“Good, now that I’m at the tan’tien saturation realm, I’ll make my way to that Soaring Cloud Immortal Sect.”

****

Unparalleled terror gripped everyone’s heart seeing what they did on the vast plains outside the valley.

All the seasoned soldiers, including the captains, stood frozen at the top of the bastion with widened eyes.

“I-Is that child ri-riding a Shidashi Mao!?” the trembling commander eked out.

Of course, the child the hardened soldier was referring to was none other than Long Di.

As of now, Long Di was on the back of the Shidashi Mao, nearest to the head as it casually trod across the flatland.

Yaomu Shou was shocked into madness, then sanity. She was now fearing for her mental well-being the longer she spent time around Long Di. Not only her, everyone inside and outside the carriage was stunned into silence as well. Out of all the weird, strange, and bizarre things that Long Di has done, this one took the cake.

The closer that Long Di brought the Shidashi Mao to the group, since they were effectively locked out of Thousand Emo Valley, the more the effect of its very presence affected them.

Vhwoom!

Everyone instantly felt as if they were trapped in an ice cellar. They could see oceans of blood beating upon the shores of a corpse riddled land. Slaughter ran rampant upon the plains as a sanguine sky hung overhead.

The Shidashi Mao’s killing intent was nearly corporeal, as Yaomu Shou and the others struggled to breathe.

Long Di was afflicted by the same thing when he was fighting it earlier, but his advanced cultivation base offset most of its detrimental effects. It was not as thick or as overwhelming as the Di Ming he faced before, but thankfully, not many things could rival that race’s ancient traits and oddities.

Of course, Long Di was not aware that that level of killing intent was not something that just anyone could endure. He only could, because he was who he was.

Regardless, he could see that everyone was being affected negatively. Yaomu Shou in particular, who was at the top of the carriage, was pale and sweating buckets under its weight.

“Oi,” he called out before rubbing it a bit more ferociously.

“Purrrr!”

Following its purr, the wave-like killing intent withdrew like the receding tide, allowing everyone in the immediate vicinity to breathe easy.

…

The old man that was left alone was watching everything with a shocked expression. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

The old man here was Ban Yan, the oldest of the two. His partner was gone since the latter was still in the middle of taking Tie Lang back to the Yaomu family grounds.

Ban Yan was also the one who sent Long Di the spiritual transmission to run when the Shidashi Mao was ‘killed’ earlier. After all, the distance was much too far for Yaomu Shou to reach Long Di.

However, Ban Yan was just watching Long Di riding upon a magical beast that was calamity incarnate.

…

“H-How are you doing this!?”

“What are you talking about?” Long Di asked Yaomu Shou, who was now trembling due to the realisation that there was an actual Shidashi Mao in front of her.

“RIDING a Shidashi Mao!?” she nearly exploded before reeling herself back in.

“How do we ride anything in life? And whilst I am well aware that there is an adult joke hidden somewhere in there, we both know you’re not gonna get a real answer outta me,” Long Di replied.

“I don’t get it. I heard that a Shidashi Mao is a harbinger of destruction and unpredictability,” Zi Yu chimed in as she disembarked the carriage with trembling steps.

Long Di thought for a moment what he heard and quickly came to the conclusion that most cats were adorable A-holes that were unpredictably violent, moody, and whose whole vibe radiated with the energy of ‘I don’t give a fudge.’

Shidashi Maos on the other hand was a race that took all those traits and more but just dialled to a thousand.

It was at this moment that Long Di realised why Shidashi Maos were so feared. He watched a video once where a cat beat the living turd out of a lion, a LION!

So now we have a creature that embodied all the characteristics and myth-like tropes of a cat rocketing through the skies and falling from the said sky like an influencer’s morality.

“Huh… makes so much sense now,” Long Di said to himself.

Yaomu Shou heard this and asked, “What makes sense now?”

“Nothing, I was just having an inner monologue,” he waved off her question as he looked around.

“Are you not gonna tell us how you’re able to control that thing!?” Zi Yu asked, still at a loss.

“Can you not be so loud?” Long Di stared at Zi Yu with a tired expression.

“H-Hey senior apprentice sister Feng Yu,” Shen Ling called out when she realised what her senior apprentice sister was doing.

By this time, Feng Yu, who was in the carriage, came to the front and etched ever closer to the Shidashi Mao.

She then reached out her hand to touch the nose of this monster.

