There was a pride of Blazing Lions waiting up there for us, pouncing on us vengefully as if the one we had just slain was part of their family.
I harbored no sympathy for them. While I preferred not to slay them if I had a choice, the fact of the matter was that they attacked us first, unprovoked, which warranted self-defense. As much as I abhorred needless killing, I wasn't so softhearted to spare an enemy that tried its utmost best to kill me.
The first Blazing Lion slammed into Da Hai, who used his shell to deflect its claws. While Da Hai's bubbles had a noticeable effect on his opponent, the gap between their cultivation realm wasn't something type advantage could make up for, and he slowly gave ground. Fortunately for him, my azure arrows found their mark in the Blazing Lion's forehead, outright slaying it before it could pressure my War Turtle further.
Xiao Ke's hydro torrent was more effective, probably because Shell Loches had a higher special attack stat than War Turtles, but Blazing Lions were no pushovers. Moreover, Xiao Ke was also only Yellow Rank, so he couldn't outright kill a Mystic ranked opponent even with his type advantage. The Colossal Crabs, too, faced a similar problem, but their goal wasn't to defeat the enemy. Working in concert, they smashed the charging Blazing Lions aside with their huge pincers and pinned them in place so that Myria and I could finish them off.
"They are tough," Myria admitted as she hacked away at a restrained Blazing Lion that took two of my Colossal Crabs to hold back, their pincers breaking its limbs. She wiped the sweat from her face as she panted, the Blazing Lion finally falling still. "If it weren't for my water techniques having an elemental advantage against fire type spirit beasts, I wouldn't be able to defeat them at all."
"Same," I agreed, my azure arrows arcing over my Colossal Crabs, Dai Hai and Xiao Ke to pulverize the trapped Blazing Lions. It took a bit of pummeling, but I was eventually able to kill them. Any fire attacks they unleashed in my direction were absorbed by Xiao Huo, who used her three tails to suck the flames toward her and power herself up.
That was a convenient ability.
Fortunately, that was the only real threat we faced on our way up. The other spirit beasts that dwelled in the steep slopes of the volcano were aware of how relatively effortlessly we crushed an entire pride of Blazing Lions, and they wisely kept their distance. Inwardly, I thanked my lucky stars that they only witnessed the superficial battle and didn't realize how much of an advantage they had.
Truth be told, both Myria and I were exhausted after the encounter with the Blazing Lions, and any battle after that would only drain us further. The same went for my spirit beasts, which I dismissed so that they could get some much-needed rest.
Not one to question our fortune, I pressed on almost urgently, as if afraid the predators around us would eventually sense our weakness and exploit it. I was probably being paranoid, for none of them did so, and we finally reached the top without incident.
"So what are you looking for here?" Myria asked, coughing as she choked on the arid fumes. I paused right at the rim of the volcano and peered down at the boiling lava below.
"That."
"Huh?"
Without bothering to explain, I retrieved the Salamander Egg from my personal storage space in the system and threw it into the molten lava. It vanished with a tremendous splash, sending liquid rock spraying against the edge. Myria blinked and gaped at me in astonishment.
"Did you…just throw an egg into the volcano?"
"Yup."
"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!"
Because the system asked me to. Just as well, for the notification window popped up to inform me of the success of the mission.
-Quest completed. The user has incubated the Salamander Egg in the lava of a volcano in the Huo Yan Valley. The following rewards will be granted: five Mystic ranked spirit contracts. A newly hatched spirit beast. –
"Oh, nice." Good thing I didn't spend any spirit contracts on the Blazing Lions. I only had five of them, and I believed I could find something better than them.
On the other hand, Myria was not impressed. She was grabbing my collar and shaking me as she whined at what she perceived was my stupidity.
"If you wanted to cook an egg, you could have done it back in the city! Why bother coming all the way here?! And that was a waste of a spirit beast egg! If you wanted to destroy it, you can just use a hammer or something! Why throw it into a volcano!?"
"Watch," I replied patiently as I kept an eye on the notification window, which continued to hover in front of me instead of disappearing. The words, "A newly hatched spirit beast" in particular, caught my attention.
As I expected, the system didn't just offer false promises. A second later, there was an explosion deep inside the lava and a Shiny Salamander emerged, almost flying out of the volcano. It slowly came to a stop before floating in front of me, caged within a fiery ring of crimson qi.
-Shiny Salamander unlocked. This spirit beast automatically is contracted to the user. –
"W…what's going on?! Did…did that hatch from the egg you threw into the laval?!" Myria demanded, her eyes wide. I nodded distractedly.
