A powerful wild beast entered the garden of the monastery. It has a huge black body with the signature fiery red eyes but it had a black aura surrounding it, this is the first time a wild beast with Body Strengthening stage of cultivation entered the garden. (Wild beasts of cultivation level Body Strengthening & above are only found in the inner parts of the forest)

(Note: For brevity sake I will mention Long Shen as LS, Similarly i will try to use short forms for the names I frequently use - to save fatigue from reading the name again and again)

LS was shaking at the sight of the monster, he quickly ran to his grandpa’s side, peeking at the beast from behind his grandpa. He was startled to see snowy faintly growling as if it was not afraid of the beast. LS shaking his head thought “These cubs don’t have a concept of fear they do whatever they want & not care about the consequences..”

“Come back Snowy…..” LS shouted. Snowy was already in front of the beast growling in a crouching position as if Snowy is the predator & the beast prey! “Damn you stupid cub get away” Shouted Sr Wong. The Wild beast didn’t even acknowledge the presence of snowy looking at the little white ball of fur with disdain as if it is not worthy of its attention, the beast lifted its left paw & flicked snowy away as if it were a fly. Snowy flew far away & crashed on Grandpa’s hut, a few drops of blood dripped from its mouth. “Phew…” LS sighed, taking a breath of gratitude. He grabbed the cub immediately. 

The monks surrounded the wild beast & started to attack it in unison. Wild beasts are generally stronger than humans of the same cultivation level due to their sturdy bodies, ferocious & ruthless hunting instincts that provide an edge in battles. The regular monks were usually normal peasants / beginner level martial artists with Qi Accumulation / Body strengthening stage. Although there were powerful monks that preside over the monastery with deep cultivation levels they are reclusive & don’t interfere in the day to day activities of the organization, the regular monks take care of the monastery & its surroundings.

Waves of attacks hit the beast, but the beast dodged skillfully and avoided the majority of them only a few hit it. It then charged through them directly towards LS craving for tender human meat. Grandpa pushed LS aside & lifted his staff to attack the beast. The beast’s claw almost grazed LS. Grandpa pushed the beast’s claw back with his attack & joined the other monks in their attack. Sr Wong created a fireball & fired it towards the beast, it hit the back singing its fur, burning a part of its back.

Enraged the beast fought the monks furiously swinging its steely paws. Suddenly it jumped back a few feet & opened its mouth wide, a small black ball of Qi started accumulating near its mouth, growing into a large ball (to the size of a head). It discharged a focus blast by firing the ball against the crowd. The monks dispersed but a few who were slow to react got hurt. Blood splattered everywhere, the air slowly picked up the scent of blood and carried it to the beast’s nostrils, the scent invigorated the beast as it started to pounce on the injured monks, it bit an arm off in rage then spat it on the ground with disdain. The monks reassembled towards the south end of the garden & started to create a net out of their qi & with the help of the magical ropes that are used to bind heavy logs. They superimposed the ropes in a criss-cross fashion quickly giving it the shape of a net, once it was done they immediately cast it on the beast trapping it temporarily, it struggled violently & tried to chew out the ropes. They could hardly contain it, now it became a battle of attrition. It is a matter of time who will release their grip on the ropes.

The beast again started charging the Qi ball ready to fire towards the monks holding it down, Boom! The blast tore through the net but its power was significantly reduced by the magical rope that had a defense mechanism in built - almost ⅔ of the energy was reflected by the rope which wounded the beast’s head. The monks escaped the blast freeing the beast again. Weakened from its own blast the beast waddled away to the water fountain, soaked its head to calm the burning sensation & turned towards the crowd. By this time the monks grabbed bow & arrows fired a volley of arrows at the beast. They pierced a few soft spots like abdomen & neck the rest bounced back off its hard hide.

As it looked at LS, it wanted to snatch the tender meat for dinner before escaping. Its speed increased drastically as it sped through the gaps and reached the pile of rocks under which LS was hiding & put its claw into the hole violently trying to snatch him. Snowy pounced at the claw trying to fight back, LS pulled snowy back & started to run away from the back of the stone pile cave. After a few moments the beast noticed LS running away, it tried to withdraw its paw from the stone pile to chase LS. But, the stones collapsed due to its violent movements earlier & its paw was stuck in the stone pile. LS was getting faraway from its reach every second delay, it started charging its Qi blast once again but the power was drastically reduced due to its earlier injuries, it fired the blast in the direction of the stone pile & LS who was running with snowy in his arms (LS was running in a straight line running behind the pile). LS was at the very end of its zone of attack but it still managed to hit him with the Qi blast just enough to slow him down. Both LS & snowy fell into the blast crater badly injured, the beast freed from the stone pile, ran towards the injured duo. LS thought that this was his final moment & desperately tried to protect snowy from the beast by curling around snowy, waiting for the beast’s attack. Although small snowy is intelligent enough to understand that its end is near, it closed its eyes & the recent past flashed in its mind… Eating & playing with LS, Sleeping without a care in the world, happy to be friends with LS who cared for it so much, tears dropped out of its eyes, as it waited for death... Time seemed to flow slowly… (the time waiting for death.)

Meanwhile, Sr Wong was frantically chanting a long mantra to gather all his Qi, put it into his sword & launched it towards the beast using fire blast as the propelling force. The sword left his hand like a cannon ball directly hitting the beast in between the eyebrows piercing its brain & lodged deep inside its head. The beast after a loud cry fell dead right in front of LS & snowy. Its blood oozing out. The blood drenched the ground bathing Snowy & Long Shen forming a pool around them. Weakened by the attack and the mental strain LS & Snowy fainted. Holding each other in the embrace. 

A brilliant light shot through the sky surrounding Snowy & LS, the blood pool started boiling after getting covered with the light. Deep in Long Shen’s sea of consciousness a spark ignited the chains holding a golden book in locks. The chains slowly melted using the blood as fuel & the pages of the book turned rapidly opening a page with a snow white Wolf image.

The description below it read - “[Wolf God’s descendant]”. Similarly in Snowy’s consciousness Long Shen’s dragon birthmark appeared & merged with it’s sea of consciousness. A blood spirit contract has been performed, which cannot be annulled. The Master & the Spirit will be connected by their consciousness, sharing thoughts & emotions. living like a single life.

(The blood spirit contract only occurs when both the parties trust each other completely & willing to die for each other, once a being becomes a blood spirit contract beast it becomes immortal as long as its Master is alive, but it will perish once its master dies unless the master releases them from the contract.

Note: Spirt beasts are a special / rare category of beasts that can form contracts with humans -> one cannot distinguish Spirit beasts / Spirit entities from real people. We will only know their origins when they themselves reveal it to us - sometimes even the beasts themselves are not aware that they belong to spirit beasts category. Spirit contracts are made entirely out of chance - Only a few people called summoners can form contracts with Spirit beasts - others cannot)

To be continued....