As everyone knew, being attacked by a bear was exceedingly gruesome, because bears had a habit of eating their prey alive. It was cruel beyond measure.
By comparison, the feline hunters' habit of killing first and eating afterward made them living bodhisattvas of the carnivorous world...
Xiao Fan was in such agony that he wished he were dead, but barehanded as he was, no matter how he pounded the bear monster's head, it was utterly useless.
Having tasted blood, how could that bear demon possibly let go? It bit and tore even more frantically.
"That's right! The pain nearly muddled my mind. You dare drink your grandpa's blood? Fire Element Art!"
Xiao Fan formed a hand seal, intending to give the bear monster a crispy outside and tender inside!
Huh?
The Blood-Burning Flame... had actually failed?!
Not to mention the blood the bear monster had swallowed—even the blood around its mouth had barely ignited before the flames went out in an instant.
It was as though something invisible had absorbed those flames!
Now he was really cooked...
Just as Xiao Fan fell into despair, the bear monster abruptly stopped moving for some unknown reason. Wisps of white vapor seeped out through gaps in its rotten bear hide... as if something were burning inside its body!
The Fire Element Art had worked?!
In the next instant, the bear monster let out a miserable howl and leaped up, violently flinging Xiao Fan away. Then it wailed like ghosts and howled like wolves as it fell to the ground and rolled around. White vapor continuously rose from its body with sizzling sounds.
No... these weren't flames caused by the Fire Element Art... Xiao Fan saw that the flames emerging from within the bear demon were actually a deep crimson, like blood!
After struggling for a while longer, the bear monster went still. Its body gradually began burning from the inside, and in the blink of an eye, only a charred-black skeleton remained.
Inside that charred skeleton was a rusty Miao saber, five feet in overall length, with a three-foot blade.
Traces of blood still faintly remained on the Miao saber. Strangely, that blood seemed to be getting drawn into the blade.
As the blood was drained away, the rust on the Miao saber gradually faded as well, revealing its original sharp gleam!
Xiao Fan struggled to his feet, tore off a corner of his clothes to make a temporary bandage, and used his vital energy to temporarily seal the blood in his wound.
After dealing with it simply, Xiao Fan limped over to the bear monster's remains and carefully pulled out the Miao saber.
The red-and-black interwoven hilt was still warm. When he touched it, he could feel a scorching current flowing through the handle.
Then he looked at the three-foot-seven-inch blade. Dark red streams of light, like blood, reflected against the metallic sheen, sinister and razor-sharp.
As though the blade had sensed something, it gave off a unique wild aura and a thirst for his blood in Xiao Fan's hand!
Xiao Fan looked at the restless Miao saber, suspicion filling his heart. "Could it be that this blade can sense what is special about my blood? The bear monster ate my blood just now... so that was it!"
It was not Xiao Fan's Fire Element Art that had burned the bear monster to death, but this Miao saber!
The Miao saber had absorbed Xiao Fan's blood inside the bear monster's stomach, causing the Fire Element Art to fail.
Yet for some unknown reason, the blade had released those deep crimson flames on its own and burned the bear monster to death.
That alone showed that this blade was no ordinary object and possessed a certain degree of spirituality!
Magical artifacts like this were rare—exceedingly rare, in fact.
Usually, only very high-grade artifacts or Calamity artifacts afflicted with severe Calamity Poison possessed spirituality.
By that reasoning, this Miao saber was either an exceptional magical artifact... or an already awakened Calamity artifact.
If it was the former, then he had struck it rich beyond measure. But if it was the latter... he might have the life to take it, but not the life to use it.
Other than its excessively dense Killing Intent, this blade did not seem to display any particularly obvious Calamity Poison reactions.
As an instrument of slaughter, possessing some Killing Intent was nothing strange. It only meant that this Miao saber had likely taken many lives, causing the Killing Intent within its blade to linger without dispersing.
For now, this Miao saber probably was not an awakened Calamity artifact... and its spirituality was not particularly strong, so it could be controlled.
Xiao Fan studied the Miao saber in his hand. As he pondered, he decided to conduct a small experiment to verify his guess.
"Looks like you're very interested in my blood..."
