Chapter 88 – Fusion

“Eighth-tier Beast Battle, Match 101! Will both contestants please enter the arena!”

From a raised platform, a silver-masked man in green robes called out loudly.

Lian Mu had signed up for an eighth-tier match right out the gate—winning it would earn her ten thousand spirit stones. But this tier didn’t attract many people. Most of the audience preferred watching high-tier matches with interesting beasts. Rookie battles like this rarely garnered attention.

No one placed any bets on her match. The spectators were few, just a handful brought along by her opponent.

Her opponent was a short man with a pointy face and monkey-like features. His mask only covered the area around his eyes, barely disguising anything at all.

He held a mantis the size of a fist, snow-white all over with indigo eyes and transparent wings. It looked sharp and lively.

When he saw Lian Mu and the scorpion in her hand, he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “‘Invincible General Bean’? It really is just a bean-sized thing.”

Green Bean stopped fidgeting. Its many tiny eyes all locked onto the white jade mantis. With its small eyes and dumb expression, it drew laughter from the opposing side.

“Hahaha, and she dares to bring out this kind of idiot? This may only be the eighth-tier beast arena, but not just anyone can compete here.”

The man stepped up to the arena’s edge. As if on cue, the white jade mantis spread its wings and flew down into the arena.

“Let’s start. I’m in a hurry to level up—don’t have time to waste on you,” he said coolly.

Lian Mu didn’t respond. She walked to the arena’s edge with Green Bean. As she prepared to release it, Green Bean suddenly clutched her finger.

“Scared?” the group across from her laughed. “Its courage is as small as its eyes.”

Lian Mu flicked her finger and launched it. “No slacking off—it’s time to stand on your own.”

Green Bean landed in the arena on its back, belly up, waving its pincers in an effort to flip over—but couldn’t manage it.

The silver-masked man watching frowned.

“…Who throws a beast in like that? In a higher-tier match, it would’ve been bitten to death the moment it hit the ground.”

The other side laughed even harder.

The silver-masked man offered, “Want to throw it in again?”

“No way!” the short man said immediately. “Rules are rules. Once a beast enters the arena, no interference from the outside is allowed. What, you want to break the rules?”

As soon as he finished speaking, the white jade mantis darted toward the still-prone Green Bean.

This mantis wasn’t a magical beast, just a semi-spiritual creature. But it had been well trained. It rushed in and slashed at Green Bean’s belly with its scythe arms.

Green Bean finally flipped over and dodged the first strike—then bolted.

The arena had raised sides Green Bean couldn’t climb, so it ran in circles. The mantis chased closely behind, just barely missing each time.

By the fourth lap, the silver-masked man couldn’t help commenting:

“…Your spirit pet might not be suited for this sort of place.”

Lian Mu: “…”

Green Bean had zero fighting spirit. It was exactly like during their training matches—always slacking off.

But since she was here, she didn’t want to give up. That was ten thousand spirit stones on the line. If she lost, she’d be out the registration fee too. Every battle required a fee. As a first-timer, she only had to pay half—but scraping together even those fifty spirit stones had nearly emptied her spatial pouch.

“White Tiger, cut it off!” the man shouted, and his cronies cheered.

The mantis, following the command, stopped the chase, took flight, and landed squarely on Green Bean’s back.

Lian Mu didn’t have much to instruct—she simply said softly, “Close your eyes.”

The mantis raised its scythe and slashed down toward Green Bean’s eyes. But Green Bean shut them just in time.

The blade struck its shell—and snapped off.

The short man froze. “What the…? Why?”

His spirit pet might not have been high-tier, but its scythes were strong enough to cleave wood. This shouldn’t have happened.

The silver-masked man finally had a chance to narrate:

“Judging by what we’ve seen, ‘Invincible General Bean’ is clearly built for defense, not offense. A pity, really, with that long tail stinger.”

He stumbled over the name, clearly embarrassed.

Now missing a weapon, the mantis backed up. Its wound wriggled as a new arm began to grow.

Lian Mu noticed, frowning slightly. A regenerating spirit pet?

