Small spots of sunset's light spilled through the green canopy of the ancient forest, mottled golden lights falling onto her mount's pure white coat and silver scales as they trekked through the woods.
Coming to the cave's opening, the beast that looked like a giant wolf with a lion's mane and hind quarters of a reptile gradually stopped and Chen MingYun dismounted, tugged the rope that tied today's catch to Zizi's back and it quickly came loose. The wild boar's fat carcass made a heavy 'whump' as it fell to the ground.
"Good job today. Keep at it, we'll be getting out of here soon."
Lightly caressing the large head of the white beast that was more than twice her size, it was unknown if she spoke those words to comfort the creature or herself as her eyes stared at some illusory sight at a faraway place.
A series buzzing 'zizi' sounds emitted from the animal's throat as it sensed it's mistress's complicated mood and it pushed forward, rubbing against her body affectionately but unused to the size of its current form too much strength was used causing Chen MingYun to stumble but she maintained her balance by quickly grabbing hold of its big, fluffy mane.
Looking at Zizi's pair of bright blue eyes, Chen MingYun couldn't help laughing gently, her gloomy mood being quickly wiped away by the look of trust and dependence in the creature's eyes. Hanging onto its face, her feet inches off the ground; she smiled and lightly kissed the big pink nose in front of her face thinking Zizi looked quite adorable in this form.
"You've been going all day, you should rest. [Return]!"
Zizi released a high pitched whining sound and its eyes held an unwilling and wronged look but there was nothing it could do. In accordance to its mistress's command, its body was wrapped in a golden light before its frame then disappeared without a trace from the surroundings.
Chen MingYun felt a little guilty after recalling Zizi to her spirit dimension since she would usually keep it by her side on an ordinary day and the monster that was still in its infancy had grown to be heavily dependent on her. This, she acknowledged was her own fault but she greatly treasured Zizi as it was the only monster she had formed a contract with in her entire life however, in the current situation, she really didn't dare to let Zizi stay by her side.
Chen MingYun then turned and entered the cave behind her which had become her dwelling in this forest for the past two weeks.
Approximately fifteen days ago, she had been part of a unit sent to investigate the appearance of a spacial rift that appeared in the northern region near the old Holy Empire. On entering the rift, it was found to be the remnants of an ancient ruin from some unknown civilization and the government was able to harvest a lot of valuable assets and promising research materials from the premises.
That night, they had been camping in the mountains near the rift's vicinity when the earth started to shake. They had first thought it to only be an earthquake but what happened next was a disaster that was anything but natural.
Dragons were creatures thought to be long extinct and a pure blooded dragonkin hadn't been seen in over 3 hundred thousand years.
The number of researchers and monster breeders who had dedicated their lives to reviving the draconic bloodline in previous years were endless but none were able to succeed.
The shock that came from experiencing the might of the presence of a true dragon had left Chen MingYun so muddled that she hardly remembered what happened and anytime she tried to recall, only the chaos of the earth shattering around her and the death throes of her companions drowned out by the dragon's world shaking bellows filled her mind to the point that her head felt like bursting.
She lost consciousness back then and when she reopened her eyes she was already in this cave.
The cave was large and was tunneled deep underground with many connecting chambers and had a water source running through it. The walls were covered in a type of bioluminous algae with fire properties that kept the atmosphere from becoming too cold.
Chen MingYun didn't know how she ended up in that place but once her injuries allowed for her to move around she tried to leave. She didn't know for how long had she been unconscious but if the government didn't yet know about the dragon then she needed to warn them.
However, once she made it outside, Chen MingYun found that she couldn't recognize the place she was at. Not only that, she had lost all her equipment including her personal terminal so she couldn't even locate her position on the world map but the weirdest thing of all was that her appearance seemed to have gotten younger by several decades.
Once a person reached Immortal level their appearances stop aging. Chen MingYun was one of the few neo-humans born in the last century, her talent when it came to cultivation was second to none, but because she stubbornly refused to form a contract with any random monster for many years and cultivated by her own strength she had crossed that threshold later than expected; when she was almost nearing forty.
Now, due to these obscure turns of events not only had her hard earned Immortal level strength been abolished, leaving her hardly any different from an ordinary person, her appearance had become that of a teenage girl around fifteen or sixteen years old. There wasn't a single trace of the battle scars she had accumulated in her younger years either and if it hadn't been for the fact that her face's appearance was the same as it had been in her youth, Chen MingYun would think this body wasn't her own.
Her only fortune was that she still had Zizi. If she had lost him too, Chen MingYun really didn't know what she would do.
Making use of its parasitizing ability, Chen MingYun had Zizi take control of several monsters and sent them out to scout the surroundings and search for any human settlements nearby. However, the level of the monsters in the vicinity were all quite high and with her fall in strength, Zizi's abilities had been consequently suppressed as a result of their 60-40 ratio master-servant contract, therefor the number of creatures that Zizi was able to successfully take control of was very small resulting in the scope of investigation also being small and progressing slowly.
In all this time, none of the high leveled creatures living in this forest had dared to come near the cave's vicinity and because of this Chen MingYun's life was relatively easy staying here, going out every day to hunt and gather some small fruits and the like; as for the reason why, she attributed it all to the domineering presence of her roommate.
