The Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox licked his lips, and a bloody haze immediately veiled his eyes. “Good child. Even with my inner core sealed, your father isn’t so easy to bully.”
Hu Xue’er had been knocked into the wall. She kicked off it with her short legs and shot straight back toward him!
But this time she did not reach him. Xu Ziqing stretched out one hand, scooped her up, and stopped her attack.
Xu Ziqing frowned slightly. “What is happening?”
Could Xue’er be trying to avenge her mother? he wondered.
The Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox laughed softly. He looked at Hu Xue’er, greed flashing through his eyes. “A Heavenly Fox’s body is a tremendous tonic. What a pity she escaped. Since she’s been brought back, why not give her to me? I’m willing to offer compensation in exchange.”
Xu Ziqing was stunned.
He sensed that something was amiss. Placing a hand on Hu Xue’er’s head, he sent his spiritual sense into her mind and probed briefly. After all, she was a pet bound to him by a blood contract. Although they still could not communicate properly, this method allowed him to glimpse some of her thoughts.
But what he discovered made him draw a sharp breath.
Apart from her affection for Xu Ziqing, Hu Xue’er’s mind was filled entirely with an overwhelming hunger. All she wanted was the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox’s heart. She longed to tear it out immediately and devour it alive!
From what they had just heard, these two foxes ought to be father and daughter. Yet their behavior was not that of parent and child at all, but of mortal enemies bent on killing each other!
Could the instincts of beasts truly be so different that father and daughter would slaughter each other? Or was there some mystery he did not yet understand?
His mind full of questions, Xu Ziqing looked toward the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox again. The fox’s eyes were half closed, and his whole body exuded barely restrained, ravenous desire. Clearly, he coveted his child’s flesh no less intensely.
Perhaps hoping to gain Xu Ziqing’s trust, the fox soon began to explain what had happened.
The Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox had indeed been imprisoned by the Panshan Demon King. But a fox’s nature was seductive and free. How could he willingly submit? Thus, while King Panshan had sealed his inner core and bound his body, he also sent servants to attend him and ensured that he suffered no particular discomfort.
Given the Demon King’s temperament, he would never have allowed male attendants to serve the fox. Yet he could not trust ordinary female demons either, so eventually he began sending his favored concubines.
The previous attendant assigned to the Fox King had been Madam Hu Mei, a green fox.
King Panshan genuinely treated the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox well. He sent Madam Hu Mei first because she was one of his favorites and, secondly, because she was also a fox, and he hoped that someone of the same clan would comfort the prisoner.
Unexpectedly, the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox’s seduction arts were already incomparable. Foxes of his own clan were especially inclined to admire such a supreme Fox King. Before he had done much to manipulate her, Hu Mei was already hopelessly enamored.
Naturally, the Fox King seduced Hu Mei in hopes of exploiting her to find an opening. But as their relationship continued, she became pregnant and grew even more devoted to him.
When he learned this, the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox was actually astonished.
Rare species like his found it exceedingly difficult to reproduce. Yet an ordinary green fox had conceived his child? When he investigated the pregnancy, he became wild with delight.
Hearing the Fox King explain everything so unhurriedly, Xu Ziqing began to form an uneasy suspicion.
He also sensed his senior brother’s killing intent stirring beside him. He gently squeezed Yun Lie’s hand to soothe him.
Yun Lie paused slightly but said nothing.
Nevertheless, the aura around him gradually calmed.
This was not the time to act. Besides, the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox’s explanation contained information worth hearing.
The fox clan was vast and included several rare species at its pinnacle. Both Heavenly Foxes and Ninefold Profound Alluring Foxes belonged among them.
The Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox was a species embodying extreme lust, while the Heavenly Fox was a species of utmost purity. Though they belonged to the same clan, they were natural enemies.
That a Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox could produce a Heavenly Fox with an ordinary fox could only be explained as an extreme reversing into its opposite. The two species counteracted and gave rise to one another, and each could nourish the other.
Thus, if a Heavenly Fox consumed the heart of a Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox, its aptitude, potential, and rank would all increase enormously. A young fox could swiftly pass through childhood and enter maturity; an adult could advance an entire rank, with an even greater chance of awakening an innate divine ability!
Conversely, if a Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox devoured a Heavenly Fox, the effects would be equally remarkable.
With the Fox King imprisoned and unable to use his strength, consuming a Heavenly Fox would not only immediately break his seals and restore his original power, but could even raise him to a higher level!
Thus, when he discovered that the fetus in the green fox’s womb overflowed with spiritual qi and was actually a Heavenly Fox, the Fox King was ecstatic. To keep King Panshan from noticing, he had employed his greatest skills to conceal the unborn child.
Yet even as a fetus, a Heavenly Fox possessed some instinctive ability to seek good fortune and avoid calamity. While still in the womb, Hu Xue’er could sense her father’s malice and felt a corresponding hunger for him.
As a fox of utmost purity, she could resist the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox’s seduction arts. For a short time, that resistance was passed on to her mother as well.
