Suddenly, the ground below them shook before a deafening roar broke the silence that had long descended on the small group.

Long Di whispered, “Lord Whiskers if you’d please? Also, Pebbles, don’t let Lord Whiskers die.”

****

”Roar!”

“Chichichchi!”

Two creatures that comprised part of the encirclement couldn’t stop their appetites from being stimulated by the aroma of Long Di’s magical beast meat and charged out.

One creature was a mountainous, umber-coloured, bear-like magical beast that had strange red markings all over its body. A fierce, bestial blood qi coursed all around it in ribbons while a powerful blood lust radiated from it in waves!

Its teeth were like iron spikes as they flashed an ominous glint and the drool that dripped from its mouth laid bare its intentions at a glance. These features altogether were unique to the Earth Rending Dire Bear, a dangerous and aggressive magical beast.

Of course, the bloodlust it emanated was a sign that it had no intention of sharing what it wanted and that it would kill all those who would contest this desire.

The other magical beast was a disgusting, sickening, never-should-have-lived, never-should-have-existed, insect-like magical beast.

Permit me to say, there wasn’t anything magical about it.

It was black in some parts and brown in others with six spiked legs stuck out from either side of it in threes. Two antennas whirled about from its head, which was hidden under a shiny carapace that covered the entirety of its body from the top.

The darkness cast by the cover veiled what lay beneath, while a sickening smell wafted from it that made even the monarch gale crow meat seem unappetising.

It also eyed the spit in greed, but as everyone eyed it in return, only one word came to mind to describe it.

Ew.

This godforsaken thing was a cockroach, a goddamn cockroach!

Of course, the scientific term was a Diseased Calamity Deadroach.

Not only that, it was about three Long Di’s long. That was three Long Di’s too much!

Long Di was half tempted to kill it with fire here and now, but the thought of using his earth flame to kill the damned thing and then using that same fire to reheat his monarch gale crow meat made him shudder something fierce deep inside.

Meh… he’d let Lord Whiskers and Pebbles deal with it. He did delegate responsibility to them after all.

Strangely enough, Pebbles didn’t make any sort of movement and remained perched on Long Di’s shoulder with one eye on the Monarch Gale Crow and one eye on the new arrivals. He looked like one of those characters from Baki, which, now that he thought about it, was the entirety of the Demon Region.

Boom!

A deafening shockwave spread out as Lord Whiskers charged into the Earth Rending Dire Bear!

Pu Ci!

Blood flew as claws dug into flesh with unrelenting ferocity!

A vicious tear ripped out a chunk of flesh from the side of the Earth Rending Dire Bear!

A roar of pain echoed out, fueled by rage as the Earth Rending Dire Bear made to tear Lord Whiskers apart.

Chi chi chi chi chi!

The Deadroach’s legs moved in a blur as it descended on the camp of Long Di and the others, inciting fear in their hearts.

Whoosh!

A shield composed of spiritual qi was quickly erected to block this thing and everything about it.

Bam!

B-B-B-B-Bang!

It crashed into the shield and bombarded it with its antennas that abused the air sonic booms with every lash they levied!

The blows crashed into the shield, but not even these were able to shake the shield, much less, damage it

Eventually, it stood on its hind legs and used four of its six legs to inflict whatever damage it could inflict on the shield, and everyone nearly vomited from it.

Why you ask?

Simple. The underbelly of this thing was nightmare fuel on fire.

On. Fire.

The Sun siblings paled in fear when they saw how desperately this magical beast tried to get at them.

They had never seen something so disgusting and frightening in their lives.

Mina’s face twisted into one of pure disgust when she saw this.

Another roar, still of pain, violently shook the surroundings with unending tremors before a paw, wielding claws that released a faint light, smashed into the side of the Diseased Calamity Deadroach!

Boom!

Two parts of the Diseased Calamity Deadroach flew in different directions as Lord Whiskers Claw tore it in two!

Lord Whiskers’s face twisted into a grimace as if it disdained to touch this thing. It would use this to blackmail Long Di for a large share of the meat he was preparing.

Shing!

A light dyed the surroundings in a sepia glow, drawing Lord Whiskers’s attention. It looked over to Earth Rending Dire Bear.

The marks on the Earth Rending Dire Bear’s fur lit up as the blood qi swirling around it in ribbons shot up to the sky as its power rose several levels!

The Earth Rending Dire Bear was a sorry sight, though. Many parts of its body were missing chunks of flesh and blood ran from it in rivers. It was so bad that the only reason it lived was because of its colossal size and little else.

The numerous wounds left on it by Lord Whiskers enraged it to new heights, forcing it to use one of its divine abilities.

Whoosh!

A powerful wind kicked up as it entered its strongest state.