The beast abruptly shook when it saw this, causing Feng Yu’s hand to pause whilst prompting Long Di to tighten his grip on it.

“Easy…” he said in a wary tone, wondering why Feng Yu would come so near to something that everyone was apparently afraid of.

Yet, as her hand resumed its movement within its initial course and landed on the Shidashi Mao, it began purring under Feng Yu’s touch causing the latter to reveal a gentle smile.

When Zi Yu saw what was happening here, her remaining brain cells were in danger of being eradicated before a startling thought came to mind causing her to gape at Feng Yu.

“Crap! Don’t tell me you’re a-”

C-Creak!

The massive gates of Thousand Emo Valley that were tightly shut before opened up with a deafening groan.

The gates were two colossal structures that stood at a towering six hundred and odd Long Dis (3000 ft). But were only as wide as about four horse-drawn carriages each. They were made of a type of metal that was indiscernible due to the coat of rust that covered them.

However, the rust did very little to take away from their grandeur.

The gates were attached to two great walls that were built into the side of the mountains that ensconced the settlement and place known as Thousand Emo Valley.

The minute the gates fully opened, the entrance into the valley came into full view. A squadron of soldiers exited the city with practised precision. Their movements were totally in sync as they moved swiftly and efficiently.

Yaomu Shou quickly made a move and slapped Feng Yu’s hands away from the Shidashi Mao before anyone could see anything awakening the latter from a somewhat trance-like state.

It didn’t take long before the squadron surrounded the group with swords and spears drawn. However, Yaomu Shou wore a bored expression, while Zi Yu bore one of ‘how dare you offend me?’

Shen Ling, Feng Yu, and Jia Yan were serious and entered a battle-ready state. Xiannu Liang became extremely wary and had her cloak drawn up to hide her face, hair and other features from view.

The soldiers that saw this didn’t know what to make of this strange group. One of them couldn’t be more disinterested if she tried, the other one made it seem as if someone told her about her mother, the others were acting somewhat expectantly, whilst the last one was acting like an escaped convict.

Nevertheless, their biggest threat was the one who sat atop the Shidashi Mao, the eleven-year-old child.

“Surrender peacefully!” a soldier, one who appeared to be the captain of this particular squadron, shouted.

His facial features couldn’t be made out due to the obstruction of his helmet, but his military demeanour was unmistakable.

“You’re saying I’m not peaceful?” Long Di lazily asked the captain.

“You’re a human riding a Shidashi Mao!” The captain replied in a just manner as if that said it all.

“Your power of observation is stunning,” Long Di shot back.

The captain’s expression soured at Long Di’s insult. “So you admit to having malicious intentions!”

A lone brow of Long Di rose in response, “Come again?”

“Men, take him down!” the captain ordered.

However, his men didn’t dare to get any closer to the Shidashi Mao. Though they had no idea how Long Di was able to domesticate one, especially when he was fighting it not ten minutes ago, they didn’t wish to trigger it.

Of course, the commander also saw this and grit his teeth in irritation. He was about to command his men to instead arrest the group travelling with Long Di before he spotted the Yuan demon that is Yaomu Shou, among them and took a step back in intense fear and trepidation.

Though her gaze held no malice, if she was that which those of her race normally was, then he was dead, no other way about it.

“Y-You-” he was about to hold up a trembling finger before he grabbed it with his other hand. This was not an existence that he could afford to offend any more than he already had.

The problem here was that he was riding a tiger and couldn’t get off. He came out here so strongly and now he was to shrink back? How could he face others in the future?

In addition, Yaomu Shou, a Yuan demon, was being low key, which was unusual. He believed this meant that Yaomu Shou was no longer a member of the Yaomu family, but at the same time, her appearance betrayed her pureblood heritage.

Such a person wouldn’t be allowed to leave the family so easily and he, being a soldier of rank, would have known about something as important as a member of the Yaomu family being banished.

With all these thoughts swirling in his head, he decided to bite the bulle… the arrow?

“Men!” he was about to give the order, throwing caution to the wind. “I command you to-”

“Wait!” a shout from within the city stopped the captain from being a redemption-less idiot.

Looking in the direction of the shout, Long Di and the others looked to see a black armoured soldier marching their way with a company behind him.

When the captain saw who it was that stopped him, his expression quickly changed.

“Captain Zhang, who gave you the order to act!?”