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  It was not the first time Xiao Feng had experienced a past memory in the Realm of Yul, so it didn’t come as a complete surprise to find himself in completely unfamiliar surroundings.

  Yet, it had still been an intriguing turn of events. For what was it that a newly hatched beast wished to show him? What could it even show him? Unless there was something he was gravely mistaken about, it had only been a few minutes since the Beast Egg had hatched as a baby kit and not nearly enough time had passed for it to have anything to show him.

  Still, that didn’t change the fact that Xiao Feng was presently being subject to a vision, regardless of how low the likelihood of such an event may have been.

  He thought about the world revealed to him in the realm of yul, the blackened, cracked land under a gray, cloudless sky, its far reaches obfuscated by a glittering silver fog that felt alien in contrast to the rest of the landscape, yet Xiao Feng had been too stunned to pay much attention to it earlier, too stunned by the development. The terrifying qi density he had felt in that land would have made it hard for Xiao Feng to even stand in, but for core formation stage cultivators and higher, it was a veritable treasure they would have fought to the death over— had the Qi not felt so different, touched by another dao that far eclipsed Xiao Feng’s understanding. But that wasn’t what bothered him, no matter how surprising of a realization it might’ve been.

  Xiao Feng had accessed his predecessor’s memory bank many times to get a lay of the land, to know more about the world outside the frontier sect even if his predecessor hadn’t gotten to see much of it first hand. And the scenery the kit had revealed before the realm of yul matched none of it, at least not within the territory of the Azure Lotus Sect. Even if the Beast Egg had come from the territory of demons, from beyond the border, no legends had spoken of a cultivation paradise upon a blackened land, where the light of the sun could not penetrate the sky’s curtain.

  So where in the world did the beast egg come from?

  Xiao Feng felt like his question was on the verge of being answered, as the world burst into motion.

  For the second time, Xiao Feng found himself in a body that was alien to him. In the place of hands, he had tiny paws and in place of his legs he found limber hindlimbs and miraculously enough, he seemed to be floating in mid-air.

  It took Xiao Feng a few seconds to realize that he was suspended in what appeared to be translucent amniotic fluid, the cool yet not cold viscous liquid having enveloped his entire body, yet not making him feel uncomfortable in the slightest. For it was natural, the amniotic fluid being a part of him as any organ in his body was, which meant that when he craned his almost fully developed frame upwards, the amniotic fluid shifted around him and cushioned around the new posture he had chosen.

  When Xiao Feng had first encountered the beast egg, it looked like a blackened stone with distinctive whorls running across its surface, completely opaque from every angle. But from the inside, before the baby kit’s gaze, its surface might as well have been entirely transparent.

  So Xiao Feng saw the face of the man that was currently fleeing with the beast egg wrapped around his left arm.

  Stunningly handsome was one way to describe the man that appeared to be in his late-thirties, his long silver hair wrapped into a bun and held in place with the aid of a jade hairpin. His features were sharp and angular, his eyes the glimmering azure of a tranquil lake and the claw scar running up his chin only added to his mature charm. Appearing to be late-thirties by the mortal standard meant that the man could very well have lived for six or seven decades and possibly much longer depending on what his cultivation stage was, which only added to Xiao Feng’s intrigue.

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  The man’s forehead was beaded with sweat, his eyes reflecting the panic that had lit a fire in his soul as he ran across the blackened, uneven landscape at a speed that was so intense that to Xiao Feng, who was moving with him, he appeared to be moving rather slowly, more gliding across the landscape than running.

  A chorus of furious howls echoed out behind him, causing Xiao Feng’s gaze to turn behind him. If Xiao Feng was actually in control of his body, his jaw would have dropped open at the terrifying sight that was unfolding before him.

  The cultivator was being chased by a skulk of two-tailed foxes, fully grown ones instead of the baby kit Xiao Feng had hatched. Each one was as tall as the fleeing cultivator himself, their fangs bared and each one easily the length of a dagger, their two tails constantly swishing in an undulating motion, which was more likely to represent their agitation instead of excitement. Their fur was as dark as the infinite black that lay between stars, besides their chest and underbellies, which were hued as serenely white as winter’s first snowfall. Their claws were fully protruding and their metallic sheen made them look more like razor-sharp knives as they scythed across the barren landscape, the largest among them, that was a good three foot taller than even the fleeing cultivator, taking the lead as he chased after him.

  Most notably of all, the mark on the two-tailed foxes’ forehead, an inverted triangle contained by a circle, were glowing in a bright silver hue.

  “You can see me, can you not?” The cultivator asked the question in a slightly stilted but fluent enough beast tongue. “If the blood of your ancestors flows through you, little Xuhu, then you should be able to comprehend this tongue.”

  The kit turned its gaze back towards the cultivator, realizing that it had been spoken to and that the ancestral name of its kind had been invoked. Xuhu or fox of the void, was a term that it took an instinctive liking to.

  “I am sorry about this,” The cultivator offered an apology, his tone sounding genuine while his expression remained one of distress. “The inheritance records did not mention that your kind could see through illusions. Now I have condemned us both to death by your pack.”

  The unborn kit that was only a few days from hatching did not understand what inheritance records meant, but it felt aggrieved at the implication that it could ever be condemned to death by its own pack.

  “I do not lie,” The cultivator replied as if it had expected the kit’s reaction. “By stealing your egg, I have tainted it. Their killing intent is so thick it is nigh tangible, I am no more a kidnapper than you are a hostage.”

  The unborn kit could not speak, yet it wanted to protest… until a flash of resonance was struck with his ancestral memories and the young kit understood. There was no telling what a two-legged man of power, or a cultivator in the human tongue, would do to an egg, for their abilities were perversions of nature, taken from the heavenly dao without askance instead of being naturally granted them.

  Such offspring could not be trusted and the ancestral memories were wise to issue this warning.

  All that said, the kit who had yet to be born, did not wish to die.

  “I do not think you will ever get the opportunity to learn the ways of your pack,” The cultivator lamented, even though he was the cause of all of the baby kit’s misfortunes. “So let me show your path.”

  The cultivator who had been running at a speed that Xiao Feng could barely comprehend, abruptly halted, pivoted on his right foot, unsheathed his sword and slashed out with his blade, so quickly that Xiao Feng’s gaze didn’t even register the crescent wind blade that had been unleashed.

  The power contained within that single slash was so tremendous that it sent a chill down his spine, but the skulk of Void foxes didn’t stop in their charge.

  Instead, the mightiest in form among them bellowed out a breath of glittering silver dust that, to Xiao Feng’s utmost confusion, began to infect the crescent wind blade’s construct instead of pushing back against it.

  In the blink of an eye, the crescent wind blade was littered with sparkling silver and then, it imploded.

  Where there was a wind blade that would have certainly scythed through the charging Void foxes, now drifted embers of flame from the site of a silent explosion, harmlessly blown away by their charge.

  “That was my understanding of the sharp wind,” The cultivator explained bitterly, as he resumed his charge at an even more breakneck speed. “But before your pack, it is but a little flame. That is your inheritance, little Xuhu. Phantom Dao— the Dao of Inversion.”

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