The Author's Draft-Chapter 64: Moon Devouring Heavenly Wolf I

The demon wolf moved first.

It didn’t lunge or charge like the beasts on lower floors. Its body simply blurred—one moment standing on the platform, the next moment gone.

Long Chen’s eyes snapped left, following the disturbance in the air—

The wolf was already there, jaws wide, fangs gleaming as they aimed directly for his throat.

Long Chen twisted his body violently to the right. The wolf’s fangs missed his neck by a hair’s breadth, hot breath washing across his skin. He could feel the displaced air from how close the bite had been.

Too close.

His hand moved on instinct, drawing Demon Dweller mid-dodge. The cursed blade slid free from its sheath with a metallic whisper. Long Chen brought it around in a horizontal slash aimed at the wolf’s exposed flank—

Empty air.

The beast was already gone.

Long Chen’s spiritual sense screamed a warning. He spun, bringing his sword up defensively—

Not fast enough.

Claws raked across his back, cutting through his robes and into flesh. Four parallel lines of fire erupted along his spine. His enhanced physique absorbed most of the impact—the Tyrant Demon Physique framework preventing the claws from cutting all the way to bone—but the spiritual energy coated around those claws bit deeper than physical sharpness alone.

Blood soaked into his torn robes.

Long Chen completed his spin and thrust backward with Demon Dweller, channeling his Sword Aura into the strike. The blade moved with third-stage sharpness, cutting force radiating from its edge—

The wolf sidestepped.

The movement was minimal, just enough displacement to avoid the thrust. Then it counterattacked immediately, not giving Long Chen time to reset his guard.

A massive paw swung toward his head, claws extended.

Long Chen ducked low. The paw passed over his head close enough that he felt claws scrape across the top of his scalp, parting hair but not quite reaching skin.

He rolled forward, creating distance, and came up in a defensive stance.

The wolf didn’t pursue. Instead, it circled him slowly, deliberately. Its red eyes burned with intelligence as it studied him—watching how he moved, how he held his sword, looking for patterns to exploit.

This wasn’t a mindless beast. It was a hunter, a predator that knew how to kill.

Long Chen’s back burned where the claws had cut him. He could feel blood trickling down his spine, warm and wet. The wounds were already healing—his physique working to close the damaged flesh—but it would take time, minutes he probably didn’t have.

’It’s too fast. I can barely track its movements.’

His eyes never left the wolf as it circled. He needed to shift the momentum, force the beast onto the defensive instead of letting it control the engagement.

Long Chen channeled spiritual energy through his meridians, gathering it in his dantian, then pushing it outward through his arms and into Demon Dweller’s blade.

The sword began to hum, vibrating with contained power.

Heavenrend.

The technique built rapidly—spiritual energy compressing along the blade’s edge, multiplying cutting force exponentially. The air around the sword distorted slightly from the concentrated power.

The wolf’s eyes narrowed, sensing the danger.

Good.

Long Chen released the technique.

He swept Demon Dweller in a wide horizontal arc. Spiritual energy exploded outward in a crescent of cutting force that tore through the air with a sound like ripping silk. The technique was wide enough to cover a thirty-meter span—impossible to dodge by simply sidestepping.

The wolf responded instantly.

Its body split.

Not literally—but phantom images peeled away from its form, each one solid enough to cast shadows. Three wolves where there had been one, each moving in different directions.

Two of the phantom images ran directly into Heavenrend’s path.

The cutting force shredded through them. The phantoms burst apart in explosions of spiritual energy, dissipating back into nothing.

But the real wolf had moved in the opposite direction, using the phantoms as decoys. It came in low, beneath Long Chen’s guard while his sword was still extended from the Heavenrend slash.

Long Chen saw it coming but couldn’t pull his weapon back fast enough.

The wolf’s jaws opened wide and clamped onto his left forearm.

Pain detonated through Long Chen’s arm like lightning striking bone.

The wolf’s fangs pierced through his enhanced flesh—something that should have been nearly impossible for a Foundation Establishment beast. But these weren’t normal fangs. They were coated in spiritual energy, reinforced by the wolf’s bloodline power, sharp enough to penetrate even his Tyrant Demon Physique.

The teeth sank deep, grinding against his radius and ulna. Long Chen felt the bones creak under the pressure, on the verge of snapping.

Then the wolf thrashed its head violently.

