Astral Pet Store (WN)

“How is Longjing doing?” Having been alerted about the situation, Su Ping remained composed.

“Mr. Su, do you know about the Longjing Base City?” Venerable the Blade said at once, “The base city has fallen into the enemy’s hands. A surge of beasts came from the Deep Caves… They came prepared; we’ve already detected forty or fifty beast kings.”

Qin Duhuang heard that. He narrowed his eyes in fear.

Forty or fifty beast kings?

He could even picture how those mountain-like beast kings were wreaking havoc in the Longjing Base City.

It would be difficult for some base cities to deal with dozens of ninth-rank beasts, let alone dozens of beast kings!

“We discussed the situation. We’re planning to trap the beast kings in the Longjing Base City and use the existing assault formation to contain them. We may not be able to kill them all, but we will have the chance to push them back into the Deep Caves at the very least!

“Otherwise, those beast kings could get out and merge with other wild beasts; that could be detrimental to base cities that are still relocating.”

Venerable the Blade asked Su Ping for a favor, “Mr. Su, I know what you can do. A legendary battle pet warrior at the Ocean State like me cannot even compare with you. Could you come here and lend a hand? I know that the Tower has mistreated you with the defense line arrangement, but the general public is innocent. I…”

“Yes. I’ll be there,” Su Ping said before Venerable the Blade could finish.

He could feel how sorry and embarrassed the latter was.

Being a friend, he would help and make things easier for Venerable the Blade.

“Take care. Hang in there, I’ll be there,” Su Ping repeated.

“Mr. Su…”

Venerable the Blade had thought that persuading Su Ping would be a difficult task, but he had already agreed before he got to the begging part.

Venerable the Blade bit his teeth and clenched his fists.

The new legendary warrior gazed into the distance. People were shouting and the beasts were roaring; the legendary battle pet warriors were hurrying here and there. Venerable the Blade was full of complex feelings. He didn’t know why the Tower was acting toward Su Ping with such hostility; they couldn’t set their prejudice aside even at this time. On the other hand, Su Ping was the bigger man.

Venerable the Blade took a deep breath and shook those ideas away. He was determined. He would quit the Tower once everything ended!

That was not the Tower he desired to be part of!

“You’re going?” Qin Duhuang asked Su Ping.

He was worried.

Su Ping was the base city’s cornerstone!

Qin Duhuang was at the legendary rank but he knew the limits of his abilities. He had acquired his beast kings through Su Ping; he believed that the latter’s battle pets would only be more powerful!

Besides, Su Ping had ousted creatures like the Otherworld Heavenly King. He couldn’t even tell how stronger Su Ping had become.

And yet, there was one thing he did know: he couldn’t protect the base city by himself if Su Ping left.

This time, the beast strike was definitely not a common one; a strike with seven or eight beast kings would have caught the attention of the entire world in the past!

However, strikes of such severity were commonplace in recent days.

Many base cities had fallen to such beast strikes; many people, young and old, female and male, had lost their lives to the wild beasts.

“I won’t be there for long. Don’t worry,” Su Ping comforted Qin Duhuang. He thought for a moment and summoned the Dark Dragon Hound.

This pet would always act like a kid when around Su Ping. Still, it had become a fierce battle pet after having gone through countless rounds of deaths.

Even Qin Duhuang felt stressed around the Dark Dragon Hound.

“I’ll leave my battle pet here. Call me if anything happens and I’ll come back right away. The dog will help you in the meantime,” Su Ping said.

Qin Duhuang gazed at the battle pet; it was a sort of mix between a wolf and a dog with the tail and scales of a dragon. It was like a veteran that had survived fierce battles.

“You are leaving your battle pet here. Wouldn’t it be too dangerous for you to go there like this?” Qin Duhuang was concerned.

A group made of dozens of beast kings should never be underestimated. If those beast kings were intelligent, they could work together; that could be even more destructive!

“It’s okay. I have other buddies,” Su Ping said.

He patted the Dark Dragon Hound’s head and told it what to do.

The Dark Dragon Hound barked unhappily.