Another shockwave crashed into the shield, protecting all those within it.

The Sun siblings went wide-eyed with shock as they never thought they would be able to see something like this in their lifetime.

Mina’s attention was locked in the direction of the battle and stared with rapt attention. No one could tell what was on her mind, but no one troubled her from whatever rumination she was engaged in. Whatever it was, they could tell it was important.

[Mina’s mind]

‘What creative insult can I come up with that will entrap that damn cat and Long Di?’

It would seem Mina is an avid believer of fortune favours the prepared. Unfortunately, she didn’t ask herself the question of what preparation could really ready one for madness.

[End of Mina’s mind… soon followed by her sanity]

Xiannu Liang was shaken out of her cultivation by the clamour of the battle and was shocked by the scene before her.

What happened while she was cultivating!?

“Long Di! What happe-”

“Sshhh…” Long Di put a finger to his lips while he focused on the monarch gale crow meat. If he made any mistake with the heat of his earth flame, he could instantly burn it to ashes with his earth flame the way it is now.

“There we go…” Long Di was satisfied with his work. Only another smaller part of the monarch gale crow meat was burnt at this stage. Long Di was getting better at controlling his flame and internally thanked Mina for the blessing of having an ungodly level of talent in all aspects of cultivation.

He turned his gaze to the battle Lord Whiskers was embroiled in like everybody else and leaned back on his hands to watch it in its entirety.

Bang!

The Earth Rending Dire Bear found it hard to lock on Lord Whiskers as the latter flitted around at high speeds.

It was so fast that several Lord Whiskers could be seen because of the afterimages generated.

“Roar!”

The Earth Rending Dire Bear let out another roar before it used its giant claws and brought them down into a crushing blow into the ground!

Boom!

A powerful quake assaulted the ground before a wave of earth of tsunamic proportions rippled from the Earth Rending Dire Bear!

Dududududududdu!

The earth wave ate up everything in its path as it roared onwards. Trees, boulders and their mother were ripped up before they amalgamated into the earth tsunami to form a catastrophe of an ineffable magnitude!

Shu!

Lord Whiskers couldn’t evade it and before long, the earth wave arrived before it.

Bam!

A resounding blast rang out as the attack smashed into it, which sent Lord Whiskers flying.

“Well my goodness, this is just going to kill me to death isn’t it?"

Not even Long Di and the others were spared from this as the earth wave slammed into them as well.

However, due to the last heavenly execution, Long Di’s spiritual force had entered the martial grandmaster realm. So not even this attack was able to shake his shield.

Unfortunately, Lord Whiskers had no such change. The blow sent him flying into a far-off mountain.

Whoosh!

A surge of spiritual force gushed out, displacing a ton of earth revealing Long Di and the others.

“Why didn’t you just bring us to the top?” Mina asked him.

Long Di flicked his finger to the patch of darkness that was and is Shen Ling cultivating.

“You ca-”

Long Di shook his head, knowing what she wanted to ask. He was unable to touch this patch of darkness. It was ethereal and something far beyond his understanding at the moment.

Boom!

Before anyone else could regain their bearings, the Earth Rending Dire Bear descended on them with caution rent asunder!

He let loose a barrage of blows on the shield as Long Di emotionlessly watched it. Mina and Xiannu Liang were a bit shaken by its strength while the Sun siblings were thronged with fear.

Of course, Mina saw this and feeling a little sorry for them, offered them a few words of encouragement.

“D-Don’t worry. The boy may be a hindrance to sanity and have all the mental stability of an anorexic Jenga tower, but he can be counted on in moments like these. You’re safe.”

The Sun siblings didn’t understand everything she just said but got the general gist of what she was saying and felt a little better for it.

Xiannu Liang smiled when she saw this. She was about to comfort them herself, but held back when she saw Mina’s eyes darting over them every now and again.

Chi chi chi chi chi!

A hair-raising sound rang out, causing everyone to snap their heads in that direction only to see the Diseased Calamity Deadroach scurrying over in their direction.

“What the heck is going on and what is that thing!?”

“Oh, greetings Shen Ling,” Long Di said when he heard and saw that Shen Ling emerged from her cultivation.

She had a disgusted and frightened expression on her face when she saw it bounding down towards them. She didn’t even pay attention to the Earth Rending Dire Bear that was hammering away at the qi shield!

“Aaaah!” She screamed in fright as any sane person would and latched on to Long Di right away. Her arms were wrapped around his head and tightened the closer the Diseased Calamity Deadroach got.

Pebbles saw this and gave Shen Ling a thumbs up as best as his paw could afford.

Soon the Diseased Calamity Deadroach was upon them and was at the shield just like the Earth Rending Dire Bear.

