The Rat Cultivator

Chapter 114: Rage

Hidden underground, Big Black heard Winged Tiger’s venomous sarcasm drifting down from the surface. He scratched his head, genuinely confused.

“Since when is that tiger such a smooth talker? Why didn’t he show this side of himself before?”

Bibo didn’t even turn his head. He continued to channel Demon Power into the Ancient Xun magical artifact in his hands, using its subtle vibrations to amplify the Peng Bird’s emotional instability.

“He probably always wanted to,” Bibo said calmly. “But the Great King beat the attitude out of him with a few good smacks of the Mace. Now he’s just venting.”

Above ground, the effect was immediate.

Upon hearing Winged Tiger’s insults, the Peng Bird’s chest heaved like a bellows. Green smoke hissed from his nostrils, and his cyan Demon Power boiled over like a tidal wave, a physical manifestation of his fury.

Winged Tiger’s expression tightened. He immediately retracted his head behind the Tiger Head Shield, peeking out cautiously to guard against a lethal strike.

But the Peng Bird didn’t attack. He gave the tiger a look of profound hatred, then dissolved into a streak of cyan light.

In the next instant, he reappeared at the center of the bloody tornado. Merging his body with the wind, he drove the storm toward the fleeing vultures, intent on finishing his ritual.

“Wait until I master this technique!” his voice thundered from the heavens. “Then I will settle accounts with you, one by one!”

Winged Tiger was so angry he hopped up and down, pointing at the retreating bird. “Spineless coward! All you know is how to run!”

Despite the cursing, his movements were lightning-fast. His body dissolved into a breeze as he gave chase.

He pushed himself to the limit, but the distance between them only widened. Instinctively, he tried to flap his wings to accelerate—only to feel the empty air on his back. The phantom sensation was a harsh reminder: he was no longer whole.

Gritting his teeth in pain and frustration, he pulled out the Tiger Head Shield again.

“Old Man, I have to rely on you one more time!”

A tiger shadow flashed across the bronze surface. With a roar of effort, Winged Tiger hurled the shield like a discus.

The Peng Bird didn’t even look back. Sensing the projectile, a disdainful sneer curled his beak.

“With that speed? You can eat my dust!”

He beat his wings once, accelerating just enough to let the shield sail harmlessly past him.

He turned his head to mock his pursuer. “You disgrace the name of the Winged Tigers! Oh, wait—you don’t have wings anymore. You’re just a Ground Tiger now. HAHA!”

But the Winged Tiger didn’t rage. Instead, a sly, treacherous grin spread across his face.

The Peng Bird felt a sudden jolt of unease.

SNAP.

A split second later, the Tiger Head Shield that had flown past suddenly animated. A massive spectral tiger head lunged from the metal, its neck trailing into mist. It opened its jaws and took a massive bite out of the bloody tornado trailing behind the bird.

Whoosh.

The tiger head vanished instantly, leaving only a lingering, smiling afterimage in the air—a final middle finger to the bird.

The Peng Bird stared at the tattered remains of his tornado. He whipped his head back to look at Winged Tiger, his eyes bulging so hard they looked ready to bleed.

“YOU—”

Before he could scream, a hoarse, gurgling cry erupted from the Vulture Leader ahead.

The Peng Bird snapped his attention forward just in time to see the Vulture Leader’s head separate from its body. Blood sprayed across the sky as the corpse plummeted.

Above the flock, a tooth-shaped magical artifact flickered with cold, lethal light. It danced through the air, bisecting the remaining vultures with surgical precision.

Worse, the corpses didn’t just fall. They dissolved into a dark green, sticky sludge mid-air, raining down onto the Geng Gold Mine with a pungent stench that hissed as it corroded the rock.

Poison.

The Peng Bird hovered in the sky, dazed. He felt like he had been slapped awake from a dream.

“I was about to succeed…” he murmured, his voice hollow. “Why? Why did it turn out like this?”

“You even poisoned the sacrifices… you didn’t leave me a single chance…”

“You played me for a fool!”

The Green Roc, who prided himself on toying with his prey, had been thoroughly, completely played. The humiliation was absolute. It broke something inside him.

He stood frozen in the air, stripped of his arrogance, looking like a bird who had lost its soul.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!”

Winged Tiger’s voice drifted up again, dripping with contempt.

“You really are an embarrassment to your bloodline.”

The Peng Bird turned stiffly. His eyes were no longer just angry; they were hollow pits of hatred.

“Your father is the Great Roc of the Nine Heavens,” Winged Tiger sneered. “But you? You’re just a little chicken scratching in the dirt.”

The words struck the Peng Bird like a physical blow.

His pride was entirely borrowed from his father. He had spent his life imitating the Great Roc—his speech, his mannerisms, his cruelty—all to hear a single phrase: “The son resembles the father.”

But he was the failure. The weakest of the brood. Still stuck at the mid-stage of Qi Condensation while his siblings soared. He had come to this desolate backwater to bully the weak just to feel powerful. He couldn’t even master the simplest of his father’s techniques.

Today, he had debased himself. He had chosen a crooked, forbidden path to power.

And he had still failed.

And now, this flightless cripple was stomping on his face.

“I swear in my father’s name,” the Peng Bird said, his voice void of emotion. “Today, either you die, or I perish.”

FOOM.

Cyan feathers exploded from his body, scattering into the air to form a massive net that enveloped the entire mine. They glowed with faint light, interlocking to form a trapping formation.

Wind began to surge—not the natural wind of the world, but a chaotic, destructive gale. The Peng Bird’s cyan feathers turned a sickly red, reflecting the remnants of the bloody tornado.

It was a suicide pact. A doomsday storm.

On the ground, the sudden pressure made Big Black’s eyes widen.

The sensation triggered a visceral memory: the day of the Emperor Fluid. The day the Great Demon had unleashed a world-destroying technique. The overwhelming terror of that day washed over him again, making his knees shake.

But Big Black was a survivor. He had crawled through hell to get here.

SMACK!

He slapped himself hard across the face, dispelling the fear.

He leaped out of his rat hole, pointed a claw at the sky, and roared at the top of his lungs.

“HEY! LITTLE GREEN CHICKEN!”

“Is that all you got?! This breeze is pathetic compared to your daddy’s technique! It’s barely enough to cool my balls in the summer!”

“If your father were here, I’d be kneeling already! But you? You’re a joke! You disgrace his name!”

His voice was laced with a strange, vibrating frequency—courtesy of Bibo’s Ancient Xun—that cut through the wind and drilled straight into the bird’s brain.

Bibo stepped forward, casually toying with the green tooth artifact in his hands.

He smiled, a gentle, grandfatherly expression that didn’t reach his cold eyes.

“You can’t beat us, child. Why don’t you go home and practice for another hundred years?”

The taunts hit the Peng Bird like steel needles.

Veins bulged on his forehead. His vision turned entirely red. Reason vanished, replaced by a singular, all-consuming need to destroy.