Su Ping said grumpily, “Stay here and guard my home. Don’t loaf on the job; you won’t like what I’d do to you if the city is breached.”

The Dark Dragon Hound barked.

Not wasting any time, Su Ping summoned the Inferno Dragon, hopped onto one of its shoulders and flew away.

Longjing Base City.

Roar!

Roar!!

The beast roars resounded, and the flames of war were raging. The entire base city had fallen.

The residential buildings and the landmark skyscrapers had collapsed during the battles. The base city had been reduced to a heap of rubble.

The beast kings were causing damage everywhere. Some of them would lift buildings more than twenty stories high and throw them at the battle pet warriors. The building would break, revealing the supporting rebars. The ground shook and the sewers were exposed.

Many wild beasts were traveling in the sewers. Some corpses were dangling from the mouths of wild beasts; their arms were swinging back and forth.

“Come on! Hurry!”

“Use the iron wall to stop them!!”

“Do we have reinforcements? Men down!”

The battle pet warriors were risking their lives. Some of them had lost their limbs and some had been smashed from the waist down. The heavily mauled battle pet warriors were dragged out of the battleground.

Some battle pets also fell, forming pools of blood. Wild beasts rushed over and stomped the battle pets’ heads before they could be treated; the battle pet warriors felt their hearts ache as they saw their battle pets die.

Slaughter. Blood. Screams.

Surrounded by the gunfire and cries of misery, some of the weaker-willed battle pet warriors were shaking, while some of the more courageous battle pet warriors felt their blood surge. The latter would try their best to kill as many wild beasts as they could!

“Damn it. There are too many of them!”

“Lord Nie, we should leave. We are losing ground here.”

Several legendary battle pet warriors were floating in the sky with Lord Nie placed in the middle. They had been searching for beast kings to kill; those creatures weren’t stupid. Some of them beast kings had gotten too excited in the beginning and strayed from the herd, ending up dying. The surviving beast kings did the smart thing and stayed together.

It had become difficult for the legendary battle pet warriors to resist groups of beast kings launching coordinated attacks.

Each legendary battle pet warrior had three to five beast kings; but their pets were much weaker when compared to the beast kings from the Deep Caves, even when they were at the same rank!

Those wild beast kings would fight like crazy.

On the other hand, the beast king battle pets had been captured either outside or inside the Deep Caves. For the latter, warriors would have to ask friends to find the beast kings for them in the Deep Caves. Either way, the tamed beast kings had stayed with them for too long and had lost some edge after living on velvet!

Those legendary battle pet warriors would only practice with their pets in ways that wouldn’t inflict any substantial harm. Their battle pets had never risked their lives.

After all, those legendary battle pet warriors would mostly choose to escape whenever they encountered real danger. They would go back to the Tower and then win by resorting to numbers. Why would they risk their own lives?

After all, getting hurt or getting their battle pets hurt would cost them a fortune in medical bills.

Their lives would be ruined if they were unlucky and suffered injuries with possible sequelae.

“We would all die here and we would still be unable to stop them.”

“Those damn beasts. There are even more wild beast kings coming. There’s no end to this!”

“I think we should give up this place. We can come back and finish them one by one after the wild beasts and beast kings begin to leave the base city. It’s too hard for us right now!” the legendary battle pet warriors said anxiously. Some of their battle pets had been wounded; they weren’t happy about that. For one thing, treating their pets injuries would be expensive. For another, training those beast king pets was difficult. After all, there were barely three Holy Spirit Trainers in the entire globe!

Training beast kings was impossible for the ninth-rank top trainers; they would be threatened by the beast kings instead. The tranquilizers used to subdue ninth-rank beasts would be ineffective on beast kings.

“Lord Nie, we cannot leave!” one of the legendary battle pet warriors worked up the courage and suggested otherwise, “Those beast kings have a plan. They came out so suddenly that none of the alarms went off. It was an ambush! Beast kings were still working together, even outside the Longjing Base City. They had a leader and an agenda!”

“Venerable the Blade, what are you suggesting? Do you want us to be killed here so that the wild beasts can go to other base cities?”

“Our lives are precious. We have to live to save more people!”