As he spoke, Xiao Fan used his index finger to wipe some of his own blood from around the wound, slowly bringing his fingertip toward the Miao saber.
Sure enough, the instant Xiao Fan's fingertip touched the blade, the Miao saber trembled with excitement and, with a quick slurp, sucked in the blood on his fingertip!
Xiao Fan withdrew his finger, his eyes rolling as his lips curled slightly upward. "I was wondering how it could be such a coincidence. I'd only been in this canyon for a short while, and I ran into a bear monster with a Miao saber in its belly."
"Rather than saying I happened to encounter the bear monster, it would be more accurate to say that you controlled the bear monster to come find me!"
"Since you like this young master's blood so much, from today onward, this young master will be your new master!"
The moment those words left his mouth, the Miao saber clearly became unwilling. It stirred restlessly again, and its hilt trembled as if making a silent protest...
Xiao Fan narrowed his eyes and looked down at the Miao saber in his hand from above. He extended his index finger once more, smeared some of his own blood on it, and waved it back and forth before the restless saber without letting it touch.
"What? You're unwilling? Fine... if you're unwilling, this young master won't force you. As for this blood, I'd rather feed it to a dog than give it to you!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he spread his feet into a bow stance and assumed a posture as though he were about to throw the Miao saber away.
Suddenly, the restless Miao saber stopped trembling and became quiet! Like a docile lamb, the fierce and baleful aura emanating from it also withdrew by more than half.
Xiao Fan's lips curved upward in a villainous smile. He nodded lightly. "Hmph. Follow this young master from now on, and you naturally won't lack benefits!"
As he spoke, he sheathed the Miao saber backward through the sash at his waist and continued onward through the fog with his father on his back.
Gradually, after the encounter with that bear monster, he no longer came across any corpse ghouls.
Xiao Fan guessed that it was likely because the Killing Intent inside the Miao saber made the corpse ghouls and evil entities nearby afraid to approach.
Low-level evil entities often lacked intelligence, and the corpse ghouls they resurrected naturally had no intelligence either. They were merely walking corpses driven by their instinct to feed.
As the saying went, ghosts feared wicked people; evil entities were naturally terrified of Killing Intent.
At this moment, the dense Killing Intent within the Miao saber had instead become an advantage, driving away evil entities and corpse ghouls.
However, everything had its benefits and drawbacks. Though Killing Intent could drive away evil entities, it could also affect living people.
Before he had walked very far, Xiao Fan clearly felt a wicked fire continuously spreading through his heart.
Irritability, anxiety, inexplicable anger—his mind filled with bloody and brutal fantasies, while an unprovoked urge to kill grew in his heart, impossible to dispel...
Especially when he thought of Shi Ping, that dog bastard who had stabbed his father in the back and repaid kindness with ingratitude, rage surged up in him. He wanted nothing more than to chop him into eight pieces and grind his bones to ash.
"No, no, no... why have I become so irritable? If this keeps up, I'm going to go mad!"
Calamity Poison Value... +1... +1... +1...
The Killing Intent in the Miao saber would not directly produce Calamity Poison, but extreme emotions could trigger Calamity Poison reactions within the body.
Zhang Bin had suffered because extreme emotions deepened the Calamity Poison in his body, ultimately causing him to lose control completely and turn into a monster.
Xiao Fan stopped walking and adjusted his breathing for a moment, calming himself and suppressing the effects brought by the Killing Intent.
As the viciousness in his heart dissipated, the Calamity Poison Value finally stopped increasing.
[Calamity Poison Value: 49/100]
"Phew... I finally got it under control."
Xiao Fan felt his father's aura growing weaker and weaker. Knowing that he could not delay any longer, he could only grit his teeth and continue onward.
Before long, the Killing Intent affected him again, forcing him to stop and regulate his breathing to suppress it.
After being tossed back and forth like this again and again, Xiao Fan was already exhausted beyond measure.
More than once, he wanted to throw away that broken Miao saber and be done with it once and for all. But if he discarded the saber, he would inevitably suffer corpse ghoul attacks again. He was caught between a rock and a hard place.
As the saying went, when weighing two harms, choose the lesser one. Compared to the endless corpse ghouls, the Killing Intent was still relatively easier to control.
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