Chapter 286 : Stroking the Tiger's Head
White Tigers are divine beasts, naturally combative, and known as war gods.
This wasn't merely an empty title—a White Tiger's fighting power was indeed formidable, and its original form's combat prowess was incomparable to its human form. If her battle power in human form was 1, then upon returning to her original White Tiger form, her power would instantly soar to 10. Additionally, with the physical enhancement of a beast form, not only her attack but also her defensive capabilities increased manifold, making the loss of spiritual power seem almost inconsequential by comparison.
So now, Jiang Mo, who couldn't break free from her restraints moments ago, transformed into a White Tiger and easily escaped her bonds with a single struggle. She then leaped up, stood on the platform, and shook her fur. Before making any other movement, the pressure emanating from her body had already completely frozen those natives in place.
The sharp bone knives pressed against several unfortunate cultivators' necks. The most unfortunate one even had his skin cut, with a faint trace of blood seeping from the wound. Fortunately, the knife could fall no further. Although the few drops of blood were drawn by the altar's pull, slowly condensing into droplets that fell onto the platform, they weren't enough to endanger a life.
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A White Tiger? How could there be a White Tiger here?!
For tens of thousands of years, unlike the demonic races that had disappeared from sight, divine beasts had remained active in the world. However, it was undeniable that the number of divine beasts born in recent years had been decreasing. Though each of the three major righteous sects had divine beasts guarding them, that was a legacy from tens of millions of years ago. Take Divine Lord Zhiming of the Xuanqing Sect, the youngest and most talented among the three sects' divine beasts—he was already eight thousand years old.
And in those eight thousand years since, heaven and earth had not nurtured another divine beast. To the point that with Divine Lord Zhiming's ascension imminent, the Xuanqing Sect couldn't find a successor divine beast to guard the sect until the congenitally weak Jianbing appeared...
From this, one could see how rare divine beasts were in today's cultivation world, let alone wild divine beasts roaming about.
The merperson had calculated many things, but he never calculated that casually releasing a ghost ship would bring back a divine beast. Seeing this unexpected development, his expression became extremely ugly, yet he had no confidence in dealing with her.
But he didn't need to deliberate further. While he was still shocked, the White Tiger had finished shaking her fur. Her golden eyes looked over, reflecting his currently rigid expression in her beast pupils, making no effort to conceal her killing intent. After this single glance, the White Tiger gave him no more time to think, pouncing directly toward the merperson with a leap.
Seeing the White Tiger's sharp teeth and claws, the merperson instinctively felt fear, but his reaction wasn't slow. He formed hand seals, and a water-blue halo immediately emerged from within him, condensing before him to form a water shield.
The White Tiger pounced close and struck down with one paw, instantly breaking through the blue water shield. However, water is inherently supple, and the water shield condensed by the merperson wasn't completely destroyed by this strike. The scattered water flow immediately filled back in after the tiger's paw moved away. Nevertheless, this defense clearly consumed considerable spiritual power. The merperson's face visibly paled, though whether from fear or spiritual energy consumption was unclear.
Jiang Mo was somewhat irritated by this barrier. Her next attack was more than twice as powerful as before. This time the merperson's barrier couldn't withstand it, but the previous obstruction had given him time to react, and he had already retreated from the edge of the altar.
Merpeople belong to the water element and can only exert their full power in watery environments, but this wasn't his specialty arena. It was one thing to bully cultivators who had lost their spiritual power, but now facing a formidable opponent like the battle-loving White Tiger, he was outmatched. He immediately turned and fled, his target not elsewhere but the stone chamber filled with demonic race formations that Zhu Baiyi and the others had seen before.
How could the White Tiger let him escape? She was about to give chase when suddenly she heard someone behind her call out: "Wait a moment."
This clear, properly enunciated common language obviously didn't come from the natives. Jiang Mo's tiger ears twitched as she stopped and looked back, indeed seeing Zhu Baiyi struggling to her feet. She wasn't surprised—in fact, earlier when surrounded by natives, although the few of them had sustained some injuries, they weren't at their wits' end. The reason they were easily captured was precisely because they had heard Zhu Baiyi's voice transmission.
Heaven knows how she managed voice transmission without spiritual power. But the situation at that time was indeed precarious, and Jiang Mo didn't want to prolong matters, so she followed Zhu Baiyi's instructions and chose to be "captured."
Being fed merperson blood later wasn't surprising either, and being brought to the sacrificial altar was only logical.
Thanks to the White Tiger's special bloodline, the merperson blood had no effect on Jiang Mo, and she remained conscious throughout. As for the others' conditions, she didn't know, but since Zhu Baiyi dared send such a message and the others cooperated in being captured, they likely each had their own trump cards.
