Chapter 15: Unexpected

At this moment, Baichuan also got a clear look at the specific situation of this pack of wolves.

Apart from the Toulang, one by one they had drool dripping from their mouths, green glinting in their eyes, empty sunken bellies, and even the outlines of their ribs were showing.

It was obvious the pack had been starving for a long time.

This time, he was afraid it would be hard to end peacefully.

Baichuan thought to himself.

Moreover, looking at how open the surroundings were, once he got surrounded and cut off by the wolf pack, he would probably be worn to death by their sheer numbers against his lone snake body.

Looking at the scene before him, he had a plan in mind.

The next moment, without waiting for the wolf pack to attack first, he gathered his strength in a Burst, aimed at one direction, and his entire snake body shot out like an arrow leaving the bowstring, darting a great distance in the blink of an eye.

"Howl? ~"

This sudden turn of events caught the wolf pack off guard for a moment, unable to react in Time, and confused wolf howls rang out.

This snake's speed isn't right!

Only afterward, led by the Toulang who reacted first, did they begin to chase after him one after another.

In an instant, a scene of chasing and fleeing unfolded across the entire forest.

One could see a great snake five meters long moving in an extremely strange posture, using the ground to push off in Bursts, leaping forward in a bound-by-bound fashion, looking from afar like a nimble flood dragon flying low above the ground.

Behind it, seven starving wolves were chasing madly, and were slowly spreading out to form an encircling formation.

"This can't go on like this." Baichuan glanced at the wolf pack getting closer and closer behind him, knowing that if this continued he would eventually be unable to hold out.

Don't be fooled by how fast he was moving now — one had to remember that as a snake, his stamina was never his strong suit.

And because his body structure lacked legs, the way his agility manifested was different from creatures that had legs.

Instead, it took the form of instantaneous Burst-like forward movement — the moment his body made contact with the ground, a brief Burst propelled his body forward at high speed.

This form of movement had its pros and cons: the pro was that his Burst capability was now extremely powerful, the con was that it further compounded his already insufficient stamina as a snake, making sustained movement impossible.

But now that his speed couldn't overwhelm the wolf pack, he could easily be worn to death by them.

As Baichuan pondered, he looked around at his surroundings, and suddenly saw a patch of tall dense forest in the distance, his heart lifting with joy.

Then, glancing at the wolf pack drawing ever closer, he Burst forward fiercely once more, darting out quickly, and burrowed into the tall bushes.

Immediately after, he swiftly changed his crawling posture, no longer Bursting forward at high speed, but switching to silent, slow crawling, beginning to wind his way stealthily toward a tree trunk.

Not long after, the Toulang charged into the forest first, and the other six starving wolves followed closely behind, also entering the forest.

At this moment, the forest was utterly silent — probably because the commotion from their earlier chase had been too loud, all the animals had fled.

The Toulang's ears stood tall as he listened intently for any sounds, his sharp eyes scanning this dense forest left and right, trying to find traces of that prey from before.

Then he let out a low growl, signaling the wolf pack to scatter and search — he refused to believe the prey had vanished without a trace in such a short Time.

As long as the wolf pack spread out and searched carefully, the moment any one of them found the snake and called out, it would be doomed.

However, Baichuan, who had watched this scene clearly from the shadows, indicated that this was exactly what he wanted!

He wasn't afraid of them spreading out to search for him; what he feared was the wolf pack staying together. One had to know that this forest was his hunting ground.

His snake tongue flickered in and out silently, capturing various distinct scents, and soon he picked out the gray wolf that was the farthest away and the weakest.

His thick, long snake body began to shift and advance nimbly through the dense branches.

Speaking of which, Baichuan couldn't help but feel grateful that he had painstakingly practiced moving through trees for a period of Time when he first left that initial area — otherwise, how would he be this nimble and concealed now?

Soon, he approached that weak gray wolf, carefully observed the direction it was searching in, then quietly made his way to its front, and under the cover of concealing branches and leaves, lowered his height.

He waited patiently for it to enter his attack range.

The next moment, just as the weak gray wolf drew close, a sound of something cutting through the air rang out, and a snake maw with sharp fangs spread wide descended from above.

After a faint whimper, that gray wolf could struggle no more.

Looking closely, it was Baichuan's massive snake head that had locked onto the gray wolf's neck, making it utterly unable to make a sound.

Not long after, the toxin was seen to take rapid effect — that weak gray wolf had already begun to stiffen, and only then did Baichuan release his jaws.

After dealing with the first one, Baichuan once again concealed himself and went in search of the second.

……

The second…… the third…… the fourth……

As one gray wolf after another was dealt with, a faint smell of blood began to spread carried by the wind, and the wolves of the pack also sensed something was wrong.

But it was too late. After discovering the wolf pack was beginning to notice, Baichuan no longer waited slowly for the toxin to take effect before releasing his jaws; instead, he took advantage of the fact that they hadn't yet been able to regroup.

Relying on his Burst-like speed, he rapidly closed in, then with an extremely fast attack speed bit down to inject venom, and swiftly disengaged.

Within just a few minutes, the remaining wolves also succumbed to the poison and dropped dead one after another.

Of course, Baichuan wasn't entirely unscathed either — several scales on his body had been broken, with a few scratches and bite marks clearly visible, and bright red blood slowly seeping out.

Fortunately, relative to Baichuan's massive snake body, these wounds could only be considered minor injuries, with little impact.

Next, only the Toulang remained.

The moment the Toulang rushed over from afar, he saw his subjects already lying on the ground convulsing, while that snake that should have been their pack's prey was still safe and sound.

In an instant, he understood he no longer had any subjects — the entire wolf pack was down to just him alone.

The snakes they had eaten several times before had now actually turned the tables and killed them.

At this moment, the dignity and pride of being the Langwang would not allow him to flee just like that.

He raised his ears, bared his sharp fangs, lowered his body, his wolf eyes brimming with killing intent.

Clearly, he had already made his preparations for a fight to the death.

Although they couldn't understand each other's language, Baichuan still understood this Langwang's resolve, and warily raised his body, emitting "huff huff" sounds of vigilance.

This was an innate trait common to the eye-king clan.

This was a cornered beast fighting back.

Baichuan sighed inwardly, and began to focus entirely on watching his opponent — at this moment he could not afford to be careless — his body began to constantly circle and maneuver.

However, just at that moment, an unexpected move left Baichuan utterly stunned.

Langwang ran… ran away…

Baichuan simply couldn't believe it. He froze on the spot, staring dumbly at Langwang as he tucked his tail between his legs and vanished in a cloud of dust, unable to process it for a moment.

What was going on? One moment he'd made a move that said he'd fight to the death — either you die or I do — and the next instant he'd suddenly run away?

Does that even make sense?

Who would have thought this wolf's acting skills were this good? He, Baichuan, had truly broadened his horizons.

Casting a helpless glance in that direction, Baichuan withdrew his gaze and turned his attention to the wolf corpses on the ground.

Needless to say, Baichuan had no intention of eating these — not that he couldn't stomach it; if he did eat them, he could still barely manage it.

But these wolf corpses were too large; eating them would hinder his mobility, and his combat ability would inevitably suffer a massive blow.

Still, he couldn't let the wolf's ability model go to waste — it seemed scanning was his only option.

……

(End of Chapter)