1587 The Emergence of a Beast King!
Xia Fan had bright eyes, and his body was as straight as a spear. He stretched out his right hand, his fingers open and his wrist steady. Xia Fan maintained that pose for three whole minutes, and the two Lion Vultures started to get uneasy as they wavered between submission and resistance.
As Mythical Beasts of noble bloodlines, they were very reluctant to submit to this smiling young man in front of them, but the powerful aura Xia Fan exuded made it very difficult for them to lunge forward and fight him. The Lion Vultures sensed that they would face nothing good if they made an enemy of Xia Fan.
As for the spectators outside the cage, they were swallowing constantly, their jaws slowly dropping as shock appeared in their eyes.
No one had expected Xia Fan to enter a stalemate with the two Lion Vultures. Although he hadn’t made the Lion Vultures submit, the two clearly weren’t willing to recklessly attack Xia Fan. Not even Chief Beast Tamer Lear had managed to get the Lion Vultures to treat him as an equal!
‘This can’t go on forever,’ Xia Fan thought to himself.
“You could try that move,” Cid Raleigh’s voice rang out, indicating to Xia Fan that it was time to go from being an equal, to making the first move.
The move he was referring to was one that would boost Xia Fan’s soul power. According to Cid Raleigh, the soul was like a storm petrel. By experiencing storm after storm, fighting against the wind and the waves, a storm petrel would become ever more tenacious.
The soul needed to be tempered through battle. Through desperate struggles, through many bitter trials, it would become the soul of an unyielding warrior! A soul that had stepped on the corpses of both brothers and enemies, been drenched in blood and wracked with pain, a brave warrior who charged toward the enemy with a selfless spirit. They weren’t born braver than anyone else. Rather, because they had lived through battle, they had learned how to sacrifice!
At times, life was a burden. Only when one sacrificed it could one get that last bit of resolve!
The soft feared the hard, the hard feared the domineering, the domineering feared the unreasonable, and the unreasonable feared those who didn’t care for their lives!
That saying was known by everyone. Those who didn’t care for their lives were the most difficult to deal with. One should never provoke them and they should stay as far away from them as possible!
“Think about everyone and everything you care about, and what price you are willing to pay to protect them. That mindset of being willing to sacrifice everything will empower your soul and allow you to unleash a mental energy that transcends your limit!
“A soul isn’t mighty because your gaze is savage and your methods ruthless, making everyone fear you. Those souls are simply ruthless souls and can’t be considered to be truly powerful.
“A truly powerful soul is like that: no matter how the world changes, how much life torments you, or even if you might die one second later, you will never give up and always stay standing. When you are alive, your body will proudly stand before the fathomless abyss, and when you are dead, your soul will endure eternally in the flames of Hell! Forever will you stand, as insignificant as a weed, but also as mighty as the heavens, looking down upon all things!
“You are the wind! You are the sea! You are the earth and the dust!
“You were born here, grew up here, and will die here!
“You will use a sword to pierce the darkness, use your hands to blot out the light, use blood to water the deserts…”
Slowly, the tale became a chant that traveled from an ancient era through space and time, transforming into a magical incantation!
As Cid Raleigh’s voice grew louder, a divine power began to rise up within Xia Fan’s body!
He saw little specks of light in the darkness. All of them were lifeforms, blazing with life force, and those lifeforms would all prostrate to him.
This was the Beast King’s Order. Through soul power, he would create his own epoch. In this time and in this space, no lifeform would be able to resist his power.
“The King of Beasts transcends the Three Realms and the river of stars to look down upon the world!”
As Cid Raleigh finished his chant, an unprecedented power flowed out of Xia Fan like a river breaching a dam, the force greater than that of an erupting volcano.
“Submit to me!”
The crowd saw Xia Fan’s arm suddenly bulge with muscle, his fingers clenching into a fist. He pointed his steely fist at the two supreme Mythical Beasts.
There was no such savagery, no terror, no threats. Xia Fan’s heart was like still water. He was simply unleashing his soul power, telling the two Lion Vultures, ‘I am here. Whether five hundred years pass or ten thousand years, I will always be here.’
Thump!
The golden and silver Lion Vultures finally prostrated, lowering their noble heads to the ground.
Their gazes were so serene that it didn’t seem at all like they had been intimidated into submission. It was more like they had always been Xia Fan’s vassals, and now that Xia Fan had returned, they once more knelt before his throne.
It was a very peaceful sensation. It was like Xia Fan had a pair of formless wings that now covered the two Lion Vultures. So long as one submitted to this person, one would gain his protection.
Every human and beast had their place. Xia Fan was there, and the two Lion Vultures were at his feet. After the passing of many years, the emperor star had returned to its seat, and the Lion Vultures had come back to their origin.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
And then an earth-shattering cheer!
When Xia Fan emerged from the cage, everyone surrounded him, praising him incoherently, saying that he had accomplished a historic miracle in beast taming. Traveling Buddha was also excited. He wanted to take his brother and talk with him about when he could ride the Lion Vulture into the sky to show off, but he was quickly squeezed out by the surging crowd.
“You believe me now, right?” Cid Raleigh said in Xia Fan’s mind.
“Believe what?”
“In destiny. Humans and dragons all have their destiny. What happened today isn’t strange, because it was fated to happen. As the only genetic mutant of the Skywings, you are different from your father, siblings, and clansmen. They rely on their Speed inheritance to fly across the galaxy, but you are fated to take a different path!”