No one knew if the bear wanted the help to break the shield or if it was too disgusted by the thing, but the Earth Rending Dire Bear didn’t move to attack the Diseased Calamity Deadroach.

“How is it still alive?” Mina asked in wonder.

Mina pointed to a specific section of its body. “Look there.”

There, where she directed, was a slightly moving, jagged white line. Looking closely, it could be seen where it was actually countless maggot-like organisms wriggling about.

They seemed to be fusing the two pieces back together.

“For the love of… it seems this thing has the life force of an actual cockroach. What did I do to deserve this?” Long Di asked in exasperation, surprisingly unbothered by Shen Ling’s fright-fuelled skinship.

Mina shot him a side-eyed glance before stating. “Didn’t you kill off the members of an entire sect?”

“By that logic, do you not exist?” Long Di asked.

Mina was confused. “How is that the same?”

“They’re both classified as a calamity I’d say,” He clarified.

“You piece of shi-”

“Long Di, why don’t you just kill it?” asked Xiannu Liang, cutting off Mina for the good of the children and to sate her own curiosity.

She knew that Long Di had more than enough strength to kill this thing easily.

The Sun siblings heard this and looked to Long Di in curiosity. Yet, no matter how hard they looked, they just couldn’t see the air of an expert from Long Di.

“Well, for one, I am not touching that thing with a ten-foot pole,” he said, pointing to the Diseased Calamity Deadroach, before continuing, “and second, Lord Whiskers is peeved.”

Xiannu Liang’s brows furrowed in confusion, “What do mean Lord Whiskers is pee-”

Vhwoom!

As if to answer her question, a terrifying killing intent manifested on the horizon.

It grew stronger and more substantial like one could taste the blood that it yearned to spill.

This killing intent heralded something dangerous, something that should never be provoked.

It caused the entire forest to quieten down, not unlike what happened when Long Zhe or Pebbles made their presence felt.

Goosebumps covered everyone’s skin in an instant and the Sun siblings couldn’t help themselves from shaking in fear.

Even the Diseased Calamity Deadroach and the Earth Rending Dire Bear paused their attacks to stare wherefore something wicked this way comes.

An expression of fear actually evinced itself on them both.

Shu!

Barring Long Di and Pebbles who were able to keep track, to everyone else, all they could see was a shadow that flickered past for a fraction of a second before pieces of the Diseased Calamity Deadroach were falling from where the magical beast was a while ago.

The Earth Rending Dire Bear saw this and immediately ran off, realising that it had kicked an iron plate this time around.

Pu Ci!

But it didn’t get far before its arm was torn off from the shoulder!

A roar of pain bellowed out when its lower jaw was ripped off without so much as an inkling of who did it.

A scene of carnage and blood unfolded before everyone and the rest of the magical beasts watching from the shadows.

The more Lord Whiskers mutilated the Earth Rending Dire Bear, the more its killing intent grew.

“I have never felt such profound killing intent before,” Pebbles commented.

The killing intent Lord Whiskers unleashed was unparalleled in scale and had reached a sort of plateau.

“True. I never felt it this strong as strong from him as I do now.” Long Di agreed. “It could be because it’s always been forced to bottle it up because of us. I heard somewhere that we must always express our emotions and that it’s not good to keep it all in.”

Pebbles eyed him warily when he said this, “So you plan tooooo…?”

“To let him express himself,” Long Di said, undisturbed by the violence delivered on the Earth Rending Dire Bear.

“From time to time.” Pebbles finished for him, not believing any environment could survive this level of venting.

It was only when the Earth Rending Dire Bear was fully dismembered that Lord Whiskers stopped.

Seeing that he was done, Long Di called to him, “Okay Lord Whiskers, let’s… oh my.”

Just as Long Di called out to Lord Whiskers, the latter dug its teeth into the now lifeless body of the Earth Rending Dire Bear.

Long Di and the others went silent as they watched Lord Whiskers consume the body of the Earth Rending Dire Bear in its entirety.

It was now that Long Di realised that Lord Whiskers didn’t have a scratch on its body from the earlier attack. Its anger most likely stemmed from being hit by the Earth Rending Dire bear more than anything else.

It seemed that the heavenly execution that it and Long Di went through had caused its strength to grow a great deal, possibly being a quasi-rank 6 even.

It was no wonder that Long Zhe said its breakthrough to this rank officially was so near at hand.

As soon as it finished, it eyed Long Di and the others and released a cold hiss.

Long Di raised a brow in mild surprise. “Oh, really?”

“Finally!” Pebbles said, relieved.

“Wait, what?” Mina was the first to recover and catch the tail end of the conversation between Long Di and Pebbles.

“It knows where the Blood Drinking Devil Ape is and wants to kill it.”