996 The Bird

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Alex stood up and looked around at the fiery crater that burned with flames that were of red, yellow, pink, and purple colors.

"Weird," he thought as he looked around at the crater. "Did I make this crater?"

The crater was nearly 50 meters wide in all directions with no sign of any trees anywhere. "How did I possibly make this crater? Did I fall here with a great force?" he thought.

He didn't think himself strong enough to make such a massive crater, but then he remembered that Pearl's mother had also fallen into the forest and created a crater, so he stopped thinking much about it and started thinking of leaving.

He started walking out while checking himself. He was completely naked at the moment. Everything he wore had either ripped off in that strong wind or completely burned away after he had come here.

His Qi had dropped to almost nothing, but fortunately, his body had healed. He didn't have Pearl with him anymore, but he was kept away from despairing by knowing that he was alive for now.

He would have to find him quickly, however as he could be in danger. He put on the empty ring in his hand and placed Midnight in it.

"I even lost Memory already. Not to mention my master's… sigh." He couldn't help but feel dejected when thinking about the fact that he had lost everything.

The swords, the seeds, the books, the cauldrons, and everything else. The only thing he had on him now was the ring, Midnight, and Whisker who was still healing.

"Wait, did I lose the book too?" he thought and quickly pulled out the Blood God's Manual. Fortunately, that book was still there.

"Of course," Alex thought and shook his head. He tried calling for Godslayer, but Godslayer was unconscious after giving everything he had in that one attack.

"So, I managed to keep just 4 things with me," Alex thought as a great amount of frustration built up in him. "Goddammit! Why do I have to keep running away in every fight."

He was angry that not just once, but twice he had come across people that forced him to run away to a place he didn't know about.

"Shit!" he grunted before stopping. "I can't keep doing this. I can't keep running away. The only reason I am forced to run away is that I'm weak, aren't I? Screw it then, I will cultivate to whatever height I can reach as quickly as possible."

Just then, something fell on him. "Hmm?" Alex looked down and saw a fist-sized rock that had just dropped on his head.

"What the hell?" he thought as he looked above him to see a parrot-like bird with red and yellow feathers that ended in blue. The bird was about the size of a parrot as well and currently very happy because it managed to hit Alex.

"What the hell? It's that bird," he remembered. That was the bird that was poking him before he woke up.

"Don't drop stones on me, or I will kill you," Alex shouted as his anger was still burning inside of him.

The bird only laughed when it heard that. It quickly flew away, and Alex looked at it to see where it was going. When he saw it pick up another stone, Alex started scolding again.

"I'm telling you, you better not drop that— hey!" he shouted as the bird flew to the sky and tossed the stones towards him.

Alex caught the stone before it hit him and tossed it back at the bird. The bird dodged it, but it was angry now.

The bird flapped its wings furiously and flew down towards Alex. "What? You want to come at me?" he asked. "Come then!"

The bird flew at him with incredible speed and Alex got ready for it. He wanted to catch the bird and punish it a little for trying to toy with him.

Just the bird got close, he tried to grab it. But suddenly, the bird turned into white light and disappeared.

Alex stumbled backward in shock. "Wha-what?"

He quickly stood his ground and looked around. He even sent out his spiritual sense to try and search for the bird, but it was nowhere.

"Did it teleport?" he thought. But he hadn't felt any teleportation aura. Instead, it looked more similar to something else.

He quickly looked at his body. His arms, his legs, and even his back. There was a cat's paw mark on his left arm and a mouse's paw print on his shoulder plate.

And now, there was a bird's feather on the side of his right thigh.

"What the hell?" he thought as he realized that he had unconsciously bonded with another beast. "Another one?"

"Hey, come out!" he shouted at the bird, but nothing happened. "What? Come out." Alex even poured in what little Qi he had but the bird wouldn't come out at all.

"Why aren't you coming out? Did I bond with you or not? Come out I said or I am going to cancel our bond right now," he threatened the bird.

The bird screeched as it flew out and landed on the sand in front of Alex.

"So, you are finally out. It's not like you don't understand my words then," Alex said. "Did you bond with me while I was bloody and battered?"

The bird turned its head around before nodding.

"Why?" Alex asked.

The bird pointed towards the edge of the crater. "What's there?" he asked. "Or is he pointing at the distance?"

The bird suddenly screeched.

"What now?" he asked.

The bird screeched even more angrily and Alex thought he understood the bird this time around.

"Oh… you're a female bird, huh?" Ning thought. "Anyway, what type of bird are you?"

The parrot-like bird tried to say something, but Alex couldn't understand this thing. He shook his head to show that he couldn't understand what the bird was trying to say.

The bird looked around, her intelligent eyes searching for something. When she did, she flew away.

Alex watched as the bird flew over to some of the debris that was still in flames and jumped onto it.

"Wait, no. You'll get hu— huh?" he felt confused as the bird softly snuggled into the flames. "How are you not hurt?"

Alex slowly walked towards the bird and tried to place his hands in the fire to see if it was actually not that hot.

The moment his hands touched the flames, it instantly started burning and Alex felt pain shoot up through his arm.

"Aaaah!" he cried out loud and the bird tried to help him, but before she could, Alex used his True Fire dao to suppress the flames and make them disappear.

His right arm was still left charred, but it slowly healed using the remainder of his Qi, which wasn't a lot.

The bird looked at him with curious eyes. Alex looked back at the bird that wasn't hurt by the flames that burned him.

"Do you have a high cultivation base?" he wondered and checked the bird, but to his surprise, the bird had absolutely no cultivation base.

"Then how are you—" his words paused mid-sentence as he saw the color of the flames and the color of the bird, and words floated into his head about a bird that created flames.

His eyes went wide as he looked around him. The crater had no trees or anything, just sand.

"No way," he thought as he quickly ran through the crater and climbed up it to arrive at the highest point.

Then, he saw it.

Sand.

That was all he could see for the most part. He was in the desert and the sand was everywhere.

Then he felt the Qi around him. There was none.

"No way," he said to himself as he found it unbelievable. "Did I really just come to the Southern Continent?"

He turned around and looked at the bird that was coming out of the flames. "And did I seriously bond with a descendant of the Vermilion Bird right after coming here?" he thought.

The bird flew next to him, but Alex found it hard to concentrate on him. The sun was steadily setting, so he knew which direction was what.

So, he looked north, but there was just desert there too. Then, he flew up higher and higher until he was at a height where he could reach the clouds.

Then he finally saw what he was looking for. The ocean. Or more accurately, the land beyond the ocean.

The Central Continent.

"If I came from the Lightning Peninsula, and I was on my way here, which was cut short due to how many items I was taking, I must have ended up on the Central continent before this."

"I see," he thought. "No wonder there was such a strong wind. That wasn't wind at all, was it? But the violent Qi that circles the Central Continent. Shen Jing did tell me it was strong, but to think it would destroy a Saint realm body cultivator's body so easily."

"Or maybe it was because we had Saint realm body cultivation that we survived in the first place. A normal saint realm cultivator would've been torn to shred for sure," he thought.

"If I hadn't been greedy and tried to bring it all back, maybe Pearl would've— No, I can't think about the past right now. I need to think about my present," he thought.

"If I'm in the Southern Continent, then… " His eyes went wide. "I can find my father here."