When Mo Yangling searched his mind about Demonic Beasts, he couldn't really find all that much. Nothing aside from the obvious anyway.
Aside from the fact that they also worked on ranks, much like the cultivators did, he didn't really know anything of substance.
Hell, he didn't even know the ranks themselves, likely out of the disdain of the former Mo Yangling when it came to learning about the cultivation world.
Demonic Beasts were said to be born out of the world, not through natural phenomena. But as a parasite that seeped from a different world and that had festered and evolved through time, spearing their nests so wide that they covered most of the known world.
Humanity had been somewhat pushed within the Vermilion Continent, boxed in from all sides by powerful beasts and monstrosities that very few could stand up against.
The only reason that those powerful beasts were not rushing in was because of Immortals. The strong could emit a certain aura that made the beasts instinctually back off.
Demonic Beasts were widely believed to be mindless beasts with only one goal in mind... Slaughtering humans.
That was about the extent of Mo Yangling's knowledge.
It was mostly derived from some books and stories that his father, Mo Weisheng.
But all of that information, at least from what the Monk could gather, was common sense to the residents of the Vermilion Continent.
But that common sense was about to be turned right on its head.
As Mo Yangling was making his way back to camp, the hairs on his neck tingled for a moment and he turned around.
Standing straight and staring at him was nothing other than a gigantic snake. One so thick and long that he could coil around and crush ten of the largest trees around at the same time.
Its scales were as white as the moon in the sky, its eyes were a crimson red. Its very features were emanating a certain kind of grace and intelligence that was hard to describe.
The Monk was not one to lie, he did feel quite afraid when staring at that building-sized snake demon.
He was not quite used to that world yet. But he faced fear as he knew best... With composed confidence, and hope, without showcasing any fear.
It was something he had learned to do in his past world. Humans were also beasts that could smell weakness at the end of the day.
But the snake was unlike any 'beast' that the Monk had faced before. Its forked tongue slithering out of its mouth with curiosity as it stared down at him.
That curiosity, coupled with the general lack of hostility, made the Monk's nerves calm down a bit.
'This thing would've already tried gobbling me up if it wanted to...'
Of course, he was still very much on guard. Prey animals were known to play with their food quite a bit.
"Xara'khul vash'tar!"
Mo Yangling's long hair was blown backwards, flowing in the wind, as the beast's voice surged forward in a strange, guttural dialect.
The voice that slithered out of the Snake's mouth took the Monk by surprise. But it was calming and soothing to the ear, it didn't at all feel intimidating.
What the Monk found the most confusing was that he could... Understand it?
Well, he didn't understand a single word, but he could at the very least understand what the beast was attempting to communicate.
Although its tone could appear barbaric and violent to a regular human, the Monk understood the beast's words to be a greeting.
"It is an honour to meet a grand resident of this beautiful forest!" The Monk bowed slightly, bringing his palms together in respect as he recited a short prayer in greeting.
The Beast seemed to be taken aback when hearing Mo Yangling speak. Its pupils widened for a moment, before thinning into dangerous slits.
"Shame, I had thought that you were not tainted by the trash outside these forests..." The Snake responded in human tongue now, its tone just as powerful and guttural.
But this time, its voice held a hint of malice. It had lost any semblance of friendliness that it may have had formerly.
The Monk's senses flared up a bit as he immediately jumped backwards a bit. The sheer hostility radiating off of the beast was enough to make his hair stand on end.
"I am still a young soul traversing this world peacefully Venerable Beast. I have not sinned against either you or this forest."
Despite his fear and unease, the Monk was still composed enough to speak out loud. His nerves of steel were tempered in the blood he had shed during both of his lives.
But nerves alone were never enough to win battles.
"And here I thought you were the descendant of the old humans... What a waste."
The grand white snake refused to even give the Monk the time of day, its gigantic tail swiping at him like a thunderbolt.
The Monk had already been expecting something, he was prepared to put his guard up.
But the tail had moved so fast that it may as well have been a house-sized whip. He didn't even get the chance to put up a guard as the tail struck him and sent him flying through the forest behind him.
