The Great Kun

The city guard team organized by Wine Fox Immortal is located at the northernmost edge of the Floating Mountain.

She built a simple Bamboo Cottage dojo, surrounded by a circle of tall pine trees, and hauled in giant boulders at the entrance to carve out a martial arts training ground.

On the training ground.

Dozens of people were meditating, testing their strength, and sparring with Immortal techniques.

At first glance, they all appeared human, but when Lu Ya spread his divine sense, he discovered they were all pure-blooded Beast Immortal.

There were Horse Immortals, Ox Immortals, Sheep Immortals, Pig Immortals, Snake Immortals, Rat Immortals, Cat Immortals, Dog Immortals, Monkey Immortals, Rabbit Immortals, Weasel Immortals, Partridge Immortals, Sparrow Immortals...

They could almost form a complete set of the twelve zodiac signs.

There were men and women, elders and children.

This included the two bear children, Muyu Feifei.

Among them, the highest cultivation level was a Three-Star Immortal Master, while the lowest was only a One-Star Immortal Lord.

Standing on the weed-covered hillside and looking from afar, Lu Ya said with surprise:

"Why are they all Beast Immortal?"

Ning Zhongzi said:

"These were all brought back by Lady Wine Fox from the Beast Nest Forest. Muyu Feifei are also training with them. I don't know if it's because they've integrated into the big Beast Immortal family, but the two of them are much more diligent than usual."

Lu Ya thought to himself, how could they not be diligent?

If you wanted to eat Kun, you would be diligent too.

"Where is Lady Wine Fox?"

"She went back to the Beast Nest Forest to see if she could find higher-tier Beast Immortal. Her body is still injured, and she only took a few bamboo slips with her. I never expected that a woman as unreliable as her could have such a serious side."

Lu Ya thought to himself, how could she not be serious?

If you wanted to woo someone to heal your wounds, you would be serious too.

The two soon arrived at the training ground.

The Beast Immortal showed obvious resistance upon seeing Lu Ya and Ning Zhongzi.

In the Immortal Realm, not every Beast Immortal was as close to humans as Muyu Feifei.

Seeing that everyone was afraid, the two girls hurriedly explained:

"Everyone, don't be afraid!"

"This is my master, Ning Zhongzi."

"This is my little martial uncle, Lu Ya."

"They are both good people and will never hurt anyone."

The Beast Immortal remained half-skeptical.

At this moment, a cold-faced Weasel Immortal with glowing red eyes whispered to Muyu Feifei:

"Your master looks stern, but her heart is not bad. However, I cannot be mistaken about this man; his eyes are the eyes of someone who wants to eat Beast Immortal."

"..."

Muyu Feifei feigned calmness on the surface, but when she looked at Lu Ya again, she felt a bit panicked inside.

Lu Ya was stunned.

My goodness, did you activate the Sharingan or something?

For a split second, considering there was no Immortal meat to eat at the inn, he had wondered if he could slaughter a few Beast Immortal to taste.

Of course, it was just a fleeting thought; he wouldn't actually do it...

And yet, even that was seen through?

This Little Weasel Immortal is a talent!

Lu Ya asked in confusion:

"Beast Immortal are rare; how did Lady Wine Fox find so many in such a short time?"

"These are all Beast Immortal she rescued from the Immortal thief organization, Immortal Tail. Most of them possess impressive strength."

"Immortal Tail?"

Lu Ya was very familiar with [Immortal Tail].

In the game Ancient Immortal Court, [Immortal Tail] was one of the four most evil Immortal thief organizations in the Immortal Realm. Their footprints spanned every Immortal domain, and it was said they had a total population of one million, with experts as numerous as clouds.

All members of Immortal Tail were Beast Immortal. It was a large-scale anti-human evil organization that claimed to be the most orthodox of the Immortal Realm—

Tailed Immortal.

They believed that Tailed Immortal were the true orthodoxy of the Immortal Realm, and that tailless humans were merely demons, a degenerate form of Beast Immortal.

