Chapter 134 The Successor of the End (Part 3)

The ice wolf seemed to understand human language, mimicking a person cornered in a desperate situation, circling around them as much as possible without exposing its fangs, for fear of scaring the humans away.

Meanwhile, its tail wagged incessantly, and then it let out two hoarse growls toward the place where the light fell, as sorrowful as the arrival and departure of the light of life.

Tobas asked the ice wolf, "My dear friend, what do you want to tell us?"

The ice wolf howled twice and quickly ran to the end of the ice ridge. Just when everyone could no longer see it, the ice wolf reappeared on the permafrost.

"It tells us to keep up."

"Are you sure that's what it just said?"

"If you've ever kept dogs in a palace, you'll know what that means."

"Alright, you're in charge, Tobas."

The two boys followed closely behind the ice wolf.

Under the melancholy starry sky, the ice wolf led humanity to a place that resembled a riverbed.

There are many cracks here, and the number of horizontal lines and the vertical lines intersecting them increases exponentially as the legs move, indicating that the ice surface nearby is extremely unstable and could collapse at any time.

The ice wolf grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared below the horizon, but its howl could still be heard.

To take care of Mien, Tobas told him, "Stand still, I'll go check it out by myself. If there's anything we can help with, I'll whistle to call you over."

After Tobas left, Mien was very worried about Tobas. He had heard that ice wolves were social creatures and rarely came out alone. Moreover, they were the fiercest and most brutal hunters on the ice plains, just like the tribes they lived in, making all outsiders tremble with fear.

But this one in front of me was different. With a hint of pity, it seemed like a severely wounded warrior who had crawled out of a pile of corpses. It could no longer fight, but it still longed to fight and to find the smell of blood in the long night.

In the white fog, Tobas saw a large missing section of the ground, and knew that a fracture had occurred there.

On the Moli'ai Icefield, it is a very common natural phenomenon for fragile ice to break when heated, often occurring late at night, especially near the Brand Mountain.

Many bear spirits disappeared during the migration, and no one in the tribe cared what happened. In fact, they did not extend a helping hand to the weak like humans do.

On the contrary, they believe that a powerful tribe cannot tolerate the weak. If there are weak people, they will drive them out of the village. Therefore, there are very few old people and children in the Xiongling tribe, and even women are very rare.

Ice Wolf was waiting for him by the gap. Tobas rushed over and soon found a bear spirit lying in the pit.

Xiong Ling is still alive, or she may have been frozen solid.

Although Tobas was trying to think positively, Xiong Ling's slow movements told him that he must have been seriously injured.

The ice wolf's roar sounded like a groan, and Xiong Ling trembled as he heard his old friend return.

This is an old bear spirit.

He seemed to be talking in his sleep, struggling to move his back onto the box. Black hair spilled out of the box, along with some lifeless armor, all of which exuded the smell of being buried deep in a grave.

"Insect mud? You're back so soon?"

Old Bear Spirit then noticed that the Ice Wolf had brought back a human, whose small body blocked out the starlight.

Perhaps due to the influence of the snow, Old Bear Spirit appeared to have a full white beard and white hair. His beard was messy, and his hair was not very long. His cheeks were prominent, and his eyes were extremely bright. Because of the protrusion of his face, his eyes, which were set under his thick eyebrows that were half dark and half bright, appeared to be very large. However, his eyes were already very large, but now they looked very unnatural.

Having walked for a long time in the icy and snowy conditions, he was almost one with his tattered clothes. He used one hand to block out the light, and the bones in that hand were as big as rocks. He stared blankly at the person who had rescued him.

A few minutes later, those weary eyes looked up at the sky again, as if something in the sky was watching him.

After a long silence, Old Bear Ling finally lowered his face, his weak voice both pitiful and frightening.

"Humans?" Old Bear Spirit asked, though it was unclear who he was addressing.

This was not due to physical weakness. Although the long trek and the poor diet were certainly contributing factors, loneliness and betrayal were the root causes of the weakness.

The injured bear spirit's voice had completely lost its power, sounding like once vibrant colors slowly fading, so low and oppressive, filled with despair and death, reminiscent of a starving traveler lost alone in the wilderness.

The ice wolf licked its master's wounds from behind. Its condition was no better than its master's; not only were its claws dull, but its fur was also gradually falling off, revealing patches of bright red bloodstains.

Since those humans were brought here, it has never cried out again, only its constant groans evoked people's sympathy for it.

Tobas whistled and summoned Mien.

"Humans?" Old Bear Spirit asked again.

Actually, Old Bear Spirit wasn't surprised to see two humans at the same time.

But when he saw Tobas, the boy's figure particularly caught his attention.

He felt like he had seen him somewhere before, but he couldn't quite place who it was. So he moved his trembling hand over the ice wolf's body. His fingers and lips were as white as lead.

"Can he stand up on his own?" Mien asked Tobas.

"There's nothing wrong. It's just that his aging bones were injured by the impact. With some rest and some food, he can recover to his pre-injury condition."

Tobas placed the knuckles of his right hand on Old Bear's left palm, and then placed the knuckles of his left hand on Old Bear's right palm, repeating these actions without stopping.

Old Bear Spirit was completely bewildered. In his view, this was nothing short of witchcraft. It was almost impossible for him to be awakened from his extremely weak state by these few simple movements.

Because he hadn't eaten for a long time, and in addition to the injuries he sustained from the fall, he also had wounds of varying degrees on other parts of his body, he was practically on the verge of death.

"Sir, I hope you can live."

"Humans tell me to live? Why?"

"What do you mean by human? Injured people need treatment, hungry people need food, everyone is the same!"

"You wouldn't happen to be...?"

"Podrolites".

Old Bear Spirit fell silent.

Beneath this vast sky, filled with countless eternal and unchanging starlight, some stars are so far away from this tiny planet that they are cosmic dust, the most insignificant life forms among all celestial bodies.

Any disaster could endanger them, and any suffering must be endured, for their light becomes even more fragile with the coming of daylight.

Old Bear Ling casually said something that Mien and Tobas couldn't understand, so they instinctively changed their sitting posture. Just as he lifted one leg to the side like setting up a cannon barrel, he was surprised to find that the injured part no longer hurt.

The ice wolf regained its strength, ran far away and dug a hole. It found many dry stones and broken branches under the snow and carried them back in its mouth.

The two Podroloy boys immediately went to help and together they completed a simple trench facing away from the wind.

Because they were under the oppressive cold for a long time, they had to find ways to keep warm.

The ice wolf's sense of smell miraculously came in handy at this moment. It was able to smell the obsidian or quartz in the cave and use its most primitive weapon—its claws—to find them one by one.

Although some of them are not ideally shaped, most of them can be used as flint and steel.

In addition, the ice wolf can also smell the scent of its prey. As long as its strength is restored enough, it can even temporarily leave its master to go to a distant forest to catch delicious prey and bring the whole prey back.

Old Bear Spirit had forgotten how he was rescued from the pit. He looked at the two Podrolite boys, then at the wolf.

"Go, Mudworm, go find food. I'm fine."

The ice wolf howled twice toward the sky, then set off on its journey, clattering along in the dim sunlight.

"This wolf is really smart. I thought wolves in the snow and wolves in the forest were all cold-blooded animals."

Mien and Tobas's heads were very close together, like eyeballs on either side of a nose.

But Old Bear Ling only looked at Tobas.

"We've all heard that the Podrote Empire has been invaded by the Demon Legion. You must be the Crown Prince of the Podrote Empire, right?"

Mien thought the old bear spirit was asking him a question, but later he realized that the old bear spirit was asking Tobas.