Condemning the Heavens

Their advance was slower than before. Every step they took caused them to sink deep into the hills of snow.

The duo had been following the main road most of the day, but when they reached the point where the road split into two and one of the roads lead towards the remains of Lingyun town, the ground had gotten more difficult to traverse.

Lingyun Town had been deserted for more than six years now. It was the scene of a Primordial Beast attack, which as a result meant that no one dared to venture there. What if the beast decided to come back? Some also assumed that a place of the dead was filled with bad luck, which could affect anyone who went there.

This had resulted in very few visitors in Lingyun Town. Although the road signs still showed the direction towards this town, very few went there. The amount of people who were not Primordial Beast Hunters to visit this place could be counted on one hand.

Since no one visited the town, no one bothered to keep the roads clear either. This was the reason Xue Wei and Hei Gou were walking knee-deep through snow.

The snow impeded their movement, but neither Xue Wei nor Hei Gou were bothered by the cold and snow despite how tedious it was to walk through and the intensity of the weather. Not even the fact that they had to expend a slightly larger amount of energy bothered them.

"We need to be careful," Xue Wei said after a bit of time. "I fear that there will be an ambush once we get to Lingyun town. The people who are chasing me should know that at some point I am likely to return to Lingyun Town to visit my roots."

"Since this is the case, if they are patient enough, then they will have been waiting here for a long time and waited for me to arrive."

"Oh, then I have an idea," Hei Gou grinned, and Xue Wei looked at him curiously.

"I am a Primordial Beast," he pointed out. Xue Wei crossed his arms across his chest and shifted his weight to one leg while looking at the black dog with an appalled look on his face. It was not something he was likely to forget anytime soon.

"I might be fairly weak for a Primordial Beast, but I am still a Primordial Beast. I can rouse a horde of Fierce Beasts to fight against the masses of humans."

"Even the beasts with an equivalent strength to a Heavenly Warrior are forced to follow my command as I am a Primordial Beast above the age of thirty."

"Since this is the case, why don’t we go to the forests and make a massive beast horde. Send the beast horde to the small village that’s our destination and sneak in when they are going rampant."

"The Primordial Beast Hunters might be able to defeat the beast horde when it arrives, but they are not likely to be able to cause problems for us as they will be too busy fighting. We will sneak in while the fight is ongoing and then sneak out again before the fighting dies down."

"Since I am already an accomplice to the Primordial Beasts, I might as well use their strength," Xue Wei nodded his head. "Let us do that."

"Also, it seems that there has been made a specific military company with the sole purpose of capturing and killing me. If we are unlucky, then they might also be here, so I suggest that we rally a massive beast horde. We cannot afford to be lazy, nor can we afford to gamble with our lives," Xue Wei said solemnly.

"A whole company made for the sake of capturing you? Damn, they truly seem to be extravagant with their way of capturing you. Even Primordial Beasts themselves do not have such a thing following them."

"But hey, does that not mean, that no matter where we go, we will constantly be chased by a group of strong experts?"

"Pretty much," Xue Wei grinned. Although Hei Gou had seemed nervous at first, he could not help but grin as well after a bit of time.

"We will face whatever tribulation comes our way. We will kill anyone who stands in our way. Be it a company or heavenly law; it does not matter. We will never bend, we will never break!"

Hearing Hei Gou’s words, Xue Wei started laughing, but there was pride in his laughter.

"That is exactly what we are. The rest of the world wants to condemn us, but we will get our revenge. We will prove to everyone that our urge to survive is stronger than anyone else. We will never give up!"

Hei Gou, whose face always had a playful smile curling on his lips and whose limpid eyes were always filled with carefreeness, suddenly had a heroic air to him.

His eyes were blazing with determination. The slight smile he always sported was gone now, and instead his mouth was cracked into a smile so big that all his white teeth were displayed.

It was clear that he was honest with his emotions at that very moment, and his emotions were making Xue Wei change too.

"You are right!" he exclaimed. "We brothers are more astonishing than what anyone else can imagine. We will survive! We will never bend, never succumb and never give up. We will fight till our last breath!"

Hearing Xue Wei repeating his words, Hei Gou had a face filled with excitement, and he could not help but throw his head back and laugh out loud as he looked at the sky above them. The snow that slowly descended from the all-encompassing grey clouds above filled his vision.

