"Roar—!"
A striped tiger was sent flying high into the air by the deer herd's charge, its blood even spattering across Lin Zhen's cheek.
At this moment he was fully concentrated, channeling a defensive Gu worm with all his strength, barely managing to block a terrifying pouncing kill from the Thousand Beast Tiger King.
He borrowed the force to slide back several zhang and was preparing to reorganize his stance.
As a result, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the flank.
The Thousand Beast Deer King, which should have been firmly pinned down in the distance, was now like a runaway heavy war chariot, dragging hundreds upon thousands of deer beasts fallen into frenzy, smashing clean through the invisible boundary and barging brutally into the heartland of the tiger pack!
But this was not what left Lin Zhen most horrified.
When he fixed his gaze and made out what sat atop the head of that madly rampaging Deer King, the muscles of his blood-smeared face twitched violently, beyond his control.
"Lin Mu?!"
Lin Zhen's eyes went wide, and the words burst out of him:
"Has that brat gone mad?!"
But the instant the words left his mouth, Lin Zhen's seasoned battlefield instinct let him catch the deeper meaning behind this madness.
He keenly discovered that Lin Mu was not simply being carried along in a wild run by that maddened Deer King.
He was borrowing its force!
Every beat of the green wings, every pull on the iron chains, was using the Deer King's exceedingly violent struggling strength to forcibly shift this Thousand Beast King's route of advance, bit by bit, toward his own battlefield!
And as the Deer King drove deeper, those ordinary deer beasts and tigers behind it, blindly following, had already fallen into a red-eyed melee.
The suffocating pressure on Black Blood Stockade's flanking line was disintegrating at a speed visible to the naked eye!
In the space of a few short breaths, Lin Zhen had fully grasped Lin Mu's scheme.
"Good lad… what nerve!"
An exceedingly frightening light suddenly blazed out from the depths of Lin Zhen's eyes, and he did not hesitate in the slightest.
"Forget about those lesser beasts!"
Lin Zhen suddenly turned his head, hair and beard bristling, and let out a roar like a thunderclap at the two Rank 3 clan elders beside him who were still bitterly holding off the tigers:
"Press the Tiger King!"
"Force it that way for this old man!"
Before his voice had even fallen, Lin Zhen had already struck first!
Without the slightest hesitation, he abandoned the conservative, delaying style of fighting from before.
Within his aperture, Snow Silver Primeval Essence of Rank 3 peak stage poured forth in this moment without the slightest reservation, like floodwater bursting a dam!
"Shwah! Shwah! Shwah!"
Several unusually large Metal Sever Leaves, carrying an ear-piercing shriek as they cut the air, sealed off every retreat to the Tiger King's left and rear like a golden storm of death.
"Go all out! Force it to shift position!"
Though the other two clan elders had not caught on at first, hearing Lin Zhen's absolute order they immediately hurled out the strongest attack Gu worms in their possession without stinting.
All manner of brilliantly colored, immensely powerful killer moves poured madly down upon the Tiger King like raindrops that cost nothing.
But their goal was not truly to kill this thick-hided, thick-fleshed Thousand Beast King on the spot.
It was — to drive it!
A Thousand Beast King was, in the end, still a beast.
Facing such a sudden, exceedingly violent and dense net of attacks, the Tiger King, ferocious though it was, instinctively felt a trace of threat.
Under Lin Zhen and the others' exceedingly deliberate "firepower blockade," the retreats to the Tiger King's left and rear had turned into a lethal meat grinder.
In order to evade the deadliest attacks, its massive body could only instinctively dodge and shift along the front right, where the firepower was weaker.
And that direction was precisely where the frenzied Deer King was charging in from!
A superb encirclement was quietly taking shape in the wordless understanding between the old man and the youth.
On one side, Lin Mu clenched his teeth hard, the muscles of both arms already cramping from the extreme strain, blood dripping ceaselessly down the iron chains and staining the Deer King's grey-green hide red.
He was like a madman driving a runaway carriage, using every scrap of momentum he could exploit to continuously correct the Deer King's charging trajectory.
