Zhuo Yifeng was about to shoot an arrow at the buckling bull when Li Mo said from behind, “If she can’t handle magical beasts at this level on her own, there’s no point heading deeper into the forest.”

Although Yun Ruoyan was temporarily unable to fight back, she didn’t seem to be in much danger. After hearing Li Mo’s words, Zhuo Yifeng let go of his arrow. 

On top of the buckling bull, Yun Ruoyan was cursing inwardly. Although it wasn’t particularly clever and didn’t possess any special techniques, its massive body and physical prowess more than accounted for these deficiencies.

“Mistress, given this bull’s size and the thickness of its hide, it’ll be easiest to kill by retrieving its beast core,” Qiuqiu began.

“I know, but I can’t even move right now!”

One of Yun Ruoyan’s hands was tightly clenched around her dagger, and the other was grasping a handful of yellow fur from the bull’s head. She felt as though she were the sole leaf on a tree in the deep of autumn, with a chilly wind tugging her every which way…

“I bet this bull’s only bucking so hard because of the pain. Pull out the dagger, and it’ll probably stop,” Qiuqiu advised.

“Alright, I’ll try that.” As Yun Ruoyan gripped the bull’s yellow hair tightly, she jerked her dagger from its head.

The bull howled, stopped trying to buck her off, and began dashing forward madly instead.

“Qiuqiu…”

“......”

When Li Mo saw what was happening, he quickly followed Yun Ruoyan on his sword, while Zhuo Yifeng began running behind him. Although Li Mo easily kept pace with her, he showed no sign of helping---and Yun Ruoyan had no intentions of asking for help. As a seventh-rank blademaster, she was sure she would be able to take down such a mad bull!

In order to do so, she would have to retrieve the bull’s beast core directly. Once Yun Ruoyan’s mind was set, she immediately hugged the bull’s head tightly as she raised her dagger and thrust it once more into the slit in the bull’s skull.

The bull howled and began to rampage once more, but Yun Ruoyan grit her teeth, bore with the sudden bout of dizziness, and stabbed the same spot again and again, three or four times consecutively.

Li Mo finally nodded in praise.

By her sixth attempt, Yun Ruoyan had finally managed to create a fist-sized hole in its skull. She stared into it and noticed a mud-yellow beast core, about the size of a human brain, buried underneath the bull’s skull.

She tried to extend her arm into the hole to dig it out, but it was far too deep for her arm to reach. In that case, she would have to destroy it directly!

Yun Ruoyan gathered fire-attuned spiritual energy in her palm, prepared a fireball, and lobbed it directly toward the bull’s core. Although the core looked quite massive, it began to shake violently upon being hit by Yun Ruoyan’s fireball.

The bull stopped its rampage all of a sudden, then began smashing its head against a tree trunk, smashing the tree apart with brute force. Before Yun Ruoyan could be affected, however, she had deftly leaped onto another tree, then found an opportunity to jump back onto the bull’s head.

Even the bull wasn’t unfazed after this impressive headbutt. As it finally slowed down, Yun Ruoyan hooked a leg against one of the bull’s horns and sent fireball after fireball toward the bull’s beast core with both palms.

The fist-sized hole quickly grew larger and larger, and the fireballs directly exploded against the bull’s core. After such a brutal pounding, the mud-yellow, brain-sized core finally developed a crack. On Yun Ruoyan’s eighth fireball, that crack finally split the core apart.

The giant bull finally fell amidst its howling. Yun Ruoyan stood on the bull’s head, tilting as the bull fell, searching all around her for a potential foothold. Suddenly, she felt her body lighten: Li Mo had grabbed her by the waist.

Yun Ruoyan twisted around to the man behind her. “Well? This little bull’s no match for me.”

Li Mo glanced at Yun Ruoyan, her face flushed and dripping with sweat. Shaking his head, he murmured, “You’re still quite inexperienced. If you ever encounter a beast which relies solely on brute strength, simply attack its beast core as quickly as you can.”

By then, Zhuo Yifeng had rushed over. When he looked at the mountain-sized bull lying dead on the ground, he couldn’t help but gape---it was simply too large!

“Zhuo Yifeng, do you think those bull horns would make good arrowheads?” Yun Ruoyan descended from Li Mo’s sword and walked to his side. The bull’s beast core had been entirely destroyed, but its eyes were wide open and reflecting Yun Ruoyan and Zhuo Yifeng’s appearance clearly.

