Chapter 335: The Desolate King's Birth, A Howl Shocks Heaven and Earth

"Bang!"

Under the battering of the violent storm, the towering ancient tree that seemed about to pierce the clouds suddenly began to shake violently.

The bone bowl fell, and foul-smelling liquid mingled with scattered bone fragments spilled across the ground, sending an indescribable stench wafting through the air.

Inside the wooden hut, the elderly man wore a face full of terror; his withered arms trembled unceasingly, and drops of crimson seeped from his seven orifices.

"Wu, Wu, what's wrong with you?"

The guards stationed at the doorway, alarmed by the Spirit God's sudden shaking and the commotion inside, anxiously rushed in to ask, fearing that something had happened to the clan's pillar, the Wu.

Facing the guards' concern, the old man—kneeling on both knees, pupils sharply contracted—turned a deaf ear.

He had no time to spare for the clanspeople outside crying out in alarm at the incident, nor for the guards who had burst in worried about him; he was lost in the scene from moments before.

Just an instant ago, when he once again attempted to commune with the Spirit God, the Spirit God's true body had abruptly shaken with fright and fury!

It was the Spirit God, both startled and enraged that within its own domain, another powerful being had appeared!

The Wu connected this with the present, another scene of heaven and earth turning strange.

He lost control of his tongue, and with great difficulty forced from his mouth a single sentence that struck terror into the guards:

"The D-Desolate King has been born!"

"Wh-what?!" The guards, hearing this, were also shocked, and the muscles across their bodies could not help but tremble.

Nothing made the meaning of those words clearer to them than the fact that they were a people who offered sacrifice to a "god"!

This was dereliction of duty!

Not only their dereliction, but the Spirit God's as well!

The Spirit God, worshipped for generations by their Forest People clan—if anything happened to it, the clan's glory would likely be lost!

Wu paid no heed to the exclaiming guards; trembling, he rose to his feet. Beneath his swaying body, as his beast-skin garments shifted, they revealed a body beneath that was skeletal and dark; leaning on his staff, he walked out of the wooden hut step by step.

"Wu."

At the same time, Gu Ying, who had hurried over because of the incident, looked at the Wu—blood seeping from his seven orifices, in a wretched state—and called out with concern.

"Your body…"

"It's nothing, my body is in no serious condition," the Wu nodded, then waved his hand and said: "Has the Phantom Squad been dispatched? The source of this strange change may be… a birth!"

"May be what?" Before Gu Ying could answer, a large group of elders behind him—also somewhat aged, but dressed far more splendidly than those around them—came striding over aggressively, and the one leading them asked in a piercing tone.

As his words fell, he answered himself: "I'm afraid a Desolate King has been born, hasn't it?!"

Saying this, that elder's eyes blazed with fury, his beard trembling; he broke away from the group behind him, jabbed a finger at the Wu, stepped forward, and rebuked him: "You wretch, Wu Di! I was wondering why there's been so much commotion in the clan lately—relaxing trade, trading with those sand barbarians, constantly sending out the Phantom Squad—what, exactly, are you trying to do?"

"Has something happened to the Spirit God?! You, as the Wu, dare to conceal it and not report it?!"

"You and your grandson have grown capable, haven't you? Have you both forgotten us clan elders?"

"If not for the commotion of the Desolate King's birth being too great this time, were you planning to keep hiding it? Do you still have any of us clan elders in your eyes?"

In the howling wind, this moment was filled entirely with the splendidly dressed elder's furious rebukes.

Under the lead elder's tirade, the group of elders behind him also began to look at them with ill intent.

Some of the soldiers who had followed along also began, of their own accord, to drive away the ordinary clanspeople, gradually forming a massive encirclement.

"Whoosh—"

"Squawk~Coo—"

It was also at this moment, accompanied by the sound of wings beating, that one Phantom Beast after another landed around them with its rider on its back—hard carapaces of dazzling colors, massive lances gleaming with cold light, their gorgeous hues and ferocious aura constantly bewildering and battering the hearts of those present.

Surrounded at the very center, the Wu—Wu Di—frowned, knowing full well that these visitors likely meant no good.

Of the Phantom Knights belonging to him and his grandson, one squad had already been dispatched to the place of the Desolate King's birth, and the other had not come either at this moment…

"Honored clan elders, what is the meaning of this?"

The young Gu Ying also frowned; with a sense of foreboding in his heart, he asked in confusion. He did not understand what these highly respected clan elders were preparing to do—were they unaware that a Desolate King was about to be born right before their eyes?

At a moment of crisis, were they preparing to fight among themselves?

Treating the safety of the entire clan as nothing?

