As the trigger was pulled back past the wall, the hammer finally fell toward the indent in the back of the receiver where the firing pin was waiting to be struck.
Doing just that, the hammer strikes and starts to bounce back when everything pauses, almost like the world is taking a breath before a cracking explosion sounds and the rifle rolls back into my shoulder. Then, from the end of the barrel, a cone-shaped piece of metal flies out with a rolling wave of fire chasing it.
The moment the bullet exited the barrel, a compressed wave of air spread out in a deafening sound wave that left my ears ringing.
The piece of metal that created this sound wave sprinted across the distance between me and the tiger faster than the eye could see and pierced the beast's right eye, leaving a small hole behind.
This was only a temporary deception, though, as on the other side of the tiger's head, I could see a spray of blood and gray matter spread out, covering a few feet in distance.
The beast was no longer alive at this point and collapsed to the ground immediately after.
This series of actions happened so quickly that the man and woman standing there barely had time to jump out of their skins, from hearing the first-ever gunshot in this world to being startled by its aftermath. The woman spun to face me before looking back behind her to see that the tiger was now lying on its side, with the rocks beneath it being slowly soaked in blood with its right eye having turned into a bloody hole.
I was surprised at how much damage that shot did over what I was anticipating based on the knowledge I gathered from fighting the twin-tailed cougar.
I then stared down at the weapon in my hands as if it could give me an answer, and it soon did as a window popped up in my vision.
[Weapon: Lever Action Rifle (Blessed)]
{Weapon type: Firearm}
{Make: Winchester Model 94 (Circa:1898)}
{Ammo Type: 30-30 (30 WCF)}
{Modifiers: Blessed}
{Blessing: The bullet fired from this rifle will fly faster and do more damage the higher the target's cultivation realm.}
Finally, seeing just how overpowered this rifle was, I made sure to follow proper safety procedures and point the barrel at the ground with my finger off the trigger.
With that sorted, I walk over to the tiger.
The woman sees me move in her direction and raises her sword, pointing it toward me, shouting, "Stay where you are!"
It was commendable that the woman could stand her ground and try to make herself look more imposing after what just happened, but I do not think she realized that I could see her sword shaking in her hands.
Since that was the case, I did not take her threat seriously and just kept walking forward.
I watched as her sword and hands started shaking more and more the closer I got to her.
When I was about to reach her, she seemed to start preparing to do something.
It was then that I walked right past her, stunning the girl and causing her to stop what she was doing before turning to watch me as I placed the tiger into my inventory.
Seeing me do that made her angry for some reason, and she started to shout at me, "Hey, that was ours. We were the ones who fought it, not you!"
That made me quirk an eyebrow at them and look at her as if she were a fool while saying, "If I remember right, you were losing and would have gotten killed if I hadn't shot it just now. So I am taking it with me. Now, are you going to carry your companion here, or am I?"
As soon as I started speaking, I watched as her expression changed from anger to shame before reverting back to anger as I mentioned her partner, "He's not my companion!"
Quirking my eyebrow once more at this, I explained and asked sarcastically, "He came here with you for whatever reason, whether that be from orders or something else, so how is he not your companion?"
After I finished talking, she sat there and sputtered for a few seconds before slamming her sword back into its sheath and nearly shouting, "Fine, you carry him, but where are we going?"
Now that she finally asked a sensible question, I shrugged and said, "To my house."
My words had obviously confused the girl, but she followed me nonetheless as I put away my rifle and picked up her friend in a princess carry.
This resulted in a burst of laughter that the woman could not contain as I started walking along the familiar path to my house.
A few seconds later, she asked, "Why are you carrying him like that?"
Again, I was left wondering how this girl had lived that long against the tiger as I said, "Because I don't want him coming in contact with my tail in any way, shape, or form."
This seemed to startle the girl again as she stopped in her tracks and looked at me more thoroughly this time. I could see her eyes widen as she noticed my tail and ears before blurting out, "You're a Kitsune!"
I slowly nodded once more before saying sarcastically, "Yes. Now, let me ask an even more obvious question. How did it take you this long to notice?"
The unknown man in my arms chose this point to finally speak, saying, "That's what I would like to know too, Lou Xia."
Hearing this, I could not help but say, "Oh, he speaks. He's not mute."
The woman burst out laughing at my comment, and the man just scowled, but this did not have the effect he was looking for, as the princess carry completely negated it.
Soon, though, the question was answered as the woman I now know as Lou Xia spoke up, saying, "Well, I was too focused on the fight and what she was holding to worry about what race she was."
The unknown man in my arms tried to look over at her, which was not that easy from the position he was currently in, and said, "You need to fix that Lou Xia, or it will get you killed one of these days."
Lou Xia did not take that comment lightly and replied to him with some of her anger from earlier making itself present, "I know that Zhuan Jiahao. Now, can you kindly shut up!"
