Chapter 34: Everyone Is Dead — Why Aren’t You?
“Little Eight… what just happened?” Nan Xun asked blankly, staring at the sky.
The Void Beast sighed. “The Demon King self-detonated his beast core. The sheer force of it turned everyone on the battlefield—humans, demon beasts, and divine beasts alike—into ashes along with him. If the human race hadn’t set up an isolation barrier outside the battlefield beforehand, more than half of the Silver River Continent would probably have been destroyed.”
Nan Xun suddenly clutched her head. After a dull ache, a great deal of information flooded her mind—essences of beast-taming, as well as ancient witchcraft, secret arts, and formations.
Just now, she had awakened the unique inheritance of the Beast-Taming Clan.
The ancestors of the Beast-Taming Clan—or rather, the clan itself—were an exceptionally intelligent and formidable people. Drawing inspiration from great demons and divine beasts that passed down memories through bloodlines, they used an ancient secret art to seal the crystallization of their wisdom into their own blood, passing it on to their descendants.
Once the time was ripe, the inheritance would awaken, and the better one’s aptitude, the more inheritance one would receive.
Nan Xun hadn’t expected her inheritance to awaken at such a moment.
The Demon King was dead—so what use was this inheritance even if she awakened it?
She skimmed through the contents in her mind. When she discovered a resurrection technique, her eyes lit up for a moment. Since there was a resurrection art, did that mean she could revive the Demon King without anyone knowing?
But after seeing what that resurrection technique actually entailed, her heart trembled and she immediately abandoned the thought.
Using the resentful spirits of hundreds of blood relatives to gather shattered souls; using the flesh and blood of hundreds of loyal servants to condense a new body… any single requirement made her spine go cold.
Nan Xun formed a hand seal, shattered the door that Zui Li Qing Shi had sealed shut with a secret art, and rushed out.
“Xuan’er! Xuan’er, where are you going?” Her mother had been guarding the door. Seeing Nan Xun burst out, her expression changed in alarm.
“Mother, I’m going to the battlefield. Don’t try to stop me this time—you can’t stop me anyway,” Nan Xun said firmly.
After speaking, Nan Xun suddenly closed her eyes. In an instant, an enormous surge of spiritual power was released.
“All spirits and beasts of the land, please lend me your strength,” Nan Xun said as she gazed into the distance.
When the earth shook and strange phenomena appeared in the heavens, all the Beast-Taming Clan members rushed out of their houses and gathered together, the air filled with noise and confusion.
At that moment, the sounds of birds and beasts suddenly came from afar.
A golden-winged roc flew in at great speed, followed by green luan birds, black-feathered giant eagles, seven-colored birds, and countless other avian beasts. Birds of all attributes arrived one after another, their bodies radiating different-colored mystic light, painting the sky in dazzling hues.
Land beasts came charging as well. The crowd immediately parted to make way, watching black-spotted leopards and iron-winged lions spread their claws and race toward them.
Everyone was shaken to the core.
They were all Beast-Taming Clan members and could naturally sense that these spirit beasts had been summoned by someone. But all the capable clan members—including the younger generation like Zui Li Yue and Qin Yuexuan—had already followed the divine beasts to the battlefield. Even the spirit beasts within several miles had been taken to fight there. So where had this massive wave of spirit beasts come from?
If they had come from faraway lands, just how powerful must the beast tamer’s spiritual force be to summon them?
Before everyone’s eyes, the flock of birds and herd of beasts entered the Zui Li family estate. Not long after, the leading golden-winged roc flew out from above the estate, with a woman in white now standing on its back.
White robes fluttering, dustless and pure, spirit birds circling her, beasts following at her side—she looked exactly like a divine maiden descended from the Nine Heavens.
“Xuan’er! Xuan’er, don’t go—” Zui Li Xuan’s mother staggered out, watching the departing figure as tears streamed down her face.
Everyone had always said that her daughter was worthless, lacking even the slightest talent for beast-taming. But then… who had just summoned a hundred beasts?
Had they known this would happen, the elders would never have sacrificed her back then, no matter what.
She was going to find that vile beast, to die alongside it!
The crowd didn’t yet know that the battlefield had already been reduced to ashes. They all thought Nan Xun was going to her death. In truth, she was only going to collect the remains.
The golden-winged roc carried Nan Xun straight to the battlefield. The beasts that followed caught the scent of countless fallen companions and cried out in grief.
The bone-chilling blood-fiend aura in the battlefield had not yet dissipated. The beasts dared not enter and could only wander at the edges. The golden-winged roc, a collateral branch of the divine Kunpeng, could withstand the blood-fiend aura and carried Nan Xun all the way to the center of the battlefield.
Nan Xun looked around. There was no one in sight—only fresh blood flowing across the ground, the stench overwhelming.
“Everything is gone…” Nan Xun murmured, suddenly feeling a pain in her chest.
The golden-winged roc beside her gently nuzzled her leg, as if comforting her.
“I’m fine. Thank you,” Nan Xun said, smoothing the two tufts of golden feathers on its head.
One human and one beast stepped through rivers of blood. As far as the eye could see, for a hundred miles, everything lay in ruin.
Nan Xun’s hand tightened slightly as she whispered, “Little Eight, you told me to treat everything in this world as a game, that nothing in a game should be taken seriously. But these are living people—living beings…”
The Void Beast was silent for a moment before replying, “Life and death are decreed by fate. Don’t be too sad.”
In truth, it was the one most distressed. They had been so close to successfully redeeming the Demon King, only for that Teng Snake Heize to ruin everything. Damn it, it was infuriating.
After walking for who knew how long, Nan Xun finally spotted several crimson blood scales in a pool of blood.
“…Xue Ming.”
Her gaze flickered slightly. She crouched down and carefully gathered the scales into her palm.
When the golden-winged roc saw the scales of the four-clawed Crimson Blood Teng Snake, it suddenly let out a piercing cry.
Nan Xun quickly soothed it. “Don’t be afraid. I only want to give the Demon King a proper burial. The killing aura and resentment on this battlefield haven’t dispersed. Only by burying him properly can his rage be calmed.”
“You’re wrong. That killing aura and resentment don’t belong to the Demon King alone—they belong to these tens of thousands of humans and divine beasts as well!” A voice filled with hatred rang out from ahead.
Nan Xun suddenly looked up and saw Heize standing before her, his body mangled and covered in blood.
“Little Eight, why isn’t this Heize dead? He was so close to Xue Ming. With the Demon King’s beast core self-detonating at such power, how did he not turn to ashes?” Nan Xun frowned.
The Void Beast explained, “He has the protective charm the Demon King gave you—that bracelet.”
Heize staggered forward, glaring at Nan Xun with bloodshot eyes as he ground out, “I knew he’d taken a liking to you, but I never knew it was to this extent! Branding you with a blood contract was one thing—but he even self-detonated his beast core! Our Teng Snake clan went entirely to the battlefield to eradicate this aberration. And now? We’ve all been buried with this vile beast—every last one of us is dead, hahahaha…”
He paused, then his tone abruptly turned vicious. “Everyone here—humans, divine beasts, demon beasts—has been buried alongside that vile beast. Yet you, the lowly human who deserves to die the most, are still alive!”
