Chapter 44: The Hound and the Wolf's Den

The prairie wind swept back and forth across people's faces like a blunt knife.

Fan Tong stood on a high slope, his eyes narrowed into slits, staring intently at the sky. Ever since he had been made a fool of by the Yuan army's hunting falcon last time, he had developed a habit: he checked the sky more frequently than he checked the ground.

"System, if I offer ten roasted suckling pigeons as a sacrifice, can you draw up a blueprint for an anti-air radar?"

[Kid, if you keep indulging in wild fantasies, how about I exchange that for an 'enemy praise club' instead, and have them chase you around shouting 'General Fan is mighty'?]

Fan Tong curled his lips in disdain. This lousy system was as snarky as ever.

"Chief, rest assured. Within a radius of ten miles, not even a fly can flutter in," Zhu Di's voice came from below, calm without the slightest ripple.

He and the three hundred elite cavalrymen under his command were like a group of ghosts that had melted into the grassland. Their men rested while their horses kept going, and they had already been patrolling this area for three full days. This was the newly formed "Hound" unit Fan Tong had established after learning his lesson last time, specifically tasked with sweeping the skies and the ground. And Zhu Di was the lead hound of the pack.

"It's always right to be careful," Fan Tong muttered under his breath.

Just at that moment, the rapid thud of hooves came from the south. A scout dashed on horseback from the distant beacon tower, dismounted in a single fluid motion, and dropped to one knee.

"Reporting! Commander Fan, last night, a Tatar cavalry force of about two hundred men plundered Wangjia Village outside Zhangjiakou and is currently fleeing north!"

Fan Tong's eyes lit up instantly.

Prey delivered right to his doorstep!

"Zhu Hu!"

"Here!"

"That flock of sheep is yours," Fan Tong grinned, revealing two rows of teeth slightly yellowed by meat broth. "Don't rush to take a bite yet. Cling to their tails and refuse to let go. I want to see which wolf den they plan to crawl back to."

"Understood!" Zhu Di didn't waste a single word. He vaulted back onto his horse and waved his hand behind him.

The three hundred cavalrymen silently melted into the grassland, sweeping toward the direction indicated by the scout like an invisible wind.

Their mounts were no longer ordinary beasts. The warhorses and zebu cattle that had consumed the elixirs possessed astonishing endurance. They ran completely silently, their hooves emitting only dull thuds as they struck the turf.

Two days later, in a depression surrounded by low hills.

Zhu Di lay prone in the grass, like a leopard displaying immense patience before a hunt. What he saw before him was a sight that made his blood nearly freeze.

In the depression lay a massive temporary encampment, gathering at least a thousand Yuan soldiers. They had lit dozens of giant bonfires, roasting whole oxen and sheep, and the air was thick with the pungent stench of alcohol and mutton.

In the open space at the center of the camp, dozens of Han Chinese commoners, stripped to the waist, had ropes tied around their necks and were kneeling on the ground like beasts of burden. Yuan soldiers laughed wildly, whipping them with riding crops, kicking them in the heads, and even pouring boiling meat broth directly onto the backs of those commoners.

Heart-rending screams mixed with the unbridled laughter of the Yuan soldiers, piercing into Zhu Di's ears like red-hot iron needles.

He saw a little girl of seven or eight crying as she threw herself at a man who was being beaten, calling out "Father," only to be kicked away by a Yuan centurion. The centurion laughed uproariously, hoisted the little girl up as if she were a kitten, and made to toss her directly into the bonfire.

Zhu Di's pupils constricted to pinpricks.

The mace in his hand was squeezed unconsciously until it let out a creaking groan. A cold, pure killing intent rose from the depths of his bone marrow, causing the bodyguards around him to shiver involuntarily.

"Send word to Chief Fan: we've found the wolf den."

Zhu Di's voice was as hoarse as if it had been squeezed straight out of hell.

A scout galloped back to the main camp. Hundreds of miles away where Fan Tong was encamped, the moment the courier arrived, Fan Tong sprang straight up from his army cot.

"All of you bastards, get up! Chow time!"

Fan Tong's roar echoed through the camp. Thousands of soldiers, already fully prepared, began their final preparations silently and swiftly like a row of activated war machines.

