Black Blood Stockade, the great deliberation hall.
When Lin Mu, wearing that clan elder's garb, crossed the threshold of the great hall, the low murmur of conversation within the hall came to an exceedingly brief halt.
The faces around him were, in truth, none of them unfamiliar to Lin Mu.
After all, in the clan's past grand competitions and assemblies, these great figures had always sat in the highest seats looking down upon the masses, while Lin Mu had been merely one of those masses, squeezed into a corner of the spectators' stands.
But now, he too had a seat that belonged to him.
Guided by an usher deacon, Lin Mu walked to a seat that had only recently been vacated, and sat down with exceeding composure.
And this position, several days ago, had still belonged to that traitor whose neck Lin Cang had snapped before the crowd — Lin An.
Watching Lin Mu sit in this position that carried the stench of blood, the gazes of quite a few clan elders around him were cast over covertly, their expressions varied.
Clan Elder Kuang Xu of the Punishment Hall stroked his whiskers, stiff as steel needles, and looking at this "despicable brat" who had once scattered lime powder on the training grounds, his eyes held no small measure of surprise.
Who could have imagined it.
That youth who had once stood below the hall submitting to interrogation had now come to sit within the same great hall as himself.
The expression of Lin Maomao, master of the External Affairs Hall, was rather more complicated.
He still clearly remembered the shrewdness and seasoned competence, far beyond his peers, that Lin Mu had displayed back when he worked under his own command.
But now…
As for the Grand Elder of the Medicine Hall, the clan elder overseeing storage and materials, and the others, they all sized Lin Mu up with a few glances to greater or lesser degree.
Everyone knew that Lin Mu, despite his tender years, had already reached the terrifying cultivation of Rank 3 middle stage.
But just how this cultivation had been obtained, and just what earth-shaking fortuitous opportunity lay behind it, no one truly knew.
It was only that now, Patriarch Lin Cang had publicly acknowledged his status as clan elder, and on top of that there was Lin Mu's own solid, undeniable Rank 3 middle stage combat strength.
At such a critical juncture, naturally there was no blind fool who would leap out of his own accord to make trouble for him.
Dong.
With one muffled toll of a bell, Patriarch Lin Cang strode out from the rear hall in imposing fashion and seated himself upright in the head position.
The meeting formally began.
Lin Cang wasted no words. His gaze swept the room like lightning, and he directly threw out two pieces of news that landed like heavy bombs:
"First."
"After these past several days of high-intensity reconnaissance, it is confirmed that a great deal of exceedingly abnormal beast herd activity has indeed appeared along the outer reaches of Black Wind Ridge."
"Within the deep mountains, beast herd migrations, contests over water sources, and territorial conflicts are erupting with ever-increasing frequency. The 'beast tide warning' that Clan Elder Lin Mu raised earlier has now been essentially verified."
The moment these words were out, the atmosphere in the great hall grew several degrees graver.
"Second."
Lin Cang's fingers tapped lightly against the table, his voice cold and hard.
"The White Bone side has recently been steadily contracting its outer forces. Some resource points originally garrisoned by them in force have even shown signs of voluntary withdrawal."
"They…"
"very likely know something in advance."
Lin Cang paused, a trace of coldness flashing through his eyes.
"As for whether these beast herd disturbances are merely a natural calamity, or whether someone is stoking the flames behind the scenes."
"It is still too early to draw a conclusion."
"But since that old dog Li Mang has already begun pulling back, we cannot act as though nothing has happened."
Once these two pieces of news were confirmed, the great hall at once erupted, falling into fierce dispute.
"Patriarch! Since the beast tide is imminent, we must immediately contract our outer industries!"
A clan elder of the conservative faction stood up at once, his face full of urgency as he proposed,
"Pull all the outlying mines, herb gardens, and every hunting team back within the great formation, and thereby reduce unnecessary casualties!"
"Impossible!"
Another clan elder with real power, overseeing resources, immediately slapped the table in opposition and retorted loudly:
"The war between the two stockades has not yet fully concluded, and the front lines are at their most strained! The instant we rashly abandon every outlying resource point, the clan will suffer utterly enormous losses in Primeval Stones and materials every single day!"
"What's more, just how large is the scale of this beast tide at present? Is the main direction of its impact even our Black Blood Stockade? None of this is yet fully determined! If we retreat across the board, jumping at every shadow, and instead hand vast swathes of territory to White Bone Stockade on a platter — that would be playing straight into Li Mang's hands!"
For a time, the entire hall was locked in endless dispute, the faction advocating withdrawal and the faction advocating holding to the death each maintaining their own position, neither yielding.
Lin Mu sat upright in his own seat, eyes watching his nose, nose watching his heart, not putting himself forward, merely listening quietly to these weighings and gambits of interest.
"Enough."
In the end, one low bark from Lin Cang pressed down all the clamor, and he rendered his decision with exceeding decisiveness:
"The outlying resource points will not undergo full withdrawal for the time being."
"But effective immediately, the entire stockade is raised to the highest level of alert, and outward activity by ordinary low-rank Gu Masters is to be reduced. At the same time, every hall must intensify intelligence reconnaissance and stockpile wartime materials like madmen!"
The matter was settled with a single hammer stroke.
