Chapter 283

“Y-Young Chief?” Lang Cheng could hardly believe his ears.

Lang Ze gave him a slight nod. “It’s me.”

Lang Cheng wiped his hands repeatedly on the ragged beast hide he wore, unsure where to place them anymore.

Lang Zhan, watching his usually steady old comrade suddenly turn so flustered, let out a hearty laugh. “What a pity this place is far from ideal—we can’t even sit down to properly enjoy a meal of beast meat.”

Lang Cheng looked at Lang Ze with burning eyes, his breath unconsciously growing quicker. “We will. We definitely will.”

The three young beastmen in the corner had clearly overheard Lang Zhan’s words. They held their breath and snuck glances at the two figures seated in the center of the straw hut—then looked toward Qi Bai, who greeted them with a warm smile.

The three froze for a moment. Qi Bai, with his current disguise, was by no means attractive. But at that moment, the three young beastmen felt as though they had glimpsed the brightest spring sunlight.

The Great Priest... This was their Great Priest!

Today, not only had they welcomed the return of a new king—they had also gained a Great Priest. The Beast God had not abandoned them. All their suffering and perseverance had not been in vain.

Though their hearts still surged with emotion, the conversation in the hut had already shifted to the next steps.

Lang Cheng and the others had once rescued a few beastmen from the Yanlang Tribe during a hunt. After that, they had slowly worked to swap the Yanlang people out from inside the city. The hut they now occupied belonged to the Yanlang Tribe.

At the time the Yinyue Tribe saved the Yanlang, only eight of them remained. And yet when the Yanlang had first arrived in City of Ten Thousand Bones, there had been over thirty.

Thus, although the hut wasn’t spacious, it wasn’t as cramped as many others outside.

The roof had been reinforced, the dry grass on the ground was thick, and a faint scent of smoke lingered in the air. Lang Cheng and the others must have lit a fire inside at some point, but the ashes were well concealed—Qi Bai found no trace of them.

Now, Qi Bai and Lang Ze sat in the center of the hut on a pile of dry grass, together with Lang Zhan, Lang Cheng, and Lang Shi.

Lang Ze began: “When I entered the city just now, I took a look at the city layout and the guard distribution. The defenses here are far from tight.”

The walls of City of Ten Thousand Bones weren’t wide enough to repel a large beast tide. The uneven, jagged white bones embedded along both sides of the walls actually made it easier to climb. In every respect, the defenses were riddled with flaws.

Worse still, the Bloodbone Warriors, supposedly in charge of defense, were greedy to the core, their minds focused only on looting. There was no military discipline whatsoever.

Let alone comparing them to Heiyao City—they couldn’t even hold a candle to the Yinyue Territory in the forest. At the city gate, Lang Ze had already determined that he could come and go freely right under the Bloodbone Warriors' noses without alarming anyone.

“Their lax defense doesn’t mean they’re defenseless. We need to find out the patrol shift times of the Bloodbone Soldiers. That way, we can leave the city on our own terms—no need to wait for the gates to open at fixed times,” Qi Bai added. “Still, we should prepare for the possibility that their management might be even more chaotic than we think.”

Loose management didn’t necessarily mean an advantage—it often meant greater unpredictability and instability.

Lang Ze nodded and turned to Lang Cheng: “Have you observed any patterns in the patrols or defenses of City of Ten Thousand Bones?”

Lang Cheng swallowed nervously and shook his head. He hadn’t expected Lang Ze and Qi Bai, having just entered the city, to already be thinking of breaking out.

Among beastmen, it was common belief that the city walls covered in beastman bones were the Egu Tribe’s “eyes.” Any beastman who got close would be discovered by the Grand Wu.

Seeing their serious expressions, Lang Shi quickly explained, “It’s true. When we first arrived in the city, we saw the ‘eyes’ on the walls.”

Lang Ze frowned. If there really was Egu Wu sorcery on the city walls, this route might truly be unviable.

Qi Bai thought for a moment and asked, “The ‘eyes’ you mentioned—were they floating flames? Not necessarily red—could be green or blue?”

A young beastman in the corner replied quietly, “Yes. I saw a green flame floating on the wall, but no one believed fire could be green. Everyone just assumed it was some sort of eye.”

“Has anyone seen these eyes in daylight?” Qi Bai asked.

Everyone exchanged glances. Eventually, they hesitantly shook their heads. “I don’t think so.”

Lang Cheng, regardless of whether it was truly an eye or flame, was already excited by Qi Bai’s detailed description. “Great Priest, do you know this kind of sorcery? Do you have a way to break it?”

All eyes turned to Qi Bai.

“If it’s just as I described, then what you saw wasn’t sorcery at all,” Qi Bai explained. “It was a kind of flame that appears around bones.”

A green flame glowing around bones—wasn’t that a will-o'-the-wisp?

Of course, having grown up under scientific teachings, Qi Bai didn’t believe in ghosts. Everyone knew so-called ghost fire was just spontaneous combustion of phosphorus gas.

Since it didn’t involve spirits, Qi Bai didn’t think it had anything to do with Wu sorcery either.

It made sense. The Egu Tribe treated bones as their totem. Naturally, they would store more bones than any other tribe in their territory. Discovering phosphorescent flames and using them wouldn’t be surprising at all.

Lang Ze’s brows relaxed slightly. “Can you be sure?”

Qi Bai thought it was highly likely, but this was still the Beastman Continent. He didn’t want to speak too definitively. He winked at Lang Ze and said, “Where I come from, that’s how it is. I don’t think it would be too different here.”

Lang Ze understood.

Qi Bai had never hidden his origin from Lang Ze, even though Lang Ze had never asked. They both knew Qi Bai’s hometown wasn’t the Wind Leopard Tribe—it was a silent understanding between them.

So when Qi Bai referred to his homeland, he meant that mysterious place full of knowledge.

Flames growing on bones—to the beastmen of this era, who revered the Beast God and Wu sorcery, this was an incredibly radical idea.

But because it was Qi Bai saying it, Lang Ze was willing to consider and believe it.

And once you began to question it, everything began to unravel.

Even Hu Xiao, with divine blood, could only see some vague visions. For the Grand Wu of the Egu Tribe to have “eyes” watching the entire city? How immense would their power have to be? And if such a powerful Grand Wu truly existed—would the Upper City and the Temple, obsessed with divine blood, really leave them alone?

These so-called “eyes” felt more like Yang Luo’s fake miracles made with powder.

“I understand now,” Lang Ze nodded and turned to Lang Cheng and the others. “You all investigate the patrol times and locations of the Bloodbone Soldiers. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Yes!” “Understood!” the group responded in unison.

Hearing that even the Grand Wu’s sorcery could be broken by the Great Priest, their spirits soared. If what the Young Chief said was true, then once they identified the gaps in the city’s defenses, they could come and go freely.

Just then, a commotion erupted outside the hut.

Everyone immediately tensed.

Lang Cheng peeked outside and quickly reported: “Ke Si’s servants are about to dump food. It’s happening near this area. The other beastmen heard and are going to grab food.”

Lang Shi added, “This happens often in the city. The beastmen living in the huts have no food. The food discarded by those city dwellers keeps them from starving. We’d better head over too—if we stay behind alone, it’ll look suspicious.”

Lang Ze helped cloak Qi Bai. “Let’s go.”

Feeding starving people sounded noble—but when they reached the back of Ke Si’s stone house, they saw it was far from charitable.

They stood in a narrow alley behind a stone house. Beastmen were gathering here—this was the building’s back door.

Indeed, the City of Ten Thousand Bones had stone houses. Though crude—just slabs of rock stacked with no adhesive