novelraw Chapter 40 : Chapter 40
Chapter 40 : Chapter 40
Chapter 40: The Fight of the Cornered Beast
Lin Bai was quickly teleported to the trial site.
When he steadied his mind and opened his eyes again, the familiar scenery was gone. What greeted him instead was a dark, damp cage.
The air in the cell was thick with mildew, rot, and a kind of indescribable stench of decay. The freezing ground was covered only by a tattered straw mat so worn that it was nearly falling apart.
The clothes on Lin Bai’s body had also been changed into a coarse hemp outfit. Fortunately, Mo Ling was still in his arms, and nothing had gone wrong there.
“Where’s the Demonic Beast?”
Lin Bai muttered inwardly. He had expected to come face to face with some ferocious beast the moment he arrived, but instead he had started out by experiencing the treatment of a prisoner. This opening in Calamity Cavern truly caught him off guard.
Just as Lin Bai was thinking, a series of footsteps sounded from outside, and someone opened the outer door.
“9527, you’re up.”
Who is 9527? Me? Up for what? Where?
Two questions instantly popped into Lin Bai’s mind, but it was obvious that this was just part of the setup for the “Cornered Beast Trial.”
So Lin Bai chose to continue following the “script.” Without betraying anything, he ducked out through the small cell door, though the opening was so narrow that getting out was anything but easy.
The process could hardly be called dignified. It looked more like some kind of animal squeezing out of a burrow.
Outside the cell, a man in a black brocade robe stood waiting. His face was expressionless, and the savage scar across it made him look even more vicious in the dim light.
The scarred man glanced coldly at Lin Bai, who had just crawled out in a somewhat awkward state, and said without the slightest emotion, “Follow me. If you make the lords wait too long and displease them, then you’d best pray for a quick death, you cur.”
Lin Bai silently followed behind him, as if he had no thoughts at all, though his eyes never stopped taking in his surroundings.
First of all, the cultivation of this man in black was far too weak. Even if he really was at the Extraordinary Realm, he was still so weak that he was roughly on par with Lin Bai when he had only just stepped onto his Dao Path and entered the Transcendent Realm.
That was strange enough that Lin Bai almost wondered whether his 【Intuition】 had made a mistake.
Second was the environment itself. Rather than a prison, it felt more like a kennel.
There were people in the cages as well. Their eyes were numb, their bodies curled up in the corners, and only the rise and fall of their chests proved that they were still alive.
“Calamity Cavern. Cornered Beast Trial.”
Lin Bai kept mulling over the connection between those two names. Before he realized it, he had followed the man all the way to a large gate.
The gate opened.
A wave of noise crashed over him, and all kinds of chaotic sounds poured into his ears.
“Damn it! I lost again just now. I’m definitely winning it back this round!”
“What’s the next match?”
“Looks like a Beast Tamer against a Transcendent-Realm peak Tiger Zheng Beast.”
“Haha, Beast Tamers really are rare.”
“The betting is open! Place your wagers, gentlemen! Man beats beast, one to five! Beast eats man, one to two!”
The clamoring, shouting, mad laughter, and curses all blended together into a picture of sheer madness and depravity.
The scarred man pointed ahead.
“9527, get in there. Put on a good show for the great lords.”
Compared to the darkness from before, the light now felt almost unreal, so much so that Lin Bai narrowed his eyes instinctively.
Once his vision adjusted, he finally saw where he was.
It was a massive arena, like a great beast-fighting coliseum.
High spectator stands rose all around it, packed with all kinds of people. They were well-dressed, yet their eyes were full of primitive greed and violence. They waved their arms and let loose all sorts of filthy howls.
“Look! That’s the Beast Tamer. Just some little brat.”
“So what if he’s a brat? What if there’s an upset?”
“Pretty boy, I’m betting on you. Go win your grandpa some money here.”
“Pfft! Win money? That little thing will get bitten to death by the Zheng Beast the moment he steps up there.”
Hearing those voices, Lin Bai felt neither joy nor anger.
“So this is the Cornered Beast Trial. Am I the beast too?”
