Lin Yuan’s voice was truly disrespectful for an outer disciple, but still his tactical analysis was perfectly accurate.

"The brat has a point, Sect Master. Lowering our guard now is reckless," Mo Tianhe spoke, breaking the silence with a weary sigh.

Another elder nodded immediately. "Rushing the wounded mates back through the mountain paths at night is dangerous."

Xue Hongzhao looked back at Lin Yuan.

’This kid has the audacity to call the many disciples and elders idiots, but his instincts are really sharper than many of them.’ A faint, dangerous smirk touched the Sect Master’s lips.

"Listen up!" He turned toward everyone, his voice booming across the field. "We shall not walk back."

The disciples looked up in surprise.

"Pitch camp right here on the ridge," Xue Hongzhao commanded, pointing aside. "We hold this position for the next forty-eight hours. We patrol the valley with aerial scouts until we confirm the horde has vanished from our borders. Only after then we will return to the gates."

"Understood, Sect Master!"

The elders quickly guided the disciples, establishing a defensive area in a hundred paces uphill, away from the carnage of the main slaughter zone.

While the disciples set up basic tents, their beasts descended upon the monkey beasts’ corpses.

To those spirit beasts, thousands of dead monkey beasts were a delicious banquet of beast essence. Wolves tore into tendons, boars crushed skulls for marrow, and falcons picked through a few pulps of flesh.

Lin Yuan looked toward his two White Tigers pacing beside him, their silver-white fur streaked with gore.

He gave them a light nod, pointing toward the battlefield. "Eat as you wish. And get me any high-grade cores you come across."

The male tiger nodded, walking toward the corpses with the female tiger following right behind him.

****

The campfires crackled along the rocky ridge.

The bruised disciples rested in camp tents, chewing the medicinal herbs, while a few groups scouted across the area to watch any ambush.

Lin Yuan sat on a log beside Chen Ming, staring into the flickering campfires.

After staring into the flames for nearly an hour, Chen Ming broke the silence. "Hey, Lin Yuan."

"What?"

"Why did they run away?"

"No idea," Lin Yuan answered, adjusting his robes.

Chen Ming rubbed his forehead with a groan. "That’s what drives me crazy. It makes no fucking sense."

Lin Yuan leaned back against a tree trunk, his eyes darted toward the southern ridge which is shrouded in mist. "Running away isn’t the abnormal part. Wild beasts don’t break off an assault unless an alpha gives the order."

"You think whatever is commanding them pulled them back intentionally?" Chen Ming snickered, shaking slightly.

Lin Yuan remained silent.

Slowly, fatigue lingered across the camp. The disciples fell into deep sleep on their beds, exhausted from the battle. Even the scouts slept after a few hours.

Lin Yuan kept his eyes open until the fire died down. And then, exhaustion pulled him under.

A few hours passed on, still it was dark, a few hours before dawn and the campfires had burned down to grey ash. The icy fog wavered through the pine trunks, obscuring the tents.

Two shiny yellow eyes snapped open in the darkness. And slowly a few hundreds of eye pairs opened across the area.

A dark shadow crept over a mossy boulder. A Rank 2 macaque stepped in, its fangs dripping with saliva. Behind it, dozens of Rank 3 monkeys walked through the mist without making a sound.

They hadn’t retreated. They had circled behind the ridge, waiting for them to fall asleep.

A blood-curdling shriek burst out right inside the campside. The horde crashed into the camp, violently attacking the sleeping disciples.

"AMBUSH! GET UP!"

"THEY’RE IN THE TENTS!"

"MONKEYS!"

The dozens of exhausted disciples were caught defenseless. The monkey beasts tore through tents, dragging screaming disciples out into the ground before they could even counter attack the monkeys.

A young outer disciple barely opened his eyes before a Rank 3 beast snapped his throat in its jaws, ending his scream in a bloody choke.

Another disciple was swarmed by four screeching monkeys, his frantic yells interrupted as they tore his stomach and dragged him into the pitch-black woods.

Within three brutal minutes, the blood soaked through the tents, staining the ground red. Nearly, fifteen disciples are brutally killed and devoured.

The senior elders rushed out from their tents, their rage flaring vehemently.

"What the fuck!!!"

"Protect the juniors!"

"Kill the manic beasts..!"

Lin Yuan’s eyes snapped open, his aperture flared as the white tiger tattoos on his back burned against his flesh. He jolted up to his feet, lunging forward to summon his beast.

"NOOOOO!" A horrified shriek broke through the air, freezing Lin Yuan instantly.

He looked toward the center of the camp. There were brutally ripped remains of junior disciples’ flesh who had been laughing around the fire a few hours earlier. Their mangled arms lay in a pool of blood, half-devoured by frantic beasts.

Lin Yuan gritted his teeth in anger.

Then, a suffocating pressure burst out from the center of the camp.

Xue Hongzhao stood in the middle of the slaughtered disciples, his head bowed, his knuckles trembling with pure fury. He stared at the lifeless bodies of his sect’s children. Tears crawled down his face as he gritted his teeth.

The air around him trembled, the sheer heat turning the grass to ash in seconds.

Whoosh!

A raging vortex of obscuring fire burst out from his body, rising straight into the storm clouds.

The divine Phoenix appeared behind him, its massive wings spanning the sky, glittering the pitch-black night in fire. It screeched so loud that it quivered every monkey beast.

Xue Hongzhao slowly raised his head, his eyes locking onto the swarming horde.

"You filthy bastards..."

The ground under his legs melted into bubbling slag. The Phoenix screeched, shaking the ground of the mountain.

Xue Hongzhao held his head up and let out a roar of pure wrath. "Rahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"