King of Beasts

It wasn’t long before the three little squirrels were neatly lined up, shivering.

“Don’t be afraid, I’m a good person.”

“Just answer a few of my questions, and you’ll be free to go.”

Lu Ran looked kindly at the three little squirrels.

“Bark!” “Wow ka!” General Ha and the Sudden Death King nodded.

Although they were unsure why Lu Ran wanted to catch these three, Lu Ran was indeed a “good person.”

Hopefully, the three little squirrels would take the hint.

Having telepathy sure was convenient.

Lu Ran clearly transmitted his thoughts.

After understanding, the three little squirrels nodded frantically.

“What were you talking about just now?” Lu Ran asked.

The squirrels looked at each other, and the one in the middle began to murmur.

Yesterday, two people were fighting in the mountains.

“Two people were fighting in the mountains, and they were commanding creatures like beasts?” Lu Ran asked.

The little squirrels immediately nodded.

“Two beastmasters, huh.” Lu Ran was slightly taken aback.

But why would two beastmasters come to such a place to fight?

“What happened next?” Lu Ran asked.

One died, was buried.

The other walked away.

Lu Ran: ??

“Holy shit.” Lu Ran’s eyes widened dramatically.

He had originally thought that the squirrels’ talk of fratricide was just a metaphor for fighting.

Turns out, it was an actual murder?

“What kind of creatures were they commanding?” Lu Ran continued to ask.

The one that died, a cat…

The other, unrecognizable, very frightening.

“Do you remember where the fight took place? Take me there.” Lu Ran said.

The three little squirrels looked at each other again, very reluctant, but too frightened of Lu Ran, they eventually nodded.

Moments later, Lu Ran was led to the site of yesterday’s fight.

As soon as they arrived, Lu Ran and General Ha could smell the lingering scent of blood.

Looking at the hastily buried mound with obvious signs of burial, Lu Ran’s heart raced again.

Damn, what’s going on.

Although he had strong control over animals, facing murder and death still left him with the mindset of an ordinary high school student.

Confronted with this situation, Lu Ran froze on the spot, unsure of how to proceed.

A beastmaster had been killed and the body dumped in the wilderness!

From the looks of the scene, the beastmaster responsible for the killing didn’t seem to be an official one.

Otherwise, the handling of the body wouldn’t have been so careless.

Was it a malicious murder?

What to do?

Call the police?

Would that bring trouble upon himself?

But if he didn’t call the police, and the murderer was a repeat offender, wouldn’t failing to catch them soon put more people at risk?

“Damn squirrels, making me hear about this. I’ll remember this grudge.”

General Ha and the squirrels: ??

After not much deliberation, Lu Ran took a deep breath and decided to contact the authorities.

He couldn’t help it; his upbringing compelled him to not ignore such matters.

As a child, he loved learning swordsmanship, inspired by the idea of being a knight who would draw his sword to uphold justice whenever he witnessed an injustice.

Even though he had since passed those dreams onto General Ha… at least he had to set an example for it!

“I’ll contact Xiaobailong,” Lu Ran thought, realizing he had no other option.

Xiaobailong should have a way to contact the official beastmasters in Jinling.

Soon enough, Xiaobailong answered the call.

Upon receiving Lu Ran’s call, Xiaobailong was quite pleased, saying, “Yo, Lu Ran, it’s been a while.”

“Let me guess, you need help with something school-related? Isn’t high school starting soon?”

“No… I’ve found a buried body in the outskirts of the mountains, and General Ha, with its keen sense of smell, determined that the buried were a beastmaster and a supernatural pet beast…”

Xiaobailong: ??

“Holy shit.” Xiaobailong also exclaimed in shock. The last time Lu Ran contacted him, it was about a runaway tiger, and now, a beastmaster’s body?

This kid, always getting into something.

What on earth do you do all day!

“Where are you? Still in Green Sea City?” Xiaobailong asked seriously, his expression grave.

A beastmaster mysteriously buried in the wilderness was no small matter!

“No, I’m currently in Jinling.”

“Jinling? That makes things easier!” Xiaobailong said, “My former boss has been transferred to the Beast Taming Edifice in Jinling. I’ll give him your contact details.”

“Security in each province is now managed separately. I’m in Shanghai, so I’m not too familiar with the situation there.”

“Okay.” Lu Ran nodded.

After ending the call with Lu Ran, Xiaobailong contacted his former boss.

The call was quickly answered.

“Leader Zhao!”

“Bai Junjie? What’s up? We just parted ways not long ago, what’s the matter?”

“Do you remember that beastmaster named Lu Ran, ID Passerby A, whose ancestors for eighteen generations have been involved with animals, the newcomer that Dr. Gu had high hopes for?”

“Of course, I remember! How could I forget! Now that I’ve been transferred to Jinling, I’m even closer to him. We might have a chance to meet in the future.”

“He’s currently in Jinling…” Xiaobailong quickly relayed the situation Lu Ran encountered to his former boss.

The line went silent for a moment, then urgently, “Xiaobai, quickly give me his contact information, this is urgent.”

…

The transfer of information was swift.

“Is this Lu Ran? I’m Xiaobailong’s boss, Zhao Chen. Xiaobailong has already told me about your situation. Where are you now?”

“I’m at…” Lu Ran quickly provided his location.

“Lu Ran, thank you for reporting this. This might be related to a case we are currently investigating. We are on our way now. Please be careful while you wait.”

