# Chapter 4: Small Team
That afternoon, Su Xiao completed a total of 50 Iron Blood Hound summons. Each summoned Iron Blood Hound was different, averaging 3 to 4 Dragon Hearts per summon.
At first, Su Xiao thought the Dragon Hearts didn't quite meet the Iron Blood Hounds' requirements, but after summoning twice, he found this wasn't the case. Looking at it, the second Iron Blood Hound was stunned because it received Dragon Hearts without fighting. From its gaze fixed intently on the Dragon Hearts, its drooling desire was evident.
By the third one, after Su Xiao threw down a total of four Dragon Hearts, this Iron Blood Hound seemed to feel that eating these Dragon Hearts without doing anything simply didn't align with the Iron Blood Hound clan's style.
So it demonstrated its head splitting into nine heads, becoming a nine-headed hound to showcase its attack methods, before starting to devour the Dragon Hearts with nine heads. However, because each of the nine heads had its own ideas, they actually started fighting while eating.
The ferocity of these nine canine heads biting each other was so intense that Bubu Wang hid behind Su Xiao's legs.
The fourth Iron Blood Hound left a deep impression on Su Xiao. The first three didn't count their tail length, all having body lengths over four meters, while the fourth's physique resembled a small dog, specifically a small-boned, very thin type. Yet this one had the fiercest gaze.
Its head was somewhat conical in shape, and its combat style confirmed its ferocity. It would use ultra-high-speed charges to leap onto enemies, bite open their outer defense, burrow into the enemy's body through the wound, and wreak havoc from within.
Compared to the first three Iron Blood Hounds, the fourth had its own name. It was called Red Leech, ranking thirty-ninth in combat power within the Iron Blood Hound clan, and twenty-first in enemy kills.
Initially, Iron Blood Hound·Red Leech maintained a cold and aloof attitude, but after Su Xiao threw down five Dragon Hearts, Red Leech couldn't hold it together anymore. When its belly was round from eating, it actually spoke Void Language. Though the pronunciation was rough and unclear, it was still understandable.
According to Red Leech's introduction, their Iron Blood Hound clan had more members than Su Xiao had anticipated. They even had their own social system, though without currency or the like. Transactions were barter-based, or simply the strong plundering the weak, a coexistence of bestial nature and rationality.
In the current era, the Iron Blood Hound clan numbered over a hundred thousand. Of course, the Iron Blood Hounds Su Xiao could summon were actually only a few dozen. It wasn't that his summoning technique was limited, but that 99% of Iron Blood Hounds weren't qualified to be summoned by him.
The Iron Blood Hound clan had a basic combat power of Second to Third Rank from birth. This was an extremely fierce and bloodthirsty clan. Female Iron Blood Hounds would conceive 5 to 8 pups per litter. Before these young were born, they would awaken from their gestational state inside the mother and devour their siblings before birth.
Their nature made them want to monopolize all the mother Iron Blood Hound's milk before they were even born. After being nursed for 1 to 1.5 weeks, the mother would abandon the pups, and they would enter an independent survival phase.
If one were a veteran summoner, they would know that from Third Rank to Supreme, corresponding Iron Blood Hounds could be summoned. This was actually a very advanced school within the summoning system. As for why it wasn't well-known, it was because the Iron Blood Hounds' demands were too high.
Summoners paid great attention to cost-effectiveness. Summoning otherworldly creatures to fight was their core combat method, and otherworldly creatures obviously wouldn't fight for free like in games. After formula calculation of the summon's strength and the price required to summon them, a summon cost-effectiveness ratio would be obtained.
A ratio equal to 1 was the most conventional summon, while less than 1 was the priority choice for summoners. As for Iron Blood Hounds, their ratio was 8 to 10, meaning their combat power was exceptionally strong, but cost-effectiveness was very low. They wouldn't be summoned unless necessary.
The few dozen Iron Blood Hounds Su Xiao could summon were all at the Absolute Strong rank. For a clan, having this number of Absolute Strong rank members was absurd to the extreme. However, there was a problem: the place where Iron Blood Hounds lived was the Nether Realm.
The so-called Nether Realm could be understood as the very bottom of the Star Realm. So bottom that it was like the silt layer at the bottom of water. This place couldn't even be fully considered a material world, but rather a Star Realm bottommost world formed by the mixture of material, spiritual, and nightmare realms.