At that moment, a host in black robes with a long beard leaped into the arena. His voice, amplified by some sort of sound-amplifying formation, spread throughout the entire coliseum.
“Honored guests, what comes next is today’s grand finale—death combat!”
“Death combat! Death combat! Death combat!”
The atmosphere in the stands ignited instantly, and the deafening roar of frenzy shook the air.
The host raised a hand, and with a violent crash, the gate opposite Lin Bai collapsed, kicking up a huge cloud of dust.
Through the swirling smoke, an enormous dark figure leaped out on a gust of stinking wind and landed squarely in the arena.
It was a beast shaped somewhat like a tiger, yet with distinctly leopard-like features. Its body was covered in mottled patterns, a single horn jutted from its brow, and sharp fangs protruded from its mouth. Most striking of all were the three tails swaying behind it like steel whips.
This Demonic Beast was the infamous Tiger Zheng Beast.
The moment it saw Lin Bai, the Zheng Beast did not lunge mindlessly at him.
Instead, it lowered its body, let out a threatening growl, and slowly circled Lin Bai, searching for the right opening to strike.
But Lin Bai had no patience for some drawn-out battle of nerves with a mere beast.
He lightly patted Mo Ling in his arms and murmured, “Mo Ling, go on. Temper yourself a little. No divine bird can soar through the heavens without facing wind and rain.”
Mo Ling slipped out of Lin Bai’s arms and flew toward the Tiger Zheng Beast.
“Oh? So that’s the kid’s Bonded Beast? A Dark Crow?”
“That Dark Crow is dead for sure! The bloodline of that Tiger Zheng Beast out there ranks among the very best at the Transcendent Realm. What does a Dark Crow count for?”
“Haha, steady profits, steady profits!”
“Damn it, my money! You little runt, get out there too!”
Given the difference in size alone, Mo Ling was not even one-tenth as large as the Tiger Zheng Beast. It was no wonder those gamblers hoping for an upset were cursing wildly.
At a glance, it looked like a match whose outcome had already been decided.
But Lin Bai paid no attention to the gamblers. His eyes were fixed carefully on Mo Ling as she swooped toward the Zheng Beast.
Mo Ling first flew high, then used her acceleration to dive at the beast, extending her claws and raking them across its fur.
Rip!
A deep wound instantly opened across the Zheng Beast’s back. If the beast had not reacted at the last moment, that wound would have been across its throat instead.
“Roar—!”
The Tiger Zheng Beast was enraged and lashed its tail toward Mo Ling.
“Caw—”
Mo Ling activated her skill Foulbone Cry, interrupting the Zheng Beast’s motion and causing a moment of rigid stillness.
Using that brief instant of stiffness, Mo Ling climbed back up, circled, and looked for her next chance to strike.
But after suffering that loss, the Tiger Zheng Beast became more cautious as well. It also activated its bloodline skill.
All the fur across its body bristled up, forming a coat of spiked armor.
At the same time, its tails moved with incredible flexibility, like whips. Several times they came dangerously close to striking Mo Ling, and those moments had been perilous indeed.
Overall, the Tiger Zheng Beast and Mo Ling could be said to be evenly matched, each with their own advantages.
The Tiger Zheng Beast had the stronger physique and greater power.
Mo Ling held the advantage of aerial dominance and superior speed.
“Haha, there’s hope! There’s hope! The little Dark Crow hasn’t died!”
“Damn it, what’s with this Dark Crow?”
“Damn it! That Dark Crow must be some kind of mutation, or its bloodline rank must be pretty high!”
The battle in the arena had reached a stalemate, but the gamblers were only growing more excited.
Watching Mo Ling fight a Transcendent-Realm peak Tiger Zheng Beast to a standstill, a faint smile appeared at the corner of Lin Bai’s lips.
Just as I thought. The strength here in the Cornered Beast Trial is far below reality. Both the man in black just now and this Tiger Zheng Beast are like that.
He knew very clearly that although Mo Ling had undergone a transformation and her bloodline had advanced into the stronger Shadow-Murk Owl, she was still in her juvenile stage.
In the real world, if the current Mo Ling were to face a fully grown Tiger Zheng Beast at the peak of the Transcendent Realm, she would be completely overwhelmed.
