Lin Mu looked from afar at those several stern-faced guards at the entrance to the rear mountains.
The mood that had eased somewhat at once grew heavy again.
At present, with the Dragon Trap Gu hanging at his waist, even a single step was exceedingly laborious.
Moreover, his body had yet to recover from the overdraft, and the Primeval Essence in his aperture had only just barely accumulated a small amount.
Had he been in normal condition, if he truly could not bluff his way through, he might have considered taking the dangerous route — silently knocking the guards unconscious and forcing his way in.
But right now, he simply did not have that option.
I'll have to rely on my mouth.
Lin Mu drew a deep breath and, while adjusting his breathing and continuing forward, rapidly organized his story in his mind.
He could easily use Grand Clan Elder Lin Zhen as a shield: say that he had just withdrawn from the beast tide battlefield, and that Elder Lin Zhen, seeing his injuries were grave, had personally ordered him back to the stockade's rear to recuperate.
Or say that the front-line situation was extremely chaotic, and that as the supervising clan elder of the External Affairs Hall, he had come back on orders specifically to inspect the rear defenses.
If the other party still insisted on going by the book and pressed further, then he would simply have to adapt on the spot and force the story to hold together.
Lin Mu had even prepared himself to be questioned back and forth, or even searched.
As it turned out— just as he drew near the range lit by the checkpoint's firelight, he suddenly discovered that the one leading this squad of guards was actually a female Gu Master.
What was more…
For some reason, this woman's face gave him an exceedingly inexplicable sense of familiarity.
Lin Mu instinctively took a couple more looks. That feeling of having seen her before lingered in his heart, yet for the life of him he could not recall where he had met her.
"Halt! The rear mountains are a restricted area, no one is permitted—"
Two guards saw someone approaching and immediately stepped forward, raising their hands warily to block him.
Lin Mu was just about to speak according to plan:
"I am Lin Mu, under the orders of Grand Clan Elder Lin Zhen—"
However, before he could even finish his words, that leading female Gu Master had already recognized him first.
Her calm eyes swept over Lin Mu once, her gaze passing over his tattered, blood-caked robe, and then she simply picked up the words for him:
"Clan Elder Lin Mu has just returned from the bloody fighting on the beast tide front line. His injuries are not light."
The woman's voice was flat, yet it carried a decisiveness that brooked no dispute. "The front line is in utter chaos right now, a matter of life and death. Where is there time to stand here wasting it on questions and answers?"
Then she turned her head directly to the two guards blocking the way and coldly gave the order:
"Make way."
The several guards beside her exchanged glances, looking somewhat hesitant.
One of them steeled himself and offered a reminder: "But… Captain, the Patriarch issued a strict order before. The excavation site in the rear mountains, without a written order—"
"If anything happens, I'll take responsibility."
The woman cut him off indifferently. Though her tone was not raised, it carried a formidable presence that forcibly stuffed the rest of that guard's words back down his throat.
Since the captain had taken all responsibility upon herself, the others naturally could not say anything more. They respectfully withdrew to either side, opening a path leading deep into the rear mountains.
At this, Lin Mu himself was instead left standing there stunned.
Not a single one of the whole pile of scripts and excuses he had prepared in his head had come into use.
Still, though his heart was full of doubts now, he knew this was absolutely not the time to look into it.
As he passed by that female Gu Master, Lin Mu could not help but size her up once more out of the corner of his eye.
Familiar.
Truly familiar.
Yet the woman merely stood beneath the swaying firelight with a placid expression, head lowered.
No matter how he looked at her, she was simply an utterly ordinary female Gu Master of Black Blood Stockade.
Lin Mu frowned.
He glanced down at the Dragon Trap Gu at his waist and forcibly pressed that sliver of doubt back down in his heart.
Forget it.
At present, nothing was more important than the second trial.
He nodded slightly in acknowledgment, then without the slightest pause strode swiftly into the dim mountain path of the rear mountains.
...
Meanwhile, on the main frontal battlefield.
BOOM—!!!
