High above the vast and boundless Dark Forest, a black afterimage flashed across the sky and vanished in an instant.
Bei Bei's small eyes held a trace of grief and rage.
"They must die!" Bei Bei gritted its teeth, but first, it flew toward the place where Lin Lei was cultivating.
"Whoosh!" Broad daylight, with an army standing guard, yet a near-blurred afterimage flashed by and was gone. It had already entered the underground chamber complex. The ordinary soldiers didn't notice a bit that a magical beast had infiltrated these subterranean rooms.
Inside the main hall of the underground chambers.
Buck had already left. Lin Lei and Dilia weren't rushing to train either; instead, they quietly awaited Bei Bei's arrival.
"Boss." With a voice trembling from crying, Bei Bei leaped directly into Lin Lei's arms.
"What's wrong, Bei Bei?" Lin Lei and Dilia both felt very surprised.
Nestled in Lin Lei's embrace, Bei Bei raised its little head, its bright, energetic eyes looking up at Lin Lei: "Boss, my father and mother are both dead, boohoo..." Bei Bei had always carried this worry deep inside, but it never expected it would end like this.
"What happened? Explain clearly," Lin Lei said quickly. "Don't cry."
Lin Lei could sense that Bei Bei's mental age seemed similar to a human child's. It was far from reaching the adult stage for its kind.
Bei Bei nodded. "I already saw Grandpa Belute. Grandpa Belute told me my father was a Stone Devourer Mouse, and my mother was a Shadow Mouse. They were both very powerful, having reached the ninth rank. But they were still killed by someone. It was them who killed my parents."
"Who killed them?" Lin Lei asked, puzzled.
"The Star Sword Saint Di Long, and the Earth Grand Mage 'Ludi'," Bei Bei said through gritted teeth.
Lin Lei was startled.
He immediately recalled the Holy Domain battle that had taken place in Wushan Town when he was eight. He had clearly heard those two Holy Domain powerhouses shouting at each other. The Holy Domain warrior was Di Long! And that Grand Mage was Ludi.
"They killed your parents?" Lin Lei thought about the timeline.
It was precisely because of that great battle that Lin Lei, trying to save his younger brother Wotton, had been struck on the head. His blood dripped onto the Coiling Dragon Ring. That allowed Grandpa Derinkoort to emerge from the ring, and Lin Lei began his path of cultivating magic. And after cultivating for nearly half a year, he discovered Bei Bei in the yard of his family's abandoned ancestral home.
"Half a year... Yes, given Bei Bei's growth speed, half a year would be about enough for a newborn mouse to reach the state I saw it in."
Both the timing and everything else fit perfectly.
Back then, Lin Lei had always wondered why those two Holy Domain powerhouses were fighting in a place like Wushan Town. Now it seemed, it was connected to Bei Bei's parents.
"Why did they kill your parents?" Lin Lei pressed.
Bei Bei sobbed as it answered. "Boss, the Dark Forest is the den for mouse-type magical beasts. While there are many mouse-type magical beasts in the Magic Beast Mountain Range, they can't compare to the Dark Forest." Hearing this, Lin Lei nodded silently; mouse-type beasts were naturally adept at reproduction.
Wherever beasts gathered, there would usually be mouse swarms.
"Although not as many, there are still over ten million mouse-type beasts," Bei Bei said. The Dark Forest could easily produce a swarm numbering in the hundreds of millions, while the Magic Beast Mountain Range only had over ten million. The difference in numbers was indeed vast.
Bei Bei continued. "In the Magic Beast Mountain Range, there are no Holy Domain level mouse-type beasts. The leader of that swarm of over ten million mice was my parents: a ninth-rank Stone Devourer Mouse and a ninth-rank Shadow Mouse."
Lin Lei and Dilia both understood.
Among ten million mouse beasts, producing a pair of ninth-rank ones was about right.
"Both the Star Sword Saint Di Long and the Grand Mage Ludi wanted to subjugate a magical beast for their own use. The Star Sword Saint 'Di Long' discovered my father and mother, and he attempted to subjugate them. After all, subjugating them would mean controlling a mouse swarm of over ten million." Bei Bei's eyes were filled with resentment.
Lin Lei understood Di Long's thinking perfectly.
A mouse swarm of over ten million would possess power comparable to an army of several million. While both ninth-rank Black Dragons and ninth-rank Stone Devourer and Shadow Mice were ninth-rank beasts, most powerhouses would likely choose the Shadow Mouse or Stone Devourer Mouse.
"The worst part was, my mother was pregnant at the time," Bei Bei said through clenched teeth. "Mouse Kings are proud. My father, relying on the Stone Devourer Mouse's formidable defense, went to block the Star Sword Saint Di Long. He let my mother escape."
Stone Devourer Mouse defenses were terrifying; it was difficult for an ordinary Holy Domain powerhouse to kill a ninth-rank Stone Devourer Mouse.
"My father was the Mouse King. The Star Sword Saint naturally wanted to subjugate him and naturally fought with him. Who would have thought my father would refuse to submit, fighting him to the bitter end... In the end, Father was still killed by the Star Sword Saint." Bei Bei wept.
The pride of a Mouse King who led an entire swarm was可想而知. Moreover, he was stalling for time, giving Bei Bei's mother a chance to flee.
"Shadow Mice are famous for their speed. My mother was a ninth-rank Shadow Mouse, so her speed was incredibly fast. Even while pregnant, while Father fought that Di Long, Mother managed to escape the Magic Beast Mountain Range. She fled directly westward and eventually arrived at Wushan Town."
Understanding dawned on Lin Lei.
"Mother was probably worried I would suffer, so she used all the magical power within her to force my early birth," Bei Bei said, tears welling in its eyes. "Grandpa Belute said that for us 'God-Eating Mice,' being born to term, we should possess the strength of a sixth or seventh-rank beast the moment we emerge."
A doubt arose in Lin Lei's mind.
God-Eating Mouse?
What kind of species was that? Was it the type of creature Bei Bei was?
But seeing Bei Bei's current state, Lin Lei didn't interrupt. He decided to ask later.
"Forcing my early birth caused Mother severe damage to her body. In that state, Mother instructed me to stay in that dilapidated yard and not run around. As a newborn mouse, no one would know my background. She told me to eat stones there and grow in peace."