"The meaning of this?" The splendidly dressed elder gave a cold laugh. The chance to make trouble that they had finally found—how could they let it slip? As for the Desolate King being born? What did it have to do with them? Without power, what did the clan's life or death matter to them! With power, once he became the Wu and personally communed with the Spirit God, solving the problem would be a trivial matter!

Thinking this, his expression grew all the more affable, but his mouth uttered coldly: "To demand an explanation from you and your grandson!"

……

"Squawk~Coo—"

At the center of the storm, behind an unremarkable-looking hillside, one Phantom Beast after another, as they drew closer, suddenly began to cry out in agitation, ceaselessly beating their soft membrane wings with force.

Affected by this, the Phantom Knights on the backs of the Phantom Beasts also grew increasingly cautious.

A person's shadow, a tree's name.

Facing the Desolate King—that special and powerful byword—there was not a single person who was not cautious, because those who were not cautious had all died.

The entire Forest People clan had previously experienced Desolate King incidents only twice, but each time had caused the clan grievous losses, taking them over twenty years to recover a fraction of their vitality—and now was the third!

"Crack crack crack—"

Near a small cave at the foot of the hill, a little squirrel already the size of a small dog had begun to cry out in agitation, anxiously looking into the cave one moment, then toward the approaching king of the jungle the next.

But then it recalled the message the big fellow had left before going in, and stopped in its tracks, turning in circles.

"Whoosh—"

Leaves flew in disarray; as the Phantom Beasts neared the ground, violent air currents began to churn up the accumulated dust and fallen leaves on the surface.

At a signal from the companions around him, one of the Phantom Knights brought his Phantom Beast down to the ground and began to observe carefully.

"Rustle rustle…"

The continuous, faint sounds of careful footsteps crushing fallen leaves began to ring out—those were the Phantom Knights searching cautiously for any movement.

Everyone knew that before a Desolate King was born, there must be a slumberous metamorphosis; only after completing the slumberous metamorphosis would it truly become a Desolate King!

This was also why the Forest People clan, based on the imbalance of ecological niches and the disappearance of Banzhu across a wide surrounding area, inferred the birth of a Desolate King.

What they wanted was to find the slumbering Desolate King ahead of time, so that he would never wake again!

In the end, that Phantom Knight abruptly fixed on a certain direction based on the violent trembling of his Phantom Beast, and began ordering the Phantom Beast crouched low to sniff the ground as it drew closer and closer.

The Phantom Knights high in the air couldn't help but hold their breath, and even the Phantom Beasts, whose Spirit was comparable to a human's, were the same.

Closer, ever closer…

After rounding a mountain hollow, what appeared before that Phantom Knight was—

A tiny creature, the size of a small dog, with all its fur standing on end!

A second earlier, as the sounds of approach drew nearer and nearer, the little squirrel, seeing no response from inside the cave, gritted its teeth and charged out.

"Kaka!"

The furry little creature, about the size of a puppy, poked out of the cave, its fur bristling, baring its teeth and snarling at the newcomer.

"Hiss!"

"Ya!"

"Hoo!"

The piercing, dog-like yelp caught all the Phantom Knights — whose attention was unusually focused — completely off guard and startled them badly. Most notably, the very knight who was the target of the fright tumbled right off his retreating Phantom Beast.

"Hey, Gu Shi, can you handle it or not?"

"A dignified Phantom Knight actually got scared by a little squirrel."

Perhaps to vent, perhaps out of embarrassment, and having completely failed to notice anything amiss, the Phantom Knights up above — who had been startled as well — let out a breath of relief and began teasing their companion below.

"What the heck, turns out it's just a little squirrel," the Phantom Knight on the ground said, unoffended by his companions' teasing up above. Looking at the bristling little fellow, he muttered to himself with an apparent sigh of relief.

He stood up, completely ignoring the little fellow's snarling threats and the scraping of its claws against his arm armor, grabbed its furry tail and lifted it up, laughing: "Since I've run into you, don't even think about running. A squirrel that can grow this big isn't easy to come by — perfect as a companion for my daughter…"

As he laughed, the Phantom Knight suddenly sensed that the surroundings had gone quiet. Somewhat puzzled, he asked his companions, frozen mid-air: "Hey, why aren't you saying anything?"

Yet not a single one of his companions replied.

As his words fell, he suddenly froze, and a sharp pain in his hand made him involuntarily release the little fellow.

The sound of sand and earth rose continuously, and then a massive shadow unknowingly swept over his body and struck the ground, carrying with it a tingling, numbing sensation.

"Boom!"

The ground couldn't help but tremble and sink, causing even his body to jolt.

