In the valley where Bu Bian had been reborn, there was a truly spectacular sight. An enormous three-legged toad, its skin like the stones of mountainside, was leaping in all directions as though it had gone made while crying out in misery!

“Ohh, this old fool….” With a tremendous crash, it slammed its head against an enormous boulder. The jade horn blade on the toad’s head split the stone clean in two.

“Has really…” Flexing its single remaining leg, the toad straight up into the air, turning so that it landed with an earth shaking crash directly on its warty face. The miserable creature let out a pitiful groan.

“A terrible case of indigestion!” As if an invisible emperor was passing by, the toad suddenly prostrated itself. Again and again, it struck its face against the earth, kowtowing like the lowliest worm before the empty air!

If anyone was watching this besides a few amused sparrows, they might have seen that the toad’s limbs were moving in a sudden, abrupt way, as if they were being clumsily pulled about by some unseen force. Yes, it was if the whole beast, all two tons of toad, was being puppeteered by an unseen figure.

“Ai? How do you think I feel about this!?” This time when the toad opened its mouth, a completely different voice flew out. It was the high-pitched, squeaking voice of the Celestial Goldmist Bat. That is, it was the voice of the one and only Bu Bian, and his voice was full of incomparable disgust!

Trapped in a toad’s belly! Drowning in slime! With a squeaking roar of anger, he forced the toad to kowtow again, bashing its face into the earth, and the tortured beast let out a miserable wail. “Master forgive me! It’s a toad’s instinct, and you simply looked incomparable tasty!”

“What kind of excuse is that, you miserable fool? Do you spend all night sticking your tongue out at the moon because you fancy it looks like a rice cake?!” The toad’s tongue shot out, turned back, and slapped its owner across the face.

Being berated by his own tongue? Getting his face slapped by his belly? This was ultimate humiliation. “Eee, maybe I should have faced my death like a man and fought the Fiendhunters myself.” The toad thought, but even its thoughts were not its own!

“Ai, that’s a good idea! Let’s wake them up and see if they can cut me out of here!” Bu Bian said, speaking directly into the toad’s mind.

In truth, this was the incredible bloodline legacy of the Primordial Fiend, Celestial Goldmist Bat. Spirit Possession! Upon entering the toad’s belly, Bu Bian had instinctively dissolved his body into a fine mist, and forced his way into the beast’s dantian. Every cultivator contained a miniature world of the soul within their foundations, and Bu Bian entered the toad’s heartworld without difficulty.

Within this heartworld was a vast and noxious swamp, where the manifestation of the toad’s soul slept in a basin of still, oily water full of buzzing flies and rotten fruit. In short, paradise.

The toad’s soul barely had time to open its eyes before Bu Bian’s terrible claws descended, the bat shrieking vengeance. While outside the Goldmist Bat was pitiful, within this world, it truly was as fierce as a dragon, with tremendous strength and invulnerable skin, suppressing the toad’s soul completely. Golden light radiated from Bu Bian, infusing itself into the heartworld and claiming control.

With a thought, dozens of rattan vines exploded out of the earth and restrained the toad’s soul.

With every second he was gaining greater control of the toad’s body. In the center of the swamp, a long-stagnant lake began to swirl. This was the toad’s cultivation base, and golden strands of energy were coalescing within, causing it to rotate. In seconds, the moss-covered surface was swept clean and twin flows had emerged in the lake beneath. One was green as jade, the other golden and brilliant, and together they formed the eternal taiji.

In the world outside, the toad’s stony skin split open as Bu Bian slapped its head against the earth. In fact, all over its body, stone flaked away to reveal gold beneath, like veins of golden ore in the earth. A rush of strength was filling its limbs, and its severed leg actually began to regrow!

“Is this..?”

“The seventh seal?”

For centuries the toad had been a six-seal warrior. That is, only six of its seven chakras were open to the energies of the earth, allowing it to refine them into Qi. But now, the seventh gate burst open, letting in a rush of strength, refining body and soul to new heights. This was a breakthrough created by the absorption of Bu Bian’s golden Qi.

In that moment the toad shuddered and a huge crack of gold split open across its back. Unable to restrain the energy of the earth from flooding in, neither Bu Bian nor the toad were in control anymore, and on instinct, the toad’s legs kicked out!

The earth dropped away beneath them and the Waveroad Mountains grew smaller and smaller, clouds flying past. Despite its harsh treatment at the hands of Bu Bian, the toad’s heart was filled with uncontainable joy. Not only had its leg been restored, but it had grown stronger than before, in fact, the whole of its body was surging with power!

“The seventh seal! I’ve finally opened the seventh seal. Now, I can conquer this mountain and reclaim my pride!” The toad roared, watching the mountains shrink to nothing beneath its shadow.

“Don’t say that like you’ve been slaving away! It's filthy in here, full of slime and mold. I don’t think you’ve even tried to cultivate in years you lazy beast!” Bu Bian cried out. To him, this situation was far from perfect, no, it was a complete outrage.

“Master! I apologize for everything, this gift you’ve given me, it’s really too much…” This was the chance every beast dreamed of, a stroke of luck that would allow them to grow. “I shall serve faithfully to protect you while you grant me your strength!”