Madam Hu Mei loved the Fox King deeply. Even when freed from the influence of his spells, her feelings did not change. But when she realized he coveted the fetus in her womb, she was seized by panic. One was the man she loved and the other her own flesh and blood. Unable to bear abandoning either, she secretly began making plans.
Perhaps motherhood had made her stronger. On the day she gave birth, spiritual qi surged intensely. The Fox King was briefly occupied concealing the event, and Hu Mei seized that opening. Disregarding her injuries from childbirth, she activated the arrangements she had secretly prepared and exhausted her network of allies, finally escaping with her child.
What followed, with savage beasts pursuing them and the demon beasts sent by King Panshan searching for them, came afterward.
In the end, Madam Hu Mei could not shake the savage beasts pursuing her. Fleeing blindly in desperation, she happened upon Xu Ziqing.
The Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox had explained the hostility between himself and Hu Xue’er quite clearly, yet he had also concealed many things, brushing past them with only a few words.
For example, what exactly was his relationship with King Panshan, and why did the king insist upon keeping him captive? The Fox King had seduced Panshan’s favored concubine and seemed not to have been punished for it. On the surface, it looked as though the king coveted the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox’s beauty, but something about the situation still felt subtly strange.
Guided by that intuition, neither Xu Ziqing nor Yun Lie dared jump to conclusions.
While they reflected, the Fox King would not let the matter rest. “Well? If you’re willing to trade, I have rewards to offer. I certainly won’t disappoint you.”
Hu Xue’er found herself pinned by the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox’s bloodred gaze and felt as though needles covered her body. At the same time, the savage urge in her chest clamored for her to leap forward, dig out his heart, and eat it!
Her instincts told her that this demon fox, though related to her by blood, was her irreconcilable enemy, her prey, and a nourishing treasure. She knew even more clearly that eating his heart would help her mature immediately and allow her to become more useful to her master.
The two demon beasts faced off, bestial ferocity brimming in their eyes. One was a child; the other had his inner core sealed. The younger fox was weaker in presence, yet she refused to retreat an inch!
Xu Ziqing frowned.
This was no time to let Xue’er fight the Fox King, and naturally he could not agree to the latter’s request.
He refused at once. “I have already taken Xue’er as my beast companion. I’m afraid I must disappoint you, Fox King.”
The Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox’s pupils abruptly contracted. “You won’t even ask my price?”
Xu Ziqing shook his head. “It’s a matter of principle. The price makes no difference.”
The fox studied him for a long moment, and the bloodred color slowly faded from his eyes. The beastliness he had displayed vanished, replaced by the same calm, alluring manner he had shown when they first met. With every expression, he seemed to hold the seven emotions and six desires in his grasp. “Very well.” He smiled, raising his brows. “You two are rather unusual, especially… this one.”
When the fox had renewed his offer to trade for Xue’er and devour her, Xu Ziqing had grown markedly more distant, while Yun Lie’s swordlike killing intent locked onto the fox once again.
That killing intent was so fierce that it seemed to wrap the Fox King completely. Though he looked composed, fine beads of sweat formed upon his brow, revealing how difficult it was to endure.
Xu Ziqing slowly stroked Hu Xue’er’s back, sending true essence into her to soothe her. Gradually the hostility drained away, and she returned to her lively, gentle self.
When Hu Xue’er looked again at the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox, she no longer wore that ferocious expression, but her little eyes darted about with lively cunning.
The Fox King addressed the two men. “This cultivator has frozen his seven emotions, and his art is highly unusual. Could it be… the Ruthless Slaughter Sword Dao?”
Yun Lie looked at him coldly, without the slightest pity. “Since you know, you should understand that this place will be your burial ground.”
His killing intent intensified as he spoke. Sword intent surged at the center of his brow and burst forth.
Swish!
The sword intent shot forward like a streak of light.
A strange look flashed through the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox’s eyes. “Soul lamp!” he exclaimed at once.
Hum!
In a flash, the Fox King’s long hair flew upward under the pressure of the sword qi, but the sword intent stopped just before his face, a hair’s breadth from a vital point.
Even so, the force Yun Lie had not completely withdrawn cut a faint red line across the fox’s throat. A fraction deeper, and blood would have flowed.
The Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox smiled and calmly finished his explanation. “Panshan imprisons me here and dares to block outsiders’ spiritual sense. Naturally, he has some safeguard. When he sealed my inner core, he secretly took a fragment of my primordial spirit and used a special technique to refine it into a soul lamp, so he could watch over me. Not only would he know if someone killed me, he would sense even the slightest injury and rush here immediately.”
In other words, it was fortunate that Yun Lie had controlled his sword intent so precisely. Had he cut even a tiny wound in the Fox King, they would already have alerted the enemy.
Yun Lie’s eyes grew colder still.
Nevertheless, he recalled his sword intent and did not attack again.
Xu Ziqing sighed inwardly and was about to speak when he suddenly sensed an unfamiliar aura approaching.
At the same moment the Ninefold Profound Alluring Fox cried, “Hide, quickly! Panshan is here!”