Immortal Ascension Tower 5 ... My Hand Slipped...

The first Spirit Beasts had appeared eons earlier and had been beings sp.a.w.ned by the energy of the world itself; they had been the Primordial Beasts, led by their Four Primordial Emperors. Descendants of the Four Primordial Emperors had been the Four Divine Beasts, the Divine Kings of Worldslord Island. Except for the four of them, the offspring of the other Primordial Beasts became known as Heavenly Beasts.

Unlike humans who had no inborn or unique abilities, the bloodlines of Spirit Beasts alone gave them an advantage over the common man. With few exceptions, even the weakest Spirit Beast would be innately much stronger than any human. However, the humanoid form was one that had many benefits that beasts spanning whole mountain ranges had not. For this reason, once a Beast had grown powerful enough it would usually take on a human form and only bring out its true shape during a fight or to posture.

The Ironskin Manrat; the name itself was pretty self-explanatory. It was a humanoid Spirit Beast with extremely durable skin, so durable in fact that even the sharpest blades would bounce straight off.

Most did not even possess a powerful cultivation base, but simply by relying on their st.u.r.dy defense allowed them to take on cultivators that did, even if just barely. Strictly speaking, Cheng Hao and Goldy had been extremely unlucky with the spell formation responsible for randomly creating the test room: let alone a cultivationless kid, the standard Inferior Stage cultivator would have trouble fighting off the beast too!

Not that either of them seemed to care…

"Cheng Hao, you traitorous b.a.s.t.a.r.d! How shameless of you to bring this beast along so as to fight me with sheer numbers! Ah…" Goldy shook his head with a sigh, "I never expected such cowardly actions from you, but such is the curse of the mighty…"

Cheng Hao had clearly had enough of that blabbermouth of a snake he had for a companion. After nonchalantly throwing the cursing golden snake into the closest pillar he glared at him coldly.

"Goldy, I'll leave you at your one, only job here." Having said that, he took out the yellowish crystal marble from his pocket and turned his head towards the dragon. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d Snake, won't disappoint me… will you?"

Having sensed a somewhat bloodthirsty aura surrounding the young boy, Goldy felt shivers running down his spine. "Well d.a.m.n," he muttered with furrowed brows. "And here I thought you had gotten soft! Cheng Hao or not, your killing intent is still the real deal…"

Noticing the youth still staring at him expressionlessly, the small dragon nodded and immediately shot forward.

"Sorry, did I make you wait?" Cheng Hao turned around.

"Did you eat something weird before coming here? You were having pretty bad hallucinations back there..." The Spirit Beast was still a bit confused and he seemed to feel pity for the child in front of him.

"Nah, I just had to listen to a small golden snake for a few months… It was probably the fatigue from that time acting up." the golden-eyed youth shrugged his shoulders.

"Uh… That, uhm… sucks, I guess?" Despite not really understanding what he was saying, the Ironskin Manrat seemed to feel the pain coming from Cheng Hao. After thinking for a while, it even scratched his chin and asked, "You really want to do this man? You could, like, rest a few more hours if you want? I'm in no hurry after all…"

"Oh? Well, that's really nice of you!" Cheng Hao smiled. "However…" Suddenly, he waved his arm: The golden marble in his hand began to melt and the liquid reformed into twelve golden crystal swords, each as tall as a person! Under the shocked eyes of the Manrat, the twelve weapons started hovering behind the smiling child like twelve bloodthirsty flying beasts.

In this world of cultivation, there were of course many kinds of weapons a person could use. Sword, axes, bows, spear, halberds, mops, tables, defenestration... If you could name it, it was very likely there would be at least one cultivator that based his or her entire cultivation method around it!

However, once one reached a certain level, one would find that simple weapons made out of iron or other simple metal alloys simply weren't enough! For that reason, cultivators had created the so-called Flying Weapons: made out of countless precious materials, these weapons were capable of splitting mountains apart with a single slash, as well as bringing the power of weapon-based cultivation techniques to the next level.

However, Flying Weapons were extremely expensive and rare! The reason was that the materials varied from simple ones such as ores, to beast Cores, horns, scales, bones and such; only experts could afford to gather these materials, and as such the demand alone was sky high. Of course, some had seen this as an opportunity to get rich and thus ma.s.s-produced Flying Weapons as a living, but they would be low-grade flying swords, hardly any different from simple iron blades enhanced with some kind of floating magic.

Right now, Cheng Hao was using the golden drop of blood as if it were a Flying Sword. As the drop was of extremely high quality, it was way stronger than normal Flying Swords! Most probably, there was not a single Flying Sword in its current plane of existence that could keep up with a single of those twelve golden blades! Until Cheng Hao entered a higher plane, very few people would be able to overpower him if he had that golden drop of blood at hand and a decent enough cultivation!

As for using it on an Ironskin Manrat that had yet to start cultivating? Bullying the s.h.i.t out of it wouldn't be enough to describe what would happen.

"Thanks for your offer buddy… but I am obliged to decline. I just really can't stay here… and that means getting rid of you right here, right now." Cheng Hao sighed and as he looked at the shocked Ironskin Manrat, his thin lips arranged into an apologetic smile. "Unfortunately, there is no other way and I'll have to dirty my hands this time. Do not worry though! As an apology, I'll be sure you'll die a peaceful death..."

