Chapter 357 - Flame Spirit Wood Asura Annihilates the Four Empires

By the time the news of victory spread from Imperial Beast City, Lu Ran had already reached the Feather Demon Empire. Deep within its territory, a giant tree reached into the clouds. King and Overlord built their residences on its branches.

Much like the Ape Empire, the Feather Demon Empire also hunted powerful beastmasters and stored them in their nests as food for their newborn. For the Beast Empires, human flesh was a very nutritious aspect of their diet. From their point of view, eating humans was natural, much like how humans ate livestock.

Good and evil depended on whether you were the predator or the prey. Lu Ran was a human, while the Six-Path Flower was a guardian of the human empire. They had come to slaughter the Four Beast Empires to save countless citizens of the Beastmaster Empire. This would, in turn, net them a large sum of merits at the cost of hundreds of millions of lives.

This was the fundamental reason that the Six-Path Flower didn’t believe that there couldn’t be people of absolute good or evil.

Lu Ran is now overflowing with evil energy.

Generally speaking, virtuous or evil energy was a manifestation of the subject’s thoughts. For example, if Lu Ran believed that he was saving the empire by wiping out the Beast Empires, then it would increase the amount of virtuous energy inside him.

On the other hand, if Lu Ran was thinking about destroying these empires for the sake of harvesting resources, then it would naturally increase the amount of evil energy he had.

Sensing the endless amount of malice accumulating inside Lu Ran, the Six-Path Flower knew that he wasn’t what most people would consider a good person. How could Emperor Yun accept such a disciple?

"Well, I’m in a kind of unique situation. I might be gathering a lot of evil energy right now, but I’m a good person deep down inside."

Lu Ran wasn’t able to fully explain himself, so he just focused on picking up resources.

Although the current situation was heart-wrenching, it was still just a projection. Lu Ran wasn’t completely immersed in the experience. No matter how many people he saved, they would still disappear in a couple of days. Resources, however, were forever. They could be taken out of the secret realm.

If they were in the real world, Lu Ran could guarantee that the Six-Path Flower would see him brimming with virtuous energy.

“I don't care,” the Six-Path Flower replied nonchalantly. "Although if Hell really exists, then you should probably be careful. Given your current pace, you can forget about Heaven."

[Name: Sacred Feather]

[Grade: Epic]

[Description: A Wind and Light attribute resource that can be used for forging.]

"Aaaagh!" Lu Ran was about to explode. After beating two beast emperors, he only got two Epic resources, and neither was that useful.

"I don’t care if I’m going to Heaven or Hell. I just need these creatures to drop some better items."

Why can’t I find something like the Broken Horn of the Divine Deer or the Ruin Branch?

To add insult to injury, the Beast Empires were really poor. After scouring the entire empire, Lu Ran couldn’t find a single nest with a stockpile of resources. All he managed to gather were the body parts of the slain creatures.

"Sister Flower, let’s move on to the next one. When we fight the emperor, can you wear it down and let me deal the finishing blow?”

Lu Ran believed that the Six-Path Flower was carrying some bad luck. Once he hatched it into the real world, he would definitely get the Lucky Clover trait for it.

Why? Is there a problem?

"I don't want you to bear all the karma. I just want to share the burden?”

Alright then. I’ll let you handle everything next time.

What happened next completely shook Lu Ran. The Six-Path Flower transformed the ancient tree of the Feather Demon Empire into a thousand-meter-high Wood Asura with nine heads, each with a thousand eyes. It also had nine hundred and ninety arms and eight legs. It looked extremely ferocious and wicked.

The Six-Path Flower proceeded to put Lu Ran inside of it. Once inside, Lu Ran felt that he had become one with the Wood Asura and had complete control over it as if it were part of his own body.

"Holy shit!” Lu Ran didn't expect to get his hands on a Gundam before setting foot into the Mechanical Era.

"The Asura Path has a technique like this?"

Were you underestimating me?

The Six-Path Flower’s Six Path talents were far beyond what Lu Ran had imagined. Suddenly, he had the idea to also activate his Flame Spirit.

Boom!

The giant Wood Asura was engulfed in a layer of flames. The nine heads began to breathe fire, making it appear even more ferocious. Although it only contributed marginally to the Asura’s combat power, Lu Ran felt that he had better control over the Wood Asura. If only he were stronger so that he could shape his Flame Spirit into actual armor to equip the Wood Asura with.

"Okay, leave the rest of the enemies to me!" Lu Ran was eager to test the new technique.

