Dark mountain ranges clustered together, piercing through the earth like enormous black hands reaching up from the abyssal depths of hell. Beyond bringing endless freezing cold, all that remained was boundless despair.

This was a hidden valley beneath the mountain ranges. He had come face to face with them.

They were two wolves, their dark green wolf eyes opened wide in fury. In the twilight, they stared at him unrelentingly.

He moved, letting out a roar from his throat that didn’t sound human—more like a monster driven to the edge of a cliff.

He was a young man, surrounded by shadows that made it impossible to see his gaze clearly.

The two wolves were shaken by the youth’s roar, as if they could understand the tragic grief within his cry. The youth charged forward with the wind, but wolves were the most agile of fierce beasts. They were faster, and both wolves leaped beyond the youth’s attack range.

The slightly larger wolf with a damaged ear seized the moment when the youth couldn’t turn around in time and bit down on his ankle with its jaws.

The other wolf with a longer tail opened its blood-dripping maw wide and leaped up to bite toward the youth’s neck.

The two wolves hadn’t caught any living prey for seven or eight days. The youth was their target. Killing him meant they could survive this ordeal and live on.

So the damaged-ear wolf bit down even harder into the youth’s ankle, but soon, the damaged-ear wolf realized what it was biting didn’t feel like a person at all—it was like a stone, a hard and sharp stone that even hurt the damaged-ear wolf’s mouth.

The damaged-ear wolf raised its head from below, and in the cold light of dusk, it saw the youth’s face clearly.

What kind of face was this? Words couldn’t express it. The face was covered with crisscrossing scars—some had healed into dark gray old scars, while others were fresh wounds still dripping blood, slowly scabbing over.

But what truly filled the damaged-ear wolf with terror were the youth’s eyes—a pair of eyes that seemed soaked in ten thousand years of ice and snow from the distant Tian Mountains. When these eyes looked at you, your body would stiffen and your teeth would chatter.

The long-tailed wolf instantly opened its jaws wide in rage, tearing at the youth’s neck. The damaged-ear wolf released its bite without reason. The youth paid no attention to the damaged-ear wolf. A cold gleam burst from his eyes, and at the exact moment the long-tailed wolf bit into his neck, he also opened his mouth and bit down hard on the long-tailed wolf’s throat.

The taste of blood, flesh, and fur mixed together was like an unspeakable narcotic, carrying immense bitter bloodiness that sent the youth’s mind into madness. The youth slightly loosened his mouth, revealing his teeth.

A row of sharp hook-like teeth, teeth that could pierce through the life of prey, were exposed so savagely in the cold wind of the mountain valley.

The youth’s eyeballs protruded, and his mouth stretched to an angle unimaginable for a human being, then he bit down again. If you got slightly closer to this human and wolf, at this moment you would surely hear a muffled “crack”—the sound of skin, flesh, and bone being bitten through.

Sure enough, the long-tailed wolf softly released its mouth and dropped from the youth’s neck.

The damaged-ear wolf’s eyes filled with hatred and fury. It let out a short wolf howl and charged toward the youth.

The youth’s body suddenly shot upward, then he crashed down heavily from mid-air, smashing into half of the damaged-ear wolf’s body. Under the youth’s weight, the damaged-ear wolf let out low whimpers, and before long, it fell silent.

The youth still wouldn’t get up. A full half tea’s worth of time passed before he finally climbed up. The damaged-ear wolf had long since died violently.

The distant sun gradually set, and the mountain valley was shrouded in a deathly darkness. This bloody battle between human and wolves casually ended in the moment darkness arrived. The youth looked at the two wolves lying in pools of blood, and his previously ice-like gaze showed subtle signs of melting. A wisp of emotion flowed out, clearly called compassion.

He pitied them. But who would pity him?

The youth looked at the dead wolves, but he was really looking at himself. His melting gaze froze over once again.

“Magnificent!” A man around twenty years old wearing a round-collared shirt emerged from behind a large boulder with appreciation. He glanced at the two dead wolves several times with lingering fear.

“I really didn’t expect these two wolves to be so useless.”

“Forget it. It’s more accurate to say that Young Master Ji has a sharp eye. He saw long ago that this inauspicious fellow would bring disaster to everyone, including these two wolves.”

In the blink of an eye, two more men emerged from behind the large boulder. One had a face covered in pockmarks, and the other had eyes like needle slits.

The round-collared young man addressed as Young Master Ji said with a sinister smile, “Well done. As long as you listen to my words, I will honor my agreement.”

The wolf-killing youth’s body lowered. The bloody battle with the fierce wolves had exhausted too much of his energy and physical strength.

The strong smell of blood filled his nostrils—both wolf blood and his own. The wound on his neck was still bleeding. The youth simply wrapped it with torn cloth, turned around, and walked toward the valley exit.

“Is this guy even human? Look at the wounds on his body—if not a hundred, then at least eighty.” The pockmarked man shook his head and said.

“You’re not him. If you were him, you’d have died long ago.” The Young Master Ji named Ji Liang said coldly.

“He lives only because he is Xia Jiuying. A calamity of water and fire, a great disaster star who brings catastrophe to everyone around him.” Ji Liang said.

“The warmth in a corner of my heart is the only reason I live on. To find her, even if I might die, even if she is already dead.”

—Xia Jiuying