“In the eighth-tier arena, and we’re already seeing this kind of spirit pet,” the silver-masked man marveled.

The short man grinned. “Still time to surrender, you know.”

When the mantis’s new arm finished growing, it was even more terrifying—lined with backward-pointing barbs. As it scraped the ground, it carved deep lines into the stone.

Lian Mu said nothing, her eyes fixed on Green Bean.

Green Bean, seemingly curious, scuttled up to the severed limb—and bit into it. Before the mantis could grow another, Green Bean devoured the whole thing.

The mantis lunged again, this time swift and precise. Its scythe grazed Green Bean’s shell, leaving a crack.

Lian Mu frowned.

The mantis pressed the attack, leaping onto Green Bean and landing a series of slashes. Its black shell shattered, its red and green eyes gouged by the barbs.

Before long, the mantis leapt off, brandishing its arm in triumph. Green Bean lay motionless, bloodied and still.

“Your spirit pet’s dead,” the short man said smugly.

The silver-masked man began a countdown. “Ten, nine, eight…”

“No need to feel bad,” the man sneered. “Not everyone’s lucky enough to face my spirit pet in their first match. Maybe next time bring a sturdier beast—though from your broke look, I doubt you can afford one.”

“Four, three, two—”

Lian Mu narrowed her eyes slightly, one toe twitching. At that moment, Green Bean stirred.

“Still alive?” The silver-masked man halted the countdown.

The next second, Green Bean’s pincers twitched. Its cracked black shell began to knit back together. Its damaged eyes gradually reformed.

“What?” the man gasped. “Your spirit pet can regenerate too?!”

Lian Mu released a trace of spiritual energy, linking with Green Bean. She sensed its condition—and relaxed slightly.

“…It’s not that Green Bean can regenerate,” she realized. “It took the mantis’s ability.”

She’d felt it when Green Bean ate the severed limb: the spiritual energy inside it had surged, as if merging with something. Green Bean had never been capable of regeneration before.

But was this fusion temporary—or permanent?

Uncertain, she kept her eyes on the arena.

Once fully healed, Green Bean’s dull red eyes turned eerie and sharp. It twitched its stinger and in the blink of an eye charged the mantis.

The mantis tried to resist but was too slow. Green Bean crushed its wings with its pincers, then jabbed its stinger into the mantis’s belly.

The white jade abdomen turned gray, then purple, then black. The venom spread rapidly—and the mantis’s body began to rot and melt.

Green Bean didn’t stop—instead, it bit down on the mantis’s head and swiftly devoured its corpse.

The entire process took less than half a quarter hour. It took a while before the owner of the White Jade Mantis came back to his senses. “This…”

The silver-masked man found it a bit odd. Normally, a spirit beast match would end once one side was dead. But this scorpion didn’t let the dead mantis go; instead, it seemed like it had come purely to eat it.

There were only two types of spirit beasts allowed in combat matches: one, tamed magical beasts; and two, spirit creatures with intelligence but no true consciousness.

Normally, when spirit creatures devour one another, they suffer backlash. But this scorpion seemed entirely unaffected—if anything, it was even stronger than before.

“In this match, Invincible General Bean wins!” the silver-masked man announced calmly. He had his suspicions, but it wasn’t his place to pry into someone else’s spirit beast.

His tone was flat, as if this was all perfectly ordinary.

The man across from them looked furious, veins bulging in his temples. He hadn’t just lost the match—he’d lost his money, and even the White Jade Mantis’s corpse had been devoured clean.

He shot a venomous glare at Lian Mu, then turned and stormed off with his lackeys.

“Little friend,” the silver-masked man warned, “that fellow looks familiar. Be careful—he might call in other beast handlers to gang up on you.”

Lian Mu scooped up Green Bean. It blinked once, then quietly curled up in her palm, seemingly exhausted and passed out.

“It’s fine. Let them come.”

She just happened to want to find out whether Green Bean’s ability to fuse with other spirit beasts’ traits was temporary… or permanent.

The silver-masked man was briefly stunned, then said, “Alright. Since you’ve won this round, take a right down that path—you can claim your beast battle prize there.”