Chapter 16: The Burial Ground (Part 2)
The tangled, mixed mental powers entered Jin Chi’an’s consciousness cloud through his mental net. He could clearly sense that Xiao Yi had now returned to the area near the cave they had escaped from.
Countless bone whistles piled into small mountains released faint mental power, separating the young white tiger from the two Kashemir Zergs on opposite banks. As long as the enemy released even a little mental power to investigate, they could easily discover the young white tiger’s traces.
Jin Chi’an angrily blamed himself for his carelessness. Ignoring Charles’s instructions completely, he prepared to return to the scene.
The movement of his running legs kept pulling at the wound on his waist. Even now, the violent attack from that mammoth still lingered in his heart.
Not long ago, a mental body belonging exclusively to a sentinel of the imperial royal family, a prehistoric mammoth, had suddenly appeared from the forest of the burial ground. Xi Lian and the members of Frontline Reconnaissance Team Two, who had fought against it, had nearly been wiped out.
But for some reason, that zerg with the face of a royal family member—Brayden Charlemagne—seemed unwilling to kill him.
At that time, Jin Chi’an was holding the white tiger, whose injuries had not yet fully recovered. His gaze was fixed on Brayden, who was slowly walking toward him, as he controlled his mental tendrils to attack the other party’s consciousness cloud.
But severing the pathways of the consciousness cloud did not seriously affect the other party. Instead, after the briefest moment of distraction, it completely enraged that terrifying mammoth.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Jin Chi’an immediately summoned Puff to buy time. He himself carried the trembling young white tiger in his arms and rushed into the river valley forest.
The mental body’s attack did not hold out for long. Puff’s assault only bought them enough time to escape before it was knocked to the ground by the mammoth’s swinging trunk.
At the same time, because Jin Chi’an shared sensation with his mental body, he stumbled several times.
Jin Chi’an pulled aside the clothes covering his waist, revealing a large bruised-purple wound. Gritting his teeth, he sprayed pain-relieving medicine over it.
As the pain at the injured area slowly weakened, Jin Chi’an set off again in the direction of the burial ground.
At this moment, inside the burial ground cave, Brayden carefully put on gloves and approached the scattered tendrils and limbs all over the floor.
“003, your new body really isn’t durable. It was destroyed so easily by a little brat from the empire.”
003 turned his severed head slightly, his gaze drifting toward another part of the cave.
A massive tendril had pierced through Qin Hua’s abdomen. His entire body was covered in spikes that had burst out from inside 003. At this moment, he was lying unconscious against a rock wall.
“His body probably can’t be used either,” 003 complained. “It would be great if we had the body of an adult beastman.”
Brayden chuckled and maliciously suggested, “There’s a goat and a bird outside right now. You can pick one.”
“Damn it, 002, you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? How can a mighty person like me use livestock or poultry as a body?”
003 looked at him with disdain. Then a thought occurred to him.
“What about that tiger? Did you catch him?”
“No.”
“Useless. You can’t even catch a young white tiger. You might as well give this body of yours to me.”
“The original owner of Hound Number One has come.”
Brayden’s expression darkened as he continued seriously, “Experiment Number One’s transformation is incomplete. If his original owner dies, the mental damage he suffers will be transferred to 001 at the same time.”
“However…”
A trace of delight flashed across Brayden’s face as he turned to look behind the pile of bone whistles outside the cave.
“That little white tiger seems to have come back again. Looks like this burial ground really is attractive to beastmen.”
As a whistle sounded into the cave, Brayden placed 003’s head into a large black sack and walked toward the source of the sound.
“As expected of my favorite white tiger beastman. He actually helped us find the thing. Looks like we can get off work early today.”
At this moment, on the opposite bank, a young white tiger was using his two small, thin tiger paws to rummage through the pile of bone whistles.
When a familiar scent drifted over, the white tiger was both shocked and overjoyed. He picked up a still fairly new bone whistle in his mouth.
It was his sister’s.
His sister’s voice.
And his sister’s familiar scent.
Before Xiao Yi could hide the bone whistle properly, a familiar figure once again blocked the sunlight above his head.
Brayden pinched the back of his neck and lifted him up. His voice carried uncontrollable delight.
“What a clever little white tiger. Hurry and hand it over.”
The familiar feeling of fear enveloped Xiao Yi again. His whole body trembled, and he did not dare make any extra movements. He only remembered to hide the bone whistle in his mouth while making muffled “wu wu” sounds.
The two remained in a stalemate for a moment. Perhaps feeling that too much time had passed, the head inside the black sack roared impatiently.
“What are you doing, 002? Just bring that tiger back. I happen to be missing a body.”
Unlike 003’s impatience, Brayden’s calm expression made him seem especially patient.
Looking at the white tiger before him, who said nothing and seemed frightened stupid, Brayden released his mental power and sensed the mental fluctuations of the bone whistle on him.
“So it’s hidden in your mouth.”
“Wu, wu…”
As the white tiger struggled, Brayden put down the sack he was carrying and raised his hand, about to reach into the young white tiger’s mouth and take out the bone whistle.