Yun Ruoyan couldn’t help reaching out to touch the giant bull’s eyes, finding them glossy and smooth to the touch.

“Mistress, the membrane of this giant bull’s eyes can be detached and removed from its carcass. It might prove to be handy in the future,” Qiuqiu informed her.

“Yes, let’s!” Yun Ruoyan unsheathed her steel dagger and began to cut lightly around one of the giant bull’s eyeballs, then detached a clear, transparent membrane from it. “It’s really pretty!”

“Indeed it is.” Li Mo had soundlessly appeared behind Yun Ruoyan’s back. He took out a jeweled case  and handed it to Yun Ruoyan. “You can keep it in this case for now.”

Yun Ruoyan neatly packed the membrane into the case, then repeated her actions with the second eye. As she did so, a loud thud rang out from beside her---Zhuo Yifeng had leaped up onto the bull’s head and used his bowstring to saw off one of its horns. As it fell to the ground, it created a rather large crater.

“It looked impressive, so how did it get cut off so easily?” Yun Ruoyan wondered.

“This bull’s horns aren’t high-ranking, but…” Li Mo peered at the bow in Zhuo Yifeng’s hands. “...no simple weapon would be able to slice it off so readily. Zhuo Yifeng’s bow and bowstring, just like your dagger, are likely made from spiritsteel.”

The bull’s horns couldn’t be used to forge arrowheads, and had to be discarded.

“Yan’er, climb up here.” Li Mo jumped up onto its head and waved at Yun Ruoyan, pointing to the hole in the bull’s skull that she had created by force. 

On Li Mo’s prompting, Yun Ruoyan stared suspiciously into the hole to see a mud-yellow pearl where the bull’s beast core had been. 

“This is… this bull’s beast core?”

Li Mo nodded. “With your skill, you’re still unable to fully destroy a high-rank beast core. What’s left is the heart of the beast core, and it’s more precious than an ordinary low-rank beast’s beast core.”

Li Mo extended his hand toward the hole, and the mud-yellow pearl flew into his hands. “This is an earth-type beast’s beast core. It can’t be used for pillmaking and is useless to either of you, so I’ll keep it for the moment.”

Zhuo Yifeng jumped down from the bull’s head and moved to its mouth, its tongue half-lolled out. Zhuo Yifeng sliced off the tongue’s surface and then extracted a large chunk of the tender meat within: their dinner for the night.

The trio continued their exploration in the forest. After about four hours, the sky had entirely turned dark. The canopy blocked even the smallest shred of moonlight, and they decided to make camp by a large tree. 

Zhuo Yifeng covered the beef tongue in large leaves, buried it in mud, and lit a fire on top of it. When it was ready, he extinguished the fire and removed the well-baked meat, which gave off an enticing aroma and melted on the tongue. As Yun Ruoyan consumed the food, she was very happy that Li Mo had decided to assign Zhuo Yifeng to their team.

As usual, Li Mo didn’t have a single bite; he sat quietly by the side and silently sipped his wine.

After dinner, because Li Mo had mentioned that bugs and snakes would frequently roam the forest ground at night, and that they could even encounter beast hordes if they were unlucky, the three of them decided to rest high in the trees.

“Yan’er, I’ll show you a nice spot.” Li Mo soared up into the skies with Yun Ruoyan in tow.

“Where are you bringing me?” Yun Ruoyan waved to Zhuo Yifeng, left behind on the ground. He quietly stared at Li Mo and Yun Ruoyan as they flew past the dense canopy, blocking his sight. Casually, he leaped onto a tree’s large bough, hugged his bow, and shut his eyes while leaning against its trunk.

On the other hand, Li Mo brought Yun Ruoyan all the way past tree after tree, until they finally arrived at the top of the forest. Moonlight shone silver against the crown of each tree, illuminating the forest as though it were an endless grasslands, as though it were the boundless sea.

A wind blew by, and the trees seemed to rustle in response. Yun Ruoyan opened her mouth wide and raised her hands, intending to shout loudly into the air but instead only taking a deep breath.

In this unfamiliar territory, even with Li Mo by her side, Yun Ruoyan still couldn’t fully relax.

“It really is very beautiful here,” Yun Ruoyan commented, enjoying the cold, brisk air. “But you don’t intend on showing me the scenery all night, do you?”

Li Mo smiled. “With me around, I promise you’ll eat and sleep well.”

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