Lin Cang had finally shaken off Li Mang's entanglement for the moment and rushed to the battlefield where Lin Zhen was.
The intervention of a Rank 4 Gu Master changed that engagement in an instant.
The several White Bone Alliance Rank 3 Gu Masters who had been madly besieging Lin Zhen a moment ago collapsed backward beneath Lin Cang's iron fists like kites with cut strings.
One was gravely wounded on the spot and spat blood; the rest were forced into a disgraceful retreat.
Hair and beard bristling, Lin Cang led Lin Zhen and the remaining clan elders and forcibly tore a bloody corridor of retreat through the White Bone Alliance's encirclement.
"Elder brother!"
Lin Zhen panted heavily, his face covered in blood, yet a trace of hope kindled in his eyes.
However, there was not the slightest joy on Lin Cang's face.
Because what he had seen along this bloody path was no longer a defensive line that could be steadied again.
As far as the eye could see, Black Blood Stockade's remnant forces everywhere were being driven back toward the stockade in panic, like sheep, by enemies several times their number.
The outlying strongholds had fallen in great numbers, and the hilltops that had once belonged to Black Blood Stockade were now occupied by large numbers of enemy Gu Masters.
And on the mountain roads in the distance, the tide of White Bone Alliance men, along with the maddened beast herds they had deliberately guided here, still pressed forward in an unending stream, as though inexhaustible.
Lin Cang clenched both fists tight, fingernails sinking deep into his palms.
He finally realized: In the face of such a disadvantage, continuing to contest the outer defensive lines had lost all meaning.
Even if he, relying on his Rank 4 cultivation, could still kill a few more enemy Rank 3 clan elders; even if Lin Zhen and these clansmen were fierce enough to fear no death and could grit their teeth and hold on longer— the final result would only be taking the clan's last precious elites and draining Black Blood Stockade's final drop of blood for nothing!
So long as the green hills remain, one need not fear a lack of firewood.
"Pass down the order!"
Lin Cang's voice, like rolling spring thunder, detonated above the entire chaotic battlefield:
"All of you, heed my command!"
"Abandon every outer defensive line!"
"The whole army… falls back to defend the main stockade!!!"
The instant this order was given, the entire battlefield seemed to fall into an exceedingly brief stillness.
For the Gu Masters of Black Blood Stockade, this meant that the precious medicine gardens the clan had cultivated for decades would no longer be held.
Those richly productive outer resource points and ore veins would no longer be held.
Even those mortal villages that depended on Black Blood Stockade for survival, that had lived on the outskirts generation after generation, could only be ruthlessly abandoned.
In this moment, all of it was handed over to those greedy, ravenous wolves!
Hearing this order, Lin Zhen's face instantly twisted with pain.
But as Grand Clan Elder, he understood better than anyone.
At this point, severing an arm to survive was already the only choice.
"Retreat! Follow the Patriarch's order! Fall back to the main stockade!"
Lin Zhen roared until his voice cracked.
And then, an exceedingly tragic great retreat, filled with blood and tears, began.
Lin Cang personally took position at the very rear of the column, fiercely deterring those pursuers who sought to seize the chance to slaughter them from behind.
Meanwhile Lin Zhen, Kuang Xu, and the remaining clan elders desperately organized the clansmen and low-rank Gu Masters, falling back toward the stockade gates.
Naturally the White Bone Alliance's army would not pass up such a chance to beat a drowning dog. They gave chase in a frenzy the entire way, leaving corpses strewn across the fields.
It was not until the last group of blood-soaked Black Blood Stockade Gu Masters, supporting one another, finally stumbled through the heavy gates of the main stockade and withdrew into that innermost core region, that Lin Cang's tall frame at last withdrew beneath the gates.
He turned around.
Looking at that vast enemy host like a black tide.
Lin Cang drew a deep breath, and a trace of resolve flashed in the depths of his eyes.
He raised his right hand high, then swept it down abruptly.
"Raise the Grand Array!!!"
At Lin Cang's single command—
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Throughout Black Blood Stockade, Gu worms and defensive arrangements that had long lain dormant were all channeled at once, fed by the Primeval Essence of a great many Gu Masters.
