The terrifying impact force detonated with a thunderous roar!
The Tiger King's massive body, a full several zhang in length, was actually sent flying sideways by the force of that single collision!
"Rumble—!"
The enormous tiger's body tumbled over and over across the muddy, bloody ground, snapping shrubs and crushing rocks along the way, plowing a shocking deep furrow into the earth. It rolled a full dozen-odd zhang before finally coming to a halt in utter disarray.
After a brief dead silence—
"Rooooar—!!!"
A tiger's howl, almost entirely changed in pitch, suddenly rang out across the battlefield!
That sound no longer held its earlier ferocity and majesty. All that remained was a shrillness and wretchedness forcibly wrung out by agonizing pain, and it made the eyelids of quite a few nearby Black Blood Stockade Gu Masters twitch.
The Tiger King struggled to rise.
But its two front claws had only just braced against the ground when its flank convulsed violently, and its massive body immediately crashed heavily back into the mud pit.
Splat!
Mud sprayed everywhere.
Its four limbs pawed wildly, its waist and belly twitching without pause, and low, pained whimpers were squeezed out one after another from deep in its throat.
That collision just now had been far too vicious.
The charging momentum the Deer King had accumulated over its entire wild run had been slammed, almost without the slightest reservation, into its utterly undefended flank.
Even as a Thousand Beast King, with thick hide, thick flesh, and powerful sinew and bone, taking such a terrifying impact at that spot without warning was absolutely no easy thing to bear.
What was more— what had struck it was the hardest, sharpest pair of antlers on the Thousand Beast Deer King's body!
And as the side that had initiated the collision, the Thousand Beast Deer King had hardly come out ahead either.
It, too, had been at full sprint when it slammed without reservation into a Thousand Beast King of enormous size and powerful frame.
That mountain-toppling, sea-overturning recoil traveled up along its enormous antlers and into its skull and neck.
One side of those antlers — the base of which had already been damaged by Lin Mu's Metal Sever Leaf Gu — finally reached the limit of what it could endure in this moment.
Crack!
An exceedingly crisp snapping sound rang out.
A large, thick, sharp branching section of antler broke clean off on the spot and went flying far away!
The Deer King, likewise struck dizzy by that recoil, staggered back several steps on its massive frame.
Blood surged ceaselessly from its forehead and from the broken base of the antler, soon flowing down its cheeks, staining crimson the hide around those beast eyes already reddened with fury.
And so, in this jungle that had become a slaughterhouse, an exceedingly brief pause appeared.
On one side lay the Thousand Beast Tiger King in a mud pit, writhing from the pain in its waist and belly, thrashing its limbs.
On the other stood the Thousand Beast Deer King in place, shaking its swimming head, blood streaming everywhere.
And all around them, those ordinary tiger and deer herds — freed of restraint, their instincts provoked — had long since gone utterly red-eyed, tearing into one another in a vicious brawl.
At this moment, the people of Black Blood Stockade were, in fact, all stunned.
Those clan elders and elites gripping their Gu worms, prepared to fight to the death, looked at one another, for a moment not knowing whether they should seize the chance to strike or continue defending.
But this bizarre pause lasted less than three breaths.
"Roar…"
In the mud pit, the Thousand Beast Tiger King at last forcibly endured that agonizing pain and struggled up from the ground.
It turned that enormous head, and those tiger eyes, gone crimson from congested blood, fixed themselves upon the Deer King ahead, whose face was likewise covered in blood.
For a Thousand Beast King that ruled over a region, the ultimate ferocity bred into an animal's bones, the inviolable rejection of territorial intrusion, plus the heart-rending agony it had just suffered…
All these factors together were already enough!
The Tiger King let out a growl so low it seemed squeezed from the deepest part of its chest, and in that moment every strand of striped fur on its body stood on end!
And across from it, the Thousand Beast Deer King had already been on the verge of uncontrolled fury, and now one of the antlers it took such pride in had been snapped clean off. Its ferocity was likewise fully ignited.
Facing the Tiger King's approach, brimming with killing intent, it showed not the slightest intention of retreating. Instead it abruptly lowered its head, aiming its remaining antler and jagged broken stub forward, four hooves pawing madly and restlessly at the ground, kicking up great sprays of dirt.