It jerked left, then right, then back, trying to tear Long Chen’s arm clean off his body. The motion was savage, brutal, designed to separate limb from torso through sheer force.

Long Chen’s vision went white with pain. His arm felt like it was being ripped apart from the inside. Muscles tore, tendons stretched to their breaking point and blood poured from the wounds where fangs had punctured flesh, running down his arm in thick streams.

He roared through gritted teeth and acted on pure instinct.

His right leg came up, knee driving forward with all the physical strength his enhanced body could generate.

The knee struck the wolf’s ribs.

Crack!

The sound of breaking bone echoed through the chamber. Long Chen felt something give way under the impact—ribs caving inward from the force.

The wolf yelped—a sharp, pained sound—and released his arm immediately. It leaped backward, creating distance to reassess.

Long Chen stumbled, cradling his mangled left arm. The limb was a mess—deep puncture wounds leaked blood steadily, the muscle beneath torn and damaged. He could still move his fingers, barely, but the arm was effectively useless for now.

And they were only a minute into the fight.

Blood dripped from Long Chen’s arm onto the stone floor, forming a small puddle. His back still burned from the earlier claw strikes, his breathing already labored.

The wolf circled again, favoring its left side where Long Chen’s knee had broken ribs. But its eyes were still sharp, still calculating.

Long Chen gritted his teeth and made a decision.

He couldn’t hold back, not against this opponent.

His Sword Aura flared.

Third-stage power erupted from his body in an invisible wave, sharp and cutting. The pressure filled the chamber, turning the air itself into a field of blade intent. Every breath felt like inhaling razors, every movement risked being cut by the ambient spiritual energy.

The wolf felt it immediately. Its circling stopped, its body tensed, instincts screaming danger.

Long Chen pressed forward, not giving it time to adapt.

He moved with Phantom Step, his body blurring across the distance. Demon Dweller swept up in a diagonal slash enhanced by third-stage Sword Aura—

The wolf dodged backward, but the Sword Aura extended beyond the physical blade. Invisible cutting force caught the wolf’s shoulder, opening a deep gash that sprayed blood.

The beast howled in pain.

Long Chen didn’t stop. He followed up immediately with Void-Splitting Strike—a thrust technique designed for piercing through defenses. His blade shot forward like a spear, Sword Aura concentrating into a single point at the tip.

The wolf twisted its body at the last second. The thrust that should have pierced its heart instead tore through its shoulder, opening another wound.

But the wolf counterattacked even while injured.

Its right paw came up, claws extended, and swiped at Long Chen’s face.

Long Chen jerked his head back. The claws passed an inch from his nose—close enough that he felt the wind from their passage.

Then the wolf’s left paw followed immediately, coming from the opposite angle.

Long Chen brought Demon Dweller up defensively. The paw struck the flat of his blade with bone-jarring force, the impact sending shockwaves through his injured left arm, and making him gasp in pain.

The wolf pressed its advantage. It attacked relentlessly—claw strikes, bite attempts, tail swipes—all coming in rapid succession without pause. Each attack forced Long Chen to block, dodge, or take glancing hits.

He blocked a claw strike with his sword—impact rattled his arms.

He sidestepped a lunging bite, fangs missing his shoulder by centimeters.

He took a tail swipe to his ribs and heard something crack, felt sharp pain blossom in his chest.

His enhanced body absorbed punishment that would have killed a normal cultivator instantly. But damage was accumulating faster than he could heal. Blood loss was becoming a concern and his movements were slowing.

The fight stretched on. One minute became two and two became three.

Both combatants were bleeding heavily now. The wolf had multiple deep cuts across its body—shoulder, flank, hindquarters—all leaking spiritual energy along with blood. Long Chen’s left arm hung nearly useless, his ribs were cracked on the left side, and dozens of smaller wounds covered his body.

And through it all, the second opponent, the man, just stood there watching.

His eyes were open now. Long Chen could see them clearly—dark, cold, and completely emotionless. But the expression in those eyes made Long Chen’s blood boil.

Contempt. Pure, undisguised contempt.

The man looked at Long Chen like he was watching an insect struggle against death. Something pathetic, something not worth his time. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

As Long Chen deflected another claw strike, he saw the man’s eyes slowly close again.

Dismissing him completely.

’He thinks the wolf is enough. He’s not even going to bother fighting.’

Rage flared in Long Chen’s chest, hot and fierce.