Out in the pitch-black sand dunes four hundred yards north of the livestock corral, two hundred pairs of greedy green eyes glowed like ghost fires in the dark.
Pei Xuan opened his RTS Fog-of-War Mini-Map.
Because his territory map cleared five miles of fog in every direction, he didn't even need a torch to see the red enemy dots crawling silently down the northern sand slope on their bellies.
==================================================================== [ NIGHT RAID WARNING: DESERT SAND-WOLF PACK (201 Beasts) ] * Pack Leader: [Silver-Back Sand-Wolf King — Rank 2 Mid Beast Tier] - Height: 5 Feet at the Shoulder | Weight: 900 lbs - Special Trait: Iron-Crushing Jaws & Wind-Step Pounce * Pack Members: 200 Adult Desert Sand-Wolves (Rank 0 Peak to Rank 1) * Target: Drawn by the scent of 60 Wind-Wolf Camels and Meat-Potato stew cauldrons! Attempting a silent midnight sneak attack on the North Corral! ====================================================================
Beside the corral fence, Chief Batu pulled an iron-tipped arrow from his quiver and reached for the brass alarm horn at his waist.
"Lord Pei, I will blow the horn to wake the village!" Batu whispered urgently. "The Silver-Back Wolf Pack is the deadliest beast pack within fifty miles! These wolves don't howl before they attack—they creep over the walls at midnight and rip open the throats of camels and sleeping men before anyone can light a torch! Even when my tribe was at full strength, we lost ten hunters whenever we ran into them!"
Pei Xuan reached out and pressed his hand over Batu's brass horn.
"Don't blow the horn," Pei Xuan said calmly, his eyes glinting in the starlight. "Nine hundred people—including two hundred tired children and elders—just fell asleep in their warm brick beds. Why wake the whole village over two hundred overgrown stray dogs?"
Batu stared at Pei Xuan as if he had misheard. "Overgrown... stray dogs?! My Lord, two hundred Sand-Wolves can tear an armed caravan to shreds in five minutes! And if we shoot them with arrows or slash them with sabers in the dark, half the pack will scatter and come back every night to bite the potato farmers!"
"Who said we are going to kill them?" Pei Xuan grinned.
To an ordinary desert nomad, two hundred bloodthirsty Sand-Wolves were a nightmare.
To a thrifty town mayor playing an RTS city-builder, two hundred fast, four-legged desert predators with sharp noses were two hundred free night-patrol guard dogs and sheep-herders walking right into his yard!
If he killed them, all he would get was two hundred mangy wolf pelts full of flea holes.
If he beat them up alive without letting a single one run away, he could use the Fusion Cube tomorrow morning to tame the whole pack at once!
"Old Wei," Pei Xuan whispered, turning to his one-armed—no, now two-armed—guard captain. "Go to the night-watch barracks by the Martial Yard. Don't wake the women or the elders. Just bring the eighty Rank 1 villagers and ex-bandits who broke through to the Bronze-Hide Stage today. Tell them to leave their sharp blades behind and bring the heavy hunting nets from Batu's caravan and the wooden Iron-Wood training clubs!"
Old Wei's eyes lit up with a fierce grin as he flexed his crimson Blood-Iron left hand. "Leave the blades and bring clubs and nets? Understood, Young Master! The boys have been itching all evening to test out their new Bronze-Hide skin!"
Within three minutes, eighty burly figures crept silently through the shadows between the Cool-Breeze Stone Houses and took up positions behind the low stone wall of the North Corral.
In the front row stood Old Wei, Scarface Wolf, Chief Batu, One-Eyed Jack, Little Stone, and even sixty-eight-year-old Grandma Zhang—who had heard the whisper outside her kitchen window and refused to be left behind, clutching her favorite four-foot hardwood dough-rolling pin like a battle staff!
Inside the corral, Pei Xuan gave Old Yellow a gentle pat on his golden neck.
"Old Yellow, tell the sixty camels to make some scared sleepy noises as bait," Pei Xuan whispered in the camel king's ear. "Save a big mouthful of your golden glue-spit for the giant silver wolf in the back."
Old Yellow blinked his long golden eyelashes and gave a silent thumbs-up nod with his chin, then nudged the One-Eared Bull Camel—which he had just unglued from the barn wall with warm salt water—and made it let out a loud, sleepy snore.
Out in the dark sand dunes, the nine-hundred-pound Silver-Back Sand-Wolf King heard the fat camels snoring inside the corral and smelled the lingering aroma of boiled lamb fat in the air.
Drool dripped from the Wolf King's six-inch silver fangs.
