Ning appeared on top of a mountain, that was actually the location of an active volcano. There was lava flowing down the side and it slid down to the mountain and into the sea.
The mountain was on one end of the island, while the rest of the island was just a normal forest. However, the contents of the forests were anything but normal.
Due to the high Qi of the surrounding area, due to it not having many humans to deplete the Qi, the beasts of this forest had grown to be extremely strong, to the point that some of them were even in the Nascent Soul realm.
Ning didn't care about them however as this was the best spot in his mind. All the other places with high Qi had people living in them.
He sat down on top of the crater's outer ring and took a deep breath. Once he felt he was ready, he waved his hand.
Suddenly, 3 silhouettes appeared in front of him.
The first one was a 3-meter tall beetle that had its back shining with golden light. Its horn with a trident looked so sharp that it could cut space itself. Its face, however, was comically small compared to its body and didn't give the same level of intimidation as the others.
The second one was a 4-meter tall black eagle, whose features were so black that not even light seemed to escape from it. Looking at the bird's feathers, it felt like one was staring into an abyss. The eagle slowly opened its eyes and light from the surrounding seemed to dim down a little.
The third and final one was a giant 20 meters long Flood Dragon that had 4 limbs. Its Dragon like face was turning more and more like that of a True Dragon every day and even the blue scales were changing from simple washed-out blue to the blue of the deep ocean.
Ning nodded after looking at the three of them. Aegis was the one that had the least potential of the bunch and had already reached it. Its evolution had taken not a lot of time and was only keeping up with the other two thanks to his beast space.
Night and Blue had about the same amount of potential as each other. Blue was not even halfway into evolution, and it looked like it was going to really take a thousand years for him to fully evolve at this rate.
True dragons really were very strong and reaching those levels was not an easy feat. Just spending a millennium to reach it was Blue's luck on finding Ning as a master.
Blue was pretty much confirmed to become a True Water Dragon, however, even then his potential was equal to that of Night. That was sole because of what Night's next evolution was.
Ning looked around and saw how dark the surrounding had gotten despite it being the middle of the day. Night really was starting to affect the surroundings too much. That didn't bother him, however.
"Aegis, you are my main guard. Blue, protect me from the ground and Ning, protect me from the sky," he said.
"Yes, Master!" Aegis and Blue said respectfully.
"Sure," Night said.
Ning sighed once more. The bond was so weak that he couldn't even sense it anymore. The only reason he knew it existed was because Night stayed with him and didn't leave him. Although, from time to time, he felt like Night was just staying with him cause he gave him Snakeskin every once in a while.
'Whatever, as long as he protects me, I should be fine,' Ning thought.
He started focusing on his cultivation. The beasts got into position and waited.
Hours passed, and the sun started to go down, but Ning didn't manage to reach the point of breakthrough yet; it was going to take some more time.
The beasts weren't in any hurry, however. Slowly, nights passed too, and the stars in the sky moved past the horizon.
Around 3 am at night, Ning finally felt something. A crack appeared in his Golden Core. This was a surprising phenomenon to anyone that didn't know about Nascent Soul. Most people would assume that there was a problem with their core.
However, anyone that prepared even the slightest bit knew that this was the best thing that could happen to him now.
The air around Ning changed as a huge amount of Qi started circulating again. The Divine Devouring technique worked again and started aiding in his breakthrough.
Ning now was now giving off a very different aura from the other beasts around him, and that made him unique. Being unique in a forest full of beasts wasn't exactly the best thing he could do right now.
Movements appeared in the forest as the trees started moving. The lower cultivation beasts did their best to make no sound, while the higher tier beasts approached the mountain base.
Night, Aegis, and Blue could now see nearly a hundred beasts down there. Even the weakest one of them was at the Golden Core Realm, and the highest one of them seemed to be at a realm that was higher than their own.
This meant a very fun fight was going to begin soon for these beasts.
Night slowly turned his head and looked at Aegis as he said, "I'm going off to fight them. Protect him carefully."
Aegis was a little surprised. "Wait, we have our orders," Aegis said as he was a little flustered. Even Blue seemed to be in deep thought regarding the order.
"Hmph! Do I look like I care about his orders? I make my own order," Night said. He then turned to Blue and asked, "Are you joining me?"
Blue thought for a while instead of answering. Unlike Night, he was bound by Ning's orders, so he couldn't go against it.
"Coward!" Night said and decided to go on his own.
"Wait, Who said I'm not going," Blue said as he prepared to go down too.
