“Tianxie, this cave — do you think there’s something inside?” Su Feifei stood in front of the cave, staring into the pitch black. Caves like this usually turned up out in some barren stretch of hills, so finding one buried this deep in a forest was more than a little strange. The Golden Sword Lion Beast had been sleeping right at the mouth of it earlier…

“Probably where that lion was living,” Ye Tianxie said, stepping up beside her.

“A dark den like this is a symbol of emptiness and loneliness. It’s honestly hard to imagine why these poor creatures would want to live somewhere so awful… Oh! What if there’s a lioness in here keeping it company? Being alone must be unbearable.” Murong Qiushui drifted closer at an unhurried pace, voice soft as silk.

Zuo Pojun curled his lip and gave a snort. This guy said something unhinged like clockwork.

“Oh… I knew that’d be the face you’d make. Sigh, I wish I could make you understand — plenty of things that sound impossible really do happen. And if there really is another lioness in there… oh, just imagine it. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Not only would we get to watch Second Brother charge gloriously into battle again, we’d come away with so much more, too…”

“If there was one, it would’ve come out by now.” Zuo Pojun couldn’t be bothered arguing with this lunatic any further, and pulled out a Town Portal Scroll.

“Maybe it’s just sleeping peacefully… Fine, let’s see if my brilliant theory holds up.” Murong Qiushui actually raised his bow and fired an Explosive Arrow — the kind that triggers a small area-of-effect blast — straight into the dark.

The arrow flew, vanished into the depths of the cave, and a moment later a muffled explosion rolled out.

ROAAAR!!!

After the dull thud of the blast came something far more ominous — a deep, guttural roar that froze all four of them in place.

“I swear on the sun… I was only joking.” Murong Qiushui raised his bow, an absurdly exaggerated expression spreading across his face. Well, damn. He really had just meant to lighten the mood… he hadn’t expected—

That furious roar meant one thing — there really was another beast in here!

The sound of something running echoed out from inside, growing louder, closer. Ye Tianxie reacted instantly, snapping out in a low, urgent voice: “Fall back — now! Whatever that thing is, it’s not simple!”

Something strong enough to keep the Golden Sword Lion Beast posted outside as a guard dog — whatever was inside might well outclass it. He had more than enough confidence not to fear it himself. What he couldn’t help fearing for was everyone around him… Protecting yourself was easy. Protecting other people was so much harder — and there were three of them to protect!

The instant the words left his mouth, his Eye of the Evil Dragon — which could see straight through absolute darkness — had already picked out a shape less than twenty meters away… a shape far smaller than he’d expected, standing under half a meter tall, barely bigger than a grown housecat. At a glance it looked like a lion — a lion cub, its head no different from the Golden Sword Lion Beast’s. But Ye Tianxie could see clearly that a single sharp horn, gleaming with a crystalline sheen, jutted from the top of its skull, and from its small, almost dainty body, three pairs of wings spread upward from its back. Its coat wasn’t gold, or the tawny brown a lion should have — it was an impossible, deep shade of violet… Was this really a lion? Or some other, stranger kind of creature? Before the shock on Ye Tianxie’s face could even fully register, the readout from his Eye of the Evil Dragon changed his expression completely.

[Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion (Juvenile): Level 15 Immortal Spirit Beast. HP 120,000. The Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion was once the mount of Sage Kuilei, one of the Twelve Sages. A century ago, during the war to seal the demons, Sage Kuilei died at the hands of the Eight Demon Kings, and the Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion vanished without a trace. Seventeen years ago, a lion cub of this species was born in this very Demon Shadow Forest, and has grown here quietly ever since. Its temperament has recently turned violent and savage under the influence of demonic energy leaking from the Tower of Fate.]

(Crystal horn crowning its head, purple-gold scaled armor cloaking its form, dazzling dark-cloud markings across its back, six-hued cloud wings sprouting from its shoulders, a scorpion-hooked divine dragon’s tail curling from its haunches, cloud-treading paws striding the sky — a beast of wind, fire, water, earth, ice, and thunder — its roar shakes mountains and rivers and shocks the world. — courtesy of DazzlingPurpleStar.)

Talent: Purple Scale Body — Lightning-attribute. Immune to 50% of Lightning-attribute damage. Physical attacks carry an additional 300–500 Lightning-attribute damage. Lightning-attribute spell effects increased by 15%.

Sky Dash: An adult Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion possesses powerful low-altitude flight. Since it is currently in its juvenile stage, this ability is limited — it can only dash through the air below two meters for roughly 10 seconds.

Skills:

Flash Thunder Charge: Gathers lightning energy into its body and slams into the enemy in front of it with a bolt-fast charge. The violent force of the impact can easily send the target flying, with an accompanying 2–5 second Paralysis effect. High activation frequency.

Lightning Summon: Summons a bolt of lightning from above to strike a single enemy within a 10-meter range. Base damage 3,500. Costs 120 MP. Cast time 1.7 seconds. No cooldown. Very high activation frequency.