"Yup."
A new window had popped up.
-Shiny Salamander. Rank: Ordinary. Elemental Affinity: Fire. Nature: Impetuous and Tenacious. Gender: male. Would you like to give it a name? –
Ordinary, huh? Well, I anticipated as much. Of course a newly hatched spirit beast would start off at ordinary rank. Like I said, everyone started off weak. No baby was born strong. If I wanted my Shiny Salamander to become a powerful spirit beast, I will have to nurture him correctly.
"Xiao Long."
Not a very original name, I know. But I couldn't think of anything else.
"Huh? What…?" Myria was puzzled for a moment, understandably so because she couldn't see the system's holographic windows popping up around me. But the Atlantean princess was pretty sharp, so she figured out quickly. "Are you naming that spirit beast? Is that how you tame them? Hatching them from eggs and having them imprint you?"
"No, Xiao Long is a special case. Most of the times they either volunteer to join me, or in the case of Long Wang and Hei Ba, I have to beat them up before they agree." I then grinned. "And yeah, you're right. I'm naming him Xiao Long. unless you have a better name."
"Hey, he's your spirit beast. You name him."
"Okay then." I reached out and Xiao Long dropped into my hands. He was certainly different from all the other Salamanders I had encountered thus far, radiating a more potent force of fiery qi. No wonder the system assigned me this mission to incubate his egg in molten lava. It had a much more tremendous effect than I thought it would.
Once I was sure he would be okay, I sent him to my dungeon, with a few instructions for Long Wang take care of him. I was sure my steward knew what to do, especially since he was a dragon. In fact, Long Wang might be a better nurturer than me when it came to Xiao Long.
But I could discuss that with him in the future. For now, I turned away from the bubbling lava and smoke to face the rest of the Huo Yan Valley.
"That's the most important issue taken care of. Now we should continue with the mission that Gan Jiang and Mo Ye requested."
"Huh? Throwing your egg into the lava and hatching it was the most important issue?" Myria scoffed.
"I was half joking," I admitted. Half, because the whole reason why I came this far was to incubate my Salamander Egg and forge my weapons. I never imagined that the blacksmiths in Huo Yan Valley City would request me to investigate the recent spates of spirit beast swarms. "In a broader sense, it's more important to find out what's causing the spirit beast waves and track down the culprit behind them. But in a more personal sense, this was one of my personal objectives, the other being to get weapons."
"You don't have to defend yourself. I'm just teasing you."
"Right." I heaved a sigh of relief when Myria giggled. She rested her head against my shoulder and stared over the rest of the valley. "So where to next? I believe that volcano over there is the closest to our current position."
"Yeah, it's as good a start as any…" I began, and then stopped. Adjusting my glasses, I squinted through the volcanic ashes and magnified an image on a volcano further down. "Do you see that?"
"See what?" Myria stared at me blankly. Even though I pointed at that particular volcano, she frowned and shook her head. "That volcano is too far away. I can't see anything."
Oh, right. She didn't have the same enchanted glasses that I was wearing.
"It looks like there's a ritual being conducted there. I'm picking up qi emanations and spirit arrays." Thanks to my glasses, I could see crimson runes that were arranged in a circle, drifting over that volcano. I wasn't sure what that specific spirit array did because I wasn't an array master, but it couldn't be anything good.
"Spirit arrays? You mean…?"
"Yeah, I suspect so." I nodded thoughtfully. Spirit arrays were artificial, meaning someone laid them down at the volcano. And if someone set up an array there, that meant they were using the volcano for something. As a base? Was the person who set up the array the instigator of the spirit beast waves? I had heard that demons could set up spirit arrays and use similar cultivation techniques to us humans, except that their cultivation was based more gaining large bursts of power in the short term through sacrifices of other people, leading to side effects such as demonic distortions of their bodies and other hideous mutations.
Not to mention the gradual loss of sanity and an increasing thirst for blood. That was why the orthodox sects were hardliners against demonic cultivation, because of the horrific atrocities they inflicted upon the population in their desire for power.
"We should hurry," I said, feeling a sense of urgency. Whatever that demonic spirit array was, it was causing my spine to crawl with chilling premonition. I didn't know if the culprit behind it was truly the mastermind behind everything that had befallen Huo Yan Valley City so far, but there was only one way to find out. "If that really is set up by who I think it is, then we might be in deeper trouble than I ever imagined."