Chapter 143: Zhang Tongming and the Ten Thousand Beasts Demon Kingdom

"What kind of monster is this? It looks a lot like a wolf demon!" said a soldier who had just woken up to watch the commotion.

"A wolf demon? What is that?" Hearing this, the other soldiers asked. A wolf demon? This was the first time they had heard of such a thing.

"A wolf demon is a type of monster among the Myriad Beast Demon Clan, specifically a beast spirit transformed from a wolf. I heard that a month ago, a town in the Heavenly Song State was attacked by the Beast Demon Clan. Fifty or sixty people from the town were abducted and killed. It was terrifying!" said a soldier.

"Yes, I heard about that too! Among the beast demons that attacked the Heavenly Song State this time, there were wolf demons just like this one! However, those wolf demons only had a single head. But the two in front of us right now really look like wolf demons, except that they have two extra heads on their necks, and they are much larger than ordinary wolf demons!"

The Myriad Beast Demon Clan was a beast faction on the Primeval Continent, formed by several giant beasts to counter the attacks of humans and other species, and to dominate all living creatures on the Primeval Continent.

The members of this beast demon group mainly consisted of six types of giant beasts and birds: ape demons, leopard demons, tiger demons, wolf demons, bear demons, and eagle demons. Their leaders were a couple who possessed several centuries of cultivation history in the immortal cultivation world and had achieved high attainments.

The husband was named Zhang Tongming, and the wife was named Tao Wenyun.

Zhang Tongming was born in a small town in the Linghuang Commandery of the barbarian country, and his parents were notorious, habitual thieves in the local area.

One day, Zhang Tongming's parents were beaten to death during a theft, and from then on, Zhang Tongming became an orphan.

Because his parents died early in his childhood, his relatives despised them as thieves and were unwilling to take Zhang Tongming in. Consequently, Zhang Tongming wandered the Linghuang Commandery from a young age, surviving on alms and begging from the people there.

Later, a passing Taoist priest saw him and noticed that although he was a begging child, he possessed a remarkably clever and refined appearance. Feeling pity for him and observing him closely, the priest saw that his bone structure was extraordinary, making him prime material for cultivating immortality. Thus, the priest took him in as a disciple and brought him up the mountain to practice.

True to expectations, after training under his master, Zhang Tongming made great progress in immortal arts and martial arts. In just a few decades, he mastered fifty to sixty percent of the magical arts that his master had spent two to three hundred years to acquire, winning high praise from his master.

Although Zhang Tongming was immensely talented in immortal cultivation, his mortal desires remained unextinguished. He fell in love with the young and beautiful daughter of one of his relatives. By that time, although Zhang Tongming was already seventy or eighty years old, his status as an immortal cultivator had prolonged his life and kept his appearance frozen at around thirty or forty years of age.

That relative's daughter, Tao Wenyun, was only seventeen or eighteen years old. For some unknown reason, Tao Wenyun actually developed deep affection for Zhang Tongming, who was old enough to be her grandfather.

Although Tao Wenyun's parents strongly opposed the match, and Zhang Tongming's master was extremely displeased with his romance with a relative's daughter, Zhang Tongming and Tao Wenyun stayed together regardless of the opposition from both families.

Later, Zhang Tongming's master had no choice but to expel Zhang Tongming from the sect.

Tao Wenyun's parents also wept as they beat Tao Wenyun until she lost consciousness, slashed their daughter's wrists to draw blood, officially severed their maternal and paternal ties with her, and tearfully buried her in the wilderness.

When Zhang Tongming found out, he dug Tao Wenyun up and took her away, using medicinal elixirs and immortal arts to revive her. To avoid the gossip and pointed fingers of others, the two fled to a mountain forest called Myriad Beast Mountain, seven or eight thousand miles away, to live in seclusion.

Myriad Beast Mountain, as the name suggested, was a massive mountain forest that gathered countless beasts.

As for the exact size of the forest, no one had ever calculated it, but it was estimated to be around ten thousand square miles. It consisted of a mountain towering ten thousand zhang high and hundreds of smaller peaks of varying heights. The mountains and their surroundings were covered with towering ancient trees, exotic flowers, and rare herbs, with winding rivers weaving through them—a wonderful place suitable for the survival of all things.

Because the mountains and waters were pleasant here, and the environment was well-suited for the survival and habitation of rare birds and fierce beasts, it attracted a multitude of diverse birds and beasts to come, live, and reproduce.

Moreover, for the sake of survival, the beasts had to rely on mutual slaughter and cannibalism.

Survival of the fittest applied here; thus, in this cruel Myriad Beast Mountain, most types of beasts banded together to protect their own species from being eaten and exterminated by other, stronger beasts, uniting to counter the foraging and attacks of external beast species.

Over time, numerous beast groups emerged, and each beast group was led by a peerless fellow species with the highest abilities, providing unified command and greatly enhancing their group's hunting prowess.