With a low flick of its silver tail, the Wolf King gave the silent signal to charge!
Swish-swish-swish-swish!
Two hundred gray shadows shot across the sand like arrows fired from the dark! Their padded paws made almost no sound on the dunes as they covered two hundred yards in ten seconds and leaped five feet into the air, flying right over the outer wooden fence of the North Corral!
In the past, whenever the Sand-Wolf Pack jumped into a nomad camp at midnight, the first thing they heard was terrified screaming and the sound of their fangs tearing through soft human flesh.
Tonight, the moment the two hundred Sand-Wolves cleared the wooden fence, eighty dark figures popped up from behind the inner stone troughs!
"THROW THE NETS!" Old Wei roared.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Twenty huge, weighted hemp hunting nets—woven from thick tendon-rope by Batu's Wind-Wolf hunters—flew through the air and dropped straight over the rear half of the wolf pack, tangling a hundred wolves together into squirming, snarling bundles!
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The hundred wolves in the front half didn't panic. Trained by years of vicious desert hunting, they bared their razor-sharp white fangs and lunged straight at the forearms, calves, and throats of the eighty villagers standing in front of them!
"Careful of their teeth!" Chief Batu shouted in habit, raising his iron arm-guards to block two leaping wolves. "A Sand-Wolf's bite can snap a sheep's leg bone in half!"
Right beside Batu, twenty-year-old farmer Little Stone didn't even dodge!
As a hundred-and-fifty-pound adult Sand-Wolf lunged out of the dark and sank its jaws full-force into Little Stone's bare bronze left forearm, Little Stone simply inhaled using the second rhyme of the [Iron-Anvil Body Art] and tensed his muscles!
"Back like iron in the land—HA!"
CRACK!
A crisp snapping sound echoed through the night!
Chief Batu's heart skipped a beat—thinking Little Stone's arm bone had just been bitten in half!
Instead, the big gray Sand-Wolf let out a high-pitched, pathetic "YIIIIPE!" and fell backward onto the dirt, holding its mouth with both front paws while two broken white canine teeth tumbled out onto the stone floor!
On Little Stone's bronze forearm, there were only two tiny white dents that faded in three seconds without drawing a single drop of blood!
"Hahaha! It didn't even break my skin!" Little Stone laughed out loud, staring at his own tough arm in amazement before swinging his heavy wooden club down with his right hand. BONK! The toothless wolf rolled its eyes back and fainted on the spot!
All across the corral yard, the exact same hilarious scene played out again and again!
CRACK! CRACK! "YIPE!"
BONK! BONK! "AWOOOO—THUD!"
A fierce red-eyed wolf jumped at Bone-Chopper Ma's leg, bit down on his calf muscle, and nearly vibrated its own jaw out of its socket against his cowhide-tough Rank 1 skin!
Another wolf tried to sneak up behind Grandma Zhang and bite her ankle, only for its fangs to slip off her bronze heel with a loud squeak.
"Bite an old lady's foot, will you?! Bad dog!"
Grandma Zhang spun around and brought her heavy hardwood rolling pin down on the wolf's butt with a resounding SMACK that sent the beast skidding ten feet across the stone pavement into Scarface Wolf's waiting hemp sack!
"Don't hit their heads too hard—Young Master wants them alive to herd sheep!" Scarface Wolf bellowed happily, grabbing two snapping wolves by the scruffs of their necks like kittens, knocking their foreheads together with a hollow clunk, and tossing them into the pile.
Old Wei was even more terrifying.
He didn't even draw his Rank 2 saber. Walking through the middle of the wolf pack with his crimson [Blood-Iron Mechanical Arm] gleaming in the starlight, every time a Rank 1 elite wolf lunged at him, Old Wei simply reached out with his iron left hand, caught the wolf by its upper snout mid-bite, and flicked his wrist—slamming four wolves in four breaths flat onto the ground until they lay whimpering with their tails tucked between their legs!
Chief Batu and his twenty-five nomad hunters stood frozen with their mouths wide open, holding clubs they barely even got a chance to swing.
"Am I dreaming?" Batu muttered, watching Grandma Zhang chase three howling Sand-Wolves around the water trough with a kitchen rolling pin while the wolves tried desperately to climb back out over the fence. "These are ferocious desert Sand-Wolves! Why are the farmers' skins harder than the wolves' teeth?!"
Out at the edge of the corral fence, the nine-hundred-pound Silver-Back Sand-Wolf King saw its entire two-hundred-wolf pack getting beaten with wooden sticks and stuffed into hemp sacks in less than five minutes.
