An Extravagant Battle! Please Keep Reading! Please Vote!

Splurt!

People on the Dou Qi Continent rarely wore full-body armor like Jiang Lin did. The broken blade pierced Pei Suo's neck with ease, severing his carotid artery directly.

Gurgle...

Pei Suo's pupils dilated. He wanted to say something, but the moment he opened his mouth, blood gushed out. He tried to resist, but the harder he struggled, the more blood flowed from his neck and mouth. His strength gradually dwindled, and before long, he lost consciousness in Jiang Lin's arms, slipping into a dying state.

Amid the blazing mountain fire, Jiang Lin's armor was shattered and covered in blood. Fragments from the Flame Burst Armor-Slaying Sword's short-circuit explosion were even embedded in it. Holding the gradually dying Pei Suo in his arms, Jiang Lin turned to look at Rock Tiger, the One-star Great Dou Shi who had stopped in his tracks.

As Rock Tiger looked at Jiang Lin in his shattered armor, standing amid the fire and a field of metal fragments, the shock in his eyes refused to fade.

A battle between two Artifact Forgers was something Rock Tiger could never have imagined in his entire life.

The Yellow-grade mid-tier Battle Weapon Golden Feather Bow had been damaged.

The Yellow-grade High-tier Battle Weapon Flame Burst Armor-Slaying Sword had exploded into pieces.

Two Yellow-grade mid-tier close-combat blades had shattered each other.

The Yellow-grade mid-tier Black Knight Armor had been destroyed across a large area.

The Yellow-grade mid-tier Adamantine Soft Armor had suffered partial damage.

Even the Yellow-grade mid-tier shield Pei Suo had suddenly pulled out of thin air at the end bore a deep slash mark, its durability greatly reduced.

The Battle Weapons the two had expended in a single fight were beyond what Rock Tiger, a One-star Great Dou Shi, could imagine or afford. Battle Weapons of the same grade were generally one or even half a grade more valuable than pills of the same grade. After all, one was a weapon, while the other was a consumable. The battle between Jiang Lin and Pei Suo, two Dou Zhes and Dou Shis, had been equivalent to smashing each other to death with third- and fourth-grade pills.

Even until his death, Pei Suo perhaps could not understand why Jiang Lin, clearly only a Yellow-grade low-tier Artifact Forger, possessed so many Yellow-grade mid-tier and higher Battle Weapons. He believed he had prepared thoroughly and executed everything with excellent precision, yet he had ultimately died at the hands of the unreasonable Jiang Lin.

In the end, Pei Suo could only sigh at the injustice of fate. Jiang Lin's luck was simply too good—his inheritance from a Profound-grade Artifact Forger had left him with far too many transitional Battle Weapons!

Even in death, Pei Suo refused to believe that Jiang Lin had forged those Yellow-grade mid-tier and higher Battle Weapons himself!

"You won."

Amid the flickering firelight, Rock Tiger raised his head and glanced at the night sky, faintly tinged with crimson. Then he turned and left, heading down the mountain.

"Leave quickly. The Third-tier Magical Beasts in the Monster Mountain Range are coming out. They'll put out the mountain fire—and kill whoever they believe caused it." Rock Tiger ignored Jiang Lin and walked away. When he passed the three Dou Shis who had been left unable to move properly after being violently thrown into fractures by the Flame Burst Armor-Slaying Sword, he gave them a cold glance, left behind a single sentence—"Good luck"—and departed without looking back.

"Captain Rock, save us!"

"Captain, don't abandon us! Please, Captain, save us!" The three abandoned surviving Dou Shis immediately stumbled after Rock Tiger. Jiang Lin watched their retreating backs, then glanced at Pei Suo, who lay especially peacefully in his arms, his gaze flickering. Clearly, the Fierce Beast Mercenary Group seemed to be divided into two factions. Other than the short-legged Rock Tiger, none of the men Rock Tiger had brought with him had attacked Jiang Lin.

Roar!

A terrifying beast roar suddenly echoed through the mountains. Violent Wind Blades descended from the sky, continuously cutting down trees along the edge of the mountain fire. At the same time, countless streams of blue Dou Qi shot into the crimson night sky, forming layer upon layer of misty clouds. As the wind shifted the clouds, damp mountain air brushed over Jiang Lin's damaged Black Knight Armor, which leaked from every gap, clearing his mind at once.

Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle...

Before long, a light rain began to fall over the dry outskirts of the Monster Mountain Range.

Moist raindrops slid across the scarred armor. Somewhere in the forest, the shattered Black Armored Knight held a black-clad figure in a princess carry and looked up at the drizzling night sky. In the darkness, a shadow with a wingspan exceeding ten meters circled overhead.

A Fourth-rank Magical Beast—the Gale Winged Dragon.

Sure enough, setting fire to a mountain was a fast track to ending one's life no matter where one was.

Roar!

The Gale Winged Dragon in the sky suddenly let out a shriek. Countless Wind Blades instantly slashed down, and somewhere in the forest below, splintered wood flew everywhere as flesh and blood sprayed through the air. Every human mercenary who had not left the outskirts of the Monster Mountain Range had fallen within the Gale Winged Dragon's hunting range.

At last, the Gale Winged Dragon soared into the heavens. From high in the sky, its azure eyes coldly gazed toward a small plain outside the mountains—the direction of Qingshan Town. But after staring for a long while, it turned and flew into the depths of the Monster Mountain Range.

As a Fourth-rank Magical Beast, it already possessed considerable intelligence. Massacring a human town would bring it endless trouble. Humans, Magical Beasts, and other races had all maintained an unspoken understanding gradually formed over countless years: the strong could not bully the weak, and high-level experts could not slaughter the ordinary members of other races.

The Gale Winged Dragon was only a minor interlude. Jiang Lin merely stood in the distance and watched silently in the rain for a while, then carried Pei Suo's corpse and dragged his exhausted body toward Peach Blossom Valley within the Monster Mountain Range.

Coo coo?

Inside the valley, when Jiang Lin appeared, the Blue Eagle sheltering from the rain beneath a shed immediately walked over. But upon catching the scent of blood on him, it instantly hopped back and began cooing.

Jiang Lin glanced at the rope around the Blue Eagle's neck. Mm, it hadn't snapped. What an obedient little cooer.

"Go play somewhere else." Jiang Lin pushed the Blue Eagle aside, then forced himself to endure his exhaustion as he came to a pit that had been dug in advance in the valley. He stripped all of Pei Suo's equipment off him, pressed a piece of parchment to his forehead, and tossed him straight in. Then he threw in all sorts of herbs and mineral powders. He had intended to stir it, but he truly could not hold on any longer.

"You—yes, you. Use your claws to stir it." Jiang Lin gestured an action to the Blue Eagle. Without caring whether it understood, he did not even have the time to inspect Pei Suo's equipment. He ran straight to a cave in the valley and blocked the entrance with stones, lest the Blue Eagle go bad and launch a cooing sneak attack.

With a thud, Jiang Lin could no longer endure after finishing everything. He collapsed to the ground and immediately fell unconscious.

Outside, the ground-running chicken Blue Eagle tilted its head in puzzlement as it watched Jiang Lin disappear into the cave, until he blocked off the entrance. The Blue Eagle turned to look at the Alchemy Pool, then lowered its head to look at the rope around its neck. It took a few steps earlier, only for the rope to pull taut, and it was still some distance from the Alchemy Pool.

But how could something like this possibly stump Lord Eagle?

The Blue Eagle lowered its head and shook it a few times, shaking the rope right off. Then its two short legs moved swiftly as it ran to the Alchemy Pool. Looking at the bubbling liquid within, it glanced at its bandaged claws and could not help falling silent.

In the end, however, the Blue Eagle picked up a wooden stick, gripped one end with its claws, and stirred the Alchemy Pool a few times. It even flipped Pei Suo over, leaving his tiny bird pointed toward the sky.

How could such a tiny bird dare face it directly? That would be far too rude. It had to be flipped over!

After finishing everything, the Blue Eagle ran back beneath the shed to shelter from the rain. But after thinking about it, it went back to retrieve the rope and put it around its neck again.

To be a bird, one had to know when to yield and when to stand firm, when to be soft and when to be tough, when to be big and when to be small!

The Blue Eagle, possessed of excellent self-management awareness, proudly declared to itself.

(Xiao Yi Xian's Blue Eagle was highly intelligent, but in the original story, Xiao Yi Xian was rather laid-back. Blue Eagle Xiao Lan never got anything good to eat, so it did not grow much. But with Jiang Lin, the Blue Eagle could obtain more good things and had greater potential.)