"What? Master ordered us," Aegis reminded Blue. Blue suddenly turned his dragon head to look at Aegis and gave a smug smile as he said, "yes, he ordered me to defeat enemies that come from the ground. I'm going to do exactly that down below."
Aegis was about to talk again, but Night caught him off. "Enough nonsense, you coming or not?" he asked Blue.
"Of course, let's go."
Blue wiggled as he slid down the side of the mountain and stayed to the ground as per Ning's orders. Night however flew down without care for some measly orders.
He flapped his wind and disappeared from the top of the mountain. Seeing that both of the beasts were coming down, the rest of the beasts at the bottom of the mountain got ready to fight.
"ROOOOAR!!" one of the beasts shouted and the fight began.
Night flying through decapitated a few early-level Golden Core cultivators, but they were barely any threat, to begin with. Night was about to go for another run when he saw something fly towards Ning. Night immediately flew behind at the same time and forced the bird to fly upwards.
This one was an almost equally fast bird that could compare with him and Night didn't like that at all.
"A sparrow with a bloodline of the famous Roc, huh?" Night said. The sparrow was very large, full of green feathers and a wingspan that was twice its entire length.
Shock could be seen in the sparrow's eyes. "A Dark Emperor Eagle? I thought your kind went extinct. In the memories I inherited, there is information about your type dying during the great disaster 10 thousand years ago. How is it that you are still alive?" the sparrow asked.
Night didn't know any of the answers to his questions, so he stayed quiet.
The sparrow looked down towards Aegis and his eyes shined once again. "That's a Golden Shelled Beetle. His kinds were mostly destroyed in the far corners of the world as well. It's a surprise to see two very rare beasts in a single place."
"I must say, I am very curious about your origins, after all, not man'” " the sparrow stopped as its eyes turned towards Blue. Then, those eyes got wide with horror and terror behind it.
"A True Dragon!" he said with intense fear behind his eyes. However, they didn't last very long.
"No, wait. That's not a True Dragon. That's just a flood dragon with a little blood essence of the True Dragon. That nearly scared me to death."
"However, even that is very rare. Now I'm really curious as to who that human is. I'm sure, looking through his memories, I will get a lot of information" the sparrow said.
It once more flew towards Ning's location, but Night appeared in time and changed its trajectory at the last moment to appear back towards the bottom of the mountain again.
The sparrow looked at Night with its green eyes and spoke, "Why do you protect that human? Do you owe him a favor? Does he have something on you? I do not sense the presence of a bond between you two."
"Yeah, I used to be bonded with him, but I broke it myself once I reached the Nascent Soul realm," Night said. "Although that stupid human hasn't realized it yet."
The sparrow was a little surprised. "And yet you stay with him, protect him. Is there a reason for that?" the sparrow asked. It was beyond curious at this point.
Night looked around and saw that Blue was fighting another very strong enemy, while at the same time killing as many weaker ones as he could.
He then looked towards Aegis and saw that he was also fighting with some of the beasts that had made their way through the flood dragon's battle. Seeing that there was no one to listen to him speak, he decided to talk a bit.
"Yes, there is actually, and it's quite a simple one at that.," Night said. The sparrow curiously listened to Night, waiting for his answer.
Night gave a smug smile and said, "He's a good guy and I like him. He treats those that are close to him with care and never fails to help them. Also, without him, I could never evolve into a Dark Emperor Eagle. So, it isn't very surprising that I would like him." Night said.
"What should surprise you is that I am willing to let myself be enslaved by him if he ever wants me to. He's earned that much from me," Night said.
The sparrow beast felt a little irked when it heard the last sentence. "Sigh, here I thought it was something useful. It turns out you are nothing but a cowardly eagle that was enslaved by the humans and is now starting to think of one as good."
"Very well. I shall end you and release you from your suffering. Then, I shall go read the minds of that poor human and find out how he did all those things you said he did," the sparrow screamed.
"Over my dead body."
Night immediately sent out black feathers from his wing flap. The sparrow flapped its wings as well and the feathers all disappeared in the night.
Night frowned; he could no longer use the winds and speed to his advantage.
Night suddenly flapped, causing gusts of winds to appear that started making extremely minor cuts in the sparrow's eyes practically blinding him until the skill was stopped.
The sparrow screeched in annoyance and immediately flapped its wings back to remove all of the tiny cuts. However, at the same time, Night flew by to cut the sparrow with his talons.
The dark night only got darker as Night approached. Sparrow managed to dodge in time, but Night still got a few feathers which scared the sparrow a lot.
"Tsk, I missed.. Won't be the same next time."
