Chapter 616: An Unexpected Surprise
Translated by Crystal of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
The heavenly stairs of the Spirit Mountain was a well-known natural landscape of the Peach Blossom Ruins. There was only one staircase going from the bottom to the top of the mountain. It contained tens of thousands of steps, but the specifics was unknown as no one could it count it. Although there was a staircase straight to the top, one that anyone could tell would reach it, it was actually the hardest route to the top. That was because there was many traps and challenges set along the staircase targeting on the human emotions and desires. As long as one passed, they would be heading straight to the top, and if not, they it’s a direct route to God.
A while back someone did challenge the heavenly stairs, but another bore witness to them falling off and dying. As you know, since the beginning of time, human emotions and desires were the hardest to overcome. The people who dare challenged it, must be super confident in themselves.
The reason the Guma Tribe choose this route was because the challenges only applied to those climbing up. There was only one in a hundredth chance that it would also apply to those going down, but these informations was only something the Guma Tribe knew.
Half a month ago, a henchmen of MoQi XiYuan was fighting when they accidentally fell of the heavenly stairs. At that time everyone thought he had died, even MoQi XiYuan, but he appeared again and told the secret to MoQi XiYuan.
The other forces didn’t dare challenge the heavenly stairs so they didn’t know.
At first MoQi XiYuan thought it was a flawless plan but much to his dismay, there was a traitor amongst them and even exposed the secret of the heavenly stairs. You see, most of the forces had lost many of their men trying to climb up the mountain. Now that they knew of a shortcut down, no one was willing to do more challenges.
The heavenly stairs, which was made of white jade, was in ruins after the big fight broke out. The surrounding trees and grass were burnt to crisps as well. After a while, one of the surviving shrubs shook a little.
A Vermillion Blood Clan member suddenly turned around and looked around curiously but didn’t discover anything. His comrade followed his gaze and looked around, “What are you looking at?”
“I feel like I just heard something.” That member said scratching his head.
His comrade replied, “You probably heard it wrong, there’s nothing here.”
That member said un-confidently, “Yeah, I probably misheard something. Anyways, we should hurry to catch those two demon beasts, the headmaster promised a high reward for them.”
The two walked further and further away.
The shrub shook another time, this time it was very obvious. Right after it, a insect like demon beast that was sparkling gold came out of the shrub. After it took a look around and made sure there was no one, it made a slight noise directed to the shrub. Then, another little demon beast came out.
The two heads looked around suspiciously as if thieves. Currently they were still at the top part of the heavenly stairs and they were surrounded by Vermillion Blood Clan members, so they needed to find another route down.
The Metal Swallowing Beast crouched on the floor and took a sniff, after confirming the location, it signaled Xiao Ping, who was behind him. Just as they were about to hid in the shrub again, a sharp cry of joy sounded.
“I found them, I found the two demon beasts!” The owner of the voice was the one who noticed the moving shrub a while ago and besides him was his comrade. At this critical time, they couldn’t let go of any suspicious activity, thus them leaving before was just a ruse and the result was as expected.
Neither the Metal Swallowing Beast nor Xiao Ping had time to look at them, in a jolt, they drilled into the shrub again. But this time, it seemed that their luck ran out as the two had secretly called a few more people nearby to help out. Now, they almost had them surrounded.
Noticing that there was someone in front, the two could only change directions. After they went around in a circle multiple times and looked to be trapped, they finally realized that they couldn’t standby anymore and needed to make a move.
As one should know, they were rare demon beasts of the ancient times and over the past few years with their dumb owner, they had plenty of magic pills, even some rainbow pills. Even if they didn’t cultivate, their levels were rising by the day. If they couldn’t even beat a few human practitioners then they would really be losing face.
If it wasn’t for the fact that they were afraid of luring the Divine Realm practitioners over, they would’ve made a move a lot sooner.
The Vermillion Blood Clan disciples didn’t get to see the two demon beasts go all out before so they lowered their guard due to their deceptive size. But that just got him a claw to the face by the Metal Swallowing Beast. His claw was very sharp, clawing off half of his face in the process.
Xiao Ping wasn’t to be left behind either, although it was a vegetarian, it’s attack wasn’t any weaker than the Metal Swallowing Beast. With one sting, if they didn’t have some sort of miracle pill then they should be prepared for a painful death.
A continue stream of terrified screams could be heard. The one who was luckily unharmed felt his legs gave out. No one said that the two little demon beasts were difficult, seeing they’re small and cute appearance, they had thought of them as pet demons.
