Void Pegasus Beast

As the saying went, as long as your thinking never slid downhill, solutions would always outnumber difficulties.

Chen Cang returned to the little lake with a bulging pack on his back, brimming with confidence.

The Jade Wave Turtle was equally enthusiastic about this familiar visitor, greeting him with one water jet after another.

Unfortunately for it, after two straight days of unpleasant experiences, Chen Cang knew its tricks inside out. Even his footwork had improved under the pressure, and now dodging its attacks was like taking a leisurely stroll through a courtyard.

"Hey, hey! Can't hit me! Does that make you mad?"

As he dodged, Chen Cang swung his arm hard, sending the hundred-pound pack flying straight into the lake and throwing up a great splash.

The crimson spice powder inside spilled out at once, emptying into the little lake.

Before his eyes, the center of the lake began turning red, the color spreading steadily outward as a pungent, spicy smell shot straight to the crown of his head.

Fortunately, Chen Cang had anticipated this and retreated several dozen meters ahead of time, covering his nose and mouth.

Even so, his eyes still stung a little, making him want to cry.

If even someone merely caught in the crossfire suffered this much, there was no need to imagine what the Jade Wave Turtle hiding in the lake was going through.

Within just a few breaths, Chen Cang heard a pained roar, and a whirlpool surged across the surface.

The next moment, an enormous creature crawled out.

It was a gigantic turtle nearly two meters tall, its dark blue-green shell looking thick and solid. Its legs were as thick as buckets, sturdy and powerful, while its mouthful of sharp teeth was nothing like an ordinary turtle's, lending it a savage air.

Now its eyes were bloodshot, its eyelids blinking frantically as glistening tears kept pouring out.

Clearly, over a hundred pounds of this biological weapon had put the Jade Wave Turtle through absolute hell.

Watching from a distance, Chen Cang, the culprit behind it all, felt a little unnerved by the enormous turtle's mouthful of fangs.

The Jade Wave Turtle had clear strengths and weaknesses, and only two means of attack.

Chen Cang had already experienced one of them: its water jets.

As for the other, that would be its mouthful of sharp teeth.

These were its sharpest weapons, capable of crushing metal and stone!

With one ranged attack and one close-range attack, coupled with formidable defenses, this creature would have been every bit the equal of those fourth-order magical beasts if not for its fatal weakness: its sluggish movement.

After quickly reviewing what he knew about the Jade Wave Turtle, Chen Cang eagerly focused his mind, fixing his full attention on the huge creature.

A great man had once said that the best way to defeat an enemy was to dismantle them from within.

Who in this world understood the Jade Wave Turtle best? Without question, the turtle itself.

Thus, if he first found its fatal weak point, dealing with it afterward would yield twice the results for half the effort.

Over the past few days, Chen Cang had also discovered that magical beasts' memories were generally simpler and more monotonous than humans'. They mostly consisted of daily routines such as eating, sleeping, and hunting, with very few particularly eventful experiences.

Yet this Jade Wave Turtle gave Chen Cang an enormous surprise.

He saw an unbroken stretch of mountains and a cascading waterfall. The view looked upward, making it clear that the Jade Wave Turtle had been in the pool beneath it at the time.

Day after day, the scene never changed.

At this point, Chen Cang realized that perhaps this pool had been the Jade Wave Turtle's original home.

But why had it appeared in a lake on the outskirts?

The answer soon became clear.

It was noon beneath a sky as blue and clean as if it had been washed. Cries of alarm filled the mountains, beast roars rang out one after another, and countless magical beasts fled desperately toward the outskirts in groups, making even the earth seem to tremble.

The tremendous commotion woke the sleeping Jade Wave Turtle as well. Slowly raising its head from the pool, it saw a bull-shaped magical beast wreathed in black flames locked in a fierce battle with a brilliantly silver flying horse high overhead.

The two great magical beasts were almost crazed. Beams of light like bolts of silk and torrents of black flame struck the mountains, each brimming with destructive power. To the low-tier magical beasts, this was no different from a calamity descending from the heavens.

Their survival instincts told them that only by fleeing toward the outskirts could they find a sliver of hope!

The Jade Wave Turtle was no exception.

Black flames that happened to land beneath the waterfall nearly burned it to ashes. To survive, it had no choice but to drag its cumbersome body away and begin moving outward.

Yet it was simply too slow, unable to outpace even some tier 2 magical beasts.

Even straining with every ounce of strength it possessed, it still fell behind the fleeing army of magical beasts. But precisely because of that, it heard furious roars from the sky behind it, followed by two thunderous crashes like collapsing mountains.

Had the battle between those two high-tier magical beasts reached a fever pitch, leaving both gravely wounded?

Unfortunately, bent on escaping, the Jade Wave Turtle did not dare turn around to look.

The fleeing army of magical beasts was vast. They had no destination, wanting only to get away from that terrifying battlefield, and even upon reaching the outskirts, they did not stop.

The Jade Wave Turtle, however, discovered a little lake quite suited to its needs and quietly slipped into it, leaving the group.

After that, the scenes became uneventful again. Apart from occasionally hunting humans and magical beasts that entered its territory, the Jade Wave Turtle barely did anything at all.

"A Void Pegasus Beast?"

Coming back to his senses, Chen Cang looked doubtful.

None of Tianying City's soldiers had ever seen the two high-tier magical beasts in the Jade Wave Turtle's memories, and naturally, neither had Chen Cang.

But that brilliantly silver flying horse looked remarkably like the Void Pegasus Beast mentioned in certain books.

This was an extremely rare magical beast that could reach the sixth tier upon maturity. It possessed the ability to fly through Void Space, much like the spatial ships used to travel through a space wormhole, except that a Void Pegasus Beast was faster.

Chen Cang remembered that the original course of events had mentioned the Dan family of the Central Plains using a Void Pegasus Beast to draw their carriage, causing quite a stir.

"There are actually Void Pegasus Beasts in the northwest too? All right, the world is vast, and no marvel is too strange to exist. Even if that makes sense, some people call the Void Pegasus Beast a lesser substitute for the Ancient Void Dragon. It comes and goes without a trace. That bull-shaped magical beast was strong, but it absolutely shouldn't have been able to pin down a Void Pegasus Beast."

In other words, this did not fit the Void Pegasus Beast's habits.

For a magical beast that came and went as freely as it pleased, Chen Cang truly could not think of any reason it would abandon its innate advantage and instead fight its opponent to the bitter end, laboring hard for no reward.

On that basis, whether it really was a Void Pegasus Beast remained to be verified.

Perhaps it merely looked similar?

"If it really was..."

Chen Cang dismissed the thought the moment it arose.

Was a Void Pegasus Beast precious?

Without a doubt.

If he had a Void Pegasus Beast, at least in the Northwest Continent as it currently stood, he could come and go freely, heading wherever he pleased. He would never again have to worry about trivial problems like how to cross the Black Eagle Mountains.

But he could only dream. Even if a magical beast of that tier appeared before Chen Cang, all he could do right now was take to his heels and run for his life. Trying to tame it would be nothing but a daydream.

"Damn you, Jade Wave Turtle! Why did you have to let me know there might be such a top-class magical beast deeper inside? Do you know the agony of wanting something but not daring to act, of yearning for it but never being able to obtain it?"

Having found himself an excuse, Chen Cang raised his spear and attacked.

While this huge creature was suffering, he would get right in its face and unleash a barrage to vent his frustrations. Once the crimson spice powder wore off...

The roles of attacker and defender would be reversed.