Within Myriad Beast Mountain, the strongest faction belonged to the ape and monkey beasts. The intelligence of this species was close to that of humans, and whether walking upright or on all fours, whether on flat ground, mountains, or forests, they moved with extreme agility, flying as fast as a shuttle. Most importantly, these apes could use their forelimbs to grasp objects to strike down enemies. Consequently, the ape group possessed the greatest attack and hunting capabilities, to the extent that even the lion and tiger groups feared them and avoided them whenever possible.

After Zhang Tongming and Tao Wenyun arrived at Myriad Beast Mountain and saw the numerous fierce beasts and endless crises, they sought out a cave near a cliff where beasts could not easily climb, and settled there.

Zhang Tongming originally studied immortal cultivation and had already achieved considerable success in this field. Now living in seclusion together, in order to enhance their physical strength and prepare to fend off attacking beasts when venturing outside, Zhang Tongming naturally taught the immortal and Daoist arts he had learned to Tao Wenyun, and the two practiced together to cultivate various divine arts for strengthening the body.

Normally, practicing immortal arts and divine techniques required progressive methods and manuals as references to proceed smoothly. Since Zhang Tongming had been driven down the mountain by his master, lacking cultivation references and his master's guidance, the two blindly experimented with chaotic practices, never expecting that they would actually cultivate a set of demonic and monstrous arts!

When Zhang Tongming and Tao Wenyun did not exert their demonic arts, they looked completely normal, indistinguishable from ordinary people. Once they activated their powers, their bodies immediately swelled to three or four times their original size. Their muscles bulged violently, protruding like dozens of swollen tumors scattered all over their bodies, looking extremely hideous and ugly. Their skin color turned a ghostly, greenish hue, and their eyes emitted an illusory green light, creating a terrifying appearance. Their physical strength and agility increased more than a dozen times; with a casual wave of a hand, they could instantly snap a tree as thick as a plate, and in the blink of an eye, they could tear an adult lion in half!

Discovering that they had inadvertently cultivated such a perverse demonic art and transformed themselves into ugly monsters, the two felt profound regret. They wished to revert to their original appearance, but it was irreversible, leaving them deeply sorrowful. Consequently, they abandoned all hope of redemption and decided to use these demonic arts to annihilate those who had pushed them into the "abyss"—such as the parents who had beaten her to "death" and buried her after severing ties, the master who had expelled him from the sect, and the people of Linghuang Commandery and the barbarian country who had pointed fingers behind their backs...

After enduring overwhelming regret and sorrow, they reflected that the reason they had ended up in this state and become isolated from the world was entirely because their families and master had tried to prevent their love, and because the people of Linghuang Commandery had gossiped behind their backs about their romance. It was to escape public ridicule that they had fled to this uninhabited Myriad Beast Mountain, ultimately leading to their current transformation. Therefore, the two harbored a bone-deep hatred for their families, master, and the townspeople of Linghuang Commandery, and desired to exact revenge upon the people of Linghuang Commandery...

Thus, Zhang Tongming and Tao Wenyun threw caution to the wind and decided to continue down this path of cultivation, intending to use their demonic powers to accomplish a grand feat. They thought to themselves: since they had mistakenly cultivated such a perverse and powerful demonic art and ruined their appearance and physique, they might as well throw caution to the wind.

To achieve their established goals, aside from continuing their practice of the demonic arts, the couple also observed and studied various beast languages, learning to use different vocalizations to communicate with certain birds and beasts. They used brute force to conquer the leaders of various avian and beast groups, forcing them to submit and serve their commands.

Through decades of arduous struggle, Zhang Tongming and Tao Wenyun not only mastered a dozen beast languages but also used their demonic powers to conquer the leaders of the six most formidable bird and beast groups in Myriad Beast Mountain. They incorporated all members of these six groups under their command, naming them the Myriad Beast Demon Clan, also known as the Myriad Beast State. Zhang Tongming and Tao Wenyun became the king and queen of the Myriad Beast State.

The total membership of these six avian and beast groups amounted to a staggering sixty to seventy thousand.

To enhance the hunting capabilities of all these beast members and resolve food supply issues, the couple subjected the members of the six groups to unified training and discipline. As a result, the sixty or seventy thousand beast members acquired varying degrees of demonic arts, drastically improving their hunting prowess. They were taught to domesticate other smaller beasts and birds within their respective territories as a food reserve.

Occasionally, to expand the human membership within their faction, Zhang Tongming and Tao Wenyun would ride upon strange beasts or giant eagles, traveling to the borders of various states to capture humans and train them as subordinates, continuously expanding the clan's ranks and greatly boosting its combat effectiveness.

Therefore, as the soldier mentioned earlier, the beast demons that attacked the Heavenly Song State a month ago had indeed been dispatched by the Myriad Beast State to expand its ranks and forage for food.

"Are you certain these two monsters are really wolf demons?"

"Don't you think they look a lot like wolves?"

"They certainly do look alike! How strange! Why are they only dodging Dahuang's attacks instead of fighting back?"

"Dahuang is an ancient divine beast, one of the legendary Four Perils known as Qiongqi. When they saw Dahuang's appearance, they were terrified to the core, eager just to escape. How could they possibly dare to fight back?"