The Holy Hall had been established for over a thousand years, and in the beginning, it was the first line of defense for humans to resist the attacks of demonic beasts. However, as time went by, the number of demonic beasts grew fewer and fewer, almost all retreating into the polar region, while the number of people in the Holy Hall grew greater—everyone knew that demonic beasts could be sold at high prices. As long as one could enter the Holy Hall to become a warrior or priest, every Winter Solstice they could hunt demonic beasts and earn a huge fortune.
Holy Hall warriors were also called demon hunters. They would eliminate the demonic beasts that escaped from the polar region, and every year they would form demon-hunting squads to enter the polar region proactively and hunt demonic beasts.
This team of a dozen demon-hunter warriors had all once entered the polar region to hunt demonic beasts. They believed that they were not the kind of ordinary Holy Hall warriors merely there to make up numbers, and in the past, they were always quite proud.
Especially the four leading them, three men and one woman, who had rich hunting experience. Ordinary demonic beasts did not even catch their eyes—they were truly elite warriors.
Yet today, their pride had been shattered, and they themselves had changed from hunters to prey.
The other warriors were already lying all over the ground. Though none had died, each one was missing arms or broken legs, unable to get up again, wounds bleeding heavily—if left unattended, they would probably die soon.
The four elite warriors were still struggling bitterly, each carrying injuries. If not for the two priests nearby praying for them, restoring their strength and easing their pain, they would have fallen just like the others long ago.
They had been speaking so proudly earlier, but now, the more they thought of it, the more regret filled their hearts. Looking at the towering demonic beast surrounded in the middle by them, with a tattered cloak and blood all over, they could only taste bitterness in their mouths.
What on earth was this demonic beast?! After fighting for so long, while each of them was heavily injured, this guy could still charge around as if nothing had happened.
Even when they encountered before those towering, house-sized, terrifying double-horned scale-armored beasts, they had never been beaten this miserably!
Could it be that hybrid offspring of humans and demonic beasts would mutate and become even more formidable?
This demonic-beast hybrid’s build might be tall and strong among humans, but among demonic beasts, he could only be considered ordinary. Shouldn’t he have been the kind that was very weak, something any demonic beast or warrior could easily take down?
At this rate, things looked grim for them.
The four knights, heads covered in blood, exchanged glances, and suddenly retreated at the same time, pulling out the other end of their weapons—there, thorn-like long whips were attached. After wrapping them around their arms, the thorns pierced into their bodies and turned blood-red. A burst of light suddenly erupted from their bodies.
“Thank you for granting us strength…” they murmured their prayer, then abruptly raised their heads, a sharp glint flashing in their eyes. Carrying a life-burning, strongest strike, they launched a fierce attack toward Muli.
If earlier they had still been thinking of subduing this rare demonic-beast hybrid, capturing him to figure out what special demonic beast bloodline he carried, then now, they only wanted to kill him.
The appearance of such a demonic-beast hybrid was definitely not a good thing. Once he intended to do evil, who could stop him? Even more frightening was that he could disguise himself as a human and sneak into the city, the hidden danger was too great.
A fierce air current suddenly erupted, and Muli stood at the center of the airflow, a huge pressure bearing down above his head. His clothes gave off tearing sounds under the unbearable strain. Even Meili, who was crouched on his shoulder, felt suffocated by the pressure, sharp pain in her chest, blood rising into her mouth.
These warriors did not care at all about Meili, an ordinary human who sided with a demonic beast. They even deliberately targeted her after discovering that the demonic-beast hybrid was protecting her, just to make this terrifyingly strong demonic-beast hybrid suffer injuries because of her.
Such petty moves infuriated Muli, and his counterattacks grew heavier and heavier, which was how these four elite warriors ended up vomiting blood nonstop, forced to bring out this final attack.
Demons that were trapped by the overwhelming air current would ultimately be pierced through by the weapons pressing down from above and die. Yet Muli forcibly broke free of the restraints with sheer brute force.
Following a heart-shaking roar, the air current suddenly subsided. The four warriors spat blood and collapsed backward.
Muli forcefully pulled out a blade stuck in his body, and casually flung it out, stabbing into the shoulder of the knight who had wielded that blade.
“Argh…” That knight had already fallen, yet he clutched his arm and sat up with a miserable cry.
Muli: “Returning it to you.”
All the knights had already fallen, leaving only the two old priests still standing to the side. They had always only assisted the warriors in battle, searching for traces of demonic beasts. If they had to fight demonic beasts themselves, it would probably be impossible, let alone such a strange demonic beast.
Seeing this demonic-beast hybrid who had defeated a dozen warriors by himself walking toward them, their expressions became stern, and in their hearts arose the sense that they were about to depart this mortal world and ascend the Holy Mountain.
“ No! Don’t harm the priests!”
“Stop, you bastard!”
“Priests, run! Don’t worry about us!”
The warriors lying on the ground struggled and cried out in anguish, each voice filled with grief and fury.
Muli acted as though he heard nothing. The wound on his body was still bleeding continuously. He walked up to the two old priests, glanced at their black robes, and said in a muffled voice: “Those two wagons of goods need to be delivered to Pudara, for some earl. They’re goods of the Golden Lion Mercenary Group. You can deliver them yourselves, I don’t care anymore.”
After saying that, he carried the dizzy, chest-tightened Meili and sprinted away. In just a few leaps, he disappeared behind the weathered rocks.
