That was an average kitten, it wasn’t even a low level hellion-beast, but it could climb all over the 9th Level hellion-beast that no one could approach. One moment it would step on its head, another moment it would roll down from its back to its stomach. The vicious hellion-beast would even reach out to catch the cat, as if afraid it would fall, and it would sway its nine huge tails to entertain and play with the cat.
The Dragon Tooth auction’s manager, Dael, watched from afar the warm interactions between the 9th Level hellion-beast and cat inside their cage, feeling extremely incredulous. This was probably the feeling of “having lived for too long”.
To be clear, in order to catch this 9th Level hellion-beast, over half of their auction house’s magicians and warriors had been injured and they had lost many people as well. He knew very well just how guarded this 9th Level hellion-beast was towards them, and this was truthfully an unbelievably intelligent hellion-beast, it would ignore the food and other things laced with medicine and the gaze within those eyes made goosebumps rise on their skin.
Manager Dael had seen this type of pressure only on the 9th Level Grand Magician that he had only glimpsed once. At one point, he had even started to suspect that the legend had been true—- that 9th Level hellion-beasts could truly become humans.
But it had been too many years since anyone had seen a hellion-beast above the 7th Level. This 9th Level was not only a treasure that they had caught, but also an extremely massive problem. In only mere days, magicians and warriors had rushed here from all over the land, there were even many massive factions that requested them to offer the 9th Level hellion-beast to them.
Although the Dragon Tooth auction house had some connections, they were nobodies when faced with so many big factions at the same time, they couldn’t afford to offend any of them, they could only make the decision to publicly sell this 9th Level hellion-beast in the auction taking place in three days. Even if the leaders’ hairs started to turn white from stress, although normal people didn’t know, the few of them knew very well about it— that this magic formation created by a Grand Magician probably wouldn’t be able to keep this 9th Level hellion-beast locked away. Just look at how it could even slip out of it, no one knew just why it stayed here even though it could clearly escape.
If they could transfer it to other factions after the auction, they can finally release a sigh of relief, but if anything happened before it and this hellion-beast ran away, it would be troublesome if people misunderstood that they – the Dragon Tooth auction – had secretly hidden the 9th Level hellion-beast. The most important thing right now was to placate this 9th Level hellion-beast and treat it as if it was their ancestor until three days passed.
Manager Dael’s shrewd eyes stared at the small cat, scheming his machinations, and then the next instant, the 9th Level hellion-beast who had been so tamed with the small cat and busy grooming it suddenly let out a furious, threatening roar in his direction. Blue flames burst out and burnt away patches upon patches of plants in the garden. The flames even licked away at Manager Dael who had been standing so far away, instantly burning away a corner of his robes.
This frightened Manager Dael and he scrambled backwards in panic. The servants besides him also screamed in fear. Everything turned into chaos. When the panic abated, Manager Dael secretly glanced at the scene – the 9th Level hellion-beast affectionately nosing the cat’s stomach and then being smacked on its mouth by the cat – and innately understood.
—— This unnervingly intelligent hellion-beast had caught his ill intentions and was warning him.
He had indeed thought of something at one point, but now he didn’t dare to at all. Those crimson eyes seemed to be staring right through him and seeing everything.
Because of the low altitude, Shu Yu could only crawl through the hills of white fur with great difficulty and finally, she climbed up to the highest point with its greatest view—— Fox Fu Wang’s head. And it was only then that she saw what was happening.
After she saw how the surroundings had been burnt away by Fu Wang, not long after, there was a rich, milk-scented bowl of liquid sent alongside Fu Wang’s meals.
Fu Wang did not need this kind of food to maintain his stamina, so the past few days he hadn’t even deigned a glance at the meals being sent here. Those humans could bring it here if they wanted to, he wouldn’t eat anyways. However this time they had gotten slightly smarter at least, knowing to bring food to the new arrival.
Fu Wang guessed it was organized by the fat human who had been frightened by him before, probably to atone. He sniffed the bowl of milk that had been carefully sent over, Fu Wang wasn’t at ease so he even tasted it, it was only when he confirmed there weren’t any problems that he picked Shu Yu by the scruff and put her next to the bowl.
