Monster Pet Evolution

Bronze was an extremely good conductor of electricity. The statue was racked with painful jolts of electricity as it laid motionless. The arcs of lightning were so incredibly dense and powerful that they materialized as thick, golden chains that bound the statue to the ground.

The battle was over before Luo Qian could carry out even one of the many strategies he had thought of before the skirmish.

Staring at Gao Peng and the Thunder Shell Lord in disbelief, he opened his mouth to say something but wisely decided against it.

This had all seemed too easy to him, over in a flash.

Deep down, though, he knew. It wasn't that the statue was weak. The Thunder Shell Lord was just that strong. As expected of that man's familiar, to be able to take down a reincarnated Sage King in the blink of an eye.

[Monster Name]: Animated Bronze Statue (Sage King)

[Monster Condition]: Slightly Hurt (Paralyzed)

A close subordinate whispered slyly in his ear, "Commander, is it possible that the statue expended too much strength against our men earlier and is running on fumes now?"

Luo Qian smiled humorlessly. "Why don't you take Mr. Gao's place?"

The man grinned bashfully. He could tell the difference in their abilities, so he took the hint and shut his mouth.

Gao Peng had extraordinary hearing. Even though Luo Qian was at least 65 feet away from him, he heard their little exchange as clear as day.

He had a growing respect for Luo Qian, the clever man. If he had wanted to burn bridges, Gao Peng would have had no problem playing along. The minute the Thunder Shell Lord stopped releasing its electricity, the bronze statue would instantly spring to life and decimate every officer present.

Gao Peng couldn't help but admire the statue's incredible defense. Even after being subjected to countless lightning-based attacks, there was barely a scratch on it. Given that it was actually weak to lightning, its physical defense must have been even more formidable.

It wasn't without weaknesses, though. The lightning attacks had basically rendered it helpless. If its other weak points had been exposed at the same time, it wouldn't have been able to last as long as it had.

Gao Peng wasn't really too impressed with a Lord-tier creature with such an obvious weakness.

To evolve a Lord-tier creature into an Emperor-tier one would take too much time. If statues like this one were reanimating all over the world, there were surely better ones he could work with.

It would be a huge hassle to transport the statue back to the Southern Sky group. Because it needed to be constantly suppressed with lightning, a normal truck wouldn't do. Even if the truck could handle the lightning, there was no way a normal human driver could.

Eventually, Southern Sky deployed a heavily modified truck to bring the statue back. The container was made of a special insulated material, and the inside was also lined with a special kind of bark that had strong insulating properties.

Once the statue was loaded into the container, the Thunder Shell Lord laid quietly behind it, suppressing it with a constant flow of electrical energy.

After an hour, they were almost home. At this point, the dark purple shell on the Thunder Shell Lord's back had paled considerably. With it's fine claws, it tapped the floor lightly, as though saying, "I need a break."

Gao Peng could tell how exhausted it was. After all, it couldn't have been easy suppressing a Lord-tier creature, whether it was weak to lightning or not.

Once they reached the Southern Sky Group, they entered through the side. The statue, which was still putting up a rather spirited fight, quieted suddenly.

Finally, the statue was unloaded by the lake. The truck driver looked quizzically at the statue before flooring it out of there.

Now that they were there, the Thunder Shell Lord could finally take a break.

Feeling the chains of lightning keeping it captive dissipating, the statue slowly got to its feet. It looked like a centaur the way its legs seemed glued to the sides of its horse.

Flourishing its crescent blade, it shot a quick glance at the Thunder Shell Lord. Narrowing its eyes, it turned around abruptly and took a mighty swing at Gao Peng!

Gao Peng casually intercepted the blade with his left hand.

Raising his eyebrows, Gao Peng flicked the blade away violently, causing the statue to stumble backwards.

The statue was just about to try again when an ear-splitting roar rocked them both. The roar echoed in the mountains and out into the distance.

The bronze statue went limp, and its skin rippled furiously. It felt weak all of a sudden, as though someone had just ripped off its skin.

From between the mountains, an enormous head poked out, its gaze fixed upon the statue.

An enormous fissure opened up beneath the statue's feet. It couldn't escape in time and was swallowed up by the ground from the waist down. Layers of earth started enveloping the statue. It formed what looked like a giant meatball.

Cracks started appearing in the earth, but just as quickly as they appeared, they were plastered over by even more layers of earth.

Eventually, the statue was fully entombed in a 60 foot wide ball of earth.

The ball started rolling towards Stripey and eventually landed somewhere near his rump. Stripey then rather unceremoniously sat on the ball, like a hen warming its eggs.

...

Under the careful manipulation of both the Allied Government and the Southern Sky Group, this situation was quickly brought under wraps.

Naturally, the Allied Government didn't want people finding out about this crisis, while the Southern Sky Group was perfectly content adding a Lord-tier creature to their ranks in secret.

After all, the news about the two Emperor-tier familiars was still spreading like wildfire. Something like this would barely register in the collective consciousness of the people.

After some digging, Gao Peng found out that statues were animating all over the world. Depending on the material of the statues, their abilities were all vastly different.

Gao Peng had noe huge concern—the statue of the Huan Shan Buddha had yet to show signs of life. The Huan Shan Buddha statue was located in Ba Shu, which was rather close to both the Yuzhou and Suzhou base cities.

Although the Huan Shan Buddha statue wasn't the largest in the Huaxia region, it was definitely in the top five. More importantly, it had a wealth of history that no other buddha statue had. It had been built in the Tang Dynasty and been the destination of pilgrims and travellers alike for thousands of years.

According to reports, the Huan Shan Buddha was located where three rivers met, specifically the Min River, the Qing Yi River, and the Da Du River.

Legend had it that before the statue was built, the place was constantly afflicted by terrible floods. After the statue was built, the floods stopped occurring as often as they once had.

"Young Master Gao, this was a photo taken recently somewhere near the Huan Shan Buddha." Huang Ya slid Gao Peng a couple of pictures. In the pictures, the Huan Shan Buddha had a benevolent smile on its face. The raging rivers were as smooth as a mirror, with not a ripple in sight...