A guess rose in Lin Bai’s mind.
“Is the age simulated by this Calamity Cavern one of extreme antiquity? Back then, Demonic Beast bloodlines had not yet gone through optimization and selection through survival of the fittest, while cultivators’ Dao Paths were crude and full of flaws. Is that why they all seem so weak in my eyes?”
In the cultivation world Lin Bai knew, there was no saying that the older something was, the stronger it was.
The truth was exactly the opposite. As time passed, cultivators’ Dao Paths were constantly refined, and Demonic Beast bloodlines were continually purified and evolved. Overall strength was moving upward.
Judging from that, the fragment of time simulated here had to be unimaginably ancient, certainly not from within the last hundred thousand years. A hundred thousand years ago was precisely when the cultivation world had entered the Golden Age, and all kinds of Dao Paths and bloodlines began rapidly optimizing.
The Tiger Zheng Beast in the arena kept being toyed with by Mo Ling. Though it had its fur armor for protection, the bloody wounds on its body were steadily increasing.
“Roar!”
Suddenly, the Tiger Zheng Beast let out a furious roar and activated the skill Tiger Roar, forcing Mo Ling to retreat.
At that exact moment, a savage light flashed through the beast’s crimson eyes. Abandoning the troublesome Mo Ling in the air, it drove its four limbs into the ground and turned its massive body into a streak of foul wind as it charged toward Lin Bai in the middle of the arena.
Seeing this, Mo Ling hurriedly attacked again, trying to stop the Tiger Zheng Beast from disturbing her master.
But it was useless. Even while allowing Mo Ling to tear away flesh from its body, the Tiger Zheng Beast stubbornly threw itself at Lin Bai.
“This beast has at least a little brain. It even knows to attack the Beast Tamer. Unfortunately, it picked the wrong target.”
A cold smile appeared on Lin Bai’s face. He had intended to let Mo Ling continue tempering her battle experience a little longer, but he had not expected this beast to actually come after him.
It was simply courting death.
Then let’s end this fight.
Sensing Lin Bai’s meaning, Mo Ling quickly flew farther away from the Tiger Zheng Beast so that she would not be splashed with blood.
As she retreated, Mo Ling even looked at the Zheng Beast with a trace of pity, as if watching something rushing eagerly toward its own death.
Others might not know Lin Bai’s capabilities, but as his Life-Bound Spirit Beast, how could Mo Ling not know?
Before the Tiger Zheng Beast could even come close, Lin Bai directly condensed his force and closed his grip upon it from afar.
Bang.
Without the slightest surprise, this Transcendent-Realm peak Demonic Beast, whose bloodline had fallen behind the times, did not even manage a scream of resistance before Lin Bai crushed it straight into a lump of flesh.
The spectators in the stands did not react at first. The entire arena fell into dead silence for a moment, then erupted with deafening cheers.
“Well done, little runt!”
“That was satisfying! What’s that kid’s number? Next time I’m betting on him again!”
Lin Bai was not disturbed by the uproar. A voice sounded by his ear.
“The trial participant has passed the trial. Do you choose to withdraw now?”
Lin Bai’s expression shifted strangely as he chose no.
Obviously, he had already met the requirements to pass the trial, but there was no way he would choose to leave now.
Leaving now would only earn him the most basic Merit Point reward. He still wanted to see what the extra reward was.
Lin Bai quietly repeated the name “Cornered Beast Trial,” his gaze sweeping sharply across the frenzied spectators around him and the hidden auras lurking in the shadows.
Cornered Beast Trial.
Did it simply mean a beast driven into a desperate fight? Was it truly nothing more than a battle against a Demonic Beast? Was there no deeper meaning hidden beneath it?
Before entering, Lin Bai and Wang Yu had discussed this carefully. They both believed that Calamity Cavern was not merely a place for combat. There had to be a deeper significance to it.
It was something recorded by Firecloud Grotto-Heaven and solemnly named after “calamities.” It was difficult not to think further.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration crossed Lin Bai’s mind.
He thought he finally knew how to obtain the extra reward.