Speaking of which, the closest to the Nether Realm was True Reality, though the two were separated by the rule barrier of the material world. A simple analogy would be that True Reality was on an island 'above the water surface,' while the Nether Realm was in the silt underwater.
The Nether Realm was a place Su Xiao would absolutely never go. As a human, going to the Nether Realm would definitely be thankless. A common analogy would be: if the beings of the Nether Realm were aquatic animals, then the beings of the normal material world were terrestrial animals.
Aquatic animals could stay on 'land' for a period of time, but they absolutely couldn't survive there long-term, otherwise major problems would occur. For example, Iron Blood Hounds could stay on Blazing Sun Star for a single period under 10 days. Once exceeding 10 days, Iron Blood Hounds would gradually feel discomfort, then become increasingly weak, until they began to be gradually decomposed by the natural elements of this world.
If this Iron Blood Hound returned to the Nether Realm for a few days before being summoned again, its stay time on Blazing Sun Star would be restored to 10 days.
Conversely, if a normal material world being went to the Nether Realm, everything would be normal for the first few days, but after exceeding a certain time limit, this being would be eroded by Abyss Force.
From the situation of the Nether Realm, places in the Star Realm where Absolute Strong rank beings were everywhere weren't limited to the previous Eternal Light World. The Nether Realm was a similar case.
The Nether Realm had no faction struggles, because there were few resource outputs there. By simply devouring the Abyss Energy dispersed in the environment, one could gradually become stronger, or die from the erosion of Abyss Energy.
Summons leaning toward darkness, weirdness, scarlet, and other characteristics were all Nether Realm creatures. However, not all summoning system creatures came from the Nether Realm. For example, moon-type summons lived in a top Ninth Rank world, sheltered by the Goddess of the Bright Moon.
Speaking of which, the reason Yueshitu could summon hundreds of thousands of summons was because her summoning required no price at all. Simply put, almost all moon-type summons knew that this seemingly homebody-like girl was one of the inheritors chosen by the Goddess of the Bright Moon.
More interestingly, at this stage, the other inheritors chosen by the Goddess of the Bright Moon were almost putting on a palace intrigue drama, yet no one came to trouble Yueshitu. It wasn't out of fear, but rather not wanting to waste time.
After understanding the general situation of the Iron Blood Hound clan, Su Xiao continued summoning. A total of 50 summons, among which the strongest Iron Blood Hound was named Prison Hell. It was slightly larger than normal Iron Blood Hounds, ranking eighth in combat power and seventh in enemy kills.
The Iron Blood Hounds' strength in the entire Nether Realm was definitely in the top three. This was only because the clan wasn't united enough that they ranked third. If all Iron Blood Hounds gathered together to face a single faction, they would definitely be the strongest in the Nether Realm.
Being able to rank eighth in the Iron Blood Hound clan, Prison Hell's combat power was predictable. Correspondingly, Prison Hell was aloof and violent, but after Su Xiao threw out eight Dragon Hearts, Prison Hell's violent vertical pupils clearly became a few points clearer.
Besides Prison Hell, a large-sized Iron Blood Hound left a relatively deep impression on Su Xiao. This Iron Blood Hound was named Giant Blood Fang. Among the many Absolute Strong rank Iron Blood Hounds, it was the only defensive type.
If the battle went poorly, or even was about to be lost, it would swallow the summoner into its belly, ignore the enemy's attacks, and flee with a bound in a short time. Its frog-like strong hind legs gave it unparalleled jumping and running power. Its outer defense exceeding a thousand meant it could withstand a large number of attacks.
Su Xiao gave this big guy 15 Dragon Hearts. Plus, seeing that it wasn't too smart, he told it not to spread the word after returning. Giant Blood Fang nodded with some clumsiness and seriousness. It carefully looked at Su Xiao, wanting to remember his appearance. It could remember few things, so when it wanted to remember a person's face, it would be especially serious.
Consuming less than 200 Dragon Hearts, Su Xiao almost finished off all the Absolute Strong rank Iron Blood Hounds. Normally, summoning Iron Blood Hounds was random, at most summoning Iron Blood Hounds of the same tier as one's own strength.
Su Xiao's current situation was that among the Iron Blood Hounds that had come this time, he could summon whichever one he wanted.
Of course, summoning two at the same time was impossible. This was a constant standard set when the ability Summon·Iron Blood Hound was previously notarized.
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