Crown Prince and Ghost King

Chapter 5

Immediately after he spoke, the sedan abruptly dipped, and a sudden commotion among the military officers caused them to come to a stop.

«What's going on?».

«We've run into a bunch of beasts».

The sharp howl of wolves pierced the night sky as soon as Mu Qing replied to his question. It didn't seem normal to him. Hua Cheng would have warned him about the danger of wolves, before going away on his own, but not a single one was mentioned by him. It was confirmed for Xie Lian by one of the military officers, yelling about how wolves on Mount YuJun were something unheard of.

Xie Lian knew they arrived to the right place.

And he knew it even more when, following behind the wolves, the sound of rustling and crackling introduced odd beast-like noises, close to humans but at the same time far from them.

A military officer scream in alarm, voice terrified, and Feng Xin cursed loudly enough to be heard above the constant howling.

Before he could stand, Feng Xin yelled at him to not come out, and then the sedan violently jolted. Xie Lian didn't lower his head, but slightly dropping his eyes told him that something had climbed into the sedan. He could only see the back of the head of something black, forcefully dragged out as quickly as it jumped up.

«Fucking hell, they're base slaves!».

That spelled trouble for their party. Based on the evaluation of the palace of Ling Wen, they were creature that didn't deserve to be ranked as Fierce, but everyone would rather run into the scariest Fierce ghosts than to run into those creatures. Their combat power was extremely low, but with a tenacious vitality and the fact they appeared in large groups, it was difficult to kill them all in a timely manner.

They were truly disgusting creatures, exceedingly vexing, and apparently Mu Qing hated them with profound disgust, if his complaints were an indication.

Worried, Xie Lian asked how many were outside, and frowned when Feng Xin informed him they were swarmed by a hundred of them, if not more. A number big enough to drag them to death, especially considering the majority if their group was composed of common military officials.

Xie Lian pondered for a moment, then slightly raised his arm and exposed a wrist half-wrapped in silky bandages: «Go on. Strangle them to death».

The moment those two words were said, RuoYe slipped off his wrist and flew out, slithering like a white viper, an endless sentence of death. A series of cracking sounds later, dozens of feral wolves and slaves had their necks wrung.

«What was that thing? Didn't you say you can't manipulate spiritual devices without spiritual powers?!».

Xie Lian flinched at the volume of Feng Xin's shout: «There are always exceptions».

Not that it mattered, anyway. Xie Lian had spiritual power, but even if he hadn't... RuoYe wasn't a normal spiritual device. It had a dark, bloodied past, a previously ordinary silk bandage that took the lives of his parents and ended up stained with Xie Lian's own blood as he tried to hang himself; he could always control it, with or without spiritual power, because it had a spirit of its own.

It was deeply loyal to Xie Lian, and loved to compete with E-Ming for his affection, childishly jealous, despite its origins.

At the time, Feng Xin had already left, driven away by Xie Lian's crazed anger and distress. He didn't know what RuoYe really was. It was better that way.

Feng Xin was so furious he slapped the sedan door: «Xie Lian! Explain properly right now what that thing was!».

His slap almost broke the sedan completely, and Xie Lian had to raise his hand to support himself, slightly taken aback. The way he spoke had nothing of the attempted disguise as Nan Feng, and all of the way Feng Xin used to be when mad. He was about to say more, when wailing military officers came from the distance.