***

"Have you heard? It sounds like the war will be over soon."

"Huh? Where did you hear that? Didn’t we only manage to destroy one of the four Beast Empires?"

News of Emperor Yun’s wiping out the Ape Empire had already spread to all corners of the nation by this point. People were just starting to calm down when they discovered that it was achieved by a boy who wasn’t even a Legendary beastmaster yet. The vast majority attributed the whole thing to the emperor bestowing a powerful treasure to his disciple.

"That's yesterday’s news. Young Master Wang, can you please pay attention to some current events instead of getting wasted all day? The latest information says that the emperor’s disciple killed all four beast emperors!"

"How can that be possible?"

"It’s true! Based on eye-witness reports, a thousand-meter-tall Asura drained the entire Crocodile Sea! It directly grabbed the Crocodile Ancestor and slammed it straight into the side of a mountain. The Wood Asura even used the signature skill of Emperor Yan, Flame Spirit. That proves that it’s definitely the emperor’s disciple, Yan Lu, who comes from the Yan family."

"You gotta be joking..."

"I’m dead serious. The news spread through multiple provinces. Some are even speculating that Yan Lu will be crowned the next emperor. Hey, did the elders of your Wang family send a gift to the Yan family the other day?"

“...”

All anyone talked about at the moment was the rumor that Yan Lu piloted a Wood Asura to wipe out the Four Great Beast Empires by himself. Normally, the major families in Imperial Beast City weren't as concerned about the war as those that lived in the border provinces. This was natural, given their distance from the fighting. In spite of that, the news still shook the entire city.

The Four Great Beast Empires had surrounded the empire for centuries. They had been the biggest threat to the empire since the reign of the previous emperor, but they were defeated just like that?

"It’s the Flame Spirit! It’s a trialist with the Flame Spirit skill, and his name is ‘Yan Lu.’ It has to be Lu Ran from Blue Planet!"

Imperial Beast City wasn’t huge, but it couldn’t be considered small either. Having completed their ascension missions, the trialists from Stellar Moon Federation and Blue Planet quickly met up with the others from their camps, forming groups of three to five people.

They were out exploring and conducted some business transactions to trade for resources they normally didn’t have access to. They were like time-traveling merchants. Some even used their knowledge of history to find undiscovered treasure.

Along the way, the war reports that came in from the border provinces were a source of constant shock for the trialists, regardless of where they were from. The historical background of the ascension was thrown into complete disarray.

The constant stream of news revealed more and more information about Lu Ran. He was a part of the Yan family, the disciple of Emperor Yun, and a beastmaster favored by the Six-Path Flower... Each detail was more outrageous than the last. Lu Ran's strength began to become publicized. Some even called him the reincarnation of Emperor Yan.

All of the trialists had some information on Lu Ran, such as how he got the Flame Spirit skill from a previous ascension realm. Everyone managed to put two and two together and determine that Yan Lu’s true identity was Lu Ran.

The beastmasters from Blue Planet were more accepting of the situation. It was undeniably shocking, but given the fact that he had been crowned the 11th most powerful beastmaster on the planet, it wasn’t entirely unbelievable.

The beastmasters from the Stellar Moon Federation, on the other hand, were in a state of total panic. They couldn’t accept that a level 3 or 4 beastmaster could defeat all four beast emperors. A level 5 beastmaster would struggle to kill a Legendary creature. A level 4 killing four in one go was a bit over the top.

***

At the moment, the center of attention, Lu Ran, was still running around on the front lines, hunting down any creature over level 70 with the Six-Path Flower. Lower-level creatures didn’t even stand a chance. Lu Ran didn’t have the spare time to kill them all, so he just left them for the imperial army. The army needed a chance to get some revenge.

Although he didn’t really stay in contact with anyone, his reputation had reached an all-time high.

"I should start heading back.”

Above a sea of blood, Lu Ran looked up at the sky as he muttered to himself.

The Six-Path Flower stood beside him in its human form. It felt a tremendous amount of evil energy radiating from Lu Ran.

You stole the benefits of my Alignment Amplification. Your individual combat abilities are very impressive. Too bad you’re still no match for a Mythical creature.

"Slow and steady wins the race. We just need to take it one step at a time. Do you know what my responsibilities are as the messenger of the Divine Deer? I need to help maintain world peace. If you can help me resolve some apocalyptic disasters, then you can definitely farm more energy.

"

Sigh.

Why haven't there been any catastrophes lately?"

“...”