Chapter (1): The wretched

Location: Spirit Forest, sat in Chénshì Region

A man in black apparel and a half-covered face jumped on a thick branch. He knelt on one knee, and his eyes twinkled with hostile purpose.

He was frustrated with this seek-and-hide game in this menacing Forest. They had to catch the prey soon before she fled.

"Here we go, you little devil!"

He formed a purple magic ball above his palm and tossed it into a narrow path where a girl in a light blue dress was running.

"Now stop running!"

The dark magic ball sliced the air in a blink of an eye and hit Wang Hua's back malevolently.

"Die!" he bounced down.

By the hard collision of magic, the severe hit pushed her forward on the forest floor. Furrowing the mud, she struck a tree trunk and spat blood.

Her palm rested on her chest. She was panting, and her breath rasped in her throat.

"Xiaojiao!" She called for her cub.

Wang Hua squeezed her eyelids as her sight darkened, but after taking a second glimpse of her surroundings, her vision blurred. The severe pain almost choked her, making it tough to suck in a gust of air.

"You bastards!" she whispered between her hard-coming breaths and blood-painted teeth.

The look in his eyes and filthy utterance revealed his malicious toxic intentions to her. These people were similar to no bandits but appeared to be murderers.

She had nothing valuable that they could rob. Her old-fashioned appearance could speak on her behalf. Therefore, they happened to be here for another motive.

Her life!

Her sword had slipped from her shaky grip and fallen near a rock while she couldn't even move an inch further to reach it. Any attempt could lead her to demise quicker.

Her eyes were searching for her cub, her small Spirit animal. She found Xiaojiao's vibrating image in front of her. Her black cub was trying to protect her.

Ah, this silly little one!

The tip of the man's blade moved under the right lapel of her blue dress.

"What a pretty bird! Why not have some leisure before killing you?"

He waited for his men's affirmative response while keeping voracious dirty eyes on her. His raven black bean eyes glinted. His eyes had no white balls as he had permitted his dark magic to control him.

The sharpness of the cold blade stung her pale-skinned neck and stiffened her body. She clenched her fists and shot them aggressively- disgusted glares that could pierce through one's bone.

"What do you want from me, you piece of crap?"

She shouted between her coughs; her stomach was charred with acid and twitched; dread was dancing under her skin, making her doubt if she could see the next sunrise.

"Ah, tell your mute cub to stop buzzing, and I promise to kill her first!"

Her eyes drifted to the full moon. Xiaojiao was her spirit animal. She was a black wolf cub that should have been a grown black wolf to tear these bastards into chunks of flesh.

But!

Sigh!

'Lay a finger on my cub, and then I'll make sure you die severely.' She told it in her mind.

Unfortunately, Xiaojiao hadn't grown up since appearing to her at age nine. She was mute and disabled to talk to her human while others' spirit animals could.

Also, a normal spirit animal should be born at age Seven, talking and growing with the human, although everything about this cub and her keeper was unusual.

They should have enabled each other in cultivation and refinement until the human could shift his shape to his spirit animal form. It could be a bird, a wolf, or even a deer, so others.

Either way, nothing about Wang Hua was ordinary like others.

Aside from that, her Xiaojiao was too cute, and no one took her seriously. Moreover, when howling, she sounded funny and adorable, not scary at all, to frighten these demons.

Xiaojiao was exposing her little white fangs to the men and their hyenas when they were about to kill her keeper. If she was just a little bigger, no, she must be ten times bigger than her current size, then she would adore thrusting her fangs deep into their throats for hurting her human.

Her sky-blue eyes were glowing brightly in rage.

Finding Wang Hua desperate and frightened, she howled again. Her human was pretending to be strong, but Xiaojiao could feel her trepidation.

Men laughed at the weak howl. The cub was mute and couldn't speak to her human; this appeared even more awful.

"Such wretched crap!" One of the men babbled.

Their spirit animals were black hyenas exuding black auras, able to kill this little cub in a split second with no significant exertion.

Wang Hua swallowed and squeezed the damp earth between her fingers when the beasts surrounded her cub. One of the hyenas punched the cub and threw her to the rock. She crouched and groaned in pain.

"Let her alone!"

"Don't you dare touch my cub?"

"Wow, what if we do?"

He mocked.

"Perhaps she would kill us with her extraordinary Spiritual magic essence?"

They all laughed joyously, and making fun of the lass and her cub amused them, these rascals! It didn't matter where in the world they lived because if she survived and achieved power one day, she ensured to find and burn them till their ashes spread in the air.

"A mere inept is daring us!"

"Are you going to tell your sheer crap cub to eat us?"

Xiaojiao! My poor Spirit animal!

Their laughter resonated in the dense Spirit forest, jabbing, tingling her ears like needles. From her point of view, these mischievous bastard figures stretched ceaselessly along the sky and the earth before them as though dark devils with sharp fangs. Her head was in a trance after the rigid swat.

She loved Xiaojiao more than anything in the existing world.

Nothing could sever the thread of affection between them. It didn't matter that this spirit animal was weak and disabled to protect her because, despite her tiny figure, she was the only one who always shielded her human. She was her everything.

'Hurts… it hurts her, and leave my spirit alone!'