Lu Ya thought to himself.

They weren't wrong. According to Darwin's theory of evolution, humans were all monkeys, and Immortals were all Monkey Immortals.

Ning Zhongzi added:

"Ten years ago, Wine Fox Immortal once infiltrated the Immortal Tail branch of the Beast Nest Forest, but she was discovered to have half-human blood and was driven out of Immortal Tail."

"Doesn't this woman bring bad luck wherever she goes? That Immortal Tail branch is still standing?"

"As you said, a beast tide of unprecedented scale recently erupted in the Beast Nest Forest. Many disreputable immortal bandit organizations suffered, and even the Immortal Tail branch was not spared. Many Beast Immortal perished in the jaws of beasts, and it was precisely by taking advantage of this beast tide that Wine Fox Immortal was able to rescue so many Beast Immortal in such a short time."

Lu Ya nodded and pondered.

"They are all disreputable Beast Immortal..."

This simple sentence made the Beast Immortal tremble with fear.

Little Weasel Immortal, in particular, seemed to sense that Lu Ya was no ordinary person and kept hiding in the corner by the cliff.

Ning Zhongzi hurriedly explained.

"That is not the case. These Beast Immortal were forcibly abducted by Immortal Tail; they did not choose to do evil."

"Is that so?"

Before the words had even faded—

BANG!

An orange figure plummeted from the clouds, crashing diagonally into the grass not far away.

Lu Ya expanded his divine sense.

He saw Wine Fox Immortal curled up in a deep crater, covered in blood, clutching a young child to her chest.

At the same time.

Thick clouds churned in the sky, rapidly obscuring the sun, and shadows engulfed the entire northern side of the Floating Mountain.

A colossal Giant Kun revealed its Kun Head from the clouds.

A voice as ancient as a celestial bell descended—

"You have fallen."

A second ago, the Floating Mountain was bathed in bright sunlight.

The next second, the weather shifted abruptly; black clouds gathered, shrouding half the sky.

Within the cloud layer, dark shadows collided, flashing with alternating light and shadow, emitting a continuous, muffled, low-frequency hum.

The air pressure above the training ground dropped rapidly, making everyone's hair stand on end, their chests tighten, and their breath hitch.

Two of the strongest immortal sect spiritual pressures entangled and swirled within the black clouds, rapidly enveloping the entire Floating Mountain.

Nine Star Immortal Sect!

And there were two of them!

On the martial arts arena.

The pupils of the Beast Immortal dilated as if they had seen the Grim Reaper, their eyes filled with a terror ten thousand times greater than when they saw Lu Ya.

Soon, someone could no longer hold on and collapsed to their knees; the others reacted, kneeling down in unison.

Muyu Feifei was stunned and hurriedly shouted.

"What are you doing!"

"Why are you kneeling?"

The crowd prostrated on the ground, not daring to make a sound, their rapid breathing filled with the sheer horror of facing death.

Muyu Feifei was so frightened she almost wanted to kneel herself; they weren't even sure if Lu Ya could handle this opponent.

Lu Ya looked up.

Accompanied by a high, echoing screech that resonated across the firmament, a colossal beast poked its dark, obsidian head out from the black clouds, appearing like a deity revealing a silhouette in the vast celestial light.

Whale head, narrow eyes, long whiskers like a waterfall, front fins like wings, and a rare, inverted spiral red mark carved into its forehead!

This is... a Kun?

The Kun from the legend "In the Northern Darkness there is a fish, and its name is Kun"?

Although Lu Ya had never encountered a Kun in the game, he often heard about the existence of Kun beasts on the forums. They were basically divine beasts above level eighty. Why was there one at the Immortal Sect level?

Seeing the Kun was like seeing a god. Muyu Feifei's face turned pale, and she grabbed Lu Ya's hand, her small mouth trembling.

"This is the legendary big fish I told you about that flies in the sky of the Beast Nest Forest!"

"But this big fish... isn't it a bit too big?"

"It doesn't look tasty at all; it's terrifying."