Hearing this, I could not help but chuckle a little bit, although it came out more as a giggle than a chuckle. This was tickling something in my memory, though, but no matter how much I tried to find out what that memory was, it was always just out of reach, as if something was blocking me from remembering it.
Regardless of that, I walked back home, being trailed by my two quests that were now locked in an argument that seemed to be sparked by my little giggle.
After about an hour, the sky started to grow dark, and the light level in the forest started to drop.
While I was fine and completely unaffected by the change in light level, thanks to my racial traits, my new traveling companions seemed to have some difficulty. This was only proven true a moment later as the woman summoned a ball of fire and held it in front of us, causing my eyes to adjust and, subsequently, lose some of my night vision.
Stopping and trying not to stare at the ball of fire, I raised my voice slightly and asked, "Can you please hold the fire behind me and not in front?"
Lou Xia was walking behind me, so I was unable to see her reaction to this, but she must have been confused as she soon asked, "Why? Don't you need to see?""
I could feel my eyes roll at this, even as I explained, "Because I have natural lowlight vision, and the only way I would not be able to see at night is if it was the night of the new moon, but with the fire in front of me, my eyes have readjusted, and I can't see that well in the dark anymore."
The moment I finished speaking, the fire retreated behind me as I heard her say, "Oh, then I'll pull the fire back. But which moon has to be in the new moon stage?"
This caught me off guard as I did not know there were multiple moons. It would have been a simple thing to know as well because all I would have to do is look up at night. I did not want to give away the fact that I did not know there were multiple moons, so I tried to act calmly and answered, "Huh? Oh, then I guess all of them."
That did not come out like I wanted to at all. Thankfully, it did not seem like Lou Xia noticed and quickly commented, "So what are you saying is that the only time you will be blind at night is once every ten years? That's so awesome!"
She then asked me right after, "By the way, how much farther to your house?"
This question was, thankfully, a simple one and not a question based on something that I did not know but should have already discovered. So I easily answered, "Not much farther now. We're almost there."
Around ten minutes after saying that, we came to the edge of the clearing, where I could hear the faint chugging of the steam engine and generator.
(Lou Xia's POV)
We entered the Forgotten Forest about two days ago under the Elders' command.
Not long after entering, we breached the first layer and headed for the border to the second.
Once there, we skirted along the outside for a while, encountering some beasts from the foundation realm and dispatching them quickly. This was all according to our information, as nothing stronger than that should be at the border between the first and second layers unless something major happens.
When we reached the point where we no longer needed to skirt the edge of the second layer, Zhuan Jiahao suggested that we continue until the tracking talisman was pointing straight out. This was so that way, if for some reason, these guys were trying to hide, we could get the jump on them.
This was not a bad plan, so even though I normally would not have wanted to do so, I went along with his plan until we reached the location of what looked to be a collapsed cliff face.
Here, we encountered a white tiger with a trace of divine bloodline and something that should not have been here. This white tiger had also obtained a higher cultivation realm than either my friend or me.
So when it attacked us upon entering this area, it led to Zhuan Jiahao almost dying and me being locked into a stalemate with the white tiger.
Knowing that I would not be able to hold on for very long, I started to look for a way out when I heard the loud, defending roar of thunder come from behind me and a flask of red out of the corner of my eye.
Turning around against my better judgment, I saw a young woman with blood-red hair wearing pants and a blouse, pointing a stick made of wood and metal with a hole on the end pointing in my direction.
The next thing I heard was something hitting the ground behind me, reminding me that I turned my back on my opponent.
Spinning back around, I came face to face with a now-dead white tiger. I then heard something behind me once again. So I turned to look at the woman and saw that she was pointing that stick at the ground while approaching me.
This set off alarm bells in my head as I raised my sword, telling her to back off.
To my dismay, this did not work, so I started preparing to unleash my most powerful technique even though I knew in the back of my mind that she only needed to point her stick at me, and I would die.
Then, right as I was about to finish, she walked past me and put the white tiger into her spatial device.
This was a major breach of a cultivator's etiquette and left me so angry that I shouted at her only to get scolded, and rightly so before she offered to take us to her house. When she mentioned her tail, however, I had to take a look at her again only to see she was a bloody kitsune.
They had almost gone extinct in this part of the continent, and now I was here with one taking me to her house. The more interesting part is that you can supposedly feel the laws imbued into their tails, so either that was a myth or, more likely, she was a kitsune that had not even started cultivating yet.
However, that did not make much sense, as she had just taken down a magic beast in a single hit. So it must be something like with normal cultivation where she was so high level that we could not feel it. But that also did not make much sense as the stronger the kitsune, the more tails they had, so nothing about this made any sense to me.
While contemplating this and arguing with Zhuan Jiahao, it started to get dark out. This led to me learning that kitsunes have natural night vision after trying to help light the path.
Eventually, we left the forest to enter a meadow, and that was where I froze, as what greeted me was beyond my imagination.