When she woke up in this place fifteen days ago, Chen MingYun hadn't been alone in that cave and when she saw the creature upon opening her eyes the first time she almost died from the fright it gave her.
Battered and heavily wounded, the slumbering beast that was as big as a small hill when lying down released an aura which was hardly inferior to that of the dragon she encountered previously but it was no dragon.
[Name]: Chaos Demon Taotie (Devil)
[Rank]: 5 Star
[Level]: Low Tier
[Attribute]: Chaos
[Status]: Heavily Injured (Calm)
[Condition]: Asleep, Hungry, Serious Blood Loss
[Weakness]: None
[Available Evolution Path]: 1) Consume energy to reach next rank.
In her youth, Chen MingYun had sold her research results to the government in exchange for all existing books regarding monsters- whether they were published, restricted or even blacklisted- especially those books about the creatures from the Old Epoch she would probably never have the chance to come into contact with, she was fascinated by them- some would even say obsessed.
She gathered and horded that knowledge greedily but she had never once come across anything like this 'Taotie' beast.
However as a neo-human, Chen MingYun deeply believed in this spirit ability she was born with; so although the information she received confounded her momentarily, she didn't dwell on it and instead, for the past fifteen days, she had been doing her best to gain a favorable impression with the creature. If she was able to gain its acceptance, then Chen MingYun hoped to take it as her second contracted monster before leaving this forest.
Entering the cave while dragging the boar she had hunted behind her with some difficulty, Chen MingYun smiled brightly at the hulking figure of the Taotie beast lying at the far corner of the chamber that was illuminated by the light from the algae on the cave's walls and called out.
"Little Black, I'm back. I brought dinner."
The creature made no indication that it had even taken note of her presence as both its eyes remained closed and it didn't so much as twitch but Chen MingYun knew that it was awake.
Dragging the boar, she left it to wash in the flowing water channel as she herself went up to the giant beast, boldly climbing onto its large forepaw and settled in the valley between its toes, nestling comfortably amongst the soft fur. This was the fruit of her efforts for the past two weeks.
To form a contract with a monster a person must be first fearless, second persistent and finally, absolutely shameless; Chen MingYun had no problem meeting any of those requirements. From the moment she had decided to make this beast hers that thing called shame had been completely tossed out the window by her.
In addition to offering daily sacrifices, she one sidedly gave the creature a pet name and went about shouting 'Little Black' at it all day long and for every day that it ate the meals she offered it, she decreased the distance between their positions in the cave and if it dared to grumble at her for coming closer she would shamelessly cry and say it was taking advantage of her.
She would extend her tender and pale palms that had become bloody and bruised from living roughly the past few days and force out some tears to complain.
She, a delicate and pretty young girl was going out to hunt every day for whose sake? She was lost and alone with no one to rely on; she just wanted to be friends, did it need to be so cruel?
For this creature to have an aura similar to a dragon's, its intelligence was certainly not low and was very close to that of a human's if not greater; but even it couldn't bear to watch Chen MingYun be so shameless and in the end, resorted to ignoring her.
Even the first night when she made camp on its body it had only slightly opened one eye to glance at her and once she directed her white toothed, full face grin at it, dragging her words while calling 'Little Black~', it abruptly closed its eye as though it didn't see.
Settling into her warm furry bed, Chen MingYun fished a fruit out of the pouch on her waist and began chatting idly about what she had done that day.
In the large cave dimly lit by the blue glow from the algae growing on the walls, the young girl's crisp and tender voice rang out uninterrupted.
Chen MingYun carried out a one sided conversation jubilantly for several minutes until her eyes began to droop from sleepiness brought on by the fatigue of the day's exertion. Only then did she yawn, rubbing at her eyes with her folded fist.
"Hey Little Black, this place is really lonely."
"Hey, hey Little Black, won't you become mine?"
"Become mine, Little Black. I won't let you be alone again."
"Don't leave me alone either, it's a promise. Together... always together."
"Come with me, okay..."
A short while after the person stopped talking, soft, long drawn breaths sounded out evenly and the eye of the Taotie beast that had remained closed all along suddenly opened.
Extending a single claw, the carcass of the wild boar washing in the water that was two meters long and weighed over 100 catties was skewered like a raisin on a toothpick then tossed, disappearing into the beast's bloody maw; it didn't even chew.
The large pupil was like a bright and clear purple moon radiating a sharp light and reflected in it was the singular image of the young girl's innocently sleeping side profile, her cheek smudged in dirt with wild strands of silky black hair scattered across it. For a moment, the glaringly harsh light seemed to somewhat became soft.
The next day, Chen MingYun was woken up by a loud scream.
Jolted from her sleep, she roused and found that the source of the scream was a delicate looking young girl about sixteen years old who was dressed in a beautifully embroidered flowing blue dress.
Standing in the doorway, the girl was holding a handkerchief, covering her mouth while staring at Chen MingYun as though she saw a ghost, her face deathly pale however, Chen MingYun paid her little mind as she held her throbbing head in her palm.
At present, her most pressing inquiry apart from where the hell was she, was how on earth did she get here!?
For the second time in sixteen days, Chen MingYun had woken up in a foreign place with absolutely no recollection of how she had gotten there.