One tiger.
One deer.
Between the two Thousand Beast Kings, that invisible boundary maintained all along by instinct was, in this moment, utterly gone!
The next instant—
"Roar—!"
"Yoooo—!"
The Tiger King, carrying heaven-scorching rage, hurled itself forward like a mountain of flesh crashing in!
The Deer King surged with all four hooves, turning into a grey-green afterimage, head lowered, charging head-on without showing the slightest weakness!
Two Thousand Beast Kings, before the shocked gazes of every Black Blood Stockade Gu Master, truly and most savagely locked themselves into a vicious melee of their own making!
For everyone present from Black Blood Stockade, this single development had, without question, relieved the most pressing crisis of all!
As a veteran of countless battles and the supreme commander of the entire flanking battlefield, Grand Clan Elder Lin Zhen keenly realized something almost the very instant the two beasts collided.
A wildly joyful light blazed from the depths of his eyes, and he required no hesitation whatsoever.
"Withdraw!"
"All of you, withdraw for this old man!"
Lin Zhen's voice was like rolling thunder, detonating above the chaotic battlefield:
"Everyone! Contract the line! Yield this entire area completely!"
"Let those two brutes bite each other!"
Military orders were as mountains.
The Gu Masters of Black Blood Stockade felt as though granted a pardon, and one after another channeled their movement methods, extremely swiftly pulling themselves out of that quagmire which had become a meat grinder for two beast clans.
Only at this moment did Lin Zhen — who until now had been nailed in place by that Thousand Beast Tiger King, bearing its frontal pressure — truly break free of this combat group for the first time!
The situation, under Lin Mu's mad act of leading and ramming, had undergone an utterly astonishing reversal!
Just moments ago, Black Blood Stockade had been forced to split its already stretched-thin manpower into three parts, bitterly propping itself up against the terrifying assaults of the Thousand Beast Kings.
But now— the Tiger King and the Deer King, the two most threatening combat forces, had fallen completely into a vicious struggle with no end in sight.
Black Blood Stockade could at last gather those scattered hands back into a single tight fist!
Lin Zhen had only just pulled out of the combat circle, had not even caught his breath, when his gaze swept swiftly past that chaotic beast tide and turned toward the distance with exceeding coldness.
The Crimson Armored Giant Lizard King!
It was currently the only one of the three Thousand Beast Kings still ceaselessly launching assaults against Black Blood Stockade's defensive line.
And the situation on that line was exceedingly dire.
One Rank 3 clan elder had already died in battle, and the remaining clan elder was nearing complete exhaustion, pushed to his absolute limit. The entire line was continuously collapsing backward under the crushing weight of the Giant Lizard King's massive body.
Lin Zhen spared a glance at the two kings, tiger and deer, madly tearing at each other — a fight that would absolutely not be decided any time soon.
He did not waste even half a breath of time.
"Move!"
Lin Zhen swept his large hand out, hair and beard bristling, and roared sternly:
"Everyone! Follow me to the giant lizard!"
"Yes!"
The Black Blood Stockade elites, now freed up, immediately turned their spears about and swept toward the Crimson Armored Giant Lizard King's battlefield like a flood, rushing in as reinforcements.
And at this moment, in a stretch of mud several dozen zhang from that place, Lin Mu had finally caught his breath after that near-limit exertion.
He knelt on one knee, gasping in great mouthfuls of air, waves of sharp pain still running through both arms.
He flipped his palm over.
Several Primeval Stones fell into his hand.
Crack.
Lin Mu crushed them directly.
Dense, pure heaven and earth primeval energy swiftly dispersed outward, and he absorbed it into his aperture without hesitation.
The Flowery Silver Primeval Essence slowly recovered.
Though it was utterly impossible to return to full strength in so short a time, on a battlefield of life and death, every additional sliver of Primeval Essence recovered meant one more sliver of a chance to survive.
As he recovered, Lin Mu slowly raised his head.
His line of sight crossed layer upon layer of human figures and dense forest, finally settling on that colossal creature in the distance, like a moving crimson hill.
The Crimson Armored Giant Lizard King.
He knew this brute all too well.