Mount the cattle. Don armor.

Cold, black heavy armor covered their bodies from head to toe, and menacing helmets concealed their faces, leaving only pairs of glowing red eyes visible.

When the thousands of "ogre" cavalrymen had assembled, the entire encampment fell into an eerie, terrifying silence. Only the restless snorting of mounts and the occasional dull clank of heavy armor could be heard.

Fan Tong sat astride the broad back of the Bull Demon King, looking at this monstrous legion he had forged with his own hands. The usual playfulness was gone from his face, replaced by a coldness as hard as iron.

"Move out!"

The black torrent surged silently into the pitch-black prairie.

In the Yuan encampment, the revelry continued.

Most of the soldiers were dead drunk, lying haphazardly around the bonfires. Their weapons were scattered everywhere, and even the most basic sentries had become a mere formality.

They never dreamed that just a few miles away, an army from hell was quietly closing in.

"Now." Zhu Di slowly donned his menacing black helmet.

He gave no orders, simply spurting his mount—a black steed—into a slow, accelerating motion.

The three hundred cavalrymen followed like shadows.

No battle drums. No horns.

Only the increasingly heavy, rapid thud of hooves, sounding like the funeral bell tolled by the Grim Reaper.

When the crude wooden palisades of the Yuan camp came into view, the speed of the three hundred riders had already reached its absolute peak.

"Charge!"

Zhu Di's roar was the first clap of thunder that shattered this illusion of peace!

Boom—!

Zhu Di and his steed crashed like a black meteorite directly through the camp's palisade. Amid flying wood splinters, the mace in his hand whipped into a whirlwind of death, sending flesh and blood flying wherever it passed.

Right behind him were Fan Tong and Bao Nianfeng.

"Moo—!"

The Bull Demon King let out an excited roar. Its massive body acted as the most terrifying siege ram, smashing a tent full of Yuan soldiers—men and canvas alike—into complete ruin.

Every swing of the giant axe in Bao Nianfeng's hands cleaved two or three sleeping Yuan soldiers in two, right through their leather armor.

The black torrent of steel instantly swallowed the entire camp.

Terrified screams, dying wails, and the dull thuds of weapons biting into flesh wove together into the bloodiest of symphonies.

A drunk Yuan centurion, just stumbling out of a tent while pulling up his trousers, had his entire head smashed to pieces by a weighted chain-hammer descending from the sky before he even realized what was happening.

A new recruit, Wu Mang, was participating in such a massive battle for the first time. He rode atop a similarly agitated zebu bull, mimicking the veterans with reddened eyes as he swung his heavy axe. When he lopped off a Yuan soldier's shoulder with a single stroke and saw the terror and despair in the enemy's eyes, an indescribable wave of pleasure made him roar aloud.

So this was what power felt like!

This was... what it felt like to be the hunter!

From the very beginning, the battle descended into the most ruthless mode of slaughter.

As the sky grew pale with dawn, the final scream in the camp was finally swept away by the wind.

The air was heavy with an unshakeable stench of blood, mixed with the sour odors of wine and meat, strong enough to make one retch.

Fan Tong gave the order: "No survivors!"

The new recruits were still unaccustomed to it, their faces turning pale as they looked upon this human purgatory. But the veterans had already nimbly leaped off their mounts, walked over to still-warm corpses, carved off large chunks of meat with their knives, shoved them into their mouths, and chewed voraciously.

Cold raw meat was the quickest way to replenish their expended strength and heal their wounds.

Zhu Di did not eat meat.

He walked over to the rescued commoners and personally untied their ropes.

When the little girl he had saved timidly tugged at his iron armor, looked up at him with tear-stained cheeks, and whispered in her childish voice, "Thank you, General."

The softest part of Zhu Di's heart—a heart that had long since been hardened like iron by slaughter and blood—was gently touched.

He looked into the little girl's clear eyes, untainted by a single speck of impurity, and then looked at his own hands, stained with blood and brain matter.

Suddenly, he understood something.

He bent down, and with those same killing hands, gently stroked the little girl's head.

Perhaps becoming a living king of hell was meant so that more people would never have to cross paths with a king of hell again.