“He’s right. You’ve just reached the legendary rank; we don’t blame you for not seeing the bigger picture just yet.”

The other legendary battle pet warriors were furious.

Staying till the end?

They would if they could. After all, it would add to their honor if they succeeded; they could later say they had finished their job. But judging by the current situation, they had decided that the sacrifice was too heavy!

The old man with gray hair shouted, “Shut up!”

The others stopped talking.

“Lord Nie, we can ask for reinforcements and we can borrow some legendary battle pet warriors from other base cities. We can’t give this place up!” Venerable the Blade stressed. If they gave up this place, they would leave behind a gaping breach in their defense line; the other base cities would fall under the hooves of the wild beasts!

Give up once and they would give up twice!

By then, not only would the Longjing Base City be doomed, but the entire Xing-Jing Defense Line!

Maybe those legendary battle pet warriors could help relocating one or two base cities, while the wild beasts were focused on the Xing-Jing Defense Line… But what about the other base cities?

The population was over one billion!

“What are you talking about? Borrowing help from other defense lines? Do you know how few of us there are? What if the other defense lines were in crisis because they came to help us?” a legendary battle pet warrior with golden hair and green eyes shouted. He was a legendary battle pet warrior from another continent who had been assigned to that place.

“Right. Casualties would rise if we put the other defense lines in danger because of this one base city!”

The other legendary battle pet warriors disagreed with Venerable the Blade and they did not like him.

Venerable the Blade was the weakest of them all. He had just reached the legendary rank and only had one beast king. They on the other hand had several beast kings each. Although all of them were at the Ocean State, they were much better than Venerable the Blade!

Roar!!

The ground suddenly shook.

A beast king that looked like a mammoth ran over and smashed away another beast king.

As soon as the second beast king fell to the ground, many spikes grew out from the surface and vines entangled the beast king. The spikes had made the beast king bleed. Lord Nie turned pale. The beast king was his battle pet.

It was a beast king at the Ocean State; nevertheless, it had been heavily wounded.

“Retreat!” Lord Nie squeezed the word out of his mouth.

He didn’t want to leave; he would prefer to stay if he could. Retreating would mean that his job had failed, and the Tower had expressed that he had to stay and guard the base city no matter what! And yet, he could not. He preferred going back to face the punishment.

He believed his leaders would not behave too strictly with him, given the situation.

“Lord Nie!”

Venerable the Blade was losing patience. “If we leave…”

“Stop talking. You can stay and cover our retreat. Don’t give the wild beasts a chance to go after us.” Lord Nie glared at Venerable the Blade coldly.

Venerable the Blade became devoid of color.

He was both angry and stunned. “Help! Help!!” “We’re losing it!!”

Some battle pet warriors were shouting and crying; they only had a dozen battle pets left and each was currently wounded. They could fall at any time; some battle pets were so weak that they could barely lift their paws. Still, standing behind them were their masters and their masters had given the command; they were afraid but they couldn’t step back.

Some battle pets were trembling at the prospect of death.

Roar!!

Dozens of battle pet warriors were behind those pets, which in turn were led by a titled battle pet warrior. They had stayed as an attempt to stop the wild beasts.

All of a sudden, a huge shadow was cast over the crowd.

A beast king!

The battle pet warriors could not believe that a beast king was coming for them.

Desperation!

The presence of the beast king had thrown them into desperation. The titled battle pet warrior came back to his senses. He had noticed that a group of legendary battle pet warriors was flying away from them.

Were they going to support other places?

But those legendary battle pet warriors ignored them.

The leader felt hopeless.

They could not fight a beast king!

Run?

There’s nowhere to run!

Roar!!

A certain organ inside the beast king was stimulated as it uttered a cry. No one could see the beast king’s mouth, but something like a hand came crashing down right on the crowd of battle pet warriors.

The light had been blotted out. All hope was lost!

However, they suddenly heard a shrill noise coming from the distance!

Boom!!

The hand froze as if something had stopped it! The hand then began to swell, and then it exploded. Blood rained down.

Standing in front of the hand was a young man. His fist was golden and his eyes were cold.

He crushed that hand with a punch!