Bu Bian had no choice but to grind his teeth and accept his fate. His strength was borrowing strength! Therefore, he had to make sure his hosts were strong. “... fine! I don’t know how to get out here, and we may be stuck together for a long time, so I’ll forgive your immoral ways! From this day forth, you can consider yourself reborn!”

For a moment, there was a silent brotherhood being forged between them. And a moment later, the toad realized something!

“... master, surely you don’t mean for me to still be falling face down?”

Bu Bian only laughed. “Don’t I? Today, let ‘master’ teach you something about being reborn into this world!”

And a breath later, the whole mountain trembled with an earth-rattling impact and a mighty, “YEEAAUGH!”

While the toad recovered from his fall, Bu Bian finally had time to think. It seemed that his strength as a Fiend was entirely the in Spirit Possession technique, which he had yet to fully understand. He didn’t even know how to escape the toad’s heartworld yet.

But he could bring other things into it. Once the seventh seal was opened, a cultivator could draw what they wished into the pocket dimension of their dantian. With a flick of his tongue, Bu Bian swept up his scattered hoard of spirit jades and swallowed them.

After a moment’s thought, he drew in the two unconscious brothers as well, depositing them into a shallow pool of water within the heartworld’s boundless swamp.

His grasp of the toad’s body was such that he could now divine through its memories at will! “The Waveroad Mountains… The city of Shanju…” Although newly born, Bu Bian was learning at a tremendous rate, and when his prisoners awoke he could interrogate them on the topic of the Fiendhunters and human society.

As for the toad, it was an excellent source on most everything else! Though lazy as the day is long, the toad had been forced by stronger beasts to rely on cunning, and Bu Bian found a great deal of information on medicinal herbs, poisonous plants, and even some knowledge of the local cultivators.

“Oh-ho… and the toad has a fiance…” Bu Bian chuckled to himself. Perhaps ‘fiance’ was a little kind. In fact, she might not have even realized her admirer existed on this earth! This was because ‘she’ was a mighty Dragontail Wolf and a beast of the Twin-Essence Student stage while he was only a toad. She ruled a mountain, while he was forced to creep through other beasts’ territories!

Some things must be explained. When asked how to become immortal, a wise man once responded, “Open seven seals, plant two trees, face death, conquer beasts, chart the stars, and escape these mortal chains!”

The ‘seven seals’ of course referred to the seven chakras, which had to be opened before the energies of the earth could be drawn upon and converted to Qi. To ‘plant two trees’ a cultivator would have to condense vast amounts of Qi into an Essence Seed, which would then sprout within the dantian, its mighty roots strengthening the foundation of the cultivator’s heartworld.

Someone who had planted two seeds would be a Twin-Essence Student, at the peak of the stage! Beasts who didn’t have a Fiend’s bloodline within eight generations could only be born in the Seal Warrior stage, so among the lowly beasts of the Waveroad Mountain, she was a prodigy!

In the Waveroad Mountains only beasts of the Fiendheart Primalist stage were above her, and if she made a breakthrough, she would be among the supreme powers of the mountain.

This, Bu Bian learned, was possible because she had fought off all other contenders when the last Mountain Ruler of her territory died. Because of her ferocity she had managed to claim the spiritual spring at the mountain’s heart.

Without human techniques of forging and refining, beasts had few sources of spiritual energy to cultivate. Claiming a spiritual spring was the best of these. Otherwise a beast could devour human-made treasures, or eat humans themselves, but either was terribly dangerous. In general the less you had to do with humans the longer you would live.

A beast might be stronger than a human, but where each Mountain Ruler had a few disciples, the leader of a human sect might control one hundred mountains and a hundred thousand warriors. Of those hundred thousand at least a few would display extraordinary talent.

It was simply impossible for the few prodigies the beasts produced to escape being hunted down by the humans, who produced young geniuses by the dozens.

Only Fiends, the kings of the beasts, could grow fast enough to escape this extermination!

Sieving through the toad’s memories Bu Bian discovered that one Mountain Ruler was sick, hanging on the verge of death. This was the Ape-Faced Elk, an ancient and mysterious beast that ruled over the Yellowflower Mountain.

“Zhao Ze!” This was the toad’s name, and the poor creature yawned and shook itself off.

“Yes, young master Bu?” Since being disciplined, the toad had taken on a fawning, servile manner, so eager to please it was pathetic.

“It’s time to make ourselves known.” Right now, the beasts would be avoiding Bu Bian’s valley out of fear. A newborn Fiend could be anything! If it was a ravenous, mindless god of slaughter, then it was of course best to stay clear. If, on the other hand, it was intelligent and able to cultivate, the beasts would gain a powerful protector.

Right now, the Pale Bear King and the other Mountain Rulers beneath him would be waiting to see whether they had been blessed or cursed. In short, Bu Bian sensed an ideal chance to receive a few gifts.

Leaping to the top of the mountain, the toad inflated its neck and bellowed to the skies. “Beware the ravenous Bu Bian! Oh, the terrifying king of beasts, the black horror lurking within the valley, oh, beware! If he’s not fed he’ll surely devour us all!’

All across the mountain, beasts heard these words and shuddered. Just what kind of Fiend had the heavens sent upon them?