The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 902: Red Fallen Fox

Qilin immediately withdrew his psychic power from the life monster puppet, channeling level 7 Eidos toward Spring. But the Spectre was beyond stopping. A profound metamorphosis had begun within him—or perhaps, an evolution.

Sensing Spring would achieve his second form and become immune to psychic assault, Qilin acted decisively. He severed control over Azure Dragon, Blood Amber, and Flower, pouring all his psychic power and energy into the life monster beneath his feet.

Puppet of Heart!

Blood and spirit merge!

The life monster's wings expanded, generating a hurricane that lifted Qilin before its vertical eye. Hidden reserves of power awakened within the creature.

Pzzt. Dark red energy crackled from the bottomless vertical eye like lightning through storm clouds. Simultaneously, deep green energy sparked from Qilin's blinded right eye.

The two energies touched and intertwined like a complicated and delicate wiring process.

More thick energy strands shot out from the vertical eye to wrap Qilin’s body, layers upon layers until he turned into a red cocoon.

Soon, the cocoon lodged into the life monster’s empty vertical eye socket like a red eyeball.

Qilin and the life monster puppet merged perfectly in the short term.

Almost at the same time, Spring let the curse energy in his body loose, turning irreversibly into his second form.

Though he had never entered this form before, he had glimpsed it often in dreams. Somehow, he just knew that his curse power was in a different league compared to his kin, but it also came with a great price—his life.

Coming this far, Spring was exhausted.

There could be no more fitting stage for his final performance than tonight.

His small frame burst through the black suit, radiating vast waves of white energy. Like an effervescent tablet thrown into water, he dissolved into a large cluster of white mist in the blink of an eye.

Yet this was not his final form. The mist churned and evolved, gaining definition and substance. Within seconds, a white fox emerged, matching the life monster in size.

It had silver hair with more than a hundred long, thick red tails—not actual tails, but radiated energy made concrete. From afar, they left shimmering red afterimages like they were moving at high speed.

The white fox’s eyes were perfectly round and deep red with no impurity, resembling two cold, strange red moons. Between the eyes, a bleeding red horn protruded from the forehead like that of an injured unicorn.

The shimmering tails generated their own forcefield as the fox hovered above the river; it was Spring's enhanced Heavenly Might made visible to mortal eyes.

Spring’s second form was known as the Red Fallen Fox.

Two primordial beasts, bound by ancient bloodlines, faced each other above the dark waters. For three seconds, they remained motionless.

In that moment, the world breathed with the desolation of forgotten ages.

The life monster, its feathers dotted with red, spread its wings. From the vertical eye at its center, waves of cleansing power surged forth, carrying physical force toward the Red Fallen Fox.

Dark red ripples struck the fox, who answered with a furious howl. Its hundred tails fanned out like a peacock's display before merging into a single, scorpion-like spear that pierced the layers of cleansing energy.

Their collision resulted in a sound that shattered both eardrums and minds, manifesting as a massive red sphere of sonic force.

It cut the deep blue band that was the Li River. Voluminous water got swept up by the overwhelming energy and rained down like a furious red downpour, scattering stones, vegetation, cars, and infrastructure in its destructive wake.

The Twelve Zodiac Signs and the Nine Scions had already been whisked away from the battlefield by Waking Insects, and members of the Ocean River Union had escaped with Wandering Tune’s Portal.

The life monster's sonic assault continued, though its force scattered to the sides.

The Red Fallen Fox's shimmering tails, compressed into a drill, pierced through the sonic barrier, nearly reaching the monster's red eye.

Whoosh. The life monster's wings carried it skyward.

Missing its target, the fox's attack crushed what remained of the Qingyang Bridge. Bam! It tumbled forward along the riverbed.

From a distance, it might have seemed like a playful fox splashing in a stream. Up close, it was apocalyptic. The water of the Li River splashed into the sky and came down like torrential rain, shaking the riverbanks.

The Red Fallen Fox quickly steadied its footing in the water, looking up at the life monster hovering in the night sky and howling once more.

The red horn on the fox’s forehead suddenly flickered with an insidious red light.

Pzzt. A massive red beam erupted from the horn.

The life monster proved surprisingly nimble for its size. It wheeled and dove through the air, each movement barely evading the red beam's path.

The red laser tracking it left clear lines in the night sky like a red colored marker. Looking closely, one would see that the red line was the quickly flickering red tails.

It turned out that the red horn on the fox’s forehead didn’t shoot laser beams or energy waves, but bullets consisting of the red afterimages.

Within seconds, the fox's flowing tails vanished, transformed into a wild crimson lattice across the heavens like a child's drawing come alive.

The red lines began to move with purpose, weaving themselves into a dozen massive ropes that snaked toward the life monster.

Even the creature's remarkable agility couldn't escape this net of living bonds.

A rope snared one wing, then another, until the monster hung suspended in a web of crimson.

Black ripples pulsed from the fox's moon-red eyes like ancient signals reaching across space and time.

Whoosh.

The Red Fallen Fox vanished from the Li River's waters.