Chapter 203 - Demonic Beast Hunter (1/2)
Chapter 203: Demonic Beast Hunter
A few days later, Little Fatty was summoned by Daoist HuoLong. When Little Fatty met him and wanted to pay his respects, Daoist HuoLong waved his hands instead, asking him to sit down.
Following which, Daoist HuoLong went straight to the point and said, “Little Fatty, today I called you here to tell you about the punishment for killing the 3 metal brothers!”
“Ah!” As Little Fatty heard that, he smiled, “Please say, I’m listening! Hehe, how many years are you going to lock me up for? Anything! I don’t really care!”
Hearing Little Fatty say so, Daoist HuoLong laughed bitterly and said, “There have been some changes, so we are not going to lock you up!”
“Eh?” As Little Fatty heard that, he immediately replied with shock, “Oi oi, don’t tell me you are really going to listen to Mister First and Mister Second to cripple me?”
“Of course not!” Daoist HuoLong shook his head and said, “Since I promised senior brother Hong to take care of you, how could I cripple you!”
After hearing that, Little Fatty relaxed and said with a smile, “Hehe, as long as you don’t cripple me, I will accept any kind of punishment! It wouldn’t be much!”
“Hehe, that’s right, it isn’t much!” Daoist HuoLong suddenly replied with an awkward smile.
With Little Fatty being astute, he could immediately tell that something was wrong with Daoist HuoLong’s expression and hurriedly asked, “Sect master, what exactly is my punishment?”
“It actually isn’t much. We are just sending you to the Eastern Ocean for a period of time!” Daoist HuoLong answered while rubbing his palms together.
But when Little Fatty heard that, he replied with shock, “Ah? Eastern Ocean? Don’t tell me you want me to become a Demonic Beast Hunter?”
“Hehe, that’s right!” Daoist HuoLong replied awkwardly.
“Goodness, sect master, do you know what kind of a place that is? It is called the cultivator’s graveyard! Less than 30% of the people who go there would return alive!” Little Fatty could not help but say in frustration, “This is obviously sending me to my death!”
In the eastern portion of the Vast Mountains, there existed a vast ocean called the Eastern Ocean. There were plenty of Water-type demonic beasts living there, to the point it was uncountable. Of the many demonic beasts, there were even 6th or 7th-grade demonic beasts able to take the form of humans.
These demonic beasts have profound cultivation bases and lived on an island deep in the Eastern Ocean, rarely revealing themselves. In addition, there were a large amount of middle and low-grade demonic beasts who lived on the thousands of islands in the Eastern Ocean. These islands were near the Vast Mountains, and the demonic beasts could easily cross the ocean to get there.
The reproductive capabilities of the demonic beasts were beyond belief. Adding on to their huge appet.i.tes, this resulted in a scarcity of food throughout the entire Eastern Ocean region.
These middle and low-grade demonic beasts were not very intellectual. Faced with the problem of starvation, they would consume any live beings. Sometimes, they even resorted to cannibalism. Thus, the problem of scarce resources caused internal strife to abound.
However, the high leveled demonic beasts were not willing to see their kin ma.s.sacre each other. Hence when that happened, they would take the initiative to lead the middle and low-grade demonic beasts towards the Boundless Mountain situated closest to them, allowing them to pillage and consume everything in their wake.
As such, the cultivators who reside in Boundless Mountain suffered the most. However st.u.r.dy the gates of the mountain pa.s.s were built, it was all proved useless to the incoming waves of demonic beasts. When this disastrous tide first came about, many sects were totally wiped out. That even included major Sects with over a millennium worth of history.
Of course, the cultivators were no fools. After being on the losing end for a few times, they came out with a master plan and that was to slaughter the mult.i.tude of middle and low-grade beasts before their population reached an unsustainable point. This ensured that the quant.i.ty of food in the Eastern Ocean remained at a sustainable amount, so the beasts would not attack them.
The only problem was that to kill such a large number of demonic beasts, just relying on a single Sect would be nigh impossible. Thus, all the Sects residing in Boundless Mountain, be it righteous or demonic sects, all banded together to send out a batch of disciples every year. All the disciples would form a team called Eastern Ocean Alliance, and their responsibility was to hunt down the demonic beasts. Hence, they were t.i.tled Demonic Beast Hunters.
These Demonic Beast Hunters needed to slaughter copious amount of demonic beasts in order to complete their task. In the process, it was inevitable that some of them would get injured. Especially since there were more than ten thousand different species of beasts living in Eastern Ocean. These beasts lived as a group on a small island, hence it was impossible to extinguish them without any sacrifices made. In every Demonic Beast Hunter’s term of office, which lasted 50 years, the danger was an everyday occurrence. Only roughly thirty percent would survive their term of office, with the rest dying in the battlefield.
Therefore, whenever an ordinary cultivator was to talk about the Demonic Beast Hunters, they would all sigh in admiration. It was too dangerous a task, and practically no one would be willing to be the scapegoat. Thus the dispatch of disciples every 10 years had to be done through the drawing of lots.
However, Little Fatty remembered that the last lot-drawing was done only a year ago. At that time, he was still in closed-door cultivation with ShuiJing and thus had skipped the calamity. How could he allow himself to be on the losing end?
Realising this, Little Fatty could not help but ask in a weird tone: “Sect Master, the drawing of lots has already pa.s.sed, what does it have to do with me?”
“Cough cough!” Daoist HuoLong could only cough and force out a smile, saying, “Your circ.u.mstances are special. Who told you to kill all three of the Metal Brothers in one go? Mister First and Second are already itching to cripple you, and even I am helpless about this matter! Sending you to the Eastern Ocean, isn’t it better than crippling your cultivation base?”
“Surely they can’t veto your decision?” Little Fatty could not help but express his unwillingness.
“Then do you want me to cripple you instead?” Daoist HuoLong glowered at him.
“No need, no need for that!” Little Fatty immediately waved his hands in panic. If he were to be crippled, that would be worse than death. He could only try to wriggle his way out by saying: “Sect Master, didn’t you previously say that you would only lock me up for ten odd years? Why did you suddenly change your mind?”
“Hai, you can’t blame me for this!” Daoist HuoLong could only let out a bitter laugh: “Us three elders have bickered over your offence for G.o.d knows how many rounds these few days. No matter how I try to negotiate, the two fellows will not budge on their stand. I had no choice but to look for my senior sister Celestial MeiHua, which is ShuiJing’s master, to solve the problem. I originally thought that, through your relations.h.i.+p with ShuiJing, senior sister would be more lenient with you. But who knew that she would actually send you to the Eastern Ocean! I say, did you ever offend her?”
“Nope, I have yet to catch a glimpse of her!” Little Fatty could only bemoan.
“That means you have offended ShuiJing!” Daoist HuoLong confidently declared.
“That’s not possible, we had been in closed-door cultivation for the past three years. Without my help, she couldn’t have broken to the mid-foundational stage in one go!” Little Fatty moaned in grievance, “How is this considered a crime?”