The Fengpeng was born as an eighteen metres long, twenty-seven metres wide monstrosity. Should it collide with anything, it’d be nothing short of a small mountain crashing onto the same person or object. To make matters worse, it was hard to stay on its back owing to its astounding agility.
Due to the black beast only having entered the world not long ago, it was at a loss for what to do at first, but it quickly unleashed its brutality on Ming Huayu, trying to send the latter into the ether with one paw.
Ming Huayu dispersed the energy, reducing his flight to a mere ten metres. Next, he leveraged the Fengpeng’s force against it, accelerating himself back down to floor the beast.
The squad remembered Ming Huayu’s instructions – because they all knew disobeying him was more terrifying than Six Evils unleashed – but their conscience wouldn’t allow them to just leave the calamitous beast to him alone. What they didn’t know was their patriarch’s true capacity.
Nobody liked Ming Huayu when he was brought to Mount Daluo as, despite being a cute and handsome kid, the first thing he said was, “Fook you, Daddy wants out.” His condescending attitude didn’t help his case, but nobody could learn as fast as him. It was hard to understand things he said – minus the insults and insinuations. If anyone wanted to understand him, they had to think long and hard – at least they thought they did. When they thought their guess was correct, he’d creep up behind them to imperiously tell them, “You’re wrong.”
Ever since he was instated as Patriarch, Ming Huayu dropped all of Mount Daluo’s enemies at the foot of their mountain – no exceptions. Not even his strongest opponent was able to force him to access Divine Realm.
The Fengpeng’s howl snapped the squad out of their daze and into a realm of pain. Yet, Ming Huayu descended and, emitting white energy from his hand, chopped off the Fengpeng’s six metres long left fang in one motion and then disengaged.
Even though the Fengpeng’s strongest offensive weapon was at its weakest as an infant, it still wasn’t something an ordinary weapon could slice apart.
Having developed a fear of Ming Huayu, the Fengpeng bolted off as he closed in a third time.
Upon returning to the ground, Ming Huayu stated, “I can’t solo it. Tell the geezer to hurry the hell up. Without his Castoff and that stupid iron rod, I can’t get into the piggy’s skin. I’ll stall it until he’s ready,” and then recalibrated his breathing.
Blades, fire and water weren’t enough to inflict meaningful damage to the six beasts. Without a special method, the only path to victory was, first one to gas. Trying to fight a war of attrition wasn’t really a fight, though; it was just self-inflicted torture.
The typical strategy consisted of forging a weapon capable of piercing Six Evils’ exterior and then having top-tier fighters pounce it. Hero Shenzhou’s weapon, which was part of Seven Dynasty-Founding Blades, was capable of penetrating their robust exterior.
Ming Huayu opened his eyes, then made a beeline for a tree branch to monitor the Fengpeng. Since the Fengpeng chose to flee to the rear mountain, there was no fearing it would escape. If anything, the time it spent rumbling with the trees and whatnot would buy them precious time to recuperate.
“Unless… there’s someone with a death wish on the rear mountain.”
Tasking someone to stall Six Evils was tantamount to saying, “We need you to sacrifice your life.” Typically, a team would be entrusted with the mission, so it stood to reason that a young disciple wanted to assist Ming Huayu, yet an elder stopped him.
“Uncle, do not stop me! How can we let Patriarch go by himself?!”
“Wushan, are you stupid? Are you telling me you haven’t noticed?” The elder gazed up to Ming Huayu’s back. “He… hasn’t even used Enlightenment yet.”
***
“… Damn it!” Ming Feizhen, on his way back to his feet, thought he’d see his organs when he spat the blood in his mouth.
“Feizhen!”
Ming Feizhen wiped his blood whilst forcing Ming Suwen to stay back with an extended arm. “I’ll charge at it again. If I fail, run. I’ll keep it busy. There shouldn’t be any more of these strange beasts in the forest…”
Even though he had gone through training harsh enough for him to think it was abuse and even though he received adulation for being tremendously strong, Ming Feizhen couldn’t offer the beast any challenge.
Its red eyes seemingly zapped him of his energy, while it was constantly growing mightier. For that reason, Ming Feizhen understood that a protracted battle would inexorably lead to his downfall. Needless to say, he hadn’t deluded himself into believing that he was qualified to stand toe to toe with it. While he was severely battered, he wasn’t able to rattle it once in the last fifteen minutes.
The man who raised Ming Feizhen never taught him to give up; he was taught to claw his way if that was what it took to survive.
As Ming Feizhen shuffled through his database for knowledge on unique beasts, he bound at his opponent again. He abruptly halted his advance, but the beast continued forward, oblivious to the danger it was placing itself in.
In spite of being granted the best opportunity to turn the tides, Ming Feizhen’s body wouldn’t heed his plea. He was running on fumes, and every time he moved, it hurt all over. If he didn’t do something, nonetheless, the girl behind would be its snack.
Ming Feizhen dug deep to dodge a fatal bite and uncorked the biggest fist bomb at the beast’s only weakness – its soft abdomen. Following up, using his three mountains and three oceans of might, he delivered a finishing snap kick to the same spot.
Ming Feizhen, blood-soaked, wobbled back to Ming Suwen and softly uttered, “I’m glad you’re all right…”
Ming Suwen never ran away notwithstanding having cried her eyes red. She wrapped her arms around him to support him on his feet, wailing on his chest. She didn’t know that the event would become the reason that she could never get him out of her heart.
As they began to wobble away, a dark shadow devoured theirs from overhead. Ming Suwen turned back, consequently losing her breath.
There was the twin-headed beast with heads resembling boars, except far more menacing. It inhaled Ming Suwen’s fear and drooled drums of saliva from its light-pink tongue. “It” deftly coiled the beast Ming Feizhen killed up its tongue and into its mouth. It licked its lips as if to express, “Tasty snack” in front of them. Its red eyes on them told them that they were next on the menu.
***
“Wait. Are you saying the beast that took Feizhen everything to kill wasn’t…” Although the fact that Ming Suwen was in alive and there in front of her, Shen Yiren was shaken.
“It wasn’t.” Ming Suwen paused to adjust herself as the nightmare surfaced once again. “The beast Ming Feizhen practically traded his life to kill was only a wild beast that the mutative gas had infected. The true diabolic monster of Mount Daluo showed up when we least expected it as a nightmare.”
