As Su Xiang dashed through the forest, the wolf pack surged toward her, barely a dozen meters behind her. With a flick of her wrist, light once again gathered along her blade's edge, extending the length of her sword for several meters. Su Xiang's sapphire eyes glowed brilliantly in the evening gloom, frantically searching for a tree slender enough to suit her purposes. Two breaths later, she spotted a Silver Leaf Maple that couldn't be more than a few dozen years old with a trunk thinner than her forearm.
"Hou, burn this tree!" With her shout, Su Xiang jumped into the air, spinning to slash through the trunk of the tree as she passed then landing back on her feet with only the slightest loss of speed.
Above her, Hou dropped two balls of flame onto the crown of the falling maple tree, and a third followed a moment later just in front of the charging wolves. With a thunderous CRACK and a crash of snapping branches, the burning tree fell in the path of the bloodthirsty pack.
Protected by the dim aura bestowed by their king, none of the wolves suffered the slightest harm from the falling tree but diverting around it widened the gap between the wolves and Su Xiang, giving her precious moments to ensure the wolves didn't catch up to her before she reached Wu Ling and her companions.
In a clearing created by a mudslide during the winter storm, Wu Ling and the others made their final preparations for Su Xiang's arrival. Fang Lin had already created a Five Elements Augmentation formation in which he, Wu Ling, and Yu Jinqi awaited the arrival of the wolves. Within that formation, a second Five Fold Barrier formation had been placed, lacking only the final element before it could unfold its powerful protection.
"Where is she?" Fang Ling asked, fidgeting with the crystal core of his formation. "Those howls are almost here!"
"She'll beat them back," Wu Ling said, his silver eyes picking out Hou's flaming form against the dark of the sky. "She's almost here, be ready!"
Just outside the formation, Jin Wuya bent her knees and drew her feet together in a tight tiger stance, ready to spring toward the wolves as soon as they emerged from the trees. Her hands formed the shape of grasping talons, moving in a circle and grasping at the spiritual energy in the air until she'd pulled in enough power to ignite twin wheels of golden flames around her tightly clenched fists.
Closer to the edge of the trees, Xiong Dahuo stood next to Zhang Buyan as both men readied their energy for the clash to come. Holding his left arm in front of his chest, Xiong Dahuo drew the Blood Spilling Knife gifted to him by Hong Xuefeng before slicing into the flesh of his forearm. Making a fist, he forced out several drops of blood, dripping them onto the blade of his nine-ringed saber before the enchantment on the knife sealed the small wound.
"With blood as my oath, I will spill the blood of my enemies this night and bring slaughter to the world," he swore solemnly. All around him, the silvery light of the moon took on a reddish tinge as a bloody aura spilled forth, enveloping him and gathering around his blade. His pupils turned deep red and his lips pulled back from his sharpening teeth in a primal snarl.
Beside him, Zhang Buyan spared only the briefest glance at his friend's strange new ritual before beginning one of his own. With his feet set wide apart in a low stance, Zhang Buyan held his arms straight out from his sides as though preparing to wrap them around one of the mighty trees in the forest.
Rather than grasping trees, however, he began pulling in the energy around himself, slamming two fists into his thickly muscled chest before flinging his arms out wide and repeating the motion again, again, and again. Each time, the air began to flow toward him and the faint sound of crashing waves grew louder and louder. Everyone within a dozen meters of the brawler began to experience a tug and pull toward him as though they were standing knee-deep in water while the tide pulled them toward the rock called Zhang Buyan.
Finally, Hou reached the clearing, diving to Wu Ling and vanishing into his master's Inner World as Yue took his place, her whiskers twitching as she prepared to help defend the group from the vicious claws and snapping jaws of the murderous wolves. A moment later, Su Xiang burst out of the forest, tugging at the sash around her waist to retrieve the smoking box of incense.
"Twelve of them," she said, tossing the box to Yu Jinqi and drawing several ragged breaths as she turned to face the forest and the howling wolves.
"Finally," Fang Lin muttered, pouring his energy into the core of the Five Fold Barrier formation and sighing in deep relief when the air shimmered as each concentric layer of the barrier snapped into place. Unlike the barrier he'd used on the night of the banquet, this barrier formed a dome that completely enclosed the two Scholars and Artist.
Each individual layer might be frail, only able to resist the strike of a middle-stage Brawler, but crushing more than one layer of the barrier at once would require progressively greater strength. Even an early-stage soldier would find it difficult to tear through all five layers at once! Better yet, as long as he had sufficient time and energy, he would be able to restore the damaged layers, preventing any harm from coming within two meters of the group.
Of course, barriers like the one Fang Lin erected were hardly inexpensive and the price he paid to create this one would have paid for a year's worth of alchemy treatments for Wu Ling's mother but the young lord hardly cared about the expense. His father had forced him to come along on this mad escapade, the least he could do once his son returned would be to reimburse him for the costs of preserving his own life!
At the edge of the formation, Wu Ling finished his own preparations. While his mastery of the Blade Winged Birds had improved, he doubted that he'd be able to accurately strike something as nimble as the Blood Moon Mist Wolves with one of them. Instead, he'd prepared a fist full of talismans to draw on the powers of the elements.
While he still lacked the ability to add a second character that could better define the function and increase the power of his talismans, with Fang Lin's formation, he fully believed that he'd be deadly enough to help thin the numbers so the group could focus on the Greater Blood Moon Mist Wolf.