Along with a fierce gust of wind sweeping in from afar, a harpy eagle raced past him and snatched away the sack he had placed by his feet.
003 inside immediately cried out in shock.
“Damn it, what’s going on outside? 002, what are you doing, 002?”
“Tsk.”
Brayden looked displeased. He violently threw the white tiger in his hand to the ground.
Seeing that the white tiger was still trying to stand, Brayden mercilessly took out the energy gun at his waist and fired several shots at him.
The loud gunfire made Xi Lian turn his head back.
As if sensing the other party’s hesitation, Brayden once again summoned the mammoth from his consciousness sea and used its enormous body to block Xi Lian’s path.
Just as he was commanding his mental body to attack, a mental tendril extending from the nearby forest broke into his consciousness cloud.
All the mental pathways in the human brain were severed. Even without sharing sensation with the body, 002 temporarily lost control over it because of this.
Seeing his movements pause, Jin Chi’an immediately rushed out from the dense forest, picked up the white tiger lying in a pool of blood, forcibly suppressed the chill surging up from the soles of his feet, and turned to flee the scene.
Before he could enter the forest again, 002 had already repaired the consciousness cloud severed by Jin Chi’an and regained control of the body.
As the mammoth’s consciousness gradually recovered, Xi Lian, who was closer, turned his head and shouted through the communicator, “Chi’an!”
Before he finished speaking, the mammoth in front of him instantly changed its target. It swung its long trunk and knocked Jin Chi’an to the ground.
“Cough.”
A mouthful of blood spilled from his mouth. Jin Chi’an collapsed weakly onto the ground, yet he still forced himself up and shielded the white tiger beneath him.
Xiao Yi, whose wounds were gradually recovering, also regained consciousness at this moment. He turned his head to look at Jin Chi’an in front of him and cried out in fear.
“Brother…”
The young white tiger tried to use his paws to press against Jin Chi’an’s constantly bleeding wound. In panic, he murmured, “What do I do? Brother is bleeding. Brother is human. He’ll die…”
“Human mental bodies really are brutal. But if you die like this, that would be troublesome.”
Brayden slowly walked toward the two of them. He took a recovery agent from his pocket and injected it into Jin Chi’an’s neck.
After the injection was complete, Brayden turned to look at the little white tiger in his arms and said with some regret, “As for you, whether you can survive under 003’s hands is uncertain.”
Seeing Brayden’s palm approach, Xiao Yi’s body trembled slightly. Unconsciously, he took the bone whistle out of his mouth.
As a familiar whistle sounded, the mental power sealed inside the finger bone continuously spread outward.
Immediately afterward, countless bird cries came from within the forest. A powerful surge of energy knocked Brayden away, and tens of thousands of wild birds attacked him in an orderly formation.
At the same time, several planets away, snow fell over Hundred Birds City in District Three.
Inside the city lord’s residence, Xuzhen’s body lay within a coffin decorated with white cloth. The moment that melodious whistle reached his ears, the mental brand at the back of his neck completely vanished.
“Xuzhen… let’s go see the snowy mountain…”
Grenna’s mental power sealed inside the bone whistle gradually weakened. The traces belonging to her completely disappeared from District Fourteen.
Using the time won by the wild birds, reinforcements from District Fourteen and the Allied Forces all arrived at the burial ground.
A tiger’s roar that resounded through the valley reached everyone’s ears. Brayden immediately commanded his mental body to deal with the surrounding trouble. Then he took out an energy gun and shattered the sack that had been carried away by the harpy eagle.
“002, I’ll kill you when we get back!”
Amid 003’s furious roar, Brayden caught his head as it fell from the sky. Then he turned and summoned a zerg with wing-like tendrils, fleeing the burial ground.
…
Felix stepped on the protruding rocks of the mountain and leaped down from above, landing in front of Jin Chi’an.
Seeing the person before him on the verge of death, he instantly lost his reason and let out a roar at the young white tiger in Jin Chi’an’s arms.
“Calm down, Felix.”
A giant Zhoushan cobra coiled around the white tiger. Charles flicked his tongue and called Felix’s name, trying to calm the white tiger before him.
Felix raised his paw and tore the cobra off him, then whimpered as he approached Jin Chi’an and lay down in front of him.
Seeing that his condition had stabilized somewhat, Charles immediately transformed back into human form and tried to carry the young white tiger out.
But just as his hand was about to touch Xiao Yi, Jin Chi’an, who had already fallen unconscious, instinctively held the white tiger even tighter.
At this moment, Lin Chuan finally arrived late with a team of guide doctors. As soon as he arrived, he saw the chaotic scene before him.
Lin Chuan helplessly sighed and released soothing mental power to make Jin Chi’an let go.
At the same time as he carried out the young tiger, he turned and grabbed Felix’s tiger paw, stuffing it into Jin Chi’an’s arms.
Under Felix’s stunned expression, Lin Chuan tried rubbing the young white tiger in his arms. A tingling feeling like an electric shock immediately made him stuff the tiger into Charles’s arms, and he complained,
“It’s not even the right one. You grabbed the wrong one and didn’t even realize it.”