"I have never felt as free as I do now," Hei Gou said with a grin on his face as he turned to look at Xue Wei.

"We will get through this, and then we will roam the world. I will get to see things I have never seen before. I will get to experience a life I could never even have dreamt about."

"The biggest issue is that we need to be careful of Diviners," Hei Gou sighed. "I don’t know much about Diviners, only that they are complete trouble for someone like myself."

"We will try to avoid them," Xue Wei said with a nod of his head. "No one else should be able to see that you are not a normal human, and since they won’t know better, we will be safe."

"Anyway, your idea was great," Xue Wei had a mischievous smile on his face. "Let us go and rouse the Northern Taiga’s Fierce Beasts and begin a true battle against the hunters and other people who might be hiding out in Lingyun town to catch me."

"Just wait a moment," Hei Gou said as he sat down in the middle of the tall hills made from snow. He almost completely vanished into the snow itself.

Xue Wei was incredibly curious about the method that Hei Gou was using, and he spread out his spiritual energy to sense what exactly was ongoing.

The only thing that Xue Wei sensed was a trembling group of shockwaves that was being sent out in every single direction.

These shockwaves were not made from spiritual energy, nor were they made from Qi. It seemed as if they were made from a whole different kind of energy, but Xue Wei could not pin down what kind of energy it was. He had no idea that any other kinds of energy than the ones he knew existed, so he was truly intrigued.

It lasted most of the day, where Hei Gou was just sitting still, sending out one shockwave of energy after another. These were all made within the exact same timeframe, all completely the same.

As the sunless cloudy sky turned dark, Hei Gou finally rose to his feet once more. His face was slightly pale, but his eyes were blazing.

"You seem quite interested in the ways of the Primordial Beasts," Hei Gou said with a slight smile on his face. However, although he was seemingly joking as always, Xue Wei could see that he was exhausted and worn out.

"I am curious, but don’t go out of your way to answer me right now, instead get something done about that lack of energy. We can’t have you collapsing on me," Xue Wei grinned. He was indeed curious, but he did not doubt that Hei Gou would tell him whenever the he was ready to do so.

The location where Xue Wei was standing was eerily quiet. There were no living beings in the air, whether that be Fierce Beasts or humans, and there were not even any birds in the sky.

"This is as if we are the only two people in the entire world," Xue Wei sighed as he too sat down in the snow next to Hei Gou, who by now had laid down and allowed for the snow to completely cover him.

Xue Wei did not lay down in the snow. He just sat down and listened to the silence that enveloped him. Neither he nor Hei Gou spoke for a long time, both completely enveloped in their respective thoughts.

The two friends were sitting like this for a long time, before finally the ground started trembling.

Xue Wei shot to his feet in alert, while Hei Gou just sprouted his usual cheeky smile and remained in the same relaxed posture on the ground.

"I used the strongest command that I can control," he said with a voice that sounded so smug that Xue Wei wanted to punch him in the face. "I have commanded every beast within this region of the Northern Taiga to come and assist us."

"Truthfully, I am likely to get into a whole lot of problems when they find out that this is what I have been doing, but honestly I don’t think I can get into much more trouble than I already am. I ran away from my duty. I ran away from my family. I use my powers for personal gain. It seems that I am actually a bad boy."

"Stop acting," Xue Wei grinned in reply when he saw Hei Gou pretending to wipe away tears from his eyes. Instead, he looked at the massive beast horde that was starting to gather around him.

There were all kinds of Fierce Beasts. Strangely enough, none of them even as much as glanced at Xue Wei, completely ignoring him. This time, no one showed fear towards him, but they did not show hostility either. It was as if he did not even exist.

Hei Gou, on the other hand, was being treated like a king that had just returned to his kingdom, and every Fierce Beast was curious about him and looked at him with adoration.

"Fierce Beasts can have intelligence equal to humans," Hei Gou said with seriousness in his voice. "But even if they have the intelligence, they are always looking up to Primordial Beasts. They will do anything they are ordered to when it is a Primordial Beast that gives the order."

"These Fierce Beasts are pretty much just slaves to us Primordial Beasts. It is truly a depressing subject, but it is also very important. We have always been taught that the Fierce Beasts are in truth nothing more than our tools to defeat the humans and take back the utopia we had previously."

"I do not believe in this utopia, neither do I believe that it is really a good idea to keep the humans as livestock, but I am just one single beast. It is limited what I can do alone."