Thinking of this, Jiang Mo suddenly had a realization and looked toward her Senior Sister, unsurprisingly meeting a pair of beautiful glassy eyes gazing back at her.
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Zhu Baiyi stopped the tiger for no other purpose than to have her help untie the restraints.
Seeing that the merperson had already fled back to the stone chamber in the distance, she walked over with a dark face. With her paw, she effortlessly severed the binding ropes. She also freed Qingyu beside her, but unlike Zhu Baiyi's consciousness, Qingyu seemed to have truly been affected. Currently with eyes tightly closed, half-embraced by Zhu Baiyi, she showed no signs of waking.
The White Tiger approached to look twice, confirming that her master was indeed affected, then looked at Zhu Baiyi with a strange expression: "Why are you unaffected?"
Zhu Baiyi didn't want to answer and casually pointed at Yun Qingyue, saying: "For the same reason she's unaffected."
The White Tiger followed her finger to look at Yun Qingyue and immediately felt a tightening of her scalp. About the revelation of her identity—actually, her disguise had never been very tight, and after arriving on the island, there were flaws everywhere. She didn't think her Senior Sister wouldn't recognize her. But knowing something and acknowledging it were different; having tacit understanding was one thing, but actually removing her disguise in front of the other person made her entirely uncomfortable.
It was because of this discomfort that she had first come to free Zhu Baiyi and her master, and still hadn't gone to untie her Senior Sister. But clearly this was unavoidable, so hesitantly, she walked over.
Yun Qingyue had already sat up by now, her hands and feet still bound, her face devoid of any extra expression.
The White Tiger tiptoed over, secretly glancing at her Senior Sister's face, then carefully extended her paw to break the restraints on her hands and feet. She wanted to say something but hesitated, appearing extremely reserved and awkward.
Whether Yun Qingyue was angry about her concealment was unclear, at least nothing showed on her face. After being freed, she stood up to stretch her limbs, but her gaze turned toward the stone chamber where the merperson had fled: "Let's go take a look."
The White Tiger was only afraid she might be angry and ignore her. Hearing this, she had no objections and hastily nodded in agreement.
Yun Qingyue's gaze softened slightly. As she passed by the White Tiger, her hand gently stroked the tiger's head—after eighty years apart, the White Tiger had matured early, and in her original form, she was considerably taller than Yun Qingyue. Even with the White Tiger deliberately lowering her head, Yun Qingyue still had to raise her hand significantly to stroke the tiger's head, making it clearly intentional rather than casual.
With just this single gesture, seven or eight tenths of the White Tiger's anxiety dissipated, and her tiger eyes brightened. Seeing her Senior Sister walk past her, she hurriedly leaped up to follow, visibly excited.
This time Zhu Baiyi didn't stop them. She carried Qingyu and jumped down from the altar, first distancing herself from that altar of unknown purpose, only then feeling somewhat at ease. As for the people on the altar, Zhu Baiyi originally didn't want to bother with them, but considering that among them were not only Crimson Blood Sect disciples but also many Xuanqing Sect disciples, she couldn't truly abandon them for Qingyu's sake.
So she temporarily placed the unconscious Qingyu on the ground and leaped back onto the altar. She then tossed people down from the platform one by one until she saw a small bald head, when she suddenly nudged with her foot: "Wake up."
People enchanted by merperson blood fell into dreams and were difficult to awaken, so such a call would naturally be useless.
However, Zhu Baiyi clearly wasn't doing this in vain. As soon as her words fell, Tan Xin, who had been lying on the ground, opened his eyes. Those clear black and white eyes were extremely lucid, evidently also unaffected by the enchantment.
The reason Zhu Baiyi wasn't enchanted by the merperson blood and remained conscious was simple—it was because she had half-demonic bloodline within her. Of course, not all demonic bloodlines could resist the influence of merperson blood, but her particular lineage was of a higher rank than the merperson's, which was why it had no effect on her.
As for why the young monk wasn't affected by the merperson blood and what secrets he harbored, Zhu Baiyi didn't know. But she knew this young monk could rescue people from the influence of merperson blood through some strange method. That he now remained unaffected wasn't surprising and was perfect for recruiting him as help.
Unfortunately, the merperson didn't know these things, otherwise he might have vomited blood on the spot—he had released the ghost ship just to randomly capture some powerful cultivators for sacrifice, but ended up with so many variables on one ship. Not only a divine beast but also a demonic race member and a monk of unknown depth, completely disrupting his plans and leaving him uncertain about how to conclude matters.