chapter 52 Tiger

Step by step, the Tiger approached Wang Yan with a smirk plastered on its face. It had been thinking about the reward it was going to ask from Zero once it reported the success of the mission to Zero. As for Ge Kai, he was only an insect-like existence who would have been forgotten after he crossed the threshold of usefulness.

The girl in front of it had not moved an inch after she had seen him. Whether she was not afraid of it at all and this was a trap of some kind or she was so afraid of it that she had forgotten how to move, was yet to be determined.

Just as the Tiger was passing by the table placed in the center of the room, something strange happened that caused even the Tiger to be dumbfounded in shock. There had been no precedent for such an incident ever.

The painting that had been placed on the table casually started to glow with a bright light as if there was nothing more holy than the painting in the whole world. If it had only glowed, the Tiger might not have been so shocked, but the painting had even started to emit its own qi and had an aura of its own.

The painting was of that of a bamboo forest that looked aloof, serene and beautiful. The aura of the painting on the other hand was anything but gentle and calm.

It turned out that the glow was only the beginning.

As soon as the glow vanished, the bamboo in the painting started to manifest itself through the abundant qi being released by the painting.

The Tiger had only heard legends about such a scenario but had never seen one in reality. A creation is imbued with so much qi that it starts to manifest itself as a reality; an art at its pinnacle could be a weapon.

Legends said that the only way for something like that to occur was through the artist imbuing his or her life onto the creation since no living being could have that much amount of qi otherwise. A life for a life was the Dao of nature.

The Tiger found itself speechless thinking that a priceless treasure that could have only existed in the legends was being treated so callously.

Just when everyone fighting outside thought that Wang Yan was about to die, they heard a roar full of agony and unwillingness before everything returned to calmness inside the hut.

The bamboo that had manifested itself from the painting had thrust right through the Tiger who had been busy admiring the painting. Only after the bamboo had penetrated its innards did it realize the situation that it was in.

Truly birds died for food while men died for treasures. The Tiger roared unwillingly because the bamboo had penetrated its vitals leaving it with no chance of survival.

The Tiger lay dead on the ground in a matter of seconds while the bamboo retreated into the painting.

Wang Yan had witnessed the whole incident with her own eyes. She was tongue tied to see that the paintings that Zhang Jian worked so hard upon in his routine were actually such treasures. Even one of his paintings was enough to handle an expert at the level of the Tiger.

She knew that the painting that was lying on the table was actually the painting that Zhang Jian had worked several days to finish previously.

At that moment, she also came to understand why Lin Xi had asked for a painting when she had come to their hut. Wang Yan at that time had thought that Lin Xi was only trying to brown nose Zhang Jian by asking him for a painting in return for the Bluebird.

It turned out that the painting had actually been so precious and Lin Xi had been the first to know about it even though she lived in the same house as Zhang Jian.

While Wang Yan was busy eating vinegar, the battle outside had come to a halt. Ge Kai had realized that the Tiger had somehow been killed. Its overwhelming qi and indomitable aura had disappeared soon after the roar had been heard.

Ge Kai even tried to communicate with the Tiger only to be met with absolute silence. He knew that they were fighting a losing battle and to continue doing that was a loss of resources. So Ge Kai ordered all his subordinates to retreat with a heavy heart.

Of course in his heart he was cursing the elder with everything nasty that he could think of.

"What Elder…what power…couldn't even handle a fledgling girl and you call yourself a Divine Soldier Stage expert. It's good that you died…at least, now I can report that the enemy was powerful beyond measure…I can even ask for more reinforcements from Zero. Elder Tiger, you can rejoice since you have done something good for me by dying."

Similarly, at that time the representative of the Immortal World who had been about to take action felt the qi of the invader disappear suddenly. He knew that either the source of the qi had died or it had returned to the Twilight Zone. Since the former was very less likely to happen, he made sure to file a report to his superiors in the Immortal World as the appearance of that aura might just have been a scouting or probing attempt.

After the enemies had retreated and the battlefield had been cleaned up in its entirety, the participants of the battle sat down outside the hut to recuperate while Wang Yan tended to their wounds.

She had felt guilty that all of them had gotten injured while trying to save her. She wanted to at least take care of their wounds.

She had only finished applying medicine to their wounds when Zhang Jian returned from his visit to Lin Xi's house. He was saddened to see that his dog and the pheasant were both injured severely. His first thought was that two of them had fought among themselves again but he decided to ask Wang Yan to make sure that his blame wasn't ill placed.

"What happened? Why are these two injured? Did they fight amongst themselves again?"

Wang Yan didn't want Zhang Jian to misunderstand what had happened so she decided to tell him about what had happened earlier.

"It was a bunch of monsters that came to attack us. Both of them fought the monsters with everything they had and got injured as a result. It wasn't just the two of them. Even Wu Ming fought and got injured as well."

Wu Ming who had been peacefully recovering in his hut heard Wang Yan mention his name and rolled his eyes at her.

"Why did she have to mention my name as well? Master hadn't seen me but she deliberately mentioned my name too. Does she want me to be scolded by master as well?"

Zhang Jian thought that Wang Yan was talking about wild animals that had previously been stealing from and making a mess of his crops. He knew that he would have to solve the problem of these wild animals at some point but now that it had come to this point, he had to expedite formulating a solution for this problem.

"Ohhh…this is going to be troublesome."