War Beast

Whew—

Lu Qingshan rose from the bed and stretched lazily.

Since transmigrating here, only two short days had passed, yet one matter after another had come crashing down on him, leaving him mentally exhausted.

Qi Refining cultivators were, for the most part, merely somewhat stronger mortals.

Only after establishing one's foundation could one be considered a true cultivator.

Foundation Establishment cultivators could abstain from food and remain full of vigor without rest. They truly lived as carefree as drifting clouds.

Now that the immediate matters had finally come to a temporary halt, Lu Qingshan hurriedly took the chance to rest.

He slept for an entire day.

When he woke, it was already the fifteenth of July.

Lu Qingshan's expression turned grave.

The plot was about to begin.

He just did not know whether his interference would alter history even slightly, or whether history's immense inertia would force everything back onto its original track.

Lu Qingshan fell into a daze as he pondered.

Creak—

An unusual sound rang out in the silent room, immediately drawing Lu Qingshan's attention.

Lu Qingshan turned toward where the sound had come from.

A corner of the room's wooden lattice window had been pushed open.

A shifty, rat-faced head cautiously poked inside.

—A truly shifty, rat-faced head, because the visitor was Great King West Rat.

Lu Qingshan asked in surprise, "Why have you come back?"

From the very beginning, Lu Qingshan had never intended to make things difficult for Great King West Rat.

To him, whether one was a demon or a human did not matter. What mattered was what one had done.

Some people might be human, yet they were far more vicious than demons.

Since Great King West Rat had never slaughtered indiscriminately, what did it matter if he was a demon?

The reason Lu Qingshan had kept Great King West Rat with him before was because he felt the rat demon might still prove useful.

After all, Great King West Rat was the only one who had personally seen the blood pool in Yuanshan City. Well, the only demon.

He could be considered an exceptionally important witness.

But after encountering Blood Corpse True Person at the Great Xia Trading Company, Lu Qingshan had formed a plan, and no longer needed Great King West Rat.

Thus, as soon as they left the trading company, Lu Qingshan kept his promise and allowed Great King West Rat to leave.

Yet now, for some unknown reason, Great King West Rat had come looking for him again.

Upon seeing Lu Qingshan, Great King West Rat patted his chest and breathed a sigh of relief. "It's good that you're still here."

Lu Qingshan frowned. "What happened?"

Great King West Rat kicked off with his short little legs, turning into a black shadow as he leaped from the window onto the table.

"A huge discovery, a huge discovery!" Great King West Rat said mysteriously. "The day before yesterday, at the Great Xia Trading Company, I noticed that you seemed especially concerned about that female cultivator. And after running into her, you suddenly agreed to let me go the moment we left the Great Xia Trading Company, so I paid a little extra attention to her."

The female cultivator Great King West Rat spoke of should have been Wu Yi.

Rat spirit, rat spirit—his nickname truly had not been given in vain. This rat demon looked foolish, but he was actually sharp as a needle.

Even such a subtle shift in his expression had been noticed by Great King West Rat.

Lu Qingshan sighed inwardly but said nothing, quietly waiting for Great King West Rat to continue.

Great King West Rat began rambling on about his experiences over the past two days.

It turned out that after following Lu Qingshan to Yuanshan City and witnessing the prosperity of a human prefectural city, Great King West Rat had become so enchanted that he forgot the way home.

After Lu Qingshan released him, he chose not to return to the small village, instead summoning his courage to remain in Yuanshan City.

Yuanshan City was so large that it could surely accommodate one rat demon.

Yet not long after Great King West Rat had begun wandering aimlessly through the city and savoring his freedom, he happened, by sheer coincidence, to spot Wu Yi moving furtively, seemingly on her way somewhere unknown.

Out of curiosity, Great King West Rat trailed Wu Yi from afar, following her for some distance.

Afraid of being discovered, Great King West Rat did not dare follow too closely.

