Chapter 464 Staking Our Pride
Boom!
The impact from the Flaming Qilin colliding with the huge monolith quite literally whisked up a storm that swept over the entire grounds. Long and fearsome cracks elongated everywhere, spreading fear and panic.
Chu Xun was genuinely surprised. He knew that the Flaming Qilin would be a formidable opponent, but he did not expect it to be able to sustain a blow from his Demon-slain Finger technique.
An Eternal Phoenix Scripture technique!
Screech!
A phoenix’s resonant cries pierced the sky, leaving the ears of everyone who heard it ringing. Up in the air, a huge fiery bird more than thirty meters long spread its wings, sending the entire vista into a purgatory of fire.
“How about this, Flaming Qilin!”
Chu Xun thrust a finger into the air.
The flaming phoenix let loose another ear-splitting screech, bringing with it a blazing inferno in its wake as it swooped down at the chimeric beast.
Roar!
The Flaming Qilin thundered a defiant roar. The threatening advent of the phoenix of fire made it wary. Scarlet-red glow shone all over the Qilin in shapes of scales akin to that of a suit of armor.
Then it stomped on the ground furiously. With another crunching groan and a boom, the ground split and volcanic magma came pouring out of the fissures and formed into a doppelganger sharing its likeness!
The magma Qilin raced forward and ascended into the air as if it was climbing up a long flight of invisible stairs, charging headlong into the fiery phoenix on its way down.
Boom!
The Flaming Qilin’s magma collided with the phoenix and the encounter elicited another huge explosion that resembled a nuclear detonation. Heatwaves swept everywhere as the ground sank and crumbled from the huge force and everything was dreary and dismal as if Armageddon had come.
The sweeping pulse of shock tossed both Chu Xun and the Flaming Qilin backward.
Bang!
Chu Xun crashed into a huge boulder, smashing it into thousands of little bits.
Boom!
The Flaming Qilin smacked right into a cliff with more than half its girth inside the rock.
“I really am impressed, human!” grunted the Flaming Qilin irately.
“Impressed? Just wait till you see my hidden aces!” cried Chu Xun. With a sudden burst of emission of Hong Meng Immortal Qi, Chu Xun freed himself from the debris and launched himself into the air, forming hand seals quickly.
Hong Meng Scripture—Thirty-six styles of the Heaven-shaking Punch.
A hail of energy bolts, each in the shape of fists and constantly growing in size, rained wanton destruction down on the Flaming Qilin.
Bang!
The Flaming Qilin too let loose a pulse of his powers to batter away any bits of rock clinging on to it before leaping out of the cavity in the rock face. Opening its jaws wide, the Qilin fired a burst of flaming lava. The molten rock each morphed into fist-like missiles and shot up to meet Chu Xun’s attacks.
Boom! Boom!
A cascade of explosions burst out in midair, looking both dazzling but deadly like a series of supernovas detonating.
“I hope that’s not the best you can do,” smirked the mythical beast with anthropomorphous cynicism.
“Really?” Chu Xun’s lips were twisting wryly.
Out of nowhere came the purplish silhouette of another fist-like energy bolt. It screamed out of the smoke and through the thrashing storm, slamming straight into the Flaming Qilin’s midriff, knocking it off its feet and into the hill itself that even the Soul-curing Flower at the summit shook like a bobblehead doll.
The Flaming Qilin roared with rage. It did not expect to miss that one energy bolt.
Roar!
The roars of the flaming chimera echoed sonorously as the red glow intensified. Then it lunged, charging straight at Chu Xun.
Chu Xun clenched his fists, imbuing them with Hong Meng Immortal Qi that they shone like blocks of amethysts. If the Qilin wanted a close-combat fisticuff, then he would have one!
It might still have not yet assumed human form, but it fought like a human. Standing upright on its hind legs, its front legs mauled at Chu Xun furiously just as how a bear would.
Undaunted, Chu Xun rained as many blows as he could with awesome fervor while parrying what savage swipes the Qilin gave him, and everywhere their deadly whirl of fists went, the ground shuddered and cracked.
Bang! Bang!
Both man and beasts traded lightning quick blows in their unrelenting tempests of fists and claws. One could only see afterimages of their movements in the tumult, accompanied by the deep but yet recurrent thuds from their contact during each exchange.
Gao Mohan and his fellow human champions could not believe their eyes as they beheld the duel with bewildered expressions.