In an instant, beams of radiance surged skyward from different positions within Black Blood Stockade, interweaving and resonating with one another in midair.
Finally, an immensely vast dome of light covered the entire core region of Black Blood Stockade, sealing it tight.
The batch of White Bone Alliance vanguard Gu Masters who had charged fastest and pursued most fiercely, seeing this, did not retreat at all. Instead they grinned savagely and unleashed exceedingly violent attacks.
"Break it for me!"
A vast wave of multicolored, astonishingly powerful Gu worm offensives slammed like a howling storm into that newly formed dome of light.
BOOM—!!!
The violent reverberations shook the heavens.
The entire dome swayed and flickered violently under the assault, rippling in layer upon layer.
But, it did not break!
"It held…"
"The Mountain Protection Grand Array held!"
In this moment, the Gu Masters and clansmen of Black Blood Stockade who had fallen back into the stockade — who had already sunk into utter despair — looked at that impregnable curtain of light and, for the first time, truly erupted into cheers, like men who had survived a catastrophe!
However, outside the grand array, the White Bone Alliance's army felt no dejection at the array's activation, nor did they disperse.
On the contrary, under the direction of Li Mang and the others, they spread outward with exceeding order and method.
Detachment after detachment swiftly occupied those fallen mountain roads and woodlands, along with the abandoned positions and watchposts on Black Blood Stockade's outskirts.
They began to pitch camp, gradually encircling the entire core region of Black Blood Stockade from all four directions, bit by bit, until not even water could leak through.
At this moment, if one looked down from high above, the entire main stockade of Black Blood Stockade, its Mountain Protection Grand Array active, was like the last lonely reef remaining in a boundless ocean.
In all directions, nothing but a dense black mass of enemies.
On a highland extremely far from the grand array, Alliance Master Li Mang propped himself on that Bone Spine Scepter, coldly gazing at those Black Blood Stockade Gu Masters within the dome of light.
What no one would have expected was that there was not the slightest anger on his face.
He did not order his forces to keep charging recklessly at any cost.
Because he knew that would be meaningless and would only add pointless casualties.
The war, having been fought to this point, meant that he, Li Mang, had already won more than half.
Black Blood Stockade's outskirts had all been lost, its resources severed; its main force had suffered heavy losses in round after round of bloody battle, its morale low.
And now the entire stockade was besieged on all sides, unable to escape even with wings.
On the chessboard, this was very nearly a position of "check."
...
And at this moment, deep within the rear mountains, Lin Mu had no mind to spare for what was happening outside.
Right now, his entire attention was fixed on the deep corridor beneath his feet.
Earlier, because Lin Cang had discovered the anomaly beneath the rear mountains, the clan had drawn upon Earth Path Gu Masters to conduct large-scale excavation here.
As a result, the first stretch of the path was far more spacious than when Lin Mu had originally snuck in.
Lin Mu followed the corridor the clan had opened up, pressing deeper the entire way.
It was only when he reached a certain inconspicuous fork that he halted his steps.
Looking at that familiar stretch of rock wall before him, Lin Mu's gaze shifted slightly.
The true path to the inheritance began only from here.
The further down he went, the darker his surroundings became.
The distant sounds of killing and beast roars were also gradually cut off entirely by the immensely thick rock strata of the mountain.
The surroundings were terrifyingly quiet.
In the entire silent corridor, all that remained was the somewhat heavy sound of Lin Mu's own footsteps.
At last, after walking for who knew how long through this dim underground, that familiar blue-black stone door reappeared in the darkness ahead.
Lin Mu halted his steps.
He looked at that tightly shut stone door, breathing slightly hard.
He recalled how, back then, when he had seen the second trial — those words like something out of a fairy tale, "Capture a Thousand Beast King alive" — he had all but cursed the Black Bone King in his heart as a madman, thinking this old ghost was deliberately toying with those who came after, that it was simply an impossible task.
And yet, fate makes fools of men.
Now, he had actually done it.
He had truly brought a living Thousand Beast King back before this stone door.