"We probably can't eat it; we're going to be the ones eaten..."

Is it big?

Lu Ya measured it casually. Damn, a single Kun Head was actually ten zhang wide.

Lu Ya was a man of little culture, his entire vocabulary consisting of a single, "Holy shit."

I could eat this thing for a year!

If the Kun of the Nine Star Immortal Sect was already this massive, how terrifying must a god-level Kun be?

The Kun is so vast, one knows not how many thousands of miles it spans; when it transforms into a bird, its name is Peng.

Atop the head of the gargantuan Kun, a man in black robes stood with golden light crowning his head, his voice booming like a celestial bell—

"You have disappointed me too much."

The Beast Immortal creatures trembled as they prostrated themselves, gripped by a terror that reached into the depths of their souls.

Lu Ya cast a sweeping glance.

This man in black... a Peng Immortal?

The Great Peng Golden Immortal of the Nine Star Immortal Sect?

A Kun and a Peng appearing together, with the same cultivation level—one a giant beast, the other a Beast Immortal?

This reminded Lu Ya of the legend he had heard from the two young girls and Ning Zhongzi.

There was a legend in the Beast Nest Forest, one even older and more terrifying than the rumors of Liu Xuanye being a husband-killer.

Three thousand years ago.

A pair of Kun beast cubs appeared in the Beast Nest Forest. They were twins, abandoned by their parents, possessing immense talent for cultivation. Their bodies were covered in rare, pitch-black scales, with a pair of fins that resembled wings and tails that could stir up clouds and rain.

The Kun is a divine beast, and legend says they are incredibly delicious; immortals could only covet them, never daring to hunt them lightly.

Two thousand eight hundred years ago.

Yun Zhonghe, the then-sect leader of the White Lotus Sect, saw these divine beasts while passing through the Beast Tide Forest.

He proceeded to lurk in the Beast Tide Forest for nearly a hundred years, setting up hundreds of layers of formations and traps until he finally captured the two divine beasts and brought them back to the White Lotus Sect.

Yun Zhonghe was a very interesting man.

He took one of the two giant Kuns and raised it step by step to be his mount, bestowing upon it the name Void Kun.

He enlightened the other giant Kun, taking it as a disciple. After the Kun entered the Immortal Sect, it transformed into a Peng, and he named it Golden Peng.

Under his meticulous cultivation and guidance, in the mere two thousand years that followed, both the Kun and the Peng ascended to the Immortal Sect.

The Kun-Peng brothers—one a Beast Immortal ranked among the immortals, the other an Immortal Beast mount to an Immortal Venerable—were once celebrated as a beautiful story in the Colored Cloud Immortal Domain.

The incident occurred during Yun Zhonghe's eight-thousandth birthday banquet.

Yun Zhonghe intended to slaughter the Void Kun to feast his guests from the Immortal Court.

Yun Zhonghe's youngest disciple, Yunzhongzi, had a close relationship with the Kun-Peng brothers and secretly leaked this news to Golden Peng.

Golden Peng was incensed. With the secret help of Yunzhongzi, he set fire to the mountains overnight and, amidst the chaos, took the Void Kun and fled to the Beast Nest Forest.

Deeply disillusioned with humanity, the Kun-Peng brothers joined the newly established [Immortal Tail] branch. A thousand years later, Golden Peng became the branch's Immortal Chief.

For the thousand years that Golden Peng has helmed the Immortal Tail branch, he has used the Beast Nest Forest as a base to breed beasts, launch beast tides, and exact frenzied revenge upon humanity.

He has successively slaughtered over a hundred sects, large and small, in the East Floating District, devoured countless humans, and abducted a large number of Beast Immortal creatures, brainwashing them into becoming the cruel, bloodthirsty Immortal Tail.

Only the wealthy and powerful White Lotus Sect and the desolate, abandoned Bamboo Spring Sect were spared, standing tall to this day.