The very hungry Shu Yu glanced mournfully at the delicious-smelling meat that Fu Wang was ignoring. She swallowed her saliva and then turned her small little head to drink the milk in front of her. This was honestly the first time she had eaten like this since being born, however with her tolerance having been raised because of Fu Wang having fed her blood, this feeding method was a small case, there wasn’t much difficulty about doing it.
And the milk was truly delicious.
Shu Yu drank until her stomach bloated, but even then over half of the bowl was left. In the end, because she drank too much, Shu Yu fell and dropped into the bowl of milk, making a splash of liquid. Shu Yu frantically splashed in the liquid a few times before being rescued by the fox, and then what befell her was a full-body round of licking. When her stomach was being licked, Shu Yu couldn’t help but hiccup, but it was covered by her fluffy paws in her mouth. It was extremely adorable.
Fu Wang didn’t know this feeling was called “exploding from cuteness”, he merely blocked everything else’s sight and curled the small feline within his body and groomed her again and again, and in the end, he buried her between his neck and paws, only allowing kitten Shu Yu’s groomed head to be shown as she nodded sleepily.
The people in charge of guarding the 9th Level hellion-beast noticed that ever since the kitten appeared, the 9th Level hellion-beast’s temper improved considerably, at least it didn’t injure others every now and then nor did it seemed like it’d kill people every time it got the slightest bit unhappy. When it wasn’t being temperamental, it was truly an extremely beautiful hellion-beast, though of course it was beautiful even when angered, however during such times they would be too worried over their lives, so no one would take notice of that aspect of it.
Not only did it not lash out in anger anymore, it didn’t stare at them with that chilling gaze either. Accurately speaking, their existences didn’t even register within the gaze of that hellion-beast, only that small kitten; its attitude could be described as warm and pampering, but the moment anyone looked at that small kitten, it would again become that cruel and vicious hellion-beast that could kill person after person and become difficult to deal with.
As the 9th Level hellion-beast carefully and enthusiastically raised the small kitten, three days passed in a blink. The Dragon Tooth auction house prepared an auction especially for the long-unseen 9th Level hellion-beast in order to decide its ownership. Factions from all over the land send representatives to take part and Keta City at this point garnered together the top forces of the region.
The Dragon Tooth auction house stressed their heads off over the problem of “How to get the 9th Level hellion-beast upstage”, but who knew, when the day finally came, the 9th Level hellion-beast didn’t cause any trouble and extremely voluntarily jumped onto the stage with its kitten bundled up. But right before this, it seemed to have glanced at a certain corner where a young nobleman with golden hair and blue eyes was sitting.
The beautiful woman in charge of the auction upstage was stiff. That face which was deemed the most beautiful in the land was rigid as if it were stone and her voice was dry and halting, “Welcome everyone, to the Dragon Tooth Auction’s luxurious auction event. As everyone can see, this is a 9th Level hellion-beast, everyone is aware that, there are only three 7th Level hellion-beasts in the region, the rumoured 8th Level hellion-beasts have already extinct, so even less said about 9th Level hellion-beasts, yet our auction group has had the fortune of coming across a 9th Level hellion-beast. No more has to be said, we believe everyone here knows its worth, then everyone please start calling the price.”
This was probably her shortest introduction ever since she started being in charge of organizing the opening events.
The chatter and competitive prices didn’t happen, because just as the presiding beauty rang the small timbre and started the auction, a clear and smooth voice resounded clearly throughout the hall.
“Apologies for interrupting, gentlemen, this one seeks to discuss a matter with everyone.”
Everyone was speechless, because the one speaking was that languid 9th Level hellion-beast. The entire hall was silent. They heard the 9th Level hellion-beast use an extremely calm voice to speak the language of the magic continent fluently. It said, “Today, I wonder whether everyone here wishes to leave behind their lives, or leave behind the objects they’ve brought?”
“I do not wish to kill carelessly, however being treated and locked up like a beast has truly made me feel displeased, that’s why, in order to soothe my anger, I wonder if everyone is willing to give your fortunes to dissuade disaster?”
The 9th Level hellion-beast’s voice was gentle. Some of the noblewomen present forgot their fear and stared at the beautiful hellion-beast which exuded a suffocating presence. However what happened next quickly made them realize just what a terrifying creature a 9th Level hellion-beast from the legends could be.
Everyone had brought along powerful magicians and warriors, the auction house itself also had quite a few high level magicians, but even with that many people none of them were able to defend against the 9th Level hellion-beast raging flames, each and every single one of them could only roll, struggle, and wail within those blue flames.
