Favorite of the Beast-world: I Got Rich Through Farming-Chapter 383 - 256: Swords Drawn and Crossbows Bent, and in the End, Just His Illusion Realm
Ever since she started traveling with Ze Sheng, the wild beasts lurking in the dark jungle had all fled, and the phantoms had gone quiet. An Jin, whose nerves had been stretched taut for some time, could finally catch her breath.
Silvery-white frost shimmered under the faint moonlight. The air was eerily silent, leaving only the sound of their two breaths rising and falling.
’Ze Sheng has been hiding his power this whole time.’
As the thought suddenly surfaced in her mind, An Jin’s hands tightened into fists, her heart stirring with a faint ripple of emotion. "What’s wrong?" a gentle voice, as clear as spring water, whispered beside her ear.
She looked up at him and blinked. The flutter of her silver-white eyelashes, like the wings of a butterfly, nearly made Ze Sheng forget to breathe. "I think I can feel Mi Yin and the others’ presence."
Feeling that the man before her was intentionally stalling, she pointed ahead with a slender, pale finger. "They should be nearby. Let’s hurry and find them." She could smell the scent of battle. ’Mi Yin might be in trouble.’
Ze Sheng’s expression grew cold. After a long moment, he finally nodded.
"As you say."
Bones were piled into mountains, and black blood seeped into the cracks between the stones. A nearby lake, once like a sapphire, had been stained a deep, blackish red. The air was thick with the pungent stench of decay. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
Mi Yin’s tail lashed out, coiling around a frenzied brown bear Demon Beast and crushing it until it burst. Black blood caked the space beneath his sharp claws. "HISS~" He scraped them against a tree in disgust before looking up at the silver-haired man beside him. "There are too many. It’s a waste of time to kill them all. You hold off these rampaging Demon Beasts. I’m going to find Jin’er."
Ling Hong had a Demon Beast pinned and struggling under his foot. At Mi Yin’s words, he stomped down hard, and a spray of blood erupted.
He reached up to wipe the blood from his face, his brow furrowed in a tight frown. The sticky, slick feeling was disgusting.
Though he was unhappy with Mi Yin giving orders, he knew the overall situation was what mattered. He nodded and said in a low voice, "Find Jin’er, and we leave immediately. Don’t get bogged down in the fight!" With that, he transformed into his beast form, savagely and swiftly biting the head off a lunging Demon Beast before plunging into battle with more of them.
An even greater darkness surged forward.
A harsh, grating sound, like grinding stone, was like a demon’s whisper.
"Don’t even think of disrupting my plan again. That female is to be sacrificed to Our Lord. It is a fate she cannot escape..."
...
’Damn it. This Illusion Realm seems to go on forever. No matter how long I walk, the scenery is exactly the same.’
Fortunately, the presence of Mi Yin and Ling Hong was growing stronger.
’Almost there!’
The pitch-black night sky was illuminated by firelight. An Jin looked up, stunned, and saw a black and red figure far in the distance.
’It’s Mi Yin!’
Raging flames danced around him, his massive black wings obscuring the dim twin moons. As if sensing her gaze, he looked up at her. "Jin’er—"
’Be careful! Get out of here!’
Before Mi Yin could even get the words out, the Demon Beastman in a pitch-black cloak before him vanished. Overwhelming panic and fury surged through his heart.
The next moment, like a falling star, the Demon Beastman shot toward An Jin on the ground, its sharp claws outstretched and its crimson eyes churning with madness.
A massive icicle fell from high above, brutally impaling it and pinning it to the ground.
Ze Sheng retracted his hand, his expression cold. Only when he looked at her did his voice soften. "You weren’t scared, were you?"
Mi Yin, arriving a step late, grabbed her hand and folded his wings, his expression anxious. "I’m sorry, Jin’er. I came looking for you immediately, but I ran into these damned pests on the way and got held up..."
"I’m fine." An Jin shook her head and took his trembling hand, her voice gentle. "I ran into Ze Sheng on the way. He protected me while I was looking for you. Are you and Ling Hong hurt?" ’That’s what I’m most worried about.’
Only then did Mi Yin force himself to look at Ze Sheng, offering a dry word of thanks. His cold, loathing gaze, however, held no gratitude. Fortunately, Ze Sheng had no intention of accepting it anyway.
"Protecting Ah Jin is only what I should do," Ze Sheng said with a faint smile.
The loathing in Mi Yin’s eyes deepened. "In the Beast World, only a mate has the duty to protect his female. I don’t appreciate hearing those words from some unrelated male."
"Are you suggesting I was meddling?" Ze Sheng’s tone was still gentle, but his eyes held a hidden challenge.
The air crackled with the tension of a brewing conflict.
"The Demon Beasts are all dead. A few got away, but I didn’t give chase. And that strange man in the black robe... he vanished too." Hearing the commotion, Ling Hong reined in his battle lust and leaped out of the shadows.
He closed the distance in two or three long strides, hurrying anxiously to An Jin’s side. He looked her up and down several times, only sighing in relief after confirming she was unharmed.
"You are..."
He stared, startled, at Ze Sheng. His wary gaze swept imperceptibly over the hand holding An Jin’s. His pupils constricted, and his own hands clenched into fists.
However, his stoic, stern face betrayed little of his feelings.
An Jin then recounted everything that had happened to them in detail.
She did not, however, go into detail about the reason Ze Sheng had been "coincidentally" drawn into the conflict.
’After all, the secret he’d mentioned was just too strange. Even she couldn’t make sense of it.’
With the mastermind behind the Illusion Realm gone, the realm itself began to disintegrate. Vast tracts of forest collapsed with a thunderous roar, and the pitch-black night sky shattered into a sea of starlight, revealing the grim battlefield of the Beast Slave King City they had left behind.
Most of the spiderwebs covering the ruins and broken walls had been burned to ash. In the cracks between the stones were numerous black slave-species insects, their bodies mostly stiff and still.
Mi Yin incinerated them with a burst of flame, clearing a spot for her. "Can you let go now?" he asked, his voice a cold warning as he glared at Ze Sheng.
His blade-like, scarlet snake-pupils stared at the repulsive male shamelessly holding Jin’er’s little hand... ’Damn it, I want to hack it off!’
His snake tail slapped irritably against the cracked flagstones.
The warmth of her hand in his was something he was reluctant to let go of. Ze Sheng lowered his gaze, ignoring the icy stare beside him. As if handling a rediscovered treasure, he bowed his head and placed a light kiss on her hand.
It was as light and brief as a dragonfly skimming the water’s surface, a touch that concealed a longing buried deep within his heart.
Before she could snatch her hand away in anger or question him in embarrassed fury, he released her as if performing a rite of farewell. Hiding his own sense of loss, he murmured, "I meant nothing by it, it’s just... please forgive my impudence. You strongly resemble an old acquaintance of mine. The resemblance is so striking, even now, that I subconsciously blurred the boundaries."
He looked at her, at her hair and eyes that had turned black again. He swallowed hard, an indescribable sorrow surging through his chest.
’In the end, this was all just an illusion of my own making.’
An Jin had been angry and embarrassed, but seeing his expression, her chest tightened, and her nose began to sting.
’This is... so strange.’
—
I’m finally home. Updates will resume starting today.
