"Holy shit."
Shi Hou hastily put away the Black Pot beneath him and planted both feet firmly.
Something unusually fluffy and springy met the soles of his feet.
Dirt flew everywhere, and dust blotted out the sky. For the moment, he could not see what on earth he was standing on.
"Huh?! Skinny Monkey?!"
From nearby, a clear, childish voice rang through the dust, brimming with delighted surprise.
A tingling thrill washed over Shi Hou.
It was Little One! With lungs that powerful, it had to be Shi Hao himself.
"It's me!" Shi Hou shouted at the top of his lungs. He glanced down at his feet, his tone sincere. "I think I landed on something. Forgive my sins. Amitabha!"
A fierce gust howled past, blowing away most of the dust.
The scene before him finally became clear.
At the center of an enormous funnel-shaped crater several dozen feet deep, Shi Hou stood firmly atop a massive body.
It was a lion roughly a hundred feet long, his fur gleaming like burnished gold, as though he had been cast from a divine sun. Embedded deep in the dirt at the bottom of the crater, he twitched spasmodically, utterly powerless to resist.
Most striking of all were his heads.
The lion had no fewer than nine heads. The central one was the largest, its thick mane radiating regal dominance. The other eight were slightly smaller, arranged evenly on either side of the main head.
Only now, all nine heads looked equally wretched: blood gushed from their mouths and noses, their eyes rolled back, and their tongues lolled out. He was completely unconscious.
A three-by-three grid!
Drool trickled uncontrollably from the corner of Shi Hou's mouth.
Top-grade ingredients! This was a pureblood remnant, a Nine-Headed Golden Lion!
He raised his head and