Everyone that wanted to escape noticed that they couldn’t leave this place.
Cries and screams mixed together. The hall became entangled in panic. The creature responsible for the chaos however, merely laid upstage grooming its tiny cat. Of course, it kept a close hold on it, so there was no one who could recognize that the fluffball which seemed to almost become one with its fur was a cat.
As the panic subsided, the groups of humans were in despair, and the ones who organized the auction house had scrunched faces full of dread towards a disaster in front of them. For something like this to happen in an auction event held by their group, even if this ended well, their auction house would be faced with terribly massive losses. Who would’ve known that this 9th Level hellion-beast was purposely acting weak?1 It’s mentioned before that only very few people and the upper echelons of Dragon Tooth knew that Fu Wang was merely humoring them. Out of greed, they sought to exchange the 9th Level hellion-beast for even greater gains, and now look, they were paying for it dearly, this cunning 9th Level hellion-beast!
The elder noblemen that had arrived to take part in the auction and those representatives from big faction were being protected herded together by their servants and accompanying magicians. They warily and fearfully looked at the 9th Level hellion-beast observing them from upstage.
“No need to be so frightened. As long as you hand over all your belongings, you can leave.” The 9th Level hellion-beast spoke almost amicably.
Hearing this, the humans felt near physical pain assault their hearts. In order to get the 9th Level hellion-beast, they had truly brought out their blood and tears, they brought quite a lot of nice things and gold. Being threatened to hand it all over without gaining anything and even losing face, it was just too much pain to one’s heart. But if they didn’t give it, then what? They couldn’t even defeat the opposing side.
“How about this— In ten minutes, those who haven’t decided yet, you will become ashes together here.”
The end result: Everyone surrendered.
Although other things were important, nothing was as important as their lives. One after another took out their dimensional bags and put them into a pile, at least it didn’t ask for them to take off their clothes. Once everyone was robbed of everything, they left through the gate of the auction hall, the group of humans only then showed relieved expressions of having survived a life-threatening situation. Their faces were green as they rapidly left the place.
As for reporting to superiors or looking for aid to eliminate this arrogant 9th Level hellion-beast together, they had to quickly leave this place first of all.
Within the empty auction hall, the massive fox turned into an attractive and eye-catching young man. Long black hair and dark red eyes, and a pure white kitten in the palm of his hand. He gathered his spoils of war and then rubbed his face against the soft and fluffy body of the kitten. He said tenderly, “Xiao-Yu, let’s go find some suitable identities.”
Because of the world’s restrictions, they needed to stay in this world for at least three months, furthermore, if they wished to break through the shackles of this world again, they needed to find another person with unimaginable fate and absorb the fate from their person. Coincidentally, just now in the auction, he noticed someone with a unique fate on them, so the source was probably by that person’s side.
Knowing their identity, now they only had to follow that person to seek the source of fate.
Fu Wang smiled slightly, and pecked the paw pads of the small kitten, he was promptly rewarded with a paw to the face but he didn’t get angry in the slightest.
Ten minutes later, a handsome young man with deep blue eyes and long, golden hair walked out of an alley, one hand holding a staff, and the other holding a furball.
The servants searching everywhere for the Count saw their master suddenly appearing. Their tense expressions relaxed and they went forward, saying, “Count Edra, are you alright? We need to quickly leave this dangerous place, Count Edra, you should’ve not listened to those black-hearted merchants’ invite to take part in this auction that had no safety measures whatsoever! We almost got in danger.”
He then looked at the small kitten being held by the count, puzzled about where this cat had come from. Because the kitten had always been curled up by Fu Wang up in the stage, no one had seen it, so now this servant didn’t realize either this kitten’s true identity, he only found it strange that the Count – who always hated small animals – was suddenly bringing a kitten by his side.
“Let’s go.” The man called by Count Edra adjusted his hat with one hand and got up into the carriage.
Servant: I suddenly feel that our master is so enchanting, what’s going on? No no no, Count Edra has always been very charming. He was faced with such a terrifying situation and could still shine so brilliantly, as expected of our master!
A luxurious carriage slowly left Keta City, moving towards the territory of Count Edra.
Chapter Description: Leave the treasure or leave your life.