After hanging up, Lu Ran sighed softly and looked again at the burial site. Things were indeed complicated.

An official beastmaster was on the case… So, the murderer might already be under official scrutiny?!

“You can go now.” At this moment, Lu Ran turned to the three little squirrels; they were no longer of any use, so he planned to send them away.

“Gugu…” The three little squirrels cried tears of joy and ran off.

Meanwhile, Lu Ran and General Ha continued to wait at the site.

Lu Ran didn’t dare to dig up the body, fearing he might disrupt the crime scene.

It definitely wasn’t because he was scared.

So terrifying, there’s a dead body, I might suddenly die… Speaking of sudden death, the Sudden Death King was quite excited throughout.

As for General Ha, that creature… fearless of heaven and earth, was looking up, seemingly lost in thought.

The response from the official beastmasters in Jinling was impressively swift. Contrary to Lu Ran’s expectations, only two people arrived at the scene within about fifteen minutes.

One was a middle-aged man and the other a young man.

Upon arrival, the middle-aged man immediately addressed Lu Ran, “It was I who contacted you earlier. Is this the place?”

“Yes,” Lu Ran nodded.

Zhao Chen looked towards the burial site with a grave expression.

“Xiao Wang, I’ll leave this to you. I’m going to take Lu Ran back to the city.”

“Okay,” the young man replied, making an ‘OK’ gesture.

“Lu Ran, you come with me back to the city. We’ll let the professionals handle this,” Zhao Chen said.

Lu Ran felt that Xiaobailong’s former boss probably saw him as a student and thought it inappropriate for him to witness the exhumation, hence the decision to take him away.

Lu Ran, having no interest in staying, called out to General Ha and the Sudden Death King resting on its back, “Let’s go then.”

The Sudden Death King seemed relieved.

This place… had bad feng shui.

Soon, they were making their way down the mountain.

During the descent, Zhao Chen asked Lu Ran for more details about the incident.

Naturally, Lu Ran couldn’t say that he had heard it from the squirrels, so he embellished the story a bit.

He explained everything from his arrival in Jinling to the reasons he had gone up the mountain.

“You’re really lucky, having evolved such a capable climbing pet using an awakening leaf!” Zhao Chen couldn’t help but comment as he looked at the Sudden Death King on General Ha. Truly worthy of being someone Dr. Gu had high hopes for, a beastmaster whose ancestors for generations had dealings with animals.

At that moment, Zhao Chen received another phone call.

“Is it him?” Zhao Chen asked.

“Yes, Tao Hua, a freshman at Jinling Normal University, recently became a beastmaster. His roommate reported last night that he went out to the wilderness to level up but didn’t return all night. A beastmaster friend also found that his identity card had been cancelled and he couldn’t be contacted in Infinite City,” replied the voice on the other end of the phone.

“It looks like he was indeed a victim,” Zhao Chen concluded.

“Let’s first call people to handle the body and contact the family. I’ll go to headquarters and see if we can find some strong external help to resolve this quickly,” Zhao Chen sighed, then hung up the phone.

“Uncle Zhao, what is this case about?” To foster a closer relationship with Lu Ran, Zhao Chen had directly asked Lu Ran to call him Uncle Zhao.

Although Lu Ran wasn’t interested in the body, he was quite curious about the case.

Facing Lu Ran’s inquiry, Zhao Chen gave a bitter smile and said, “You’ve come to Jinling at quite a time; things haven’t been very peaceful around here recently.”

“You’ve only just become a beastmaster, so you might not know about this, but internationally, there’s a mysterious organization called ‘The Other Shore’. They possess a special skill that allows them to level up by hunting other beastmasters and their pet beasts.”

“Members of The Other Shore are spread across many countries, making it an international criminal organization.”

“With the arrival of the fourth wave of beastmasters, they’ve been particularly active recently. I just got transferred to Jinling and have already noticed traces of The Other Shore here.”

“If I’m not mistaken, that person was killed by a member of The Other Shore.”

“A skill that allows leveling up by killing beastmasters and pet beasts? How is such a skill even possible?” Lu Ran was shocked, having never heard of this before.

Becoming a beastmaster came with such dangers?

Even without venturing into dangerous secret realms, one could still be targeted?

In secret realms, beastmasters aren’t supposed to kill creatures to level up… And now they can do this to each other?

On General Ha, the Sudden Death King’s eyes widened and its body trembled, feeling that the world was a dangerous place.

“Wow!” General Ha was speechless.

“Don’t worry, The Other Shore’s main base is overseas. The small fry that show up domestically are quickly taken out, preventing them from establishing any significant foothold in Xia Country,” Zhao Chen said.

“However, this group is very good at hiding and indeed hard to deal with. If you encounter them in the future, it’s better to find an opportunity to run immediately, using your identity card to quickly escape to Infinite City.”

“That newcomer probably didn’t have the experience to deal with ‘necromancy’, so he couldn’t escape in time and had his soul devoured.”

“Necromancy, souls?” Lu Ran was confused.

Zhao Chen explained, “The members of The Other Shore can hardly be called beastmasters anymore. They possess a unique skill that involves killing their contract pet beasts to transform them into enslaved spirits. They hunt other beastmasters and their pet beasts to level up themselves by devouring the souls of other supernatural beings.”

“Therefore, internationally, they are more often referred to as necromancers rather than beastmasters.”