A red sun slowly sank in the west amid shifting clouds.
The mountains were drenched in red, and the vast ranges looked as though they had donned golden robes.
A gentle breeze stirred, carrying a tender warmth and the melancholy of beauty that would soon fade.
On the rice paper, the tip of the brush had already made its first stroke.
At that moment, Li Fan's heart was utterly still. All that remained in his mind was that setting sun.
He focused on feeling time pass.
And at that very moment,
something earth-shaking was happening in this vast, boundless mountain range!
Deep beneath the earth, it was as though a gigantic heart were beating.
In that instant, countless beasts seemed to feel an overwhelming terror and fled from the forests at full speed.
Birds and beasts alike surged into a massive stampede!
Faintly, behind the countless fleeing creatures, several beings flying through the air could be seen driving them onward with cold indifference!
The stampede rolled on!
Among the beasts, a snow-white little tiger became a streak of light, outstripping countless spirit beasts!
Three terrifying raptors pursued her from behind!
Flames clung to all three. Every feather was like a steel blade; they were clearly no ordinary spirit beasts!
"Catch her. The master will surely need the White Tiger Ancestral Blood in her!"
"Stop running, or we won't spare your life!"
These three raptors could actually speak!
But the little White Tiger only kept running for her life!
The three raptors were drawing closer and closer. Soon, she would have nowhere left to run.
Then a mountain suddenly appeared ahead.
As countless beasts fled, they actually skirted around the mountain.
She sensed it too: on this seemingly ordinary mountain, Dao Rhyme was constantly evolving, and the laws of the Great Dao flowed without pause!
Heaven-and-earth spirit beasts were especially sensitive to this kind of aura.
Generally speaking, it meant that something extraordinary must be hidden within the mountain.
It was enough to make countless fierce beasts instinctively wary!
Even just drawing near made the little tiger tremble from the depths of her soul, as though she stood before a terrifying figure without equal in all the ages.
But her pursuers were too close. She had no choice. Gritting her teeth, she turned into a streak of light and flew up the mountain!
Seeing the little tiger charge up the mountain, the three raptors following her all came to an abrupt stop.
"Wait. This place... why does it feel so terrifying?"
"There's something strange about this mountain..."
The stronger one's cultivation, the more keenly one felt that soul-piercing pressure.
"What do we do? Are we really going to let her escape like this?"
The three raptors conferred.
"No! The master is at a critical point in his revival and urgently needs a large number of beings with ancestral blood. This White Tiger has a trace of ancestral blood in her. We absolutely cannot let her go!"
A cold glint appeared in one raptor's eyes. "Let's go up and have a look. In this land, nothing is stronger than the master!"
At once, the three raptors shot upward!
The little tiger streaked up the mountain and finally landed at its peak.
When she turned into three
She looked ahead and saw, beside a boulder in the open space at the summit, a young man painting with single-minded focus!
In the distance, the setting sun stretched endlessly, its light painting the world in a bleak yet breathtaking glow. Before her, a young man held a brush, lost in his work, his every movement seeming to merge with the world around him...
"What dense Dao Rhyme. Even the laws of heaven and earth are flowing with his brush..."
The little White Tiger stared in shock. What mighty being was this?
While she stood stunned, the three raptors landed behind her as well.
But now, all three had looks of horror in their eyes.
They stared fixedly at the young man painting before them.
"How terrifying... What a terrifying aura. I feel like my soul is about to be subdued..."
"Impossible. How could someone like this exist here?"
All three raptors were trembling!
In their eyes, every stroke of Li Fan's brush seemed to encompass the Great Dao of the entire world.
The setting sun beneath Li Fan's brush looked nothing like a painting. It was a real setting sun!
It was as if the sinking sun had merely entered his painting.
Li Fan's painting gradually neared completion, and the Great Dao seemed to be gathering across the whole mountain!
Rumble!
At that moment, a thunderous sound rang out inside the three raptors, and Dao notes boomed!
Within them, faint runes seemed to rise from their blood, growing brighter and taking shape!
"This... This is the Great Dao calling to us. Could the faint ancestral beast marks inside us really be reappearing?"
"Heavens, are we... about to restore the bloodline of our ancestor, the Golden-Winged Great Peng?!"
"This is a heaven-defying fortune, a heaven-defying fortune!"
The three raptors were overwhelmed with excitement!
Simply watching the person before them paint had awakened the faint ancestral beast runes inside their bodies!
The little White Tiger let out a low growl as well. At that moment, light shone all over her, and she seemed to become a divine beast!
She could clearly feel the mixed blood within her transforming, strand by strand, into a pale gold!
That was... the White Tiger Ancestral Blood!
Li Fan focused only on painting, completely unaware of everything around him.
When the setting sun finally sank beneath the clouds, the brush in his hand came to a stop at just the same moment!
The sun in the sky had vanished, but the one beneath his brush had just taken shape!
"Phew—"
Li Fan gently let out a breath and smiled at the setting sun on the paper.
To preserve the world's beauty with ink and brush was a happy thing, too.
He turned around and saw that, at some point, three rather extraordinary Great Birds and an adorable kitty had appeared on the other side of the mountain.
"Hmm?"
Li Fan sensed something unusual. This was the first time any living beings had appeared while he was painting.
It was said that some exceptionally skilled musicians could attract all kinds of birds with their playing, even phoenixes. Could painting have such a wondrous effect as well?
Li Fan was surprised. An idea came to him: this was truly an occasion worth commemorating.
So he raised his brush again and said, "Since you've appeared, I'll leave you in the painting too—"
On the setting sun he had just painted, he began to draw the Great Birds!
The Great Birds spread their wings, seeming to fly toward the setting sun.
The likeness was lifelike, indistinguishable from these raptors; a few simple strokes captured their spirit!
He laid down the first stroke!
The little White Tiger suddenly sensed something. She hurriedly turned around and saw that one of the terrifying raptors behind her had sheer terror in its eyes. It was controlled by some inconceivable force and, the next moment, vanished from where it stood!
Li Fan's first bird had just taken shape!
Li Fan raised his brush and painted the second.
"No..."
Horror filled the eyes of the two remaining raptors. Faced with an unknown, mysterious, terrifying force, they were scared witless. They wanted to flap their wings and flee, but couldn't move at all!
The instant Li Fan's second bird took shape, another raptor vanished.
The third raptor collapsed to the ground, trembling all over as it stared at the terrifying young man.
But that did nothing to change its fate: it vanished along with the strokes of Li Fan's brush!
Li Fan finally finished the third bird. All three raptors... were gone!
The little White Tiger looked at Li Fan, fear written in her lively tiger eyes.
Heavens, what kind of Devil King had she run into? What sort of terrifying being was he?
With a single stroke of his brush, he had actually... painted three divine birds beyond the Void Integration Stage into the painting?
If word got out... it would scare the wits out of a tiger!
No, he was going to paint her next...
No, Bai Xiaoqing didn't want this! She didn't want to vanish... She didn't want to enter the painting...
Waaah, what should she do...
Her tiger eyes were wild with panic and fear. Then she suddenly remembered that humans supposedly liked cats...
She summoned all her courage and, toward that terrifying human, let out the most humiliating sound of her life:
"Meow, meow~~~~ Meow, meow, meow~~~"
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