Even across such a distance, Lin Mu's keen vision could still clearly make out the old wounds on its body that had yet to heal.
And now, after that stretch of continuous fighting, those old wounds on the Giant Lizard King's massive frame had long since split open again from the violent exertion, dripping with blood.
More importantly— a sharp light glinted in the depths of Lin Mu's eyes.
The Deer King is too fast, its movements too nimble. The Tiger King is too ferocious in a head-on fight, its burst power too terrifying.
But this Crimson Armored Giant Lizard King is different!
Its greatest advantage is defense and strength, but its greatest weakness is that it's slow!
So long as we have enough manpower to truly pin it down in the center… it absolutely cannot rely on speed to tear open a gap and break out of the encirclement as easily as the Deer King could!
Thinking of this, Lin Mu's hand pressed against his waist.
There, resting quietly, was the trump card Patriarch Lin Cang had personally handed him before departure.
The Dragon Trap Gu!
Only at this moment did Lin Mu's perpetually taut heart at last begin to pound wildly, beyond all restraint.
He finally truly understood, and was certain— the opportunity had truly arrived!
Of course, Lin Mu was an exceedingly clear-headed man.
He knew very well that the Dragon Trap Gu absolutely could not be used right now.
Though the Crimson Armored Giant Lizard King's old wounds had reopened and it was covered in blood, its enormous size and the Rank 3 wild Gu worms parasitizing within it still granted it the terrifying combat strength to face Rank 3 Gu Masters head-on.
A Thousand Beast King with strength still in reserve, even if forcibly locked down by the Dragon Trap Gu, could absolutely snap the chains in an instant through brute force, and might even cause the Gu worm to backfire and be destroyed.
I must first beat it into a cripple!
Beat it until it lacks the strength to so much as twitch.
Beat it until the Dragon Trap Gu can truly lock it down for good!
And the greatest problem that had kept them from achieving this until now was insufficient manpower — everyone had to cover the gaps in the defensive line, and could only barely manage to restrain.
But now, that problem no longer existed!
At the distant jungle's edge—
Boom—!
The Crimson Armored Giant Lizard King's massive tail, thick as a battering ram, swept out viciously, sending several low-rank Gu Masters who had tried to block it flying backward, vomiting blood.
"Hisss—!"
It lifted high that enormous head covered in crimson scales and let out an exceedingly muffled, tyrannical roar brimming with endless ferocious might.
Yet before its roar had even faded,
Shwah!
An exceedingly burly figure, hair and beard bristling, had already crashed down directly in front of it like a meteor.
Grand Clan Elder Lin Zhen!
Immediately after—
"Hummm—!"
Emerald streaming light tore across the sky. Lin Mu, twin wings at his back, landed lightly on the Giant Lizard King's left, cutting off its retreat.
Then came several more sounds of air being torn apart, shwah, shwah, shwah.
Those several Rank 3 clan elders of Black Blood Stockade freed up from the tiger and deer kings' battlefield, along with that blood-soaked clan elder who had been bitterly holding the giant lizard line all along— figure after figure radiating powerful Rank 3 auras descended in succession around the Giant Lizard King, forming an exceedingly tight encirclement with no blind spots.
For the first time, everyone's gaze, truly and without the slightest reservation, converged upon a single direction.
Here, there was no second Thousand Beast King requiring them to divide their attention and restrain it.
Nor was there a third tottering breach waiting for them to desperately plug.
All the Rank 3 combat strength Black Blood Stockade could spare on the flanking battlefield.
Now, all of it could, without hesitation or reservation, focus on bringing down this single foe before them!
The encirclement closed completely.
Lin Mu stood on the Giant Lizard King's flank, a light breeze stirring his blood-stained robe.
He narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at this colossal creature before him, covered in wounds yet still overflowing with ferocious might.
His right hand slowly tightened around the Dragon Trap Gu at his waist.
The second trial of the incomplete Black Bone King Inheritance — that trial like a natural chasm — surfaced once more with exceeding clarity in his mind.
—Capture a Thousand Beast King alive.
And this time, there was no longer any hesitation or helplessness in Lin Mu's eyes.
Because their target was already clearer than clear.
The Crimson Armored Giant Lizard King.