As his gaze swept rapidly across the wolf pack, he was startled to spot several wolves that stood a head taller than the rest.

That troubling discovery set Tang Yan's nerves on edge at once. None of these Second-Rank wolves were the wolf king. So that king, the one that had yet to show itself, could it be a Third-Rank Spirit Beast?

And to command the pack, to make them throw together a wolf-ladder so swiftly, the cunning of that wolf king was frightening beyond measure.

"Awoo-"

Five wolf-shadows came rushing straight at him. From the corner of his eye he saw still more wolves surging up behind, one after another. As the moments dragged on, he would be facing an endless tide of attacks.

Enough ants can bite an elephant to death. Tang Yan did not flatter himself that his strength was so heaven-defying he could meet the whole pack head-on and cut them all down.

He knew he could not hold this tree much longer.

Just as he expected, the moment the five First-Rank giant wolves finished their assault, three Second-Rank giant wolves lunged at him in their place.

The pack's strength lay in sheer numbers. Their relentless, wheel-turning assault gave him not a breath of rest.

Against three Second-Rank wolves at once, the pressure bearing down on him surged.

Crushed beneath such numbers, even the most exquisite technique was no better than a cup of water against a burning cart.

"Bang, bang, bang!" Three punches in quick succession, and Tang Yan barely slipped past the wave.

"Awoo-" Another five black shapes hurled themselves at him.

Five giant wolves, and two of them Second-Rank!

He drew a deep breath, wrenched his True Qi up hard, and his right fist shot toward them.

"Bang, bang!" In this moment, Tang Yan fought purely on brawling instinct.

"Rrrip-" In a battle this fierce, an opening was bound to show. One giant wolf swept out a foreclaw and tore a bloody gash across his back.

Hot blood welled out at once, soaking through his clothes.

Fury surged in Tang Yan's chest. He swung the Thousand Mountains Fist forward with everything he had, and with a thud sent flying a wolf that had meant to take advantage and strike from his blind side.

"Now or never!" Tang Yan roared. Phantom Step flowed out beneath him. He sprang, stamped down hard on the tip of his branch, and used the rebound to leap toward another tree.

After bounding across several trees in a row, he was finally clear of the pack's center, so he simply dropped to the ground and turned to face the wolves on open earth.

"Awoo-" Seeing Tang Yan on the ground, the wolf king lurking in the dark let out a long howl and drove the pack after him.

"Bang, bang, bang..." Down among the wolves, Tang Yan fought on instinct, his brawling woven together with martial technique as he carved a path through them.

There were simply too many wolves. Every so often he had to call up Phantom Step and shift his position, lest they close around him completely. If that happened, he truly would have no way out, wings or no wings.

In his past life, Tang Yan had been honored as a Ninth-Rank Alchemist with strength to match, yet his fighting skills had never been anything remarkable. After all, so many people owed him favors that anyone who dared provoke him would be hunted down by experts from every direction. Short of a true death-courting outlaw, who would ever pick a quarrel with him?

So through this ceaseless fighting, the flow between his techniques grew smoother and smoother. Brawling and martial skill began rapidly to mesh.

Only in this duel with the pack did Tang Yan realize that those few fights back in Yun City, even his clash with Liu Zhi, had been child's play by comparison.

An hour of fierce fighting left his strength flagging and his body marked by countless fresh wounds. He was a mass of cuts and gashes. His once-black robes hung in ruins, torn flesh showing through, a horrifying sight.

Worse still, under the wolves' unbroken assault, he had not even the chance to draw out a pill and swallow it.

"Run!" Knowing that to fight on might truly cost him his life here, he hesitated no longer. He leapt up onto a wolf's head and stamped down with all his might. A sharp crack, and the First-Rank giant wolf's skull split open beneath his foot.

Tang Yan's body shot up into the night. Phantom Step unfurled at full speed; kicking off several trees in turn, he raced for the edge of the pack.

"Awoo-" From the corner of his eye, Tang Yan glimpsed a giant wolf, silver-white from head to tail, throwing back its head in a long howl. In the dark of night it looked mighty and grand, its presence overwhelming. He did not dare look closer and fled for all he was worth.

"Awoo-" Answering their king's call, the whole pack howled as one. The sound shook the mountains and wilds; even certain high-grade Spirit Beasts pressed themselves flat to the ground, not daring to stir, afraid of drawing the pack's wrath.

Once clear, Tang Yan tossed a High Spirit Pill and a Qi-Boosting Pill into his mouth and tore off into the distance with a long cry.

Wolves were swift, but against Tang Yan, who had honed Phantom Step into the finest of escape arts, they fell just short. After about a quarter-hour the pack realized it simply could not run down this contemptible human and, with mournful cries at last, gave up the chase.

This time Tang Yan ran a full twenty li and more before he stopped beside a small river.

He washed his wounds clean, drew a blood-stanching salve from his robes, and smeared it roughly over the cuts. A searing pain rolled through him, and bean-sized beads of sweat sprang to his brow.

One glance at his bloodstained clothes, and he hurriedly flung them into the river. That reek of blood drew Spirit Beasts all too easily in the wild. A few more high-rank beasts, and he would be off to temper himself in the underworld.

Thinking back on how close it had been, a chill of fear ran through him. Without the Phantom Step to carry him, this first day of tempering might well have ended with his bones left on Cangyun Mountain.

"A sorry showing, but the fight laid bare how weak my brawling really is. And though it lasted only an hour or so, the way I've learned to flow between forms and techniques came on so fast it's worth three or five days of my old practice.

"From now on I'll shadow this pack until brawling and martial skill are honed into one." His mind made up, Tang Yan found another great tree, sprang into its branches, and settled in to regulate his breathing.

The medicines Tang Yan had brought were all rare spirit-medicines of the world; when he woke the next day, the wounds had already scabbed over.

A bit of foraging soon turned up a wild hare. He cleaned it by the river, built a fire, and set it to roast.

He had not eaten long when he stopped and pressed his ear to the ground. A rolling rumble of water reached him.

Something stirred in him. He bolted down the rest of the hare in a few rough bites and sped off toward the sound.

As it grew louder, Tang Yan soon saw a waterfall hanging like a ribbon of white silk, pouring straight down a cliff more than twenty meters high.

The rumbling cascade was vast in its might, plunging from on high with tremendous force.

He watched a long while, then broke into a grin.

Coming here had been a very wise decision indeed.

The force gathered beneath this waterfall was immense, a superb place to cultivate. Had he stayed shut up in the Tang Family, where would he ever have chanced upon a place like this?