My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting-Chapter 670 – The Phantoms of the Northern Wasteland, Lady Yu in Pursuit of Lord Yu - Part 1

Chapter 670 – The Phantoms of the Northern Wasteland, Lady Yu in Pursuit of Lord Yu - Part 1

To the north, the land stretched endlessly.

Wind swept across the tall grass, stirring it into rolling green waves.

The waves surged past the horses’ hooves. Herds of wild horses galloped freely across the steppe, chased, strangely enough, by a flood of grey wolves that looked like a moving storm cloud.

But though the wolves pursued, they did not attack.

There was no scent of blood in the air. The wolves weren’t hunting the horses.

The two groups coexisted, an oddity on these plains and a testament to the remarkable skill of the herdsmen here.

In the distance, a middle-aged man came galloping in, urgency written all over him. He dismounted and stormed into a tent pitched near the great golden yurt. Inside, a young man sat reading quietly. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

“Huyan Hai!” the man snapped. “Did you kill an envoy from the Central Plains?!”

Huyan Hai looked up calmly. His gaze was steady. Then he smiled and said, “Yes, Second Uncle. They came to demand that our Huyan Clan honor our old promise, hand over the steles and gate we’ve kept all these years. I didn’t want to give them up. So I had someone intercept them, probe their intentions...and then quietly get rid of them.”

“Y-you—!” The man was at a loss for words.

The matriarch had made a century-long pact with that person. Now that someone had come to collect on it, the Huyan Clan had both a moral and practical obligation to comply.

And yet this boy had turned it into a blood feud.

Fortunately, Huyan Hai had been discreet. No one outside the clan knew the envoy had ever reached them. The middle-aged man had only found out by accident, then interrogated the servants one by one until he pieced the truth together.

“Second Uncle, that steles and the old gate the matriarch left behind...I think they’re hiding something.” Huyan Hai said.

“What kind of secret could an old door possibly hold?” the man scoffed.

“The steles aren’t useful for now,” Huyan Hai replied, “but that gate...might be the key to our clan’s rise to greatness.”

His uncle curled his lips in disbelief and let out a laugh. “That rickety old wooden thing?”

Huyan Hai didn’t bother to explain. He simply said, “Second Uncle, as long as no one knows that envoy ever made it to us, then we haven’t broken the agreement. And without that, there’s no feud.”

“You’re only 16 years old. How the hell do you come up with all this? When I was your age, I was still out chasing girls.” His uncle exhaled slowly, relief in his eyes. Then he added offhandedly, “So, who was the one that sent those envoys?”

Huyan Hai’s expression barely shifted. “Lord Yu.”

His uncle froze.

Then sprang up like he’d been struck by lightning. “Do you even know who Lord Yu is?!”

Huyan Hai chuckled. “Of course I do. That’s why I need you to keep this a secret. That man...the one with two blades hanging over the Emperor and Divine Sovereign...he’s the most ruthless figure in the world. If he ever finds out we killed his envoy, then we’re screwed.”

The middle-aged man’s face drained of color. Panic crept into his voice. “Then...Hai’er, what should we do now?”

“Pack the scrolls. Gather the people. We're migrating north.” Huyan Hai closed the Human Emperor’s Martial Canon in his hands and calmly replied.

“The northern wasteland, once barren, lifeless, and desolate, has changed. What was once a no-man’s land, where not even grass would grow, is now a mosaic of steppe and desert. It's become a haven for beasts and birds, vast and deep, beyond the grasp of both the Great Zhou and the Divine Dominion. It’s where the Huyan Clan can rise without interference. Herdsmen raise horses on grass, but they’re just herdsmen.”

He stood, eyes burning with ambition, and a smile curled on his lips, fierce and wild.

“But the Huyan Clan...we don’t herd horses. We herd beasts.”

Through careful observation and years of study, Huyan Hai had discovered something strange, something about the old wooden gate they guarded. It had begun to show signs of a peculiar power. The simplest evidence was fertility. With the gate nearby, birth rates among horses and wolves alike had shot through the roof.

