“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.”

****

“It knows where the Blood Drinking Devil Ape is!?” Xiannu Liang was surprised.

“Less talking, more moving.” Long Di grabbed Xiannu Liang under his arm like a pop star’s Pomeranian puppy and got up.

“What are you-”

“Shush Xiannu Liang, you get this privilege cuz you’re a friend,” said Long Di as if he just gave away the world.

“How is this a privilege!? I don’t consent to this!”

“W-What about us?” Sun Zixin asked nervously. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but he didn’t want himself and his siblings to be left alone when it did.

“You can travel the short distance via punt.” Long Di answered.

Sun Mei was confused. “What do you mea-”

Pa! Pa!

“Aaaah!”

Long Di mercilessly kicked both Sun Zixin and Sun Mei who was holding Sun Kai, causing them to somersault several times in the air before they deftly landed on the back of Lord Whiskers who was still wearing a fierce snarling expression.

When they realised they were safe and even more oddly bereft of the pain such a forceful kick would incur they gazed curiously at Long Di.

Of course, the latter didn’t pay any attention to them as he was embroiled in a heated altercation with someone else.

“Don’t touch me!” Mina ran from Long Di towards Lord Whiskers in the most jacked-up version of a rom-com actress running away after mistakenly thinking her lover wasn’t right for her.

“Hahaha!” Pebbles laughed her to scorn when he saw how she ran. He nearly rolled off Long Di’s shoulder due to the scale of how he lost it.

Shen Ling giggled upon seeing it as well. She was still latched onto Long Di like a koala to a tree. So there was no need for him to hold on to her.

This was actually a piece of advice that Pebbles the Wondercat gave to her. He told her that she needs to maintain a certain level of skinship with Long Di.

It doesn’t matter how she does it, just that she does it. In addition, the more of her body remains in contact with Long Di, the better it is for her.

This was why she was doing what she was doing now. Well, the Diseased Calamity Deadroach was part of it, but the main reason was to get closer to Long Di, both romantically AND physically.

Once the excitement and fear from the Diseased Calamity Deadroach faded, her close proximity to Long Di really sank in, and a blush covered her ears. Her body tensed and Long Di naturally felt it.

His eyes slid to the side to observe her as he commented. “You’ve picked up some odd habits from Xiannu Liang and Yaomu Shou, but do what you want I guess. Let’s go.”

He jumped on Lord Whiskers’s back with Xiannu Liang and Shen Ling in tow before urging the furious shidashi mao to go where it willed. He trusted it when it said that it knew where the Blood Drinking Devil Ape was.

Shu!

It shot off and its insane speed impressed even Long Di who had gotten used to these types of travels.

Of course, he had to put up a shield, lest the likes of Sun Kai and the others be blown away by the breeze that Lord Whiskers’s speed generated.

‘It’s gotten much faster than before and it seems to be awakening some sort of divine ability but I can feel that it’s getting stronger, meaning… that it isn’t there just yet.’ Long Di thought to himself.

‘In addition, this blood lust… something tells me that it needs to release it regularly or something bad will happe-’

“Long Di can we get something to eat now?”

“Uh? Ah sure.” Shen Ling’s voice shook Long Di from his rumination.

The space on Lord Whiskers’s back was expansive due to its overall size. So Long Di was able to easily take out the Monarch Gale Crow meat with little trouble.

As soon as he took it out, its aroma assaulted the nostrils of everyone present.

“I’m starving,” Xiannu Liang commented.

Long Di's brows furrowed in confusion upon hearing this. “You can get hungry? Wait, you eat meat? Shouldn’t you be a vegan or something?”

“What’s a vegan? And why would I not eat meat?” Xiannu Liang asked with a confused expression.

“Don’t look at me like that. I thought that since you’re a nymph and one with nature, and all that, that you would be for eating plants and-”

“D-Do you take me for some cannibal!?” Xiannu Liang asked, now highly disturbed.

“This is not how this conversation was supposed to go.” Long Di said deadpan.

“Let’s just eat,” he stated right after, changing the subject and not caring much after.

He took out the knife he got from the monk back then and saw the look of shock on the Sun sibling’s faces.

He supposed this must be the first time they saw a spiritual artefact.

Shu! Shu! Shu!

The knife flew through the air in a flurry, cleaving pieces of meat from the monarch gale crow meat.

Both legs were gone, leaving only the wings and everything else.

The meat fell from the air before sticks stuck through the pieces of meat, turning them into shish kebabs.

Shen Ling got a stick with around two slices of meat on it, while Xiannu Liang got one with three slices of meat. Pebbles got a whole wing that he ripped off from the roast on its own.