He followed her all the way until he saw Wu Yi enter a residence, never to emerge again.

"A residence?"

Great King West Rat scratched his head. "It seemed to be called Ku Mansion or something. I can't read you humans' writing, but that's what I heard others call it."

Great King West Rat waved his little paw. "Never mind that. Guess what I found?"

Great King West Rat looked immensely pleased with himself.

Lu Qingshan showed no courtesy, rapping his knuckle sharply against Great King West Rat's head. "Don't keep me in suspense."

Covering his head, Great King West Rat looked at Lu Qingshan pitifully. "I gathered my courage and secretly slipped into Ku Mansion. Strange thing was, I had clearly seen that female cultivator enter Ku Mansion with my own eyes, but after wandering around inside several times, I never found her. It was as if she had vanished into thin air.

"Just as I was about to give up searching, I suddenly caught a familiar scent."

"A familiar scent?"

Great King West Rat explained, "The exact same strange fragrance that had wafted from the blood pool. It was extremely faint and was almost gone, but the impression it had left on me was too deep, so I still recognized it."

"Following that scent, I went deep into the residence and unexpectedly discovered a cellar.

"Inside that cellar, there was another blood pool! It was much smaller than the one I had seen before."

Great King West Rat gestured animatedly. "The important thing was that there was an incredibly ferocious-looking beast inside that blood pool. Its body was like a lion's, but it had no fur at all. Its eyes were blood-red, and three bones jutted out from its spine. Those three bones were especially strange—they looked like, uh..."

Unable to find a suitable description, Great King West Rat got stuck.

"Like swords thrust into its spine?" Lu Qingshan interjected.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Isn't that strange? I've never seen a beast that looked like that." Great King West Rat nodded his little head vigorously in agreement.

Then Great King West Rat immediately came to his senses and looked suspiciously at Lu Qingshan. "But you haven't seen it. How did you know what it looked like?"

Lu Qingshan shook his head. "That was not a beast. It was a Magic Beast."

"A Magic Beast?"

Lu Qingshan did not explain further to Great King West Rat.

The term Magic Beast would not spread among humans until several versions later.

As the name implied, Magic Beasts were beasts of the Devil Race. They came in countless varieties and possessed all manner of supernatural abilities.

What Great King West Rat had seen should have been a War Beast.

War Beast: a beast containing a thin trace of the bloodline of War, an eighth-rank sacred devil bloodline.

The sword-like bones on a War Beast's spine were its supernatural ability.

Players called them Sword Bones. Once Sword Bones emerged, they could sever the connection between a cultivator and their Spirit Artifact.

Sword Bones were a one-use supernatural ability. Once they left the body, they could never be retrieved; every use meant one less remaining.

Three Sword Bones meant it could use its supernatural ability three times.

Lu Qingshan sank into thought.

Had War Beasts appeared this early?

What a grand display. To seize this Heavenly Mystery Mirror Fragment, they had even deployed a War Beast.

Even in the Abyss, War Beasts were not numerous. Much less War Beasts specially brought by the Devil Race into human territory—they were rarer still.

When Yuanshan Tower had surrounded and captured Blood Corpse True Person, they had not found Wu Yi.

Lu Qingshan had initially assumed that Blood Corpse True Person had sent Wu Yi away.

Moreover, Wu Yi was merely a disciple Blood Corpse True Person had taken in under his identity as an Evil Cultivator. She was not a member of the Underworld and knew nothing of its affairs, so neither Lu Qingshan nor Yuanshan Tower had paid much attention to her disappearance.

He had not expected Wu Yi to be tied to such crucial intelligence.

A War Beast's supernatural abilities were strange and unpredictable. Even if Qi Yuan and Yuanshan Tower had prepared in advance, there was still a great chance that they would fall prey to it and have the Heavenly Mystery Mirror Fragment taken by the War Beast's ability.

It depended on whether they could keep the people of the Underworld behind.