“What’s the point of achieving the Immortal levels, Ge…” murmured Gao Mohan dazedly.
“I’m asking that question myself…” said Ge Zhan with a blank stare, feeling beaten and discouraged.
“I wonder how we would survive an onslaught like that if we were to fight against the Devil or this Qilin?” brooded Diao Xingyi aloud.
“Those mutant champions are our prime examples. I daresay we won’t last even two rounds,” Gao Mohan chuckled bleakly.
“Who do you think is stronger, Scarlet? Chu Xun or the Flaming Qilin?” asked a perplexed Violet, her eyes still transfixed to the furious battle ongoing.
Scarlet shook her head. She had thought Chu Xun too weak to be the Flaming Qilin’s match, yet he has been able to fight toe-to-toe against the mythical beast. In fact, she could not say for certain who she thought was the better of the two.
“I think the Flaming Qilin is stronger,” remarked Sapphire suddenly.
“I think Sapphire is right,” agreed Peach, “Chu Xun might be mighty in his own right, but the Flaming Qilin remains a mythical beast born with an invincible physique that no human could compare; to say nothing of his other magical powers. Chu Xun will lose.”
“I think so too,” added Emerald, “But he should be proud. He’s been able to hold his own against the Qilin like an equal.”
Violet kept her gaze peeled at the battle. She could not see clearly what was going on in the whirl of battle, but still, she remained just as excited and interested as ever.
“But I have this feeling that the Qilin is going to lose…” she muttered quietly.
“I thought you always have only the highest admiration for the Qilin? What made you break faith, I wonder?” teased Beryl.
“No, I haven’t,” said Violet in a solemn voice, “But I just had this strange feeling…”
“Then you must be losing your touch. There’s no way the Qilin will lose,” said Amber.
Scarlet glanced at Violet briefly. She too had that same feeling that the Qilin might have finally encountered its match this time.
Then a bang came, followed by another wave of dust and winds. Something fiery-red was smashed into a rock face.
It was the Flaming Qilin! It was knocked off his feet and sent smacking into the cliff walls.
That petrified literally everyone else – Gao Mohan and the human champions and Scarlet and her sisters. They could not believe their eyes. Was that really the Qilin!? Sent flying into the air?!
Chu Xun bolted forward to give chase and he lunged at the Qilin again for another round.
Bang!
It did not take long for Chu Xun to knock the Qilin off its feet again, crashing it into another rock face and causing more landslides.
“How is this even possible?!” Even the Flaming Qilin itself was astonished that it was twice defeated, never mind the other witnesses of this battle.
“Nothing’s impossible. Who says that mythical beasts are undefeatable?” remarked Chu Xun dryly.
“What are you?!” For one moment, the Flaming Qilin wondered if Chu Xun was a mythical beast himself, but one that had managed to assume human form. How else could he be so powerful!?
“Does it matter?” jabbed Chu Xun sardonically.
“Insolence. You’ll have to do more than that to defeat me!” the Qilin snapped, enraged.
“Really?” chuckled Chu Xun, “Let’s see if you’ll be wailing after this.”
“Impudence!” seethed the Qilin, sending a pulse of its powers to shatter the rock that held him. Leaping out of the fissure, it rushed at Chu Xun like an angry bull.
Chu Xun’s gaze turned steely; he clenched his fists and channeled his powers. One could almost make out the screeches of phoenixes and the roars of dragons that reverberated from the emanation of his auric emissions.
Bang! Bang!
Chu Xun turned into a veritable flash of light, flitting around the Flaming Qilin to batter at him here and there. Gradually, as his speed and pace increased, he was a cyclone of fists that never stopped unleashing blows and kicks at the mythical beasts with fearsome intensity.
Bang!
Chu Xun ducked low suddenly, ramming a brutal uppercut into the Qilin’s gut. The force shot up through his arms, firing enough energy to blast the chimera up into mid-air. Chu Xun quickly produced the Fan of Cosmos and he swung it hard, sending gales and winds – scythe-like blades of winds that could slice through steel – at it.
“ARRGGHH!” The Flaming Qilin howled with pain and anger as the scythes of winds ripped through its scales, grinding into its flesh and blood and scraps of viscera splattering everywhere.
Chu Xun put away the Fan and took out something else – something gold – his golden staff fashioned from the Ancestral Dragon bone. The weapon shone a brilliant gold in his grasp.