The chaotic battlefield suddenly fell into silence. The warriors who had been wailing made no sound anymore. They looked at each other while clutching their bleeding wounds, unable to understand what had just happened.
The female warrior lying on the ground propped herself up with her sword, trembling as she climbed up. She dug at her bleeding ear and said, “What did he just say? Deliver goods? He wants us to help him deliver goods—he’s dreaming, did he pay us commission?!”
“No, this isn’t a matter of commission at all.” The knight with a huge gash across his chest covered his wound. “Weren’t we fighting just now? Why did he so naturally order his enemies to deliver his goods? Was he humiliating us?”
The irritable warrior, unable to get up, threw down his spear and shouted: “What is he doing, just running off like that! Why didn’t he kill us, and there are priests here! There are two precious priests here and he didn’t even kill them! Isn’t it said that demonic beasts love to eat priests the most? What kind of demonic beast is he supposed to be like this?!”
The only two priests at the scene who were completely unharmed froze, faces stiff. “Are you hoping that guy would eat us?”
The irritable knight suddenly realized what he had said. He immediately collapsed back down, closed his eyes, and pretended to be dead… or maybe he really had died, given how deathly pale he looked—he wasn’t much different from a corpse.
“We must quickly notify the other Holy Halls and pursue that escaped demonic beast. We must not let him flee to other places.” The priest with the kindly appearance looked in the direction where Muli had run, his expression worried.
“We must capture him as soon as possible. Even Lian Ao and Rose’s strongest strike couldn’t keep him down, how could the other warriors possibly handle him? If he enters a city, who knows how many casualties he might cause…”
Muli had already run very far with one breath. He ran extremely fast—faster than those two horse-drawn wagons from before—and his running was steady too. Only occasionally did he leap very high, and when he landed, Meili felt her heart suddenly stop for a moment.
In his arms, Meili felt the dizziness and tightness in her chest ease a lot. Seeing the wound on his chest still oozing blood with each stride he took, she quickly pressed her hand over it.
Because of that fierce battle just now, his clothes, which had been wrapped tightly around him, had many torn places, revealing underneath… white fur. The exposed area around his chest was the largest, the white fur near the wound stained red with blood.
Meili touched the fur peeking through the tear and remembered those people saying he was a hybrid of a demonic beast and a human. She then became certain that the little bear she saw by the lakeside early that morning was not a dream at all.
That was Muli’s true appearance beneath the skull-head hat—a little bear that looked very sweet.
It actually suited his voice quite well.
What was strange was that she did not feel afraid at all. She looked up at him and noticed a small crack on his beloved skull hat. She thought he would probably feel distressed—after all, he liked that skull hat very much.
“You’ve been bleeding this whole time. We should stop and treat it first,” Meili said, curled in his arms.
Muli’s wild sprint came to an abrupt halt. He dropped from the air, stomping heavily onto the ground, then bent down to reduce the impact generated by running.
After he stopped, the first thing he said was: “I could’ve beaten them. I was letting them win.”
His tone was very displeased.
If his grandpa hadn’t told him before that he must hide when he saw people wearing black robes like his, and must not kill them, he would not have held back just now and been forced into such a disadvantage.
They were not impressive at all, he could have beaten a hundred more like them!
Meili skillfully reached out to pat his arm in comfort. “Of course you could have beaten them. Look, they can’t even stand up, and you can still run for so long. I think they were definitely scared of you. You’re amazing!”
But this time Muli was not so easily coaxed. He was still sulking. “I’m not afraid of them, but Grandpa doesn’t let me fight those people, tells me to avoid them. But they attacked me first!”
Meili pressed against his wound. “Yes, they were unreasonable. Let’s stop first and treat your wound, okay?”
Muli finally stopped, plopping down onto a large rock.
Meili climbed down from his arms and saw him lower his head to look at his wound, but he made no move.
She nudged him. “What’s wrong?”
Muli, so big and tall, sat there inexplicably dejected, yet still trying to forcibly maintain a cold tone. “It’ll heal without bothering with it. Just a small wound. I don’t care.”
Meili noticed some blood under his skull hat too, as if it was flowing from inside.
She held down the skull hat, hesitating. “Can we take it off?”
Muli did not move.
Meili said, “I already know you’re a demonic beast. I think I even saw you once. You don’t have to be scared… I’ll take it off, okay?”
Muli let out a low hum, sounding a little wronged, like he was acting spoiled—he might not have realized it himself.
Meili rose on tiptoe, grasped the two horns of the skull hat with both hands, and pulled it off.
There even seemed to be a little “pop” sound.
Meili saw the little white bear whose mouth naturally curved upward. Although his body was much bigger than hers, when she saw that round, fluffy face, she still preferred to call him a little white bear.
There was a small, thin wound on his neck. Thankfully the injury wasn’t on his head. Meili held the skull hat in her arms and carefully looked at him.
At first, Muli tried to hold on, using those big, round pitch-black eyes to meet her gaze, pretending to look fierce. But later, he lowered his head to avoid her eyes and grasped his own large hands.
With the skull hat on, that posture might have looked deep and brooding, but now it only looked pitiful and cute.
Meili then looked at his hands; his gloves were also torn, with white fur poking out from the gaps. She struggled very hard to hold herself back from immediately reaching out to pat his head to comfort him.