On the other side, Lin Zhen fought with sweeping, unrestrained force, pouring out Primeval Essence madly, compressing the Tiger King's space of movement step by step with the most ferocious net of firepower, forcing it to shift ever rightward.
There was no sound transmission, no shouting.
But when Lin Mu, on the wildly jolting back of the Deer King, lifted his head with difficulty and, through the blood mist and broken branches flying everywhere, saw from afar that Lin Zhen and the others were recklessly concentrating their fire on that Tiger King, even forcing it to shift sideways again and again— an extreme wild joy erupted in Lin Mu's bloodshot eyes.
Good!
He let out a roar of pure satisfaction in his heart!
This was the terrifying battlefield instinct of a veteran powerhouse!
No explanation whatsoever was needed. With a single action, Lin Zhen could match his rhythm perfectly!
A vicious light flashed through Lin Mu's eyes. He drew on his dwindling Primeval Essence once more, both arms yanking those two iron chains viciously backward!
The distance, with the two Thousand Beast Kings rushing toward one another, shortened with terrifying speed.
Fifty zhang.
Thirty zhang.
Twenty zhang!
"Roar!"
A giant tiger, scattered by the deer herd and with eyes gone blood-red, suddenly leapt up from the flank, jaws gaping wide, pouncing straight for the Deer King's vulnerable flank.
Bam!
The maddened Deer King paid no heed whatsoever to such provocation. Its massive body merely twisted abruptly with exceeding brutality, and its enormous antlers instantly shattered every bone in that tiger's body, sending it flying backward.
But borrowing that exceedingly violent lateral lurch—
"Now!"
Lin Mu decisively released the two pitch-black iron chains that had long since cut into his flesh!
He understood all too well: if he remained on the back of this out-of-control Thousand Beast King any longer, the terrifying collision to come would absolutely grind him into a pile of meat paste in an instant!
Whoosh—!
The instant he let go, the Green Wing Gu spread abruptly!
Lin Mu's entire body was hurled violently away by the tremendous inertia of the Deer King's wild run, carving an uncontrolled arc through midair and flying a full dozen-odd zhang.
He tumbled over and over, green wings beating frantically, and only with great difficulty shed the greater part of the force before finally crashing heavily into a patch of mud.
Splat!
Muddy water sprayed everywhere.
After landing he had no time even to stand, and could only kneel there on one knee in utter disarray, gasping in great mouthfuls of air.
The Flowery Silver Primeval Essence in his aperture had run completely dry, and both his arms hurt to the point of near numbness.
Yet he held his head up rigidly, those pitch-black eyes fixed on the battlefield ahead, where the collision was about to unfold.
Having lost that exceedingly irritating creature atop its head, the Thousand Beast Deer King immediately sensed the disappearance of its restraints.
It let out an exceedingly shrill cry brimming with tyranny, its head at last free of the iron chains that had forced it aside.
It prepared to vent the full measure of its rage upon this group of humans before it that dared to block its path.
But it was already too late.
Because the distance was too close!
And the speed was too fast!
Directly ahead of it was precisely that Thousand Beast Tiger King, being madly forced along by Lin Zhen and the several other Rank 3 clan elders with their exceedingly violent net of firepower.
It had just, in order to dodge a lethal Metal Sever Leaf, wrenched itself sharply to the right in a shift of position of utter disarray!
And at this moment, it had only just turned that enormous tiger's head around.
All the bewildered Tiger King could see was the Thousand Beast Deer King charging toward it, having smashed through countless obstacles and gathered an utterly terrifying momentum.
It came already like a bolt of grey-green lightning of death.
Carrying that pair of enormous, razor-sharp antlers like the branching limbs of withered wood.
And it slammed viciously into the Tiger King's soft, utterly unguarded waist and belly, which had no time whatsoever to mount any defense!
BOOM—!!!
Accompanied by the teeth-grating crash of shattering bone, a ring of visible air pressure detonated outward with the two Thousand Beast Kings at its center, overturning every ordinary savage beast within several dozen zhang onto the ground.
Shrill tiger howls and agonized deer cries rang out through the entire battlefield in an instant!