Gold

"Hey, hey, what's wrong with you?"

Di Yi looked at the listless Primordial Remnant, utterly unlike its earlier majestic self. Puzzled, he let it go and wondered whether he was really that terrifying.

"Whimper..."

The Primordial Remnant dared not move. Its attacks had no effect on the person before it, and the gulf between their strength was as vast as heaven and earth. They were on entirely different levels. How could it resist?

It had considered fighting until jade and stone burned together. After all, its dignity as a Primordial Remnant could not be sullied. It was not like that Carved Bear. In its creed, there was only dying on its feet, never fleeing to survive.

The problem was that, after weighing its options, it decided that mutual destruction would most likely prove impossible. Its attacks had not the slightest effect-in fact, rather than doing nothing, they actually seemed to please the person before it.

That was downright beast-terrifying. Unless its mind had gone muddled, how could it fail to recognize the gulf between them?

And so it gave up. There was no resisting him at all. It might as well accept the reality before it and quietly await its end. At least it could die with some dignity.

Of course, this Primordial Remnant still harbored a sliver of hope, silently praying that it might survive.

Unlike before, once it fully understood the gap between them, it felt that its supposed dignity as a Primordial Remnant no longer mattered. It even felt that surviving would be a supreme honor.

After all, surviving an encounter with someone powerful was no disgrace to a beast, even if it had to flee. Perhaps it could even become a credential that made other beasts regard it more highly.

"What's wrong? Have your internal injuries flared up?" Watching the motionless Primordial Remnant, Di Yi could not help considering that possibility.

But that should not have been the case. Its internal injuries could not have been severe enough to leave it unable to move. Its earlier vigor, like a lively dragon and bounding tiger, was proof enough that those injuries posed no hidden danger to it.

"Whimper..."

The Primordial Remnant still did not move. It only gave a barely audible whimper, its gaze flicking toward Di Yi before quickly returning to normal.

"It's actually pretty cute like this. If it hadn't shown off its might earlier, nobody would ever guess it was a terrifying Primordial Remnant." Di Yi rose. The more he looked at it, the cuter it seemed, and he unconsciously stroked its fur.

"Whimper!"

The Primordial Remnant jumped in fright, thinking the person before it was about to finish it off. Its whole body began trembling involuntarily.

"Look how scared you are. All right, all right, I mean you no harm." Di Yi chuckled. After stroking the Primordial Remnant's fur, he prepared to leave.

He had originally come to test his limits, but judging by the Primordial Remnant's condition, that clearly would not happen.

After all, it would not even fight him anymore. Surely he could not force it? What meaningful results would that yield?

In the end, Di Yi left the battlefield and headed back the way he had come, preparing to return to Stone Village.

As far as he was concerned, there was no rush. There was no shortage of enormous creatures in the Great Wilderness. He could simply find another one to test himself against next time.

What he had not expected was that, for some reason, the Primordial Remnant followed him.

Moreover, it did more than merely follow. Along the way, it used golden light to pick up the carcasses of giant beasts and savage beasts bearing traces of his aura, soon piling them into a mountain of meat.

"Interesting. What's it trying to do?" Di Yi glanced back, but did not interfere with the Primordial Remnant's actions.

In his view, an intelligent creature would not act at random. There had to be a reason.

Besides, he thought this was rather nice. There was far too much beast meat he wanted to bring back to Stone Village for him to carry alone. Having such a laborer was an unexpected delight.

Time always slipped by unnoticed. Since Di Yi had followed Stone Village's hunting party into the mountains, wandered around searching for prey, and later gone to the battlefield to watch the Primordial Remnants fight, the sun had already sunk low.

Then he had spent more time searching for giant beast and savage beast carcasses that were still edible or useful. With all these delays, the red sun sank in the west, and evening deepened beneath the lingering glow of sunset.

"Our guest is back!" In the remaining sunlight, Stone Village seemed washed in a pale golden glow, lending the place an air of mystery.

In the clearing at the village entrance, many villagers were busy with their tasks. Seeing Di Yi's figure beneath the setting sun, his shadow stretched long, they hurried to call out a greeting.

But soon, everyone from Stone Village grew alarmed.

Earlier, they had been unable to see clearly and had not noticed that the mountain-shaped silhouette behind Di Yi was moving. As he drew closer, however, everything became clear.

"Heavens, so much prey!"

"It's piled up like a mountain! How many fierce beasts did he kill?"

"No, those don't seem to be fierce beasts. I think I saw... a Dragon-Horned Elephant?!"

The villagers stared, dumbstruck. They could not imagine such a haul. Although the hunting party Shi Yunshan had led back earlier had brought a plentiful harvest, most of it had been ordinary fierce beasts, not the terrifying savage beasts of the mountains.

Of course, something even more frightening followed. Not long after Di Yi came into everyone's view, another great mountain came moving toward them.

This one caused an even greater stir. It was like beholding a mountainous demon king of flesh-a golden "mountain" formed from an enormous pile of savage beasts.

"This..."

Everyone in Stone Village swallowed, horror flashing in their eyes.

Having grown up in the Great Wilderness, they might rarely have eaten savage beast meat, but they had certainly seen savage beasts roaming about. They knew very well how powerful those enormous creatures were.

The Dragon-Horned Elephant someone had cried out about earlier, for instance, was an exceptionally difficult creature to deal with. Its body was as hard as refined iron, and it could easily trample boulders so large that more than twenty people were needed to encircle them.

Against savage beasts like that, not only Stone Village's hunting party but even those of other powerful villages had to take a detour. Otherwise, the casualties would be devastating.

"Wait, that golden light... I think I've seen it before..." Hearing the commotion at the village entrance, many more villagers came out. At the sight of the two "mountains," one behind the other, they were all shaken beyond words.

The old chief was the most shaken of all. He lived at the village entrance and had rushed over as soon as he heard the commotion. He found the golden light enveloping the second "mountain" strikingly familiar.

"Heavens, could that be the great creature in the mountains, that terrifying Primordial Remnant—the Golden Hou? Is that the light of its Precious Technique?!" The old chief searched his memory carefully, and in a flash of inspiration, he recalled the source of that golden light.

"What? A Golden Hou?!" At the old chief's words, everyone in Stone Village swayed on their feet, as though confronted with something that defied all reason.

There were many Primordial Remnants in the Great Wilderness. But just as some people were stronger than others, their strength also varied, and among them were many uncrowned kings.

The Golden Hou was one such uncrowned king.

It was a nearly perfect creature that could rival other fully grown Primordial Remnants even while still young.

Years ago, a great tribe outside the Great Wilderness had once brought countless troops into its depths to hunt a Golden Hou, hoping to capture and rear it before it fully matured.

Instead, that great tribe's entire force had met its end in the Great Wilderness. Every last one had died beneath the Golden Hou's claws. Even before reaching maturity, it had been as ferocious as a Heavenly God descended to earth.

"Could our guest have subdued a Golden Hou?!"