Chapter 001: Night Battle

The moon was obscured by rain clouds at some point, plunging the once faintly lit ice field into complete darkness.
A strange smell, mixed with foul stench and blood, wafted through the air, causing nausea.
Du Fan felt a chill spread through his body as an extremely ominous feeling arose in his heart, as if what lay ahead was something utterly evil.
The smell of decay and blood grew stronger, accompanied by a low grinding sound. Vaguely, Du Fan seemed to see the corpses of those who had died in the trap being dragged away by some force and devoured completely in just a short while.
Suddenly, several green lights appeared on the opposite side, followed by a hoarse and shrill roar.
Hearing this sound, the few men who were gasping for breath on the ground shuddered. The man who seemed to be their leader no longer showed any sign of ferocity. His teeth clattered as he stammered after a long pause, “Damn it! Those guys are chasing us… Now… now…”
The rest of them looked terrified, clearly shaken beyond measure. Two of them struggled to get up with determination. One held the remaining half of a weapon, while the other, having lost his weapon, fumbled for a blue dagger from his legging and said, “Captain… you… you run quickly… We’ll stay behind. If any of you can escape, do so…”
Seeing their reaction, Du Fan sneered and said, “Can you really escape? If everyone were willing to fight to the death, even facing countless magical beasts, you wouldn’t be in such a miserable state. Now that someone is in front, you want to act like heroes? Didn’t your captain just shout that he’d rather die than let us innocent people bear the blame? Well, neither of you can run, and we won’t leave either. If we’re going to die, let’s die together!”
The two men’s faces turned red, and they were too stunned to speak. Seeing the fierce combat energy surrounding Du Fan and his group, they dared not argue and simply kept their mouths shut.

After cursing, Du Fan felt somewhat relieved. He quickly took out the Silver Moon Sword from his space ring and held it in front of him before whispering, “Everyone, you have rich combat experience. Can you guess what kind of magical beast we’re about to face?”
The temple knights exchanged glances. One of them shook his head and said, “Lord Du Fan, there are countless magical beasts in this world. If we hadn’t seen them before, how could we recognize them? So, we too…”
Just as Du Fan and the others were speaking, a creaking sound came from the darkness. If Du Fan remembered correctly, this was the trap he had ordered the temple knights to set up at the edge of the camp. Whenever a magical beast stepped on it, it would make a sound, serving as a warning.
But now, this sound no longer served its purpose; instead, it indicated to Du Fan and the others that the magical beasts chasing them were getting closer.
Frowning, Du Fan stared into the darkness, surrounded by the increasingly pungent smell. Gritting his teeth, he took out a magic scroll from his storage ring and threw it at the opposite side without even looking.
With a “boom,” a huge fireball was sent in that direction. The magical beasts in the darkness seemed to dodge it instantly. The fireball landed on the ice field and continued to burn fiercely due to the magic.
This was a fire-based magic scroll that Du Fan had had Chenchen create. It was expensive, and he didn’t have many of them. Throwing one like this might cost him tens of thousands of gold coins.
The temple knights looked at Du Fan in surprise, seemingly unexpecting his family to be so wealthy. But after considering Du Fan’s background, they understood—how could someone from such a prominent family go on an adventure without bringing some life-saving items?
Even the leader, who was still shaking, had a complex expression in his eyes as he watched Du Fan’s back.
However, Du Fan didn’t have time to worry about others’ thoughts. Using the light from the fireball, he took a look at the opposite side and finally saw the magical beasts that had been chasing them. But at that sight, he felt disgusted. Despite his extensive experience and remarkable composure, he could barely hold back from vomiting.
About ten meters in front of Du Fan, three creature-like wolves were crouched there.

They’re said to look like wolves because, at a basic level, these three creatures do seem to have a somewhat wolf-like appearance. But in reality, compared to real wolves, they’re thousands or even millions of times cuter. Their flesh is rotten, covered with all sorts of strange objects. Du Fan even faintly saw that one of them had a half-eaten human head on its back, while another had several human fingers hanging from its face. Upon closer inspection, it could be seen that the rotten flesh on their bodies seemed to be made up of various human organs. Clearly, these were parts of the people they had just “eaten.” As for why they were hanging on their bodies, only the God of Light might know. Yet, these utterly disgusting-looking creatures all had giant eyes, almost as big as human fists. Those eyes, moving around on their heads, emitted bursts of greenish light. Besides that, their teeth and claws were also astonishing—slender teeth like precision steel, with black liquid dripping from them. When that liquid fell on the ice on the ground, green smoke immediately rose, clearly indicating that the black liquid was filled with deadly poison. Du Fan felt his scalp tingle and couldn’t help but glance back at the people on the ground, saying, “Damn it… What the hell are these things?” “I don’t know…” one of the blood-covered men gritted his teeth. “These three creatures suddenly rushed into our camp, ate our… our deputy leader… Then… then we started fighting back, but… no matter whether it was slashing with knives, stabbing with guns, or shooting with bows, nothing could hurt them. So we had no choice but to run. Our Snow Fox Mercenary Group originally had over thirty members, but after encountering these things, the Snow Fox Mercenary Group will likely be erased from existence in this northern region!” The man’s tone was filled with grief and anger, and his companions also looked desolate. Clearly, this sudden disaster dealt them a huge blow. Du Fan frowned repeatedly. If physical attacks were ineffective against these three creatures, then it meant that he and the few Temple Knights here were doomed to death.

A few Templar Knights apparently heard these words as well. One of them stepped forward in front of Du Fan and said, “Lord Du Fan, please retreat with the others quickly. We don’t have time, nor the manpower to waste here fighting these monsters. We’ll try to keep these three occupied while you find a way to escape!”
Du Fan saw that it was Ferre standing in front of him.
He felt a rare sense of emotion, but he snorted and said, “Ferre, who do you think I am? Even if we have to run, it’s not now. Running without even fighting—if others find out, I’ll probably not even have the face to see Lord Anthony when I return to the capital.”
Ferre was stunned, seemingly wanting to say more.
But at that moment, the three unknown magical beasts were getting closer. They seemed to have some intelligence—although they stared at the living beings ahead with drool flowing from their mouths, they approached cautiously, as if avoiding traps on the ground.
Worst of all, most of the traps had been destroyed by the dead members of the Snow Fox Mercenary Group earlier. Although a few traps remained, they clearly couldn’t cause any harm to the three beasts.
Finally, the three beasts carefully avoided the traps and were now only a few meters away from Du Fan and the others. As they stared at their prey, greed flashed in their eyes.
The members of the Snow Fox Mercenary Group underground were as pale as paper. They tried to crawl but couldn’t get up. Ferre quickly raised his knight’s sword and swung at them fiercely.
In an instant, combat auras surged as several beams of light-like auras intersected. Under stress, Ferre’s attacks were quite powerful—far stronger than those useless young masters from the training ground back then.
With several “thwack” sounds, the auras struck one of the beasts. Some of its rotten flesh was cut off, but it wasn’t completely ineffective. The struck beast let out a few screams before retreating several steps.
Seeing this, the other Templar Knights immediately imitated him and raised their knight’s swords. In that small open area, combat auras filled the air. These Templar Knights had spent their lives practicing swordsmanship, and their Holy Light Cross Slash was incredibly sharp. The barrier formed by the auras kept the three beasts at bay.