The scale of Golden Peng's crimes and the cruelty and bloodshed of his methods shocked not only the East Floating District but the entire Colored Cloud Immortal Domain, leading the Immortal Court to place a bounty of hundreds of millions of immortal crystals on his head.

But Golden Peng and the Void Kun have lived in the depths of the Beast Nest for years, controlling the beast tides from the shadows, coming and going without a trace, never once being captured.

Because of this, Yun Zhonghe was stripped of his immortal rank, forced to step down as leader of the White Lotus Sect, and began his seclusion.

His disciple, Yunzhongzi, defected from the sect entirely, taking a group of fellow disciples into the Beast Nest Forest to form the immortal bandit organization Black Lotus, setting his sights on the Bamboo Spring Sect.

And then... there was no "then."

To lure high-level hunters into the Beast Nest Forest to hunt the Kun-Peng brothers, the Immortal Court, in addition to setting high bounties, heavily publicized the deliciousness of the Void Kun until it was known to all.

This was the reason Muyu Feifei wanted to eat the big fish.

But they did not know the truth behind it; it was a legend Ning Zhongzi later told Lu Ya.

At this moment, atop the Kun in the clouds.

Golden Peng, clad in black robes, descended from the sky with a fury that could burn the heavens, his voice tolling like a funeral bell.

"Do you still trust humans?"

"Have you forgotten how humans treated us?"

"Have you forgotten how greedy, tyrannical, and unscrupulous humans are?"

"Do you really think this beast tide spiraling out of control was an accident?"

"No, it was this woman!"

In a grassy pit not far from the arena.

Wine Fox Immortal crawled out with great difficulty and handed the infant in her arms to Ning Zhongzi.

Ning Zhongzi looked down at the Snake Infant in her arms.

It was a female infant, half-human and half-snake; her upper body was human, while her lower body was that of a serpent, covered in faint, colorful scales. She looked incredibly frail, yet she was completely unharmed.

This is...

Ning Zhongzi dared not confirm if her identity was truly what she suspected.

She glanced at the Wine Fox Immortal, who was covered in blood and riddled with wounds, the injury to her Immortal Platform being the most severe of all.

Could this woman have actually risked her life to save an infant? Was it the sympathy shared by those who were also Beast Immortals?

High above the clouds, atop the Kun Head, Golden Peng gazed down at the Black Boat on Little Bamboo Spring Mountain and let out a sudden, cold sneer.

"To think that Liu Xuanye has also reached the Immortal Sect realm. Poor Junior Brother Yunzhongzi, to have been backstabbed by this woman. Could it be that you were the one who leaked the false information, Wine Fox Immortal?"

"I thought that after all these years, you would have long since severed ties with Yun Zhonghe. To think you are still acting as Yun Zhonghe's lackey, daring to disrupt my beast tide and injure my Immortal Tail!"

The Wine Fox Immortal steadied her body, pulled out her wine gourd, and took a deep swig of Immortal Nectar. Her blood-streaked, round face was filled with unbridled bravado.

She burst into wild laughter, ignoring her injuries and letting her Immortal Sect-level spiritual pressure erupt with violent intensity.

"Haha, who is the real dog of Yun Zhonghe? Don't tell me you still don't know the true identity of Yunzhongzi?"

Dark clouds gathered between Golden Peng's brows; he did not want to recall the events of the past.

"Monsters like you, half-human and half-beast, should not exist in this world. You are all base breeds who fawn and grovel before humans. Whether it is you or Liu Xuanye, everyone here today must die!"

The Beast Immortals turned pale with fright, and even the two young girls trembled in fear.

Golden Peng's black robes billowed as he spread his arms wide, looking like a god, his surging spiritual pressure descending with the fury of a collapsing sky.

"From this day forth, this Bamboo Spring Sect shall be the new base for my beast tide."

Bringing in a beast tide?

I was just worrying about a lack of meat!

Lu Ya sat cross-legged on a giant boulder, so moved he was nearly in tears. As he crunched on a crisp melon, he gave a thumbs-up toward the sky.

"Keep it up!"