Chapter 417: Queen of the Wolves: Aftermath in the Valley

Wow!

No way… Seriously, wow!

“That python’s massive! My Queen, did you guys actually take down the leader of the python pack? That’s incredible! Long live the Queen! Unstoppable! You’re the strongest on all of Blue Star!”

The Alpha took Xia Qing’s enthusiastic praise with a calm face. But judging by the spring in its step as it ducked into the wolf den for a drink from the spring, it was feeling pretty pleased with itself.

Crippled Wolf came over, circled Xia Qing once and looked up at her.

Xia Qing got the message. With a gentle voice, brimming with emotion, she laid on the compliments thick: “Crippled, you’re amazing too. You must’ve seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and helped the Queen come up with a plan to catch this giant python, huh? How many of your pack had to leave the den to do it? Anyone get hurt? If so, bring them over—if we have Yi Stone, we can fix anything. Go on inside and check it out. You’ve been gone for days and the straw inside’s all damp, and Lame Wolf’s little sister turned it into a total mess.”

Crippled Wolf seemed satisfied and ducked into the den for a drink.

Lame Wolf bounced over, tongue hanging out panting at Xia Qing, clearly overjoyed.

Xia Qing laughed. “Lame, you always look so lively whenever I see you. Need me to treat that cut on your leg?”

Lame Wolf started hopping around, tongue lolling, still letting out those happy pants.

So Xia Qing just pulled out the medical kit, pinned him gently to the ground, and cleaned, disinfected, medicated and bandaged the two-centimeter wound on his front leg. Evolutionary bacteria aren’t as active in winter as other seasons, but a wound in all this damp air is still risky.

When she finished, Xia Qing stood and said, “All done—go see your sister. Four more days and her protective gear can come off, and she can finally go home to the wolves’ territory with you. Tell her once the gear’s off, don’t tear around the valley like you did and freak out our wild boars again.”

Seeing Xia Qing had finished talking, Lame Wolf couldn’t wait. He dashed straight for the cave—”thud”—and slammed right into the wooden door. The door shivered from the impact and a big chunk of the clay Xia Qing had just smeared to patch up the stone wall came clattering down.

“Woooo—”

A low, furious growl echoed from deep inside—Crippled Wolf, in full authoritative mode. Lame Wolf knew he’d messed up, so he tucked his tail, stood by the door and didn’t dare move an inch.

After a while, Crippled Wolf finally pushed open the wooden door, howled a few scolding words, and only then allowed Lame Wolf inside.

The last to arrive was Black Wolf. She gave Xia Qing a cautious look, then slipped inside after Lame Wolf.

This was the only wolf in the pack with a normal evolution. Xia Qing didn’t even need to praise her.

Once Black Wolf was inside, Crippled Wolf drew his claws back. As the door closed, it let out a creak—the thing was already a little warped from being slammed so much by Lame Wolf.

“Creeeak—thunk.”

A second later, the door swung open again. Crippled Wolf poked his head out, eyeing Xia Qing thoughtfully.

“Got it, I hear you, I’ll fix it right now.”

Crippled Wolf had traded for that wooden door with a piece of Yi Stone, and Xia Qing wasn’t just in charge of making, delivering, and installing it—she handled after-sales repairs too.

Once the repair was done, Xia Qing closed the door and called out, “Crippled, try it again!”

Crippled Wolf, who’d been crouched inside supervising her work the whole time, pushed the door open in silence and, mouth spread in a grin, flashed Xia Qing a pair of adorable, snowy-white fangs.

“Glad you’re satisfied. Knock yourself out playing with the door—I’m going to check on the giant python.” With that, Xia Qing stowed her tools and left to take a look.

This python’s thickest part was nearly a meter wide—twice as thick as Xia Qing herself. It had to be at least fifteen meters long. Its huge mouth hung open, exposing two hidden rows of sharp, backward-curving teeth.

Standing close, Xia Qing felt chills all over. She was even more in awe of Yan Long, who had dared to take on five giant pythons single-handed.

If she’d found herself this close to a live python like this, she’d have turned and run in a heartbeat—get to safety first, then use the sniper rifle to take it down.

Maybe this python was one of the five that Yan Long soloed. Xia Qing took out her phone, stepped back and snapped a pic of its head, sending it off to Yang Jin.

Yang Jin understood immediately and soon sent back that photograph of Yan Long battling the five pythons, adding: Looks like it’s the one in the middle.

Xia Qing zoomed in on the image—the one that made her blood pound. She compared the tall, rearing python in the center of the photo with the dead giant coiled before her. Sure enough, it was the same one.

In other words, at least three of the five giant pythons from that picture had been taken out by the Wolf Pack. That meant the combined fighting strength of the evolved pythons in that waterway was way down now, thanks to the wolves.

Xia Qing tested the python’s skin with her knife and messaged Yang Jin: Confirmed—it’s the middle one. Its hide is even tougher than the other two.

The wolves have no way to attack from a distance—they’ve only got teeth and claws. This python’s jaw was ripped off, mouth and eyes torn to shreds, and even its split tongue was gone.

She hadn’t seen the showdown between wolves and python up close, but Xia Qing was sure most of the wounds on the python’s head were Alpha’s doing.

After all, he was the king of the pack—a brain and speed dual-evolution powerhouse who always led the charge into battle.

Xia Qing was just putting her phone away when Yang Jin sent her another photo taken from above.

There was some fog, so the picture was a little grainy. All you could make out were two evolved bears by the lakeshore, a mess of snapped trees and rocks strewn everywhere, rubble and chaos in the wake of the fight.

Yang Jin sent a second photo too—same angle, same mess. But this time, one of the bears had its head raised, staring straight up at the camera in the sky.

Damn!

The evolved brown bear just looked up in total calm, not even bothering to bare its sharp fangs. It might have been shot from a distance, and Xia Qing was only seeing it through her phone screen, but the force of the bear’s presence hit her even harder than the python.

A strong one—that had to be one of the Bear Pack’s top fighters!

Xia Qing didn’t even get a chance to reply before Yang Jin sent another photo.

This time it was a side shot of that same chaotic scene. Fallen boulders and trees lay scattered in the swampy ground in the middle. Two bears and two wolves faced off across the ruined marsh.

With the wolves there for scale, Xia Qing realized just how huge the bears were. Standing tall, they towered over the Huge Wolf—at least twice his height! Even on all fours, their backs were higher than the evolved giant wolf’s!

Just seeing them like that got Xia Qing’s heart racing. How could Blue Star have such gigantic bears? Was this some kind of joke? How far had evolution on this planet gone to drive things to this wild and hopeless level?

Since she had no clue where Yang Jin actually was, Xia Qing didn’t dare call. She lowered her head and shot off a quick message:

The Huge Wolf on the left came through my territory with Alpha in the lead. The one on the right, I saw after the wolves fought the pythons—it’s second only to Alpha in status among the Wolf Pack on Hill Sixty.