Two Stories (Part 3)
Colossal Chaofeng, a beast as savage as an inferno and equipped with wings to move like the wind, was the toughest beast to take down in the past. Mount Daluo’s founder managed to slay it when it was in its infancy stage because its wings lacked the strength to grant it flight at that young age. Knowing it was revived once every decade, Mount Daluo followed suit, bringing it down successfully every time when it just hatched, albeit with plenty of casualties.
Besides the Colossal Chaofeng, there was another calamitous beast sealed inside a black egg on Mount Daluo. Every time the egg grew, its appearance would appear more aggressive. Unlike the Colossal Chaofeng’s egg, the black egg also grew markedly larger each day.
The Fengpeng was a symbol of greed as the one craving it was loyal to was its desire to devour everything. A dragon may be symbolic of ferocity, but seeing the damage an adult Fengpeng caused a millennium ago would quickly change that opinion. During its reign of terror, the Fengpeng would devour trees, concrete, buildings… if it existed, it would devour it – and that was after its daily meal of a thousand humans.
Blood ceaselessly leaked from the cracks in the black egg, dying the floor red. While its blood didn’t affect humans, once it contaminated nature or animals, they’d mutate into giant, bloodthirsty animals with insatiable appetites. Locusts would be considered a joke if anyone witnessed how clean the Fengpeng’s mutated army left places they passed by. The mutated beasts on Mount Daluo came from the Fengpeng’s blood, and those beasts became the reason Forbidden Forest was home to mutated beasts. To address the spread, Mount Daluo tricked ignorant disciples into hunting the beasts to protect the secret in addition to serving as a training exercise.
Of the two beasts sealed on Mount Daluo, the Fengpeng, was the greater threat as it didn’t hatch at fixed intervals. Every clash with a Colossal Chaofeng was the length of a novel, each detailing how to defeat the monster and the conditions that they took it down for their successors to reference. In contrast, they had only fought a Fengpeng twice in the last millennium since it took centuries for a Fengpeng egg to spawn.
The most recent Fengpeng egg to form on Mount Daluo came into existence twenty years ago. Hero Shenzhou estimated it would hatch within three years from a certain moment in time. It had only been a year and a half since then, when its red eyes returned to greet humankind.
They had been preparing for today for years to win, to protect their home and to protect their tomorrow. It felt as though fate was toying with them, throwing them another mighty opponent right after they just barely defeated one. Everyone present was understandably shaken. Everyone but him.
“Stop getting your nuts in a bunch. You’re embarrassing me.” Ming Huayu, attire still as good as new, opened his eyes, still as smug as ever.
There were thousands of varying, contradicting tales of Ming Huayu out there. Some claimed he was invincible. Some claimed he was involved in all of the businesses in the land, backing it up with claims that he spent tens of thousands of taels daily. He had even been called a descendant of the former imperial family who was biding his time to reclaim the throne. The legend that men across the land were envious of was his Casanova disposition. Not one of things they alleged made him sound human, and he really didn’t seem human when he marginalised the alerting news with his lips.
When the Colossal Chaofeng was expected in a year, everyone began preparations, expecting only a few members of the squad to survive. Nobody expected there to be so many people still standing at the end of its extermination. Hero Shenzhou, a man extoled more than him, was a disappointment if one were to compare the number of sacrifices under his leadership. Everyone on the squad under Ming Huayu’s leadership was injured, but there were less than ten people who lost a limb. The only person to have beaten Ming Huayu’s record was Mount Daluo’s progenitor.
“Wussies shouldn’t be here. Shut your traps.” It was hard not to see the black giant that just hatched, yet Ming Huayu catapulted one of his juniors at the Fengpeng with just his left hand.
“P-Patriarch!”
The Fengpeng opened its mouth to catch the “projectile”; however, Ming Huayu had already bridged the gap by the time it saw him out of its peripherals. When his junior crashed into the ground, he saw Ming Huayu standing atop a tree condescendingly at the beast he just wrestled to the ground.
“Eat, eat, eat, it’s all you’re good for. You’re like a virgin seeing a pussy for the first time.”
“Patriarch, Patriarch Former has not recovered yet! Wh-what shall we do?”
“Huh? I know.”
While the newborn Fengpeng hadn’t developed its voracious appetite yet, its instincts told it to race off the mountain.
“P-Patriarch, it ran!”
“Geezer, catch up once you’re ready. The rest of you weaklings can go ask your mothers to bandage your brittle bodies.”
“B-but, Patriarch, Patriarch Former will need an hour, at the very least, to recover.”
“I thought I told you that I already know?”
Though they heard his voice from the tree, he was already dozens of metres away.
He gave the impression that he teleported from the tree to the beast. Like a meteor that descended out of nowhere, he already smashed it into a crater, generating a shockwave that wobbled the disciples still where he started.
Restraining the beast with a single hand, he jeered, “Where you off to, piggy?”
Glossary
Patriarch Former – I made this term up since they’re also using a made up term. They’re referring to Hero Shenzhou if you didn’t know.