Mina also got a stick with three shish slices as well.

The Sun siblings all got a single stick with a single slice of meat that was so thin that it was almost see-through.

Their expressions when seeing this, and their perception of Long Di changed as a result.

“Hmph! Stingy!” Sun Mei remarked.

“It’s for your own good,” Long Di said, not bothered by the comment.

Nevertheless, Sun Zixin thanked Long Di for the food and tore off a piece of meat and fed it to Sun Kai first.

“Yeah, you might wanna make that a smaller portion there,” Long Di’s voice echoed out once again, freezing Sun Kai’s hand.

It was already a small piece, but he heeded Long Di’s advice and tore it even smaller into four pieces, and then fed one of the quarters to Sun Kai.

As soon as Sun Kai ate it, his face lit up as the taste exploded in his mouth and he was overwhelmed by the umami of the meat.

His chewing sped up and his eyes closed into slits as childlike giggles echoed out as he ate.

Sun Zixin and Sun Mei were surprised by this.

Was it that delicious!? Was there a need to act like this?

Regardless, they gave him another piece, wanting him to be full first, which the small child grabbed without hesitation and downed just like the first, but this time, his chewing slowed down almost immediately.

Disbelief appeared on Sun Zixin and Sun Mei’s faces again! They were well aware that though Sun Kai was the smallest among them; he was the one that ate the most.

For him to be full after just two pieces of meat was shocking.

They stared at each other and nodded to each other before they decided to give it a go as well.

“Y’kno I thought that you guys never needed to eat,” Long Di said to Shen Ling and Xiannu Liang.

“Really? How come?” Shen Ling asked curiously. She had dismounted Long Di and was now eating beside him.

Long Di shrugged his shoulders as he stated, “I never really saw you guys eat apart from that one time in the woods.”

“Well, we have rations on us that we eat as we go along. They’re much easier to carry since we have storage rings now, but we do eat every now and again,” answered Shen Ling.

“Right,” Xiannu Liang agreed. “From what I’ve heard though, we only stop requiring food entirely once we reach the core flame evocation realm. Apparently, the spiritual energy between the energy at that time is enough to support us.”

“Really?” Long Di’s brow rose in response to this.

“Didn’t you remember?” Mina stated as she tore off chunk after chunk of magical beast meat from her shish kebab.

“You used to eat back home, but it was like once a month or something.”

“Oh right,” Long Di remembered something like that. “I just thought that was for recreation.”

“Your brain is for recreation,” she quipped before she went back to focusing on her meal.

“I’ll let you have that. It seems like you desperately need it.”

“Hmph!”

Long Di turned his attention to Pebbles who was digging into his own wing with little care for his appearance.

“How you liking it buddy?” Long Di asked.

“Meow!”

“Good to hear,” Long Di was happy to hear that.

Vrrrm!

The void trembled as Long Zhe appeared before them. It didn’t seem like Lord Whiskers’s speed posed any trouble to him.

Long Di was confused by his appearance. “What is this?”

Long Zhe only kept his gaze focused on Pebbles who meowed once more before the latter returned to his meal.

In response, Long Zhe wordlessly took the rest of the roast and quickly returned to the void.

“Bastard!” Pebbles cursed. “What pride of the dragons!? You’re a chicken thief! Choke on it, you hear me!? Choke on it!”

“Well, that was unexpected.” Long Di commented.

“He’s a bitter old lizard who did it because he wanted to spite me and because he didn’t want to ask you for a piece! Killing two chickens with one stone and all that, LIKE ALL CHICKEN THIEVES DO!”

The last few words he directed to the void.

Long Di shook his head and saw that everyone looked pained at the loss of the magical beast meat even though they had more than enough meat to eat.

Especially the Sun siblings. They still had way more than three-quarters of their magical beast meat left, so this should be.

Lord Whiskers was spending along and came to a point that was deeper in the forest than before.

Vrrrm!!

The void opened up ahead of Lord Whiskers before a breast from the monarch gale crow roast was thrown out, which Lord Whiskers caught in its mouth as it sped along.

“At least he has a little conscience,” mentioned Long Di upon seeing this.

“Conscience my ass!” Pebbles was even more incensed as he finished the last bit of his wing.

“We’re getting there,” Xiannu Liang stated as she noticed the change in the scenery around them.

Long Di’s senses suddenly screamed at him.

“Stop!”

It was too late as the moon and the stars vanished without warning, plunging the landscape into even deeper darkness, prompting Long Di to look up only to find a whole mountain falling from the sky.