Chapter 158: A Sleeping Beast

Lin Mu nodded and swallowed his saliva as he kept his spirit sense alert. Just a meter more and then he could sense the large beast that was about eight meters away from him. He walked even closer and observed that the beast was sleeping on the ground and was curled up against a wall.

Lin Mu felt afraid of going forward, but at the same time, his curiosity was forcing him to see the beast. Stuck in a dilemma he thought of possible solutions, until just a moment later it presented to himself. 

Lin Mu walked up to a wall and entered it. He then walked along the edge of the wall towards the beast. This way, even if the beast sensed him and attacked him, he would have enough time to escape into the wall. 

"Hmm, this seems a good method." Xukong praised.

Lin Mu kept walking and shortly reached the location of the sleeping beast. The beast was sleeping and its body would gently move in a rhythm along with its breathing. Lin Mu was facing the beast's back thus could not see what it was clearly.

But just from its back, Lin Mu could tell that the beast was big, very big. Even though the beast was sleeping on the ground, its body was still about two meters tall. Its fur was brown and there seemed to be some black patches and spots on it.

~HRUF~

Lin Mu suddenly retreated into the wall. The beast had let out a sound and had shifted a little bit. Lin Mu feared that it may have woken up, thus he quickly retread back. 

A few minutes later, no more sounds came, thus he walked there again. This time, he saw that the beast had changed its sleeping posture and now he could see its limbs. They were as thick as the trunks of a tree and long claws were growing from them.

There were five claws on each limb, and they were all about twelve inches long. Lin Mu went a bit more close and then witnessed the front side of the beast. What he saw shocked him.

The upper part of the beast was black and there seemed to be bone spurs coming out from it at random places. 

As soon as Lin Mu saw it, he recognized it.

"The bear beast! The same one that attacked Zhou Ye." Lin Mu whispered in shock.

The beast moved a bit more, and now Lin Mu could see its head and upper torso clearly. Unlike its upper torso, its head was brown in color and seemed to be normal. There was a special pattern on it, though. The pattern started from its forehead and spread to its chin.

The pattern looked like curved lines and edged out from the base of its eyes. From there it went to the beast's ears and then came down to its neck before finally reaching the center of its chest where it formed an inverted triangle.

While Lin Mu was shocked by the beast's presence, Xukong was shocked because of something completely else.

"No… how can one of them be here? In a world such as this? This is… simply… impossible." Xukong Spike out in shock.

In fact, Xukong was so shocked that Lin Mu could actually year his voice in his head and had clearly heard what he had said.

"Senior, what happened?" Lin Mu questioned as a drop of sweat fell off of his forehead.

"RETREAT QUICK!" Xukong spoke with urgency, yet his voice seemed to be fading away for some reason.

"What?!" Lin Mu questioned.

"I SAID RETREAT!" Xukong shouted out in Lin Mu's mind with a booming voice.

Lin Mu didn't take another prompt as he immediately merged into the wall and started running towards the fissure. He didn't stop or take a look back for even a moment as he ran all the way to the cave he had come from. 

He had even subconsciously used blink multiple times and only realized it after he had reached the cave and was in front of the fire. He slumped down onto the ground and tried to catch his breath.

"What happened back there senior?" Lin Mu questioned but got no answer.

"Senior?" he spoke again.

"Senior?…" Lin Mu tried for the third time.

It took him multiple tries over ten minutes before he felt a wave of energy pass over his body. It was a familiar wave of energy and he had felt it before. It was similar to being doused with water.

'This is the same as back when senior put the ward on me.' Lin Mu realized.

A few moments later he could hear senior Xukong's voice again. 

"That was close… but I was able to stop the ward from activating," Xukong spoke in a tired tone.

Lin Mu was rather surprised by this tone of voice and wondered what had happened to the ward.

"The ward? Why would it activate it here? Isn't it only supposed to activate if it's someone way above my cultivation realm?" Lin Mu questioned, but then realized it a second later.

"No way… it can't be… can it?" Lin Mu questioned in fear.

"Don't worry, the beast did not have a high enough cultivation base to activate it directly," Xukong spoke, alleviating his fear.

~Phew~

Lin Mu let out a breath of relief and calmed down, but immediately the next second senior Xukong spoke something that put him on the edge again.

"Though that beast was once indeed strong, very strong." Xukong continued.

~Gulp~

Lin Mu swelled his saliva as he tried to imagine what kind of beast could have made Senior Xukong so tense. Even old man Jing Wei who supposedly had a very high cultivation base didn't faze him. And then he also heard that senior Xukong had stopped the activation of the ward.

"The beast… if it was in its normal condition, then it would be… above the Immortal Ascension realm." Xukong revealed.

It was as if lightning had struck Lin Mu's mind as he suddenly felt dizzy again.