Slowly, his right eyelid began to lower until Cheng Hao had closed his right eye. Then, he blinked his left eye thirteen times: immediately, visions of mountains of corpses as tall as the skies and of a golden sun shining down eerily from above appeared deep in his left pupil. The corpses were bleeding profusely, so much so that a blood ocean had already formed on top of the soil, leaving only the mountains of dead bodies acting as a few small islands here and there. The golden sun was in no way warm. Instead, it was cold to the extreme, and everything its rays fell upon would begin to lose its color and slowly grow less and less corporeal...

The previously cheerful and happy expression on the child's face also turned scary, as his mouth had arranged into a fiendish grin. Ma.s.sive waves of killing intent began emanating from his whole body, so much so that it was neigh tangible and even the air had begun to tremble! Strands of hair started fluttering and, before the spirit beast could even register anything, it had already pa.s.sed out on the spot: what it had been seeing hadn't been a pretty, eight-year old child anymore, but a giant made of black and crimson smoke, with distorted facial features, a huge, fiery grin and a single, grim eye glowing in the darkness... Before the beast could even scream, the illusion in it had grown bigger, bigger and even bigger, until it had occupied the Spirit Beast's whole field of vision…

The Ironskin Manrat's legs went limp and it fell on its knees, with tears of bluish blood streaking down its cheeks, and its pair of small eyes as wide as tennis b.a.l.l.s.

Cheng Hao nonchalantly opened his right eye and the illusion in his left pupil disappeared. The waves of tangible killing intent also started to subside. The eight-year-old child sighed as he approached the shocked evil beast: he pitied it, but he knew better than anyone that sensation would quickly go away, just like it had disappeared countless times before: such was the hypocrisy of taking lives.

Cheng Hao raised his hand and one of the twelve hovering swords flew into his palm: from its previous shape resembling a longsword, it began to twist and change as the blade enlarged and it turned into something more similar to a butcher knife than an actual sword.

It was a breathtakingly beautiful butcher knife, with exquisite engravings of lotuses and flowers on both the handle and the blade. The child played with the butcher knife, the weapon in his hands seemed to slowly turn into a disc as the boy made it twirl around his index and thumb. First, the motion was slow and a bit awkward, but after a few tries it got faster and faster, to the point the blade jumped from his right hand to the left, behind his back, and then twirled around his forearm and neck. Cheng Hao played with the extremely sharp butcher knife with expertise, as if the him who could at first only barely spin it a few times and the him of now were two completely different people! Light danced on the edge of the blade as he kept rotating the blade even faster! When it reached the point where there was no more knife but only a spinning, golden disc, Cheng Hao finally threw the blade in the air...

"I hope you enjoy your staying in the underworld buddy! That place truly is... a living h.e.l.l!"

It was unknown whether it was due to the fear towards its impending death or due to the terrible pun, but at that moment, the Manrat's seven orifices started bleeding even though the poor beast had already pa.s.sed out.

Cheng Hao lowered his center of gravity by bending over slightly. He theb immediately took a step forward with one leg and arched his foot… Time seemed to stand still as the blade fell ever so slowly from midair and...

Clench- SWISH!

Cheng Hao's body disappeared, replaced by a single arch of golden light! He reappeared ten steps behind the Manrat, the golden butcher knife in his hand shining eerily as a single drop of blue liquid fell from the blade's tip. Cheng Hao straightened his back as his long, black hair fluttered behind him, turned around and bowed his head slightly, "Thanks for your hard work!" The eleven swords hovering behind him melted as they fused with the one in his hand. Under Cheng Hao's command, the blade consequently turned into a beautiful lotus hairpin. He used the hairpin to tie the loose hair into a long ponytail and, examining his looks with a mirror, he nodded, satisfied. The child stepped forward and, humming and happy tune, headed towards the end of the corridor. As he walked, Cheng Hao closely observed the floor and with an approving gaze he looked at the golden snake that had just reappeared on his shoulder. "You really did dismantle them all! You did your job for once!" The boy chuckled.

"Mph, how could puny traps like these possibly inconvenience a powerful and handsome Primordial Beast like me?" The tiny dragon couldn't help but push his small chest out: what Goldy had been doing up until now had been none other than dismantling the traps that had been set on the route leading to the exit! With the death of the Manrat, the hexagram at the end of the trap-filled pa.s.sageway had also lit up in a similar manner to the teleportation hexagram from before.

"It's no big deal, really… What about you? How did it go? "Having asked that, the snake turned his head to look at the situation behind the young boy. As soon as he did, his expression darkened. "Cheng Hao, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, did you really have to mess up this room so badly to slay a Humanoid Beast that had yet to cultivate? You madman!"

Hearing that, Cheng Hao shrugged his shoulders and smiled dismissively. "It's gonna reset anyway, what's wrong with it? What, I can't show off a bit if I like?"

"Bruh…" Goldy raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Cheng Hao blushed under the intense stare of his companion, "Alright! I admit that I did slipped a little… I'm out of training you know! All that muscle memory is all gone. AND, it was only a little!"

"…only 'a little', uh?"

"Shut up! And if I ever hear you utter a single word about this ever again, I swear I'll sell you off to the first snake charmer I find!"

Cheng Hao walked on top the Teleportation Hexagram in front of him: the teleportation seal whirred and the child disappeared in a flash of golden light, reappearing elsewhere.

At the same time, as soon as the golden glow had subsided, a loud "Slash!" sounded out within the room! A deep crevice immediately marked its way on the wall behind the collapsed Spirit Beast, as if it had been carved by an unknown force!

Finally, the Ironskin Manrat's head slid off its neck and fell on the ground. As if that had been some sort of switch to a chain reaction, the pillars holding up the roof all crumbled and the roof fell until, finally, the room collapsed completely.
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