Inside the inner perimeter, Tan Songyong suddenly felt a jolt of dread shoot through his heart. It vanished instantly, but he knew something had gone wrong. When the news of Tan Song's siblings' deaths arrived, he fell back into his chair and closed his eyes without saying a word for a long time.
Only after that silence did he speak.
"Erase the siblings' names from the family records. No one's allowed to mention them again."
At first, everyone in the Tan Song Family exploded with fury. Someone had dared lay a hand on their disciples, so of course they all yelled about hunting down the murderer. But when the Elder himself insisted on wiping the siblings' names away, the atmosphere turned strange.
The sharp ones in the clan sensed something was off. Once they saw the cracked jade slip and the Jian Clan's sigil carved on it, nobody said another word. They silently accepted the Elder's decision.
Lingyun Continent, Beast Clan Territory.
Ever since Nine Tails dumped all the work on Bai Jue, she grew even more shameless about slacking off. She wandered from one beast territory to another causing chaos wherever she went.
Sometimes she'd steal someone's cub to play with. Sometimes she'd pluck the painstakingly guarded spirit plants others needed for advancement. Other times she'd just cast a high-level illusion and make two great beasts fight each other. She stirred up trouble every day, never sparing a single race.
It didn't take long before beasts started running to Bai Jue to complain. Nine Tails might be the Beast Lord, nobody could touch her strength or status. To put it bluntly, they couldn't beat her, and she'd ignore them anyway. So they could only approach Bai Jue, the next Beast King, to beg him to talk some sense into her before everyone moved out of the clan in despair.
Bai Jue kept a calm face as he listened to their miserable ranting. He only nodded and said he'd talk to her. Once everyone left, he sighed and went back to handling beast clan affairs.
After running wild the entire day, Nine Tails returned to her cave in a great mood. The moment she stepped inside, she saw Bai Jue waiting for her. She felt a little guilty, but she immediately straightened her posture, swayed her hips, and floated to the chief seat. She grabbed her lilac fan before she finally asked,
"Bai Jue, did something come up that you can't decide on your own?"
She looked perfectly serious.
"The Beast Lord has been patrolling every territory. Did you discover something unusual?"
Bai Jue sounded serious too.
Nine Tails blinked, wondering if she'd misheard him. She scratched her ear in a very unladylike way.
"The wind was a bit loud just now, I didn't hear you. Say it again."
Bai Jue shook his head helplessly and repeated his question. Then he stared at her calmly.
"Tsk, you're as sharp as ever. Those old fogies must've run to you to complain. They've got no eyes. Everything I'm doing is for their own good. They still think it's the peaceful days from before. The war's almost here, and they're not even training properly."
Her charm faded as she spoke. Her expression shifted into serious authority, and her overwhelming presence as a Beast King filled the room.
"This Lingyun Continent won't stay peaceful for long. Over the past hundred years, the spiritual energy rose again. All sorts of secret realms that used to stay shut popped open. And those idiots still aren't going out to temper themselves. Look at the human and demon cultivators, they don't waste a single chance to train."
"So that's why the Beast Lord plucked the spirit plants they were guarding, to force them to go out and break through."
Bai Jue's mouth twitched. Only Nine Tails would think of something like this.
"Hmph, it's for their own good. And take that Yingge of yours. That brat's at least easy to deal with. He entered the Myriad Beast Hall and never came out again. His fifth tail feather already grew in, and he wants a sixth one. When you have time, drag him out and make him cross his fifth-stage lightning tribulation first."
"Yes. Thank you for the reminder, Beast Lord. I'll remember it."
Nine Tails opened her purple fan again, ready to complain some more, when her expression suddenly changed. Her figure flickered and she vanished from her cave.
The next moment, she appeared at the center of the clan's territory. She floated in midair, staring down at the lake below. Beside her stood an elder with completely white hair and beard, his aura no weaker than hers.
"Ancestor Xuanwu, what's going on? Did the spatial node change?"
"The node's fine for now. A great beast used it to open a spatial passage."
Ancestor Xuanwu stroked his snowy beard as he spoke lazily.
"A great beast?"
Nine Tails narrowed her purple eyes. She mentally ran through every great beast in the territory, then clicked her tongue.
"All our old geezers are here. None of the others have the ability. So which great beast is it?"
"You'll see soon enough."
The lake below changed rapidly. The water started spinning on its own, forming a whirlpool. The water turned green, and a black dot appeared in the middle, expanding little by little.
Both Nine Tails and Ancestor Xuanwu felt the spatial power leaking out. They stared at the center without blinking. After nearly half a stick of incense, something finally moved.
A wolf's howl rang out. A snow-white figure leaped out of the whirlpool and hovered in midair, its ocean-blue eyes staring straight at them.
"The Howling Moon Wolf?"
Nine Tails frowned at the wolf. Its pure white fur felt strangely familiar. Xuanwu, on the other hand, already had his beard in his hand, his eyes narrowed in amusement.
"Beast Lord, it's me, Xiao Yue!"
The moment Xiao Yue spoke, all his imposing aura collapsed. He bolted straight toward Nine Tails.
"Tsk, so it's you, you little rascal. Where'd you run off to for a hundred years? Your bloodline didn't just improve a little, it skyrocketed!"
As the Beast Lord, she only needed a flash of her purple eyes to see that Xiao Yue had completely awakened his bloodline. He'd become a true Howling Moon Wolf.