Bang!
Another sickening spray of torn flesh and viscid blood accompanied the Flaming Qilin’s wails of agony as Chu Xun bludgeoned the chimeric beast with such force that the mythical beast could feel its very bones groaning to the point of fracturing. The blow belted it off its feet and once again, the huge beast smashed into the cliff walls again.
“I’ll kill you!” the Flaming Qilin cried in a maniacal roar. It could still not believe that a mythical beast like it could be bested by a mere human.
But Chu Xun did not wait at all. He raced up to the Qilin and lifted the giant mass of the animal by its horns only to smash it down into the ground.
Bang!
The ground sank under the overwhelming force, creating a massive crater and cracking the earth around it.
The Qilin focused its powers at its horns, trying to shake Chu Xun off amidst its incessant roars, but to no avail; his Hong Meng Immortal Qi-augmented fists were now as hard as amethysts and nothing could defeat them.
Chu Xun lifted the beast up again with brute strength and smashed the Qilin down into the ground once more.
“Yield!” demanded Chu Xun.
“Never! I am a mythical beast created by the Heavens! I’d never yield to a mere human!” the Flaming Qilin retorted belligerently.
“Temperamental. I like that,” Chu Xun chuckled with glee instead. He released the Qilin’s horns and dove to its back and grabbed its tail this time and swung the entire mass of the beast like a pendulum before smashing it into the ground again.
Bang! Bang!
Again and again, Chu Xun swung the mythical chimera like the ball of a medieval flail, smashing it into the ground nonstop.
The ceaseless violence caused enough damage that even cliff walls began to crack and rocks to crumble, and a huge and long crevice cracked open on the ground.
Gao Mohan and everyone else watching the fight had only just recovered from their earlier stupor when they were once again stunned.
Scarlet and her sisters were so shocked that they clapped their hands to their mouths, not knowing how to react.
The Flaming Qilin, a legendary beast of renowned power and majesty, now treated like a toddler’s plaything in Chu Xun’s grasp, and the latter was smashing it around like a fiendish child trying to whack its toy into bits.
“Yield!” Chu Xun demanded again.
“NEVER!” yelled the Flaming Qilin groggily. It would have long been reduced into minced meat from the continuous pounding if not for its innately invincible physical constitution.
Even so, the Qilin was reeling with bone-shattering pain – its head was spinning; its blood and energy were boiling to the point of causing internal damage; its organs were screaming; its bones and joints were groaning; to say nothing about the intense stinging and soreness from head to toe.
“Fool,” scowled Chu Xun, “Invincible my foot. You’re the one taking a walloping from me now. I just love it when fools like you are trying to be stubborn.”
“You can kill me, but not humiliate me!”
“All right then. Kill you I will,” said Chu Xun, making several hand seals with a hand as he tossed the Qilin ignominiously aside.
“Rise.”
Chu Xun called as he pointed into the sky. A ripple broke out at the tip of his finger as if he had just touched the still surface of a lake.
Hum!
A barrier-type enchantment formed around the Qilin, keeping it imprisoned inside. Then dark cumulonimbuses gathered overhead the enchantment with flashes of lightning crackling angrily.
Purple Thunder Doom – Destruction!
Boom!
Bolts of lightning, each as huge as columns of pillars, rained down from the sky, streaking down from the skies above like lunging serpents.
The Flaming Qilin had barely gotten to its feet when the first bolt struck. The first explosion saw its scales blasted off its very skin and the impact from the blow smacked the entire girth of the Qilin into the wall of the barrier before it ricocheted away.
But before it could even hit ground, another lightning blast came, this time eliciting a gory spray of blood and sinews.
“Mythical beast, eh?” said Chu Xun derisively from outside the enchantment, “Just wait till I barbecue your flesh when you’re dead. I wonder how you’d taste. Can’t say I’ve ever tasted Qilin meat before. I bet your rump tastes bad. Perhaps I should just feed that part to the dogs.” And Chu Xun went on a self-gratifying rambling about which are the finer cuts of a Qilin.
“I’ll kill you!” Even with much of its scale-like armor gone, and its entire breadth slick with blood, the Qilin, still strong and standing, managed a bestial roar.
“Just shuddup you. Do all mythical beasts prattle so much like you? When you’re better off thinking how you are going to survive this?” scowled Chu Xun. He never had any love for fools who still babble about pride and honor even when Death was already staring at them in the face. Cretins like this would hardly last more than a second in the alien world.