Afterward, Lin Cang's gaze passed over the assembly and landed directly upon the exceedingly low-profile Lin Mu.
"This matter of the beast tide — you were the first to raise it."
Lin Cang looked at Lin Mu, his tone brooking no dispute.
"Since that is so, the mission of investigating the precise movements of the beast tide shall be entrusted to you, with full authority."
The moment these words were out, the gazes of quite a few clan elders once again converged upon Lin Mu in unison.
Lin Mu's heart was at once as clear as a bright mirror.
He understood very well: Lin Cang was applying pressure to him.
He had only just been promoted to clan elder and had taken the clan's resource quota as well; naturally Lin Cang could not allow him to enjoy the authority without shouldering the responsibility.
What's more, Lin Cang was also using the opportunity to verify just how much of his earlier intelligence was true, and how much false.
Lin Mu did not refuse before the assembly. He merely stood up with exceeding composure, cupped his hands, and answered in a low voice:
"Since the news originated from my hands, it is only natural that I should continue the investigation."
"I ask the Patriarch for a few days' time."
"I will organize a body of capable men and, as far as possible, get to the bottom of the direction of the disturbances along the outer reaches of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains."
Lin Cang nodded slightly, expressing satisfaction with Lin Mu's crisp and decisive attitude.
The meeting pressed on.
Halfway through the discussion, a clan elder suddenly rose to his feet and raised a somewhat puzzled point:
"Patriarch, there has been large-scale excavation over at the rear mountain of late, and even a considerable number of Punishment Hall elites mobilized to seal off the mountain. I wonder if…"
Hearing this question, Lin Mu's heart skipped an exceedingly faint half-beat, but the expression on his face remained a pool of dead water, without the slightest ripple.
He had assumed Lin Cang would continue fabricating some pretext to placate the assembly.
Yet unexpectedly, Lin Cang merely shot that clan elder an exceedingly cold glance and spat out a single flat sentence:
"I have separate arrangements for that matter."
"It concerns the clan's utmost secrets. There is no need for further discussion."
Crushing it down directly with exceeding force!
That clan elder, having gotten a face full of dust, could only sit back down sheepishly, no longer daring to ask anything more.
But in the depths of his heart, Lin Mu stirred slightly.
Lin Cang… did not want too many people to know either, just as expected.
This at least indicated that although the matter beneath the rear mountain was of great import, it was still far from having developed to the point where everyone knew of it.
Lin Cang himself was also blockading the news.
So long as the secret remained in the hands of a very small few, there was still room to maneuver in this affair.
...
After the meeting concluded, Lin Mu immediately began his formal investigation into the beast tide.
Now that he possessed a clan elder's highest authority, he no longer had to act in the furtive, concealed manner of the past.
He directly requisitioned all of the Internal Affairs Hall's recent archival records; at the same time, he organized a group of veteran hunters along with Earth Path and Wind Path Gu Masters to carry out sustained, high-intensity probing of the outer regions.
And he himself was hardly idle either.
That Rank 3 Green Wing Gu, refined not long ago, had finally arrived at the moment for it to fully stretch its limbs.
"Hummm—"
As nimble currents of wind rapidly converged behind his back, a pair of semi-transparent green wings abruptly unfurled.
Lin Mu's feet left the ground, and he shot into the sky.
From that unobstructed vantage high in the air, those scattered, fragmentary anomalies that had previously been hidden within layer upon layer of mountain forest and hard to detect began, in Lin Mu's eyes, to gradually piece together and link into one grand tableau.
Several days later, the development of the situation had already begun, visibly, to accelerate and worsen.
More and more wild beast herds began to defy their original instincts for survival, madly altering their originally fixed ranges of activity.
Vast numbers of weak herbivorous herds, banded together in droves, fled madly and heedlessly toward the outer reaches of Black Wind Ridge, as though they had sensed the arrival of doomsday; while those Hundred Beast Kings, who ordinarily did not encroach on one another and each fought their own battles, began — owing to the drastic compression of their living space — to erupt into frequent life-and-death blood battles among the valleys, contesting for territory.
Until, at dusk on a certain day.
In order to probe the movements of the deeper reaches, Lin Mu once again mobilized the Green Wing Gu and, bearing an enormous drain on his Primeval Essence, flew up into a layer of high cloud exceedingly close to the depths of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.
The biting cold wind set his long robe snapping and rustling.
Lin Mu gazed far into the distance from on high.
The next moment, he abruptly discovered that within the unbroken ranges of mountains in the far distance, tens of thousands of flying birds that should by rights have been roosting among the trees, as though struck by some exceedingly terrifying fright, rose into the sky in one great "boom," all at once, like a vast dark cloud blotting out the heavens!
And in the depths beyond where those birds had been startled aloft, the frenzied roars of beasts, rising and falling, ceaseless and unbroken, came rolling forth like a tsunami across a distance of tens of li.
Even… though Lin Mu was suspended in midair at this moment, he could feel exceedingly clearly that the boundless, vast expanse of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains below was transmitting a vibration exceedingly faint, yet unceasing and unending!
Like ten thousand horses galloping, like mountains collapsing and the earth splitting apart.
Lin Mu hovered high in the air, silent for a long while.
At last he slowly exhaled a single sentence:
"The beast tide…"
"is truly coming."