“Tsk,” Xia Fan grumbled. “You’re clearly a demon dragon, so why do you act like a scammer fortune teller? It’s all about destiny with you. If everything was fated, why should anyone try? If I was born to Control Beasts, why would I attempt anything else? Couldn’t I just stay at home and sleep?”
“Whatever you want. You were made into a wanderer as a child, and you managed to endure through extreme battles where your life was on the line. This is also a destiny of sorts. You were born fated to never be able to stay at home and sleep, but while you are different from your father, there is one similarity you share!” Cid Raleigh said.
“What?”
“You have the genes for causing trouble. Your family is fated to never live a peaceful life. Even if they don’t make trouble, trouble will come and find them.”
“Tsk, you scammer!” Xia Fan waved his hand unhappily.
…
Though the Beast Garden was full of cheers, Lear was rather confused and disappointed. He returned to his office, but his lovely secretary wasn’t there. Presumably, she was celebrating with everyone else.
Lear went up to the tea table. Originally, he was going to brew himself some black tea, but in the end, he grabbed a bottle of alcohol. Pouring himself a full cup of absinthe, he went to his seat and immediately downed a third of the cup.
“Those were two pureblood Lion Vultures, but they prostrated themselves before that young man. Am I too old to understand the world now?” Lear muttered.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Someone urgently knocked on his door.
“Come in,” Lear said, tidying his uniform.
The door was pushed open, and the young son of the Qin Clan, Qin Lang, walked in with an excited face.
“Uncle Lear, I have some business with you.”
“Oh?”
“Well, I had a Rainbow Vajra Parrot that I placed here with you…”
Lear nodded. Qin Lang had just reached adulthood. Although his clan wasn’t some behemoth like the Donfang Clan, it had some status in Subduing Demon City. Lear was on very good terms with Qin Yingdong, the patriarch of the Qin Clan, so he had agreed to tame a flying beast for Qin Lang to serve as his mount.
“Your parrot has a pure bloodline and is a good seed, but I’ve been busy lately, and there are several other flying beasts that I need to train, so you’ll need to wait a little longer,” Lear said.
Qin Lang awkwardly scratched his head. “Uncle Lear, I know that you’re very busy. Other people find it hard to tame flying beasts, so they place their hopes on you.
“Just now, I asked Xia Fan if he could train my mount, and Xia Fan said he would try. So, I was thinking, I might as well let him. After all, he was able to make two Lion Vultures recognize him as master, and Young Master Dongfang He said that those two Lion Vultures were descendants of the Golden One and Silver One!”
Lear froze in shock, a look of realization on his face.
“No wonder they had such powerful gazes, sharp eyes, and savage natures, refusing to let anyone get close. So they were the descendants of those two legendary Lion Vultures!”
But Lear quickly felt an even more unpleasant feeling. Since Xia Fan had already tamed the descendants of the Golden One and Silver One, his status in Subduing Demon City was bound to soar. Even Qin Lang had stopped asking him to train his flying beast and had gone to Xia Fan instead!
Logically, they were all brothers in the fight against the demons, and he should have been happy about Xia Fan’s ability to control beasts, but Lear couldn’t help but be disappointed in himself. He had been a beast tamer for all his life and became the Chief Beast Tamer of the Beast Garden. He had even risen to the rank of general, but he was losing to that kid?
What was going on here?
There were always monsters every year, but why were there so many this year?
As Lear thought to himself, he opened his safe drawer and took out a key with Qin Lang’s name, placing it on the table.
“It’s good for the young to have drive. Here’s the key. Have Xia Fan try.”
“Thank you, Uncle. I’ll have my dad invite you out for a drink when I get back,” Qin Lang said excitedly as he grabbed the key.
…
Once Qin Lang was gone, Lear walked into the library attached to his office. The twelve bookshelves were full of books concerning beast research. Lear had taken almost his entire life to learn almost every beast taming method that could be found in Subduing Demon City.
Next to the wall was a row of crystals linked to the beast cages. Lear found the crystal that was surveying the cage with Qin Lang’s Vajra Parrot and turned it on.
He saw Xia Fan, escorted by the crowd, walking into the parrot’s cage.
Pureblood Lion Vultures had already bowed to Xia Fan, let alone a parrot that was two levels lower. In front of Xia Fan, the Rainbow Vajra Parrot was like a child, a fawning look in its eyes as it rubbed its soft feathers against Xia Fan’s hands. It practically had the words “hug me” written on its face.
Xia Fan’s method for training flying beasts was unheard of. He brought over a chair, sat across from the parrot and started to chat with it.
“Oh, so that’s what’s going on.”
“Little Qin is still young, meaning that he has a lot of potential. Although he’s still not able to hold his own, you can’t say that he won’t be able to in the future.”
“Hey, you have to have a little more confidence in him. Think about it. With your help, Little Qin is bound to accomplish great things. Isn’t that something to be proud of? You two might even accomplish something historical and forge your own legend.”
“If you have a powerful master who’s too bright, other people will only know of your master’s power. Who will know of all the work you’ve put in?”
“Little Qin is different. He needs you…”
The parrot was taken aback by Xia Fan’s words. It suddenly felt like an average student, like Little Qin wasn’t completely unacceptable. Little Qin needed the guidance of a powerful flying beast like it, and when it was with Little Qin, it could better show its own value!
More importantly, Xia Fan exuded the aura of a king, but he was not arrogant. He used his virtue to persuade, patiently chatting with the parrot and making the parrot want to shed tears of gratitude.
“Work hard,” Xia Fan said, revealing his usual smile. He patted the parrot on the head and told the bird encouragingly, “I have high hopes of you!”