Chapter 754 Traces of fortune in misfortune
?A single taotie was troublesome enough by itself, let alone the other three perils who were also handfuls and it wasn't just them as the other beasts listed were just as terrifying. The Tiangou division was named after the tiangou which was also known as the celestial swallowing dog known to devour the sun, the moon, and the stars, damning all to eternal darkness;
The primordial water demon ape, just like the Xuanwu, was an expert in the dao of water, however, when it came to the primordial water demon ape, its specialty was the destruction and chaos it could cause with it. There was a saying that every time a storm appeared know a primordial water demon ape was picking its teeth somewhere. Every natural calamity associated with water, they were always portrayed as the primary culprit...
The Yong of which the Yong division was named, was a creature with the body of an owl with a human face and four eyes. The Yong was known as the harbinger of drought. It sucked the life out of everything similar to the Hundun except unlike the latter which did so through decay and corruption, the Yong drained the vitality out of everything just by being in the vicinity.
And finally, the Zhuya, the Zhuya was a white ape with red feet which was said to be the red blood of its victims. The Zhuya was known as the harbinger of war. Just like the Qiong Qi, it existed only for pure carnage, and it was built for it, a sturdy body that proved invulnerable to countless attacks, and they needed to reach a particular threshold for it to feel them and it was dubbed a master of ten thousand Daos, making it one of the most terrifying opponent to face alone, as it was no different than facing ten thousand masters of the Dao.
Just any one of the nine beasts mentioned was enough to cause mayhem and pandemonium wherever they went, let alone all nine of them together. Yang Qing struggled to believe that the mentioned organizations were comprised of the true beasts they were named after. Because of their inherent natures, he struggled to believe how they could ally together. He felt it was more likely those organizations had borrowed their names, of course, some part of him couldn't help but wonder..
What if, what if those beasts really had allied together?
"What are the odds of that happening?" Yang Qing muttered with a smile appearing on his face as he shook his head.
"From what I read the qiong qi hunts even one of its kind, how could it stand to ally with others, and the taotie and the celestial swallowing dog always try to devour each other..there's no way the twelve beasts of calamities were made of the actual beasts.." added Yang Qing, embarrassed that he even considered it a possibility.
However, his gaze soon turned solemn as he looked at the scroll that mentioned those organizations. The history behind their names aside, the purgatory black tiger was only fit to be considered a lackey of that organization despite them having a peak stage palace realm expert at the helm and about a dozen palace realm experts. Even with such an impressive lineup, from the texts he had read, the cult was only considered an errand boy to that organization. Yang Qing could only imagine how utterly terrifying it was, regardless of whether those beasts were part of it or not, which he didn't feel like they were.
"Who were the remaining three?" wondered Yang Qing as he put away the scroll containing the scant information related to the twelve beasts of calamity. The list only contained nine with three missing. Yang Qing couldn't help but wonder what monstrosities they were named after and their goal.
As he was about to send the scroll back, a thought hit him which prompted him to unfurl the scroll again as he went through the list.
"Come to think of it the characteristics that lunar fury heron described do match with the attributes of several of them. The Hundun, Qiongqi, Taowu, the primordial water demon ape, and the Zhuya are all known for having the ability to destroy the mind of anyone weak-willed with just their eyes... but no, that's too farfetched.." Yang Qing said as he shook his head dismissively.
"Could it?" he added with an unsure expression on his face before finally he decided to send back the scroll as he requested for all information related to the Deer Mountain Kingdom specifically the founders, which he then compared against the jade slip he had received from the Judicial Review Committee before he came to the library.
While the information contained within the library was extensive, the one contained within the slip was even more so. Yang Qing had a feeling it had been the handiwork of someone from the Shadow Hawks division. It was in-depth, containing all the relevant information that Yang Qing might think of and even some that he didn't.
It was pretty detailed without missing gaps when it came to the timeline. Everything from the moment the founding families of the kingdom stepped into the Deer Mountain Range, up to the current timeline was recorded. The exploits of every king they ever had, the skirmishes both big and small they ever had since their founding, the defining talents they ever had in the 38,000 years since their founding, the attributes of all the aristocratic families from the large ones down to the small ones, their strengths were all recorded in the slip with some even their trump cards recorded such as core cultivation arts and or artifacts.
If Yang Qing didn't know better he would have thought the report had been prepared by the family leaders of those families.
As he was reading the slip, Yang Qing couldn't help but sigh when he read about their golden era. The number of talents they had back then would have stood out even in rank 1 organizations and holy lands, as a few had special physiques that granted them powerful abilities. For example, one of them, who belonged to the Shi family had the terraflora earthplain physique that gave her terrifying accumulations in the earth and wood element. At 15 she was already a blue grade alchemist.
There were about seven more listed in the report who were just as dazzling as her, exhibiting talent that could be seen once every tens of thousands of years, and weirdly enough they had all appeared at the same time.
Yang Qing couldn't help but scratch his chin as his gaze wandered off to the drawing he had made of the two Pi Xiu statues.
Sadly no matter how dazzling their talents, they all died when calamity struck the kingdom after they had foolishly attempted to seize the entire range into their control drawing the ire and retaliation of the countless spirit beasts that called the range, home.
"Despite their misfortune back then, with what I know now, I can't help but feel they were astronomically lucky to have survived it.." muttered Yang Qing with his gaze shining with a strange light as it drifted back to the statues once more.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