An incomparably massive metallic claw slammed hard into his side; howling wind battered his face ceaselessly, whipping his bound-up long hair into a frenzy and tearing at his scalp with sharp pain.

He froze, a thick sense of foreboding rising in his heart. He stared at his companions, who no longer spoke, and his mount, curled into a ball… and at that enormous, ferocious, terrifying claw beside him, brimming with mechanical beauty!

"Kakakaka…"

He turned around slowly, trembling, like a stiff wind-up robot.

"Boom!"

Another tremendous sound of a claw bursting from the earth.

Two claws, like pillars supporting the heavens, pressed straight down on either side of him. Their terrifying weight caused the ground to cave in. Within the shadow, a pair of golden eyes, like fireballs, lit up and stared fixedly at him. At his feet was the little fellow, hugging one corner of the claw and complaining endlessly in a stream of "Kakaka"…

The mysterious Desolate King they had been searching for!

Had appeared!!!

"Roar!!!"

A colossal head, resembling a tiger's yet bearing the shadow of a dragon, slowly opened its blood-filled maw. Under the violent rush of air, like a Category-12 typhoon sweeping past, a heaven-shaking roar exploded like a sudden thunderclap!

The air nearly solidified, like a transparent cannon shell detonating, rippling outward in concentric rings in the void — this roar was so powerful it had almost become a sonic air cannon!

"Bam bam bam—"

A string of heavy objects kept falling from mid-air.

"Clang!"

The massive lance in his hand slipped and struck the ground with a crisp sound.

The Phantom Knight Gu Shi, who had taken the full brunt of that terrifying roar, had lost his entire suit of armor — nothing remained but a single pair of trousers. His feet were planted deep into the soil, and at the junction where his mud-covered legs met the surface, a patch of bloodstains was faintly visible, with what looked like fragments of bone showing through.

Bleeding from all seven orifices, stripped naked, with countless internal injuries and his consciousness gone, planted in the earth like a tree — this was the current state of the Phantom Knight Gu Shi, who had endured a roar like an air cannon shell.

In fact, if it weren't for the downward force of the impact, he would have been sent flying like a ragdoll, just like his companions.

When it strikes, it strikes — and when it does, it must astonish the world!

One after another, sounds of bursting earth began to rise from the silence — that was the lower body of the "Desolate King" still emerging from its narrow cave.

……

"—Roar!!"

On the canopy of the towering ancient trees at the outer edge of the Primitive Ancient Forest.

"Come, come, come! Today let's drink to taking down that old coot Wu Di — today we don't stop until we're drunk… Hm? What's that sound?"

The clan elders, who had already used the power of the Phantom Knights to suppress Wu and Gu Ying, were in the midst of celebrating their victory. The leading elder in fine robes was about to speak when he suddenly paused, slowly turning his gaze toward the astonishing roar coming from the outer ring of the Forbidden Forest.

"Old Wu, could this be the Desolate King Wu Di mentioned was about to be born? Should we…"

At the banquet, one of the elders spoke up with some worry.

Hearing this, the leading elder laughed heartily, waving the hand holding his wine cup dismissively: "No matter, no matter — it's just a newly born Desolate King, how could it possibly stand against a Spirit God? Once the banquet is done, I'll go personally to commune with the Spirit God and resolve this matter."

"Besides, no matter how bad it gets, could it possibly affect us elders?"

"Hahaha, true, true. Could things really get that bad for us?" An elder at the banquet, hearing this, also felt it made sense, and with a great laugh, set his mind at ease and continued drinking freely.

"Exactly. Without power, no matter how prosperous the Forest Clan becomes, it has nothing to do with us. With power, no matter how bad or bitter things get, we can still enjoy ourselves."

Another elder chimed in in agreement.

……

In the canopy dungeon.

"Wu, that sound?"

Gu Ying, already bound by heavy chains, rose from the dark, damp floor, worried both about the outside and about Wu, whose condition was currently poor.

"Cough, cough," Wu coughed, his face an odd, unhealthy color. He said nothing, waving weakly for him to sit down.

After a long while, he slowly said: "My child, don't mind the outside. When Spirit returns, he will handle everything. Come here, listen to me…"

……

In the deeper reaches of the Forbidden Forest, countless beast pupils radiating terrifying auras lit up, turning toward the source of the sound. Their gaze, almost tangible, flickered, scaring countless living creatures into panicked flight.

After a long while, one of them slowly rose to its feet, then vanished.

At the very last moment, a drop of grey liquid slowly dripped from the corner of its mouth.

On the ground, the spot where the liquid fell turned ashen-white and cracked, rapidly spreading toward the distance.

……

(End of chapter)