"Hrr…hrr…"
That old purple grain dragon sandalwood had been gasping heavily and weakly. He leaned against a cliff, many of his branches were shattered into pieces, while a big half of those fruits hanging on his head had disappeared. Inside that pair of deeply hollowed eye sockets of his, the two deep-green colored, blazing pupil flames had now become much dimmer than before, looking like dying candle lights which were suffering in a hurricane.
That winded, huge leopard leaned against the old tree, continuously showing his teeth and letting out raging and desperate roars, while spurting out puffs of black smoke from his mouth.
His pair of muscular wings were violently broken off, numerous thin, pale and white bones had come out from his wings and were exposed in the air. The leopard's tail was cut broken as well, now barely hanging on his body by a thin slice of skin. Apart from all these, the leopard's head, neck, belly and all the other body areas, were covered in severe wounds. From those wounds, sticky blood had been dripping out along with fragments of broken internal organs, causing this sturdy and fierce leopard to twitch his body in pain.
"Hrr…hrr…"
The old tree raised a long, arm-shaped branch, dug out a sphere of nicely scented resin from a big slash on his tree trunk, then swiftly thrust the resin into the big leopard's mouth. The leopard swallowed the resin, after which, his wounds began healing at a visible race.
The old tree and the leopard glancing around in a despairing panic. Fear and despair, that they never ever felt before now had shrouded both of their hearts. Even when the leopard was poisoned by a heart-burning butterfly and the old tree was trying all he could to find other treemen, and ask around about the Chi Ban Market, they didn't face such despair.
At least, back then, the old tree had gotten the information about the Chi Ban Market and he knew that only if he could bring enough amount of prey to the market, he would be able to trade for the medicine and cure the leopard.
But now…
"My friend, where are you…" The old tree mumbled.
Treemen were never good at running. Although they were all gigantic in shapes, but in jungle areas, their walking speed was even slower than the moving speed of ordinary Novice Magi. Therefore, once the old tree and leopard left the Chi Ban Market, they had lost Ji Hao and Man Man.
The leopard had a good nose, with which, they had chased Ji Hao and Man Man for a while along the trail of smell left by them. However, when they reached quite far away from the Chi Ban Market and in an outlying mountain area, they were suddenly surrounded.
After a big, sudden fight, both the old tree and the leopard were gravely wounded. At this moment, the situation had turned into two groups of people fighting for the ownership of them.
One group was of human beings. They were wearing long garments made from coarse clothes and wooden masks carved out from cedarwood, with embossments. Their bodies had been releasing a faint scent of herbal medicines. Clearly, they must have been working with all kinds of herbs for years, because that herbal scent given by their bodies sensed old and complicated; except for people who were surrounded by numerous kinds of herbs all year round, no one would have such a scent on the body.
There were over thirty people in that group, each having a strong sense of power and body surrounded by different colored smoke streams. Apparently, they were all poison-using Magi.
The other group which had been confronting the group of human beings was comprised of nearly a hundred creatures who had human bodies and wolf heads. These wolf-men were all wearing exquisite armors and holding machetes that had shining spell symbol embossment. Their bodies had all been releasing fierce sense of power and their eyes were dimly shining with a blood-red light. Without a doubt, this was a group of brutal mobs, who might have taken countless lives already.
The first wave of attack was launched by these wolf-men at the old tree and leopard. Both the old tree and the leopard were wounded by their machetes.
After that, when these wolf-men were ready to collect their 'trophy', the group of human beings, who were wearing masks and obviously didn't want to disclose their identities, abruptly dashed up from all directions and released huge clouds of poison. Tens of wolf-men were put down right away.
Seventy to eighty wolf-men were struck down onto the ground immediately after the human group showed up. However, by now, not a single dead body could be seen on the ground. The poison used by that group of human beings was so incredibly powerful that all dead bodies were melted into puddles of blood within a short span of time, and entirely absorbed by the dry soil. Not even a single drop of blood was left.
Around thirty poison-using Magi had now been confronting against nearly a hundred, almost crazy and fierce wolf-men. None of them was showing any sign of launching attacks. Neither of the two groups was willing to launch the first attack on each other.
After quite a while, the tallest and most muscular wolf-man suddenly gave a long and resonant howl, then said, "You shameless human beings! We're the guards of Gold Wind Wolf Emperor of the Northern Grassland, in Chi Ban Mountain. Tens of billions of wolfs living on the Northern Grassland are under the command of our Emperor. Do you want the blood of all humankind living in the Northern Grassland to be drained just because of you?!"
In grasslands, the most horrible disaster was nothing else but wolves. Countless starving wolves gushing over from all directions just like the tide water; even a big-scale clan, that had the population of millions and was guarded by hundreds of Senior Magi, could be swallowed entirely by those innumerable and fearless wolves, without leaving a piece of broken armor, and that too within a single night.
If among those wolves, some wolf-men who had managed to gain human-like consciousness, were guiding the group, and these wolf-men were all as powerful as Senior Magi, then this group of wolves could become a grave, sky-big disaster for any human clan. Even big clans with millions of people couldn't survive their attacks.
Therefore, the threats given by the wolf-man was straightforward, because in the Northern Grassland, those wolves were truly terrifying powerful beings that even Jia Clan warriors wouldn't want to offend.
"Whatever!" responded an elderly man in a black cloak, with a frosty tone, "Go, go kill every single person on the Northern Grassland! Don't just talk, go and do it… kill them all and eat them up! By then, I'm afraid we wouldn't be the one who come to you for revenge, instead, the Yu Dynasty would come and trouble your Gold Wind Wolf Emperor, am I right?"
Hearing him, all wolf-men gasped simultaneously, then gave raging, long howls. He was right. Most of the humankind living on the Northern Grassland was seen as stored slaves by the Yu Dynasty. Every few years, slave-hunting troops sent by the Yu Dynasty would pay a visit to the Northern Grassland and take large groups of human slaves away. If these wolves truly killed all those human beings, the Yu Dynasty would certainly trouble them for this.
"You can have this leopard!" That elderly man in a black cloak gave a sneer and said, "If not enough, we can give you another hundred leopards! But this old tree… is ours."
Having confronted for another while, the coiling, poisonous streams of smoke around those Magi's bodies suddenly boosted up, transforming into countless multicolored, fierce poisonous serpents, swishing towards those wolf-men.
Wolf-men howled out together while landing all four feet of theirs on the ground, rushing up at their highest speed towards those poison-using Magi.
"Hm, a bunch of idiots!" Before these two groups had bumped into each other, a cold, scornful sneer came from the top of the cliff above their heads. On the cliff top, nearly a hundred tall and sturdy men, whose bodies were all covered in dragon scales, and some body parts even had fins attached on them, abruptly showed up. They wielded their hands and followed by that, a gigantic net, which was over a-zhang in radius, swooshed down from the sky. The range of this huge net covered all those poison-using Magi and wolf-men.
Those Magi yelled out in anger while wolf-men howled towards the sky. They didn't have the time to attack each other anymore, instead, they turned around and fled outwards.
Those sturdy men standing on top of the cliff, who had obvious aquatic features on their bodies, laughed out loud. Their laughs were filled with pride and arrogance.
However, not long after they laughed out, countless sharp arrows zipped up from behind their bodies. As many as locusts in a swarm, countless arrows deeply pierced into these sturdy men's bodies. Powers attached on these arrows were strong and violent; many of those men's bodies were directly punctured, now covered in holes that had blood streams spurting out.
Nearly a hundred scaled men howled out. Before that great net released by them had even landed on the ground, they were all torn into bits by that heavy storm of arrows.