Electromagnetic Domain: Releases a burst of lightning that blankets the surrounding area, forming a 10-meter electromagnetic field. Every target within the field takes 800 base Lightning damage per second for 10 seconds. Costs 500 MP. Cast time 2.5 seconds. Cooldown 30 seconds. Very low activation frequency.

Finishing Move: Flash of Lightning — Gathers lightning power into its claws and, in an instant, tears out a bolt of lightning to strike the enemy directly in front of it. Single-target melee attack. Deals 150% of a normal attack plus 1,800 Lightning damage. Terrifying power, instantaneous activation, no warning whatsoever, and impossible to guard against. Very low activation frequency.

Hidden Skill: True Electromagnetic Storm — An enormous area lightning bombardment. Instantly detonates all of the lion’s stored lightning energy, unleashing an annihilating lightning assault on every enemy within a 50-meter radius, with a 70% chance to inflict 2–5 seconds of Paralysis. Base damage 5,000. Costs 800 MP. Cast time 3 seconds. Usable once per day. After use, the Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion falls into 8 seconds of Stun. Can only be triggered in a state of extreme rage. Extremely low activation frequency.

Weakness: Fears Fire-attribute attacks. Fire resistance −20%.

“RUN! NOW!! This is an Immortal Beast!!”

A shout that was almost a roar tore out of Ye Tianxie’s mouth, and it hit Zuo Pojun and the other two like an electric shock — but it was the two words he’d used that truly sent them white with terror in the same breath…

An Immortal Beast… an Immortal Spirit Beast!?

Something more terrifying than a Lord-tier boss by more orders of magnitude than they could count — vanishingly rare, and utterly, fundamentally beyond what any player could stand against!!

Ye Tianxie’s shout, and the violent turmoil in his voice, couldn’t possibly be a bluff. The instant Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui came to their senses, they summoned their Town Portal Scrolls — but the juvenile Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion’s aggro range reached a full 50 meters, and having already been locked as targets, their return scrolls failed without question. They spun and bolted toward the tree line instead.

Fight an Immortal Beast? What kind of joke was that! Even a Level 10 juvenile Immortal Beast was something no player at their current stage could possibly stand against — showing up just meant dying, however many of them came. Ye Tianxie could solo-kill a Lord-tier boss ten levels above himself, and that already left them stunned… but none of them believed for a second that he had what it took to go toe-to-toe with a true Immortal Spirit Beast.

Danger thickened in the air around them. In her panic, Su Feifei didn’t turn and run — instinct sent her looking for Ye Tianxie instead. Ye Tianxie’s body shot forward, and it was only then he realized Su Feifei was still standing exactly where she’d been, frozen — his pupils contracted sharply… and in that same instant, the juvenile Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion finally burst out from the cave mouth, lightning crackling violently across its body, and slammed itself — wreathed in bolts of electricity — straight at the nearest, frozen target: Su Feifei… its Flash Thunder Charge.

Driven by the force of lightning, Flash Thunder Charge moved at an unbelievable speed — there was no way Su Feifei could dodge it. Ye Tianxie spun back in an instant, Dragon Shadow Slash firing off in the same breath, a black shadow flashing past like a bolt of lightning itself… covering the full five-meter charging distance just in time to plant himself directly in front of Su Feifei.

BOOM!!

−2,580!

The Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion’s body slammed into Ye Tianxie with brutal force, sending him flying — Ye Tianxie pushed his Focus to its absolute limit, forcing down the dizziness that threatened to white out his mind entirely, and mid-flight, lightning-fast, he threw his arms around Su Feifei beside him and pulled her body along with his own, the two of them tumbling and rolling across the ground together for several full turns before finally coming to a stop.

Taking the full brunt of the Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion’s charge, Ye Tianxie hadn’t died… but his HP dropped instantly from 2,620 down to just 40. If not for the fact that the lion’s physical attack power was still relatively weak at this stage, combined with the powerful defense and Lightning resistance granted by his Evil Dragon’s Body, that single hit would have one-shot him outright.

“Tianxie… are you okay?” Staring at the health bar over Ye Tianxie’s head, nearly emptied to nothing, Su Feifei’s eyes suddenly went distant. A second ago she’d been consumed by fear — now it had vanished completely, replaced by a deep, unfamiliar ache stirring somewhere inside her chest… Just now, that had been him. Guarding her with his own body. With his own life.

That he would do this — for her — even at the risk of being one-shot on the spot…

She wasn’t afraid anymore. Instead, a strange happiness welled up in her — even if she’d ended up dead at this little Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion’s claws, she would have been happier than she’d ever been about anything… because, knowing him, knowing his nature, the fact that he was willing to do this for her meant he’d already come to see her as someone who truly mattered to him…

She felt, for the first time, an endless, quiet, soaring kind of contentment…

(End of Chapter 151)