Chapter 200 - Try Running? (1/2)
The call lasted over a dozen minutes.
After Three Blades Lin hung up, he turned and flew back to Lake Kanas.
Up in the air, he saw the group of people having a grill session.
There was another fire started beside the grill rack, and Chen Jingzhou was seated beside it, baking a huge meter-long fish that he skewered on his S-grade alloy longsword.
“Tut, tut.”
Three Blades Lin could not help chuckling as he landed. “The higher-ups intend for you people to train yourself a little when they told you to cross the wildlands towards the Tantra Secret Realm, but you people turned this dangerous journey to a picnic.”
Nearby, Cheng Dongfeng was squatting beside the lake and washing a red bass over a meter long.
An S-grade alloy dagger in hand, he was scaling, gutting and dicing the fish… and he done it masterfully and in a single breath.
The title of Wildlands Master Cheng was not undeserved.
“Oh, blame Jiang He. Would there be any actual sense of danger when you travel with that kid?”
Cheng Dongfeng sighed even as he cut the fish into thin slices. “Huh! You don’t even need to say it, but having a grill session in Lake Kanas. This red bass especially has evolved to a rank-three Feral, having few bones and bountiful meat—most importantly, the meat is fresh and scrumptious.”
Beside him, Zhou Rui was holding several steel skewers, skewering the meat slices.
At the same time, Yang Chengwei was in charge of the grill.
Three Blades Lin gave the youth a look and said, “This is the first time you’re grilling meat, aren’t you? Look at you—the way you’re oiling and sprinkling cumin is clearly incorrect…”
Chuckling, he joined the ‘picnic force’ too.
Soon, the dozen or so skewers were cooked.
Chen Jingzhou, Cheng Dongfeng, He Litong, Zhou Rui and Yang Chengwei each had a skewer, while Three Blades Lin picked up the remaining ten skewers alone, took out a bottle of Maotai and started eating.
Even so, he kept feeling that something wasn’t right inwardly.
“Could I have sprinkled too little salt when I cooked the meat?”
“But this is the right amount of saltiness…”
As he had alternated between mouthfuls of meat and Maotai in pleasure, he abruptly rose to his feet even before he finished the second meat skewer, exclaiming in shock, “Where’s Jiang He?”
No wonder he kept feeling that something wasn’t right.
Where had Jiang He gone?
He had been here for a dozen minutes but did not see Jiang He at all!
“Jiang He?”
Cheng Dongfeng, who received the ‘grand mission’ of cooking Three Blade Lin’s skewers replied, “He said that he had an errand to run, and told us to rest for now—he would come back around four hours.”
Errand?
“Did he not mention what it is?”
Three Blades Lin’s voice became rather hoarse.
A sense of foreboding arose in the bottom of his heart, and Three Blades Lin abruptly found the meat in his hand not that tasty now.
He had given Wang Hou his assurance just a while ago—could that brat had gone off to start trouble again?
“He didn’t say.”
Cheng Dongfeng continued grilling the meat without looking up, grinning, “I know the kid, he’s never resting even for an instant. He might have gone off to hunt after developing a craving for game.”
Three Blades Lin’s expression relaxed considerably and returned to his meat, laughing while he ate, “Game is alright. With Jiang He’s current abilities, he could strut over four hundred kilometers around Lake Kanas.”
“My lord!”
That was when the black panther who kept lurking in the forests beside the lake poked its head out and communicated meekly to Three Blades Lin through spirit voice, “My master isn’t going to hunt; he is going to get payback.”
Three Blades Lin turned towards the black panther and asked in surprise, “The area three hundred kilometers around Lake Kanas is uninhabited wildlands, and Jiang He had never been to the Western Frontier, yes? Why would he have enemies here?”
“My master’s enemy is not human!”
The black panther replied, tilting his head in thought. “I remember Master mentioning that his enemy resides at Mount Tian, and it seems to be a big bird.”
“Mount Tian?”
“Big bird?”
Three Blades Lin had not realized it immediately.
Nearby, Chen Jingzhou who was cooking a fish shuddered, and turned towards Three Blades Lin with wide eyes as he exclaimed in shock, “Could it be the Golden-Crowned Black Eagle of Mount Tian?”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
The black panther’s eyes lit up as it nodded, and continued to communicate in spirit, “That’s more or less what’s it called.
“…”
What the heck!
Three Blades Lin was left dumbstruck.
He threw his grilled meat and Maotai on the floor and promptly rose to his feet again, bounding towards Mount Tian as fast as lightning, his enormous spirit scanning the mountain forests beneath him.
“Even if he’s a match for divine-tier being in fighting ability, he is a rank-nine novice and can’t fly, so he wouldn’t be that quick.’
“Lake Kanas is almost eight hundred kilometers away from Mount Tian. I should be able to get to him at full speed!”
Three Blades Lin’s head was swimming.
The Red Toad King was dead regardless.
And according to Wang Hou, the Red Toad King did not have many connections. There were just two Feral Toad Kings across the globe, and the other one—the Gold Toad King was in the distant lands of the Amazon.
Even Feral Kings would try to cause trouble by using that excuse, the two Feral Emperors in the Hua Nation would not dare to be reckless now that the five Holy Grounds and the government had an accord.
But the Golden-Crowned Black Eagle King was a different matter.
The Feral Eagles were too powerful.
These creatures were the tyrants of the skies even before the Revival of Qi, standing atop the food chain of avians as they nested on the loftiest precipices of the mountains. Moreover, after the Revival of Qi and the mutation of most animals, as well as how natural treasures easily manifest at old mountains and ancient forests, a new generation of powerful Feral Eagles were born unto this world.
One such example was the Golden-Crowned Black Eagle King of Mount Tian.
It was a top Feral King alongside the Violet-Crowned Golden Eagle King, and both of them were ranked amongst the most powerful Ferals in the world.
In fact, the most powerful Feral Eagle was a golden eagle that dubbed itself the Golden-Winged Roc King, which was also one of two Feral Emperors of the Hua Nation, residing at the uninhabited zone of Bukadaban summit in Kekexili, just next to Mount Kunlun.
And if Jiang He did kill the Golden-Crowned Black Eagle King, the Golden-Winged Roc King would go on a rampage too.
Feral Emperors were horrific beings that could match Void-tier Ferals, and not even Wang Hou might be able to stop them.
“Hold on…”
“Why am I so sure that Jiang He could kill the Golden-Crowned Black Eagle King?”
“That beast is just a class above the Violet-Crowned Golden Eagle, which I am an equal match against… Jiang He only killed the Red Toad King by chance, so wouldn’t it be a pipe dream for him to kill the Golden-Crowned Black Eagle King?”