The Monk flipped in the air a few times, his bare back breaking through a few trees as he felt every bone in his body crack and splinter.
Mo Yangling eventually managed to dig his spear into the ground, breaking off some momentum before it also broke and his back hit one last large tree, shaking off every single leaf on it and blowing it away.
"Cough*Cough-" The Monk didn't even have any bones intact to get up.
In the first place, he had only survived that one hit because the Origin Energy within him had flared up instinctively, forming a sort of shell around him and imbuing his muscles with energy.
Had that shell, or his muscles, been any weaker, then he would have died regardless.
But without the energy latent within his soul, he would have been pulverized on impact.
Still, without him being able to channel that vast energy properly, there was no way he could ever block the attack of a being so far above him.
'Shit... Maybe surviving in this world is going to be more difficult than I thought...'
The young man closed his eyes for a moment, slowing down his breath and trying to make himself as small as possible.
He hoped that the beast would not follow him, that it would just lose interest and believe him dead.
After all, there was not much meat on his bones for him to be a substantial meal for a beast so large.
Thankfully for him, the beast didn't appear to follow the trail of broken trees he had left in his wake. Or at the very least the Monk could not hear nor smell the beast getting any closer.
Still, Mo Yangling didn't allow himself to lose consciousness, biting his lips as more blood filled his mouth.
He contained that blood in his mouth for a few minutes, doing his best to remain as unmoving as possible before he eventually opened his eyes slightly.
After confirming that the snake was not in front of or around him, he immediately vomited again, this time with a lot more blood than before.
He spat out mouthfuls after mouthfuls, only to eventually take in a deep breath and shakily stand up.
'My bones are healing it seems... But I doubt I'll be training anytime this week...
Maybe it's time to get more accustomed to manipulating origin energy...'
He could barely stand up, but at the very least the beast had done him a service by blowing him away a bit closer to his home.
The river was only half a kilometre away going by the mark that the Monk had specifically placed on trees nearby.
The last thing he wanted was to get lost in that forest. Especially now that he knew how unsafe going further away from that river was.
He slowly dragged himself back, waiting for more and more of his muscles and bones to regenerate before he finally stood up and continued walking at a snail's pace.
He only stopped moving to recuperate properly when his back reached the comfort of the leaf bed he had made for himself.
But even then, he fell asleep very slowly. The confines of the little camp he had made no longer felt safe... Not one bit.
Even now, his instincts were blaring at him, telling him that he was being watched. But his tired mind only chucked it up to paranoia after a physically traumatic incident.
'Even if something's watching me at this point... It ain't like I have the energy to protect myself...'
He eventually managed to coax himself to sleep, dozing off and allowing fate to take its course.
Unbeknownst to him, his paranoid instincts were quite right.
In the far distance, a gigantic white snake peeked its head up from the top of the trees, staring directly at the small river, as well as the small hut that the Monk had built.
'That's... Odd?'
Confusion gripped the Demonic Beast's soul as it watched the man it was certain of killing peacefully go to sleep.
'Even the Elders of those 'so-called' great sects would have died or been immobilized from that strike... How did a dirty human like him end up out here?
Someone so young shouldn't be that resilient...'
There were too many questions on the Beast's mind. Its tongue slithered out of its mouth, as it eyed the sleeping Monk like he was a threat.
'I'll have to snuff him out before he grows any stronger.' The snake hissed before instinctively inching a bit closer to that river... But it immediately stopped itself upon sensing it...
'The stench of the King...' The Snake's eyes narrowed into slits once more as it quickly pulled back, not wanting to venture into the territory of another beast.
The White Snake's red eyes shined for a moment, as it seemed to remember something.
'Now that I think about it, on him was the smell of the king as well..'
The Grand White Snake shook its tongue in annoyance.
The fact that Mo Yangling was able to just waltz into that territory was also now making sense to the Demonic Beast.
'That scummy human is most likely just some food the King saved for later. I doubt I'll see him again.'
And so, completely losing all interest, the gigantic snake decided to depart before it accidentally awakened the 'King' from its slumber.