Recognizing that the young man standing calmly by the barn door was the human pack leader, the Wolf King let out an earth-shaking roar!
ROOOOOAAAR!
Silver wind-Qi swirled around the giant beast's four paws as it kicked off the top of the wooden fence post, launching its nine-hundred-pound body twenty feet through the air like a silver lightning bolt straight toward Pei Xuan's throat!
"Young Master!" Old Wei shouted, turning to intercept.
"Stay back, Uncle Wei!" Pei Xuan called out, his eyes bright with fighting spirit. "I just hit Rank 1 Peak this evening—let me see how strong a Rank 2 Mid Beast really is!"
Right as the Silver-Back Wolf King soared halfway through the air toward Pei Xuan, an eleven-foot-tall golden head suddenly poked out of the open barn door beside Pei Xuan!
It was Old Yellow!
HUUUUU—PTOOEY!
Old Yellow timed his shot with sniper-like accuracy, blasting a huge glob of shimmering [Golden Scorpion-Glue Phlegm] right onto the flat stone ground directly beneath the Wolf King's landing spot!
The Silver-Back Wolf King sensed danger in mid-air and twisted its waist to land three feet short of Pei Xuan—planting all four of its giant paws straight into the puddle of golden phlegm!
SPLAT—SNAP!
In half a breath, the golden glue hardened like iron cement around all four of the Wolf King's paws, locking the nine-hundred-pound beast's legs tightly to the stone pavement!
AWOOOO?!
The Wolf King snarled in shock and tugged upward with all three thousand pounds of its Rank 2 beast strength, cracking the stone slabs underneath, but its four paws couldn't budge half an inch!
Before the giant wolf could bite the glue off its feet, Pei Xuan stepped forward.
He inhaled deeply, calling up every ounce of his Rank 1 Peak Martial strength—boosted by the Sweet-Spring Well water, five days of Meat-Potatoes, Old Wei's 100-Loyalty bone feedback, and the Martial Yard's shared aura!
Pei Xuan's right fist glowed with a deep, heavy dark-bronze luster as over 1,200 pounds of explosive punching force coiled in his shoulder and waist!
"Iron-Anvil Fist—ONE!"
BOOM!
Pei Xuan's bare bronze fist slammed straight into the side of the Silver-Back Wolf King's massive jaw!
The nine-hundred-pound Wolf King's head snapped sideways, a spray of saliva flying from its mouth as its glowing green eyes spun in circles! Furious, the beast tried to whip its heavy skull back to bite Pei Xuan's shoulder.
Pei Xuan didn't give it half a second to breathe. He stepped inside the wolf's neck reach, sank his hips into a low horse-stance, and drove a left uppercut straight under the Wolf King's chin, followed by a downward right hammer-fist right between its silver ears!
"TWO! THREE!"
WHAM! THUUUUUUUD!
A shockwave of air blew dust ten feet across the corral!
The mighty Rank 2 Mid Silver-Back Wolf King—a terror of the Red-Sand Wastes that had wiped out three merchant caravans last month—let out a tiny, high-pitched whimper like a scolded puppy. Its huge silver body went completely limp, its tongue lolled out onto the stone floor, and it passed out cold with all four paws still glued neatly to the ground!
Silence fell over the North Corral.
The last dozen conscious Sand-Wolves, which were still tangled in the hemp nets, saw their invincible Wolf King get glued to the floor by a golden camel and knocked out in three barehanded punches by the teenage human lord.
Simultaneously, all twelve wolves let out soft whine-whine whimpers, rolled over onto their backs inside the nets, and exposed their soft white bellies in total surrender!
==================================================================== [ NIGHT RAID VICTORY! ZERO CASUALTIES! ] * Enemy Defeated: [Silver-Back Sand-Wolf Pack (201 Beasts Captured!)] * Combat Performance: Crushing Victory! Village Safety Rating -> A! * Cultivation Progress: Fighting a Rank 2 Mid Beast barehanded has stimulated Pei Xuan's bone marrow! (Rank 2 Breakthrough at 95%!) * Citizen Morale & Loyalty Bonus: All Nomad Hunters reached 85+ Loyalty after witnessing the village's invincible body-refining! >> NEW DAILY INCOME: +2,300 LP/day! ====================================================================
Pei Xuan blew across his warm knuckles without a single scratch on his skin, looking down at the two hundred and one captured wolves filling the corral yard.
"Uncle Wei, Chief Batu," Pei Xuan smiled as the midnight moon shone down on the village, "tie up their mouths with soft hemp rope for the night so they don't bark. Tomorrow morning at breakfast, Dry-Well Village is opening its first Canine Security Division!"