Huyan Hai was only 16 years old in this life, but he carried the memories of a past life.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Time passed.

The Great Zhou and Divine Dominion had split the world between them. One ruled from the Jade Capital in the east, the other from the Western Capital. As the Great Zhou’s grip weakened, the nomads of the north had all but broken free. They roamed the steppe without concern. The Great Zhou Empire’s authority meant nothing here.

And beyond even the nomads, farther north, was the land of the Huyan Clan.

They abandoned their status and wealth in the golden tent and led a migration northward, bringing with them a good number of common folk.

But the far north was no paradise. It was wild, untamed, and unforgiving. It was nothing but wind, cold, and emptiness. Aside from the Huyan Clan, few were willing to settle there.

Those who resisted, however, found themselves facing down a terrifying force, packs of wolves driven by the Huyan Clan as if by unseen leash.

In the years that followed, a new threat emerged from the northern wilderness.

A fearsome band of wolf riders began appearing across the grasslands.

They wore light armor and wide-brimmed, veil-draped hats to hide their faces. They rode like shadows, striking with terrifying speed. These wolf riders raided nomadic camps, kidnapped women and children, and even dared to strike into the towns of the Great Zhou, vanishing before reinforcements could arrive.

Anyone taken by them was never seen again.

People called them the Phantoms of the Great Wasteland.

Ordinary cavalry stood no chance. Even before battle began, their horses would tremble and buck at the overwhelming stench of blood.

Yet despite their terrifying presence, the wolf riders were few, 300-400 at most. They never targeted major cities or well-defended camps. They struck like ghosts, quick and unpredictable.

The Great Zhou’s border troops and nomads alike had tried to hunt them down, but none had succeeded.

In fact, finding them at all in the vast northern wilderness was a near impossibility.

And so, people simply kept a wary distance from anyone of Huyan Clan blood near their camps, but otherwise turned a blind eye to it all.

These wolf riders, of course, were the handiwork of the Huyan Clan.

The women taken during the raids into the northern frontier were all forced into one task, childbearing.

Both men and women were expected to reproduce as early as possible, but the children they bore were not raised by their biological parents. As soon as a child was born, they were taken away and placed into communal care.

The parents never even saw their child’s face.

No one knew who had birthed whom.

These children did not take their fathers’ names, nor their mothers’. They all carried the surname Huyan.

Only those who achieved great merit would be accepted into the main Huyan bloodline, gaining the rare right to preserve their lineage.

Just like the wild southern frontiers in the Western Extremes, the Great Wasteland had become rich in spiritual herbs and rare materials after the upheaval of the world.

Huyan Hai’s third uncle, Huyan Ah, was an old trader with deep ties to the Central Plains. With his network and connections, he began selling these untamed treasures, irreplaceable gifts of the land, and his business flourished.

The wolf riders carved out a secret trade route, offering protection to Huyan Clan caravans.

Huyan Ah paved the way with coin, building relationships across the region while quietly gathering intelligence.

Before her death, the clan’s matriarch left behind a secret, shared only with her son, who was now the clan head and Huyan Hai’s father.

She’d said, “Our beasttaming art...it all began with a book called The Beast King’s Sutra. That lineage also possessed another treasure, something they entrusted years ago to the Central Capital Princess.”

The Huyan Clan’s own techniques of taming beasts were derived from the sutra.

The lineage had always followed the way of the wolves.

The great Wolfmother led the way; the younger Wolfmother followed.

Meng Xingxian was the great Wolfmother. Zhangsun Sanniang, the younger. Their teachings came from the same source.

Back then, the old matriarch had only meant to share her life’s secrets with her son.

But now, the Huyan Clan had made that secret their mission.

They had been hunting for the complete Beast King’s Sutra and the treasure described as a beast fang sealed in honey-colored wax for 15 years.

And they had no plans to stop.