Boom!
Another lightning blast slammed down on the Qilin, blasting the beast into the ground. Barely any fragment of the scale-like armor remained and the fiery glow had all but waned.
Gao Mohan and his companions, Scarlet and her sisters stood frozen from shock by what they saw that their blood ran cold.
“The Flaming Qilin!” squealed Violet frantically, “He’s gonna die!”
Chu Xun heard her and looked this way. “Don’t worry. He won’t die that easily. You know what? I’m treating you to a meal. A meal of roasted Qilin meat! I’m sure you’ve not tasted such a delicacy before. Well, I haven’t myself, so I can’t say if the meat is good. Given the circumstances, we can only roast. If only we can steam the meat…”
The meat of a mythical beast. The name itself was enough for one to imagine how much nutrition and magical energies one could obtain from eating the meat, and without any doubt, achieve greater power and advancement. Gao Mohan and his fellow human champions all drooled at that prospect.
“How about a roasted Qilin tongue for you? I’m sure eating it will help you grow your fifth tail. And you, little Violet; you shall have the ears. Peach, I’ll save the tail for you…” Chu Xun called loudly, including everyone’s share.
“Urm… Chu… Can I have a Qilin leg?” pleaded Gao Mohan earnestly.
Ge Zhan and Diao Xingyi were gulping down their saliva too, looking absolutely hopeful.
“All righty then! Four legs; one for each of us!” guffawed Chu Xun triumphantly.
Roar!
The roars of the Flaming Qilin thundered from inside the enchantment persistently as it endured one lightning blast after another and hardly anything was left from its scale-like armor.
But it was livider at Chu Xun for wanting to eat him. That Devil! How dare he! And those three human champions too!
“LET ME OUT OF THIS PLACE! I WANT TO RIP YOU TO SHREDS MYSELF—” the Qilin bellowed at the top of its voice.
Another lightning blast slammed into its back just as it barely finished, blowing off a chunk of the flesh on its rear leg.
Chu Xun waved a hand and magically summoned the fallen piece of flesh out of the barrier and into his hand. He weighed it. It must be almost ten kilograms.
“A little too fat. But I guess it’ll have to do,” scoffed Chu Xun.
>What do you mean by “it’ll have to do”?! >The Qilin nearly blurted out loud, frustrated and terrified.
And it did not take long for him to find out why.
Chu Xun was already propping up the chunk of flesh on a spit over a fire with well-practiced hands!
Golden droplets of fat ooze out of the meat over the flames and the smell of the cooking meat filled everyone’s nostrils, making them salivate.
Chu Xun injected more power into the flames, making it stronger to hasten the cooking of the meat.
The aroma of the roasted meat wafted in the air and Gao Mohan, along with his fellow human champions, all gulped a mouthful of saliva hungrily.
Chu Xun sliced off a piece and took a bite, feeling the crispy skin and the succulent meat bursting with juice in his mouth.
“Come! Come! Help yourselves!” Chu Xun called Gao Mohan, Scarlet, and the others as the oily juices dripped out the corners of his mouth.
But they stood there, utterly astounded at Chu Xun like a group of statues.
Gao Mohan and his fellow champions stared at the Flaming Qilin still trapped inside the enchantment and they shared hesitant looks.
“Surely that means he’s not going to survive any longer?”
“Hard to think he will,” remarked Ge Zhan.
“Then we have nothing to fear. Qilin meat is as rare as it gets; we’ll never get another chance like this ever again!”
Forsaking any hesitation and qualms, all three of them strode towards Chu Xun.
Chu Xun divided the meat into four portions; a piece for each of them.
“Thank you so much, Chu. Heavens, if you don’t mind me repeating so,” said Gao Mohan, still clinging to his well-bred pedigree by expressing his gratitude and much unlike his other fellows who had already begun wolfing down their meat.
The magical nutrients packed inside the Qilin meat were just so much that as soon as the meat was swallowed, they turned into raw energy that strengthened and enhanced their physique almost instantly.
In just the blink of an eye, all four of them made short work of the slab of meat.
But it was not enough; Gao Mohan and his fellows glanced at the Qilin, their hyena-like gazes at the trapped beast practically screaming, “Die… Just die, please…”
For one moment, the Flaming Qilin felt a chill running down its spine, then all across its limbs. Even its insides were squirming with butterflies inside. It did not expect that Chu Xun’s wish to eat its flesh to be so literal.
