Chapter 65: Lin Feng,The Negotiator

The beast’s intelligent eyes drifted back down to Lin Feng, a slow, rumbling chuckle vibrating through the stone floor of the ruins. "Change? For you short lived insects, perhaps. A tree grows, a sect crumbles, a kingdom burns. To me, it is merely the turning of a page in a very dull book. I have no desire to see what is on the next one."

Beside him, Yu Mei was still frozen, her hands gripping her spear so hard her knuckles were white. Her gaze was locked on the beast, her voice barely a whisper. "If you are truly talking about Shen Murong, then the legends in the outer archives... they were wrong. She didn’t seal this layer to protect the border. She sealed it to keep you in right?"

The beast let out a long, theatrical sigh, its massive head resting back down against a heavily ornamented stone pillar.

"A woman’s spite is far more durable than any mountain, child. She cannot erase me, and I cannot be bothered to erase her. So we sit. Or rather, I sit, and she sends pipsqueaks like you to break the monotony."

"Well, your majesty," Lin Feng said, stepping half a step forward and offering a completely insincere, theatrical bow.

"As someone who appreciates a good afternoon nap myself, I totally respect the grind of doing absolutely nothing. Truly, an inspiration to slackers everywhere. But look at it from a practical standpoint. If you stay here, she’s just going to keep sending annoying pests to ruin your sleep. Do you really want that kind of noise for the next century?"

The beast’s blue gem pulsed with a faint, sudden light. One of its ears twitched.

[Ancient mythical beast’s tranquility slightly disrupted]

[Rage Value: +3,500]

[Current Rage Points: 12,400]

"You are an incredibly insolent little creature," the beast rumbled, its eyes narrowing slightly as it looked down from the pedestal. "Do you truly believe a few loud birds can disturb a sleep that has lasted longer than your entire ancestral line?"

"I’m just saying," Lin Feng grinned, his tongue loosening as the system points rolled in.

"A century of bad neighbors ruins the property value. If you let me bind you—uh, I mean, if you take a vacation under my guidanc,we could find you a nice, quiet cave outside the swamp. Hell we can maybe travel around the world"

Yu Mei gasped, violently grabbing his shoulder. "Lin Feng, shut your mouth!"

But the beast had already frozen, its majestic wings slowly unfurling as it stood entirely upright on the pedestal for the first time.

"Centuries have indeed made the insects outside quite bold," the beast rumbled. "

Let us see if that weapon in your hand matches the weight of your mouth, human."

The beast didn’t even stand up. It merely gave a casual, lazy sweep of its left wing. A localized wave of pure, crushing gravity slammed down onto the courtyard. The stone tiles beneath Lin Feng’s boots instantly shattered into powder. The absolute pressure hit his cracked meridians like a falling mountain, threatening to force him onto his knees.

Not today, Jack thought, his stubbornness flared.

Lin Feng channeled every drop of his jagged, unstable qi directly into the Rage-Forged Cleaver and switching it instantly into short burst mode. The heavy blade ignited with a violent, concentrated line of pure killing intent.

Stepping straight into the teeth of the gravity wave, he executed a brutal Thick Face Counterstep. The cleaver met the oncoming invisible pressure wave with a deafening CRACK that shook the entire stone shrine. Splinters of ancient stone and sparks of compressed qi exploded outward. Lin Feng managed to physically cleave through the gravity strike, successfully shattering a minor glowing defensive rune on the edge of the beast’s pedestal.

But the sheer impact was immense. The shockwave hurled Lin Feng backward across the courtyard. He skidded twenty feet, his boots tearing deep trenches into the dirt, before slamming hard against a weathered pillar. He coughed up a spray of dark blood, his chest burning, his foundation integrity screaming at him.

Yet, as he wiped the blood from his chin, he looked up and grinned shamelessly.

The white beast had actually paused. It tilted its majestic head down from the pedestal, staring at the battered, bleeding human who was still smiling.

"Impressive," the beast murmured, a genuine note of surprise filtering through its telepathic voice.

"Among the truly pathetic ones who have crawled into this deep layer over the last three hundred years, you are the first to pique my interest. You are clearly terrified of my power, yet you provoke me. You bleed, yet you fight me. What is the deal with you, human?"

Lin Feng coughed once more, propping himself up with the cleaver. "Well, your majesty, I was just thinking that since you’re so lazy, if I manage to show you around the outside world, I could introduce you to some fun stuff. You know, good food, maybe find you a nice female beast to settle down with—"

SMACK!

Yu Mei stepped up and violently slapped the back of his head, her face a mix of pure horror and exasperation. "Shut up! Stop talking before you get us incinerated!"

The majestic beast froze for a second, then let out a deep, booming laugh that echoed off the stone pillars. "HAHAHAHAHA! You are a truly bizarre creature, brat. But you should also know that by promising to take me out of this swamp, you might be offending a rather troublesome entity."

Yu Mei gasped in horror, her grip tightening on her spear as she processed the beast’s earlier words. Lin Feng rubbed the back of his head, glaring playfully at Yu Mei before looking back at the pedestal.

"Alright, what’s the story here? Who is she?"

The beast’s eyes narrowed into a dry look. "She is a divine spirit. Centuries ago, a Heavenly General of the Subjugation Hall defeated me in a grand war in the Upper Realm. Because he didn’t want to waste his celestial energy completely erasing me, he locked me away in this mortal lower layer and assigned her the divine duty of watching over and confining me within this muddy swamp."

The white beast chuckled, shifting its ornamented wings. "But she was a prideful creature. Being handed playing guardian in a miserable, damp ditch drove her to absolute rage. Instead of just guarding me, she completely took over the entire swamp, transforming it into her personal kingdom. The pure spirit stones and concentrated qi you humans harvest were generated by the swamp’s ancient power, but she began dictating exactly who could enter, who could harvest, and what price the Orchid Veil Sect themselves to pay."