Most pet demons were owned by female practitioners, with a cute appearance, so it’s no wonder they would make the mistake.
The Metal Swallowing Beast and Xiao Ping didn’t dare stay any long in fear of catching the attention of the experts of the Vermillion Blood Clan, so after their successful attack, they were prepared to run. But at last, they were one step two slow as a harsh sounding voice, like the thunder, suddenly rung in their ears. With it, a strong force appeared from the sky.
“Bastards, let’s see where you can run!” The two suddenly didn’t know what to do as only a high star ranked divine realm expert could exert such pressure. In their current state, they could deal with a middle star rank but not a high star rank.
The two went their fastest speed towards the opposite direction. Just as they were about to leap across the heads of the Vermillion Blood Clan disciples, and escape in lightening fashion, they were stopped by a invisible wall and knocked back. The Metal Swallowing Beast safely landed on the staircase and crouching down, he hissed towards the direction of the pressure and made a low growl of warning. Xiao Ping laid on top of it’s head and looked in alarm towards the one who spoke.
Seeing the two appear, the Vermillion Blood Clan disciples went running/crawling towards them and was yelled at as ‘useless’ by the Divine Realm expert. Then his cold gaze landed on the Metal Swallowing Beast and Xiao Ping.
“It appears that they are the Metal Swallowing Beast and the Golden Winged Insect and Level Eleven at that. No wonder the headmaster wanted me to come, if we can catch them, that would be perfect for the Vermillion Blood Clan. Let’s get this done quickly so we won’t have to worry about it. Crow, we’re capturing them.”
“Yes, sir.”
The one who stopped the Metal Swallowing Beast and Xiao Ping from escaping was the one called Crow. He was a senior general of the God of War, You QiBei and also a four star Divine Realm expert, a star higher than the two demon beasts. As they finished talking, the two instantly attacked.
Xiao Ping hurriedly made an restriction. As he ate so many, he was able to create a few, but they were all useless in front of You QiBei, in a few moves he was able to break them.
Not giving up, Xiao Ping continued to spit out restrictions, this time it was layered together. That way, it was much stronger than a single restriction. It looked like they were just defending but actually he was buying time for the Metal Swallowing Beast. If they couldn’t win then they should run.
The Metal Swallowing Beast liked to eat metal and ate quite a few in the undergrounds of the South Continent. Some metals are buried deep into the ground so he often had to dig down to find them and over time, he developed a tunneling skill.
Just as You QiBei broke the restrictions, the Metal Swallowing Beast carried the Xiao Ping underground. They weren’t just trying to escape from the ground but rather dig deeper and deeper down, to the point were You QiBei couldn’t find them, then escape down the mountain.
You QiBei realized that he really didn’t give them enough credit, but there was no way he was going to let his prey escape. Not only that, he already stuck his signet (imprint 印记) on them, so no matter where they escaped to, he would be able to sense it.
……
After Fu ZiLin was saved by the Metal Swallowing Beast, he was temporarily safe but because the Metal Swallowing Beast’s identity was exposed as You XiaoMo’s contracted demon beast, the two faced even stronger attacks. In the end, due there being so many Spirit Mountains, and them desperately fleeing, they lost each other.
The Divine Realm expert that MoQi XiYuan sent to protect Fu ZiLin was also separated amongst the chaos. Now it was only him left. The Guma Tribe saw him as a thorn in their side and had people sent to kill him. He was also unlucky in that he escaped to the wrong direction and became squished between the Vermillion Blood Clan and the Guma Tribe.
The dark blue shirt was completely soaked with blood. Fu ZiLin had a gash on his forehead and the blood had dripped across half of his face. He was extremely pale, as even with his much stronger levels, he wasn’t able to fight off against six opponents at the same time. If there wasn’t a miracle, he was probably going to die here. As he thought about it, his heart sunk.
Just when he knew his little-shidi was also in the Peach Blossom Ruins and just as they were about to meet, how could he die here?!
“Fu ZiLin, if you are going to blame someone, blame yourself for following the wrong person.” The people of the Guma Tribe let out a complacent and arrogant smile. If they killed him, they would get a hefty reward from the tribe leader. They were excited just thinking about it. Since there was very little mages in the Guma Tribe, they were given very little magic pills.
With that, they raised their weapons.
Fu ZiLin clenched his fist.
Just then, a voice of surprise came from the sky.
“Second-shixiong?”