As a mythical beast, death was acceptable as an honorable and respectable end. But to die so that others could feed on its flesh was something different altogether. The mere notion itself could make its skin crawl.
And the sight of Gao Mohan and his fellow champions staring at him with those gleaming eyes of theirs, hoping for it to die soon, only made the notion more obnoxious if not outright abhorrent.
“LET ME OUT, HUMAN!”
“I thought you were saying that you would rather die than yield?” teased Chu Xun.
“I yield! I yield! Are you happy now!?” the Flaming Qilin nearly burst into tears out of frustration and chagrin. No humans are capable of such heinous acts! This is the work of a Devil!
“Too late,” sneered Chu Xun, “We’ve tasted your flesh and we found it delicious.”
“Please, Chu Xun! Please don’t kill him! Please let him go!” begged Violet on the Qilin’s behalf.
“I apologize to you on account of any offense the Qilin had done to you, Chu Xun. Please forgive anything it said to you,” Scarlet put in a word as well.
“...”
“...”
Scarlet and her sisters all begged for mercy.
Gao Mohan and his fellow human champions said nothing, although they eyed Chu Xun apprehensively, worried that he might turn soft and release the Qilin instead.
“But its meat tastes really good. Sure you don’t want some?” Chu Xun asked the seven sisters.
All seven of them shook their heads vigorously. They had zero appetite at all for Qilin meat.
“Bunch of fools,” muttered Gao Mohan.
“Say no more! Don’t beg him! I’m a mythical beast! A being of divine nature! I’ll never allow myself to be desecrated by the likes of such monster!” the Qilin snarled from inside. Its skin turned brittle suddenly and began cracking all over and a sudden reddish glow burst out from inside like burning embers.
Chu Xun’s face fell and he frantically waved a hand to dispel the magic of his enchantment. Swiftly, he sent forth tens of thousands of Reincarnation Lines, using them to restrain the Qilin and stop it from trying to self-destruct.
The Flaming Qilin was a mythical being from the ancients, a creature that many hailed as a divine being of good fortune. Its blood contained great powers, but rarely any still lived. It would be a terrible loss if Earth’s last living Qilin were to perish.
Moreover, as one of the greatest native beasts on Earth, the Flaming Qilin was a formidable threat against the scourge of the alien races. Right from the start, Chu Xun had zero intention of killing it; he only wanted to teach it a lesson for being a snob.
The Qilin struggled to break free from Chu Xun’s restraints. It would rather die than end up as fresh meat for others to feast on.
“All right. That’s enough. For tens of thousands of years you have stood guard here, you have no idea what is going on outside. Alien races have emerged to ravage and plunder. Instead of guarding a plant here, you should be out there, defending the helpless. Only that will you live up to your expectation as a divine beast,” said Chu Xun placidly, withdrawing the Reincarnation Lines.
The Qilin sprang more than a thousand meters away, eyeing Chu Xun warily like a frightened cat.
“I’m only here for the Flower, Qilin. I want to save my beloved, not to kill and maim senselessly,” said Chu Xun to the mythical beast, “You are a divine beast of the ancients wielding great powers. What a bloody waste of talent if you’re cowering in here when the world needs help like you out there.”
“Don’t think that I will thank you just because you released me,” growled the Qilin, the cracks all around it slowly recovering. Imbued with mystical magic, its physical properties had long exceeded usual expectations.
Chu Xun chuckled nonchalantly.
“They call you the Devil. Are you famous outside?” the Qilin asked.
“The name of the Devil is a household name outside,” remarked Gao Mohan.
The Qilin glanced at Chu Xun. “Take the Flower, Devil. It is your right by conquest. I have lost this battle today, but would you dare to agree to a rematch?”
Chu Xun nearly groaned with exasperation. What’s it with this fellow? Is he a glutton for more punishment?!
Everyone – Gao Mohan, Scarlet, and the others – all stared at the Qilin strangely.
“I will have another contest with you, Devil. A battle staking our prides! In one year’s time, I will be famous. My name will evoke more fear and respect than yours. Do you agree to this duel?”
“Why won’t I?” responded Chu Xun proudly.
“Very well then. We’ll meet again next year. I’ll make you yield to me this time.” On that note, the Flaming Qilin spun around and vanished into a burst of flames and was gone.
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