After Chen Zhou left the ruins of the Heavenly Sword Sect, the wind and snow continued to howl.
However, he could clearly feel that the earth beneath his feet was running a fever.
The once-hard permafrost had become soft. In some places, steam even bubbled up from the ground, and the melting snow water formed pools of hot springs.
"Tch, Wu Hai sure moved fast."
Chen Zhou stood on a piece of floating ice, his expression indifferent.
Huo Dou was a beast of the fire attribute. Chen Zhou could easily sense that Zen Master Wu Hai must have made some major move to cause the earth vein fire of the Northern Region to gradually spiral out of control.
Wu Gou followed behind. With interest, he crouched down, dipped a finger into some black mud on the ground, and put it in his mouth to taste it.
"Pah, bitter."
Wu Gou spat out the muddy water. "The earth veins are filled with the stench of that old bald ass. Even the fire can't burn it clean."
Along the way, they encountered no small amount of trouble.
The response from the Wolf Court was faster than expected, or rather, the disturbances in the earth veins had alerted them.
Wave after wave of patrol teams surged from that direction, attempting to blockade the roads leading to the Wolf Court.
Su Xue also sent word that villages in the Northern Region had been frequently attacked by the Wolf Court over the past few days.
Many wolves had come recently, seeking to devour humans and steal hearts. However, with the two major combat forces of Piao and Poison-Wing present, Chen Zhou was at ease.
"Awoo—!!"
From the wind and snow ahead, a group of black shadows charged out once more.
This time, there were over a hundred of them. But after seeing their appearance clearly, the mockery in Chen Zhou's eyes intensified.
These things were simply pieces of trash stitched together.
Some had the head of a wolf but only a single human arm extending from the neck.
Others, while humanoid, had limbs twisted at reverse angles, forcing them to crawl on the ground like spiders.
Some could not even maintain a physical form; the flesh on their bodies melted like wax oil, revealing pale white skeletons and still-beating organs beneath.
Though they wore the standard leather armor of the Wolf Court and held weapons, the scent of rot could be smelled from far away.
"Failures."
Compared to the nearly perfect human-demon fusion of Jian Huaishuang or Xu Yunzi, these pieces of trash were like a child's random graffiti—clumsy to the point of being laughable.
Their souls were extremely unstable. It was likely that demon souls had been forcibly stuffed into human bodies, and now they were suffering rejection symptoms because they had lost the suppression of the earth veins.
They showed signs of their souls dissipating at any moment.
"Since you are in such pain, then be on your way."
Chen Zhou did not even stop his pace.
He merely raised a finger slightly.
"Puchi! Puchi! Puchi!"
Countless bone spikes erupted from the ground.
Like skewering candied haws, they instantly impaled over a hundred deformed monsters, pinning them in mid-air.
Hate Fire ignited, and wails filled the air.
The twisted souls turned to ash within the Hate Fire, completely dissipating into the world.
"What a sin."
Wu Gou looked at the ashes covering the ground and shook his head, taking a swig from his wine flask. "They couldn't succeed as humans and couldn't look like demons. In the end, they became these ghostly things."
"Just how many lives has that Moon-Swallowing old dog wasted to try and attain his 'Righteous Fruit'?"
Chen Zhou stepped over a still-burning corpse, his gaze fixed on the distance.
At the end of his vision, a towering black mountain range rose abruptly from the ground.
At the foot of the mountain, a colossal city was built against the slopes. The city walls were a hundred feet high, constructed entirely from piled beast bones.
The Wolf Court.
This was the holy land of the Northern Region's demon race and the largest tumor on this ice plain.
The two of them walked to the main gate of the Wolf Court.
The gate was built with extreme exaggeration, shaped like a massive wolf's head with its blood-red maw wide open.
The upper and lower rows of sharp, giant beast fangs interlocked, serving as the portcullis of the gate.
A red carpet stretched from deep within the throat all the way to their feet, looking like a scarlet tongue waiting for prey to walk into the trap.
A thick scent of sandalwood mixed with the stench of corpses drifted out from that giant mouth.
"Fiend, look at this gate."
Wu Gou pointed at the hideous wolf mouth and chuckled. "Doesn't it look like a real mouth?"
"Devouring heaven and earth, refusing no one."
"It's easy to go in, but coming out in one piece will be difficult."
Chen Zhou stopped and looked up at the gate, which practically had the words 'human-eating' written all over it.
He straightened his sleeves and smiled faintly. "It certainly has quite the appetite."
"However, this bone of mine is rather hard."
Chen Zhou strode forward, his black robe fluttering in the hot wind.
"Since it dares to open its mouth, then I shall break its teeth and pierce its stomach while I'm at it."
"Boom—!!"
Chen Zhou stepped onto the red carpet.
Death qi erupted. The giant beast-fang portcullis, which could withstand a battering ram, instantly shattered into a cloud of bone meal.
The entire Wolf Court trembled violently under that single step.
"The guests have arrived. Is the host still not coming out to greet them?"
Chen Zhou's voice was like rolling thunder, echoing within the massive hollow space and causing the torches on both sides to flicker wildly.
However, to their surprise, no demon soldiers rushed out from within the Wolf Court.
Instead, there came the sound of orderly, rhythmic chanting.
"Namo... Greedy Wolf... Ksitigarbha of Great Vows..."
"Namo... Moon-Howling Arhat..."
The voices were grand and solemn. If one ignored the grim surroundings, it would almost seem as if they had arrived at a holy land of the Buddhist Sect.
Chen Zhou and Wu Gou exchanged a look and strode inside.
Passing through a long tunnel, the scene before them suddenly opened up.
The interior of the Wolf Court was a massive circular plaza, which was actually the hollowed-out interior of the mountain range.
Countless caves had been carved into the surrounding rock walls, where dense crowds of demons sat cross-legged.
In the center of the plaza was a lotus platform constructed from thousands of beast claws.
A tall figure sat atop the platform.
It was an old wolf.
His gray-white fur was meticulously groomed, and he was actually wearing a gold-glimmering brocade cassock.
His hands were in a mudra as he sat upon the beast-hand lotus. He looked solemn and sacred, with a faint halo of black-gold Buddhist light rotating behind him.
Beneath the platform, the ground was covered with kneeling believers.
There were tens of thousands of them.
These believers wore uniform gray cloth monk robes, each with their hands pressed together in prayer, bowing piously.
But when Chen Zhou activated his eerie eye to look, he discovered that this was nothing more than an absurd masquerade.
These monks were all demons—human bodies, wolf souls.
They had human bodies but grew wolf claws. Saliva dripped from their mouths, and their eyes glinted with the fierce light of wild beasts, yet they were desperately suppressing their instincts to mimic human etiquette.
They were clearly a pack of blood-drinking beasts, yet here they were putting on an act of a vegetarian diet and chanting Buddha's name.
On the offering tables before them sat plates of bloody human hearts.
"All living beings suffer. Only by cultivating a human heart can one escape the path of the beast."
Atop the platform, the Moon-Swallowing Wolf Saint slowly spoke.
"Eat this human heart. Feel the seven emotions and six desires within. Then, you shall be a step closer to the Way of Humanity."
"We thank the Ancestor for the gift of hearts!"
The tens of thousands of demons below cried out in unison, then impatiently grabbed the human hearts before them and began to swallow them in large gulps.
The sounds of chewing and swallowing rose and fell.
Fresh blood flowed from the corners of their mouths, staining their gray monk robes red.
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