Not long after, the fragrance of roasted meat drifts through the forest, whetting the appetite.
A bonfire is piled up in front of Du Shaofu, two hog’s feet from the Mountainbore Demon Hog is roasting on top, sprinkled with natural spices foraged from the nearby shrubs. The oil dripping onto the fire making sounds of “zi zi” non-stop are enough to make anyone drool even before getting a bite.
The smell of the roast meat is hard to resist even for the white-clothed lady sitting not far away, as her pupils glanced a few times towards the bonfire.
Roasting meat this way is nothing new for Du Shaofu. All these years, it has not been once or twice that he and Fu Yibai sneakily roast animals caught in the back mountain.
This meat-roasting craft, Du Shaofu learned it from Fu Yibai. Every time he tastes the meat that FuYibai roasted, he had to admit that it tastes better than the food at the Du Clan.
Du Shaofu’s stomach has been whining long before, when the meat aroma reached its peak, he immediately grabbed one and started gobbling up not bothering about keeping an image and the likes.
"Fu Yibai taught you how to roast?" Looking at Du Shaofu wolfing down the meat, the white-clothed lady questioned in her usual coldness with a trace of softness laced within.
Du Shaofu raised his head and looked at the white-clothed lady since escape is futile, his attitude became more laid-back: "There is one more, you can try it. You fed me poison dan, but I didn’t add poison onto the roast meat. Truthfully, this roasted Mountainbore Demon Hog is quite tasty, just that the meat is a bit tough.”
The white-clothed lady hesitated, contrary to Du Shaofu’s expectation, with a turn of her hand the other roast hog foot directly flew into her hands wrapped around a clean handkerchief. Parting her lips and daintily began to eat. The elegant manner, when compared to Du Shaofu's devouring, is much more presentable.
Du Shaofu blinked twice. He thought that strong warriors do not need to eat, unexpectedly the roast meat managed to incite the lady’s appetite.
"Hou… hou..."
Deep within the mountains, beast roars resounded occasionally.
"I'll take you to see something exciting, to see what exactly is there up ahead."
The white-clothed lady got up, eyes looking at the depths of the mountains. Before Du Shaofu can react, his body was involuntarily brought high up in the sky and disappeared from the spot.
Shortly after Du Shaofu and the white-clothed lady left, more than ten figures emerged one after another, some were distinctive looking young boys and girls surrounded at the center by those with dense aura.
"Someone was here. Recently, the demonic beasts within the forest are in a riot, general beasts hunting team dares not come this close. It seems that there are quite a number of people rushing here and that several forces should have arrived.”
A white-haired old man who is the leader of the group said, noticing the amber remains from the bonfire, his brows furrowed and said: "We should hurry on, can’t let others have the advantage.”
"Roar"
Another night awash with waves of beast roars from the depths of the Wild Beasts Mountain, becoming increasingly intense that it feels like the entire forest is shaking. The beast roars rang out like flash floods bringing about fear for those who heard it.
"Lately, these demonic beasts are behaving strangely, what exactly is happening inside the forest?”
On the edge of Wild Beasts Mountain, teams of beast hunters sat cross-legged adjusting their breathing was woken up by the continuous intense roars.
For the beasts hunting teams who often move around in the outer edge of Wild Beasts Mountain, they have never come across this kind of strange situation before and from the looks of it, it’s getting worse.
"Rumble!"
Suddenly, the earth trembled and the mountains shook, the forest trees tumbled down accompanied by a soaring yaoqi[1].
"Demonic beasts is coming, there are powerful demonic beasts closing in."
For the experienced beast hunters, they immediately sensed that something is not quite right. Each pulled out their weapons ready for battle.
"Roar!"
A fierce demon wolf rushed out, its body was emitting glow with faint traces of runes surging around the body, with a lightning speed its’ ferocious sharp fangs and claw ripped apart a burly man that was slow in reacting into pieces.
"It’s a Violent Stone Demon Wolf!"
Nearby, a strong middle-aged man looked alarmed. This adult Violent Stone Demon Wolf is but a Maidong level demonic beast. The runes on the huge blade in his hand flashed and spread out turning into a light hacking straight at the Violent Stone Demon Wolf with amazing momentum.
"Roar!"
Beasts roar thundered, at the same time that the middle-aged man swung his blade, a demon tiger with a white stripe on its forehead jumped out, with its elephant-like mass and soaring yaoqi, runes swirling around his opened jaw swallowed the middle-aged man together with his huge blade.
"That’s a Bloody Demonic Tiger! It’s even stronger than the Violent Stone Demon Wolf."
"Beast tide, it’s a beast tide!"
Panic voices filled the air in the midst of sudden havoc. Enshrouded by the darkness of the night, for some time, sounds of anguish wailing and howling rang out from the depths of the mountains
"Rumble!"
From the depths of the mountains, a mass of beasts rushed out and up in the air numerous flying beasts flap their wings slicing off obstructing branches.
Tremors spread through the entire forest mountain, rocks falling and landslide, demonic birds flapped their wings while the beasts gallop on land.
The teams of beast hunters can only flee for their lives in this situation.
demonic beast of this level is not something those desperate fleeing men can resist, many of them were buried under the stampeding beasts, the scene was devastatingly gruesome.
"Sou! Sou!"
When the earth-shaking beast tide has mostly trickled down, several figures came out from a nearby cave among them were a few distinctive looking juniors. Their faces bear not much expression as if the ferocious beast tide does not present much of a threat to them, just a hassle best avoided to conserve energy.
The leader of this group is a unique tall bald man. On his shiny bald head, there are strange azure-colored rune-like stripes on his head, adding a sharp edge to his aura.
"I did not expect that Wild Beast Mountains contain such a large number of low-level demonic beasts, we should arrange to tame some of them and bring it back to the sect as mounts.”
The forest was flattened to the ground as the beast tide swarmed through, the bald man eyes glinted as he looked towards the faraway beast tide and said: “Just like the message from our scouts, there’s something big happening in the depths of Wild Beast Mountains. It may be related to the failed breakthrough of that hegemony existence. This is an excellent opportunity for us, and we should hurry to get there before other forces arrive.”
With that said, this group of people disappeared in a flash, they were headed towards the inner forest.
Under the blanket of the night, the mountains seemed to shake while the restless beasts were roaring like they were escaping or were driven away by something.
“It seems something isn’t right with the hegemony existence if not the situation will not be this bad. Absolutely a heaven-sent opportunity, absolutely!”
Up on a cliff above, stood an old man, wearing black clothes and his hand held a strange looking staff with a snake head at the top. His brows furrowed as he looked towards the distant beast tide as if hesitating, for the hegemonic existence is too terrifying, if not for the unexpected circumstance, no one even dared to think of taking advantage of it.
"Elder, the other forces are here too, it will not be easy for us to grab benefits.” A thin figure of a man said to the old man in black.
The old man in black raised his head slightly squinted his eyes over the beast tide in the mountain depths saying: “Whatever method, we must get that good fortune, if it is taken by the other forces, the consequences are worrying.”
Note:
Yaoqi is the same as xuanqi but instead of human, it is a type of qi condensed by beasts.