CURSED AND LOVE

THE EGG OF SACRED BEAST

The people who entered the forbidden forest only heard a loud crash reverberate around them. A flash of brilliant golden light with a powerful aura flared outward from the spot where it had crashed. Shock waves visible to the naked eye shimmered and rippled like water as they swept outward, toppling a swath of trees with their powerful force.

"Hurry! The Sacred Beast has manifested! Let's go to the spot!"

The mass of people shouted excitedly, surging as one towards the loud crash in a mad sprint, deeply afraid that being a single step slower could mean that others would snatch it up.

And no one knew that when that golden light shot down from the heavens, it had actually landed right at the foot of the tree that Jocefie Abad was in.

The overwhelmingly powerful oppressive aura and the shock wave shook the enormous tree, which had a girth larger than two men with their arms extended could go around, and pushed it to fall on its side, almost completely uprooted. Jocefie who was on the tree, had naturally been knocked off the tree by the shockwave to fall towards the ground and roll into the large hole created by the loud crash landing.

Caught in the powerful, oppressive aura, she was suddenly finding it hard to breathe, and she was suffocating. She was feeling the pain on her face as the shockwave tore past her, and she was not even able to open her eyes.

"Oof!"

As she fell deeper into the big hole in the ground, her stomach hit something sticking out, causing her to groan out in pain. And at that same moment, the surrounding oppressive aura began to gradually dissipate.

As the suffocating feeling lifted, Jocefie was finally able to stand up, and when she did, she saw that the thing sticking out of the ground was actually a glittering golden egg!

"Is that the Phoenix egg from the strange phenomenon in the sky earlier?"

"Yes it is." Felisa whisper

Her gaze was tinged with wonder-not surprise, but more like questioning. The forbidden woods was such a big place, and with all the other places to crash, it had to choose to crash right beside her.

"Well, since it's right here before me, it will be a shame if I do not pick it up. And since it chose to crash at my feet, then that means it's mine to keep."

She thought about it for only a moment before she cradled the egg in her arms to take a look at it. She saw the glittering golden light starting to diminish, and the complicated-looking runes that were initially visible on the egg's shell were disappearing as well. Besides it being gold in color and being several times bigger than an ordinary egg, both of Felisa and Jocefie didn't find anything else about it extraordinary.

Glancing around at her surroundings, she did not see a single other person. She had wanted to keep the golden egg in the sack-bag, but when she opened it, she found that she was not able to stuff it in. That was when she remembered that the sack-bag could only store inanimate items, and you cannot put anything that is alive in there.

Immediately, she quickly stuffed the golden egg into her clothes, summoned her mystical powers, and employed her strange steps to speedily leave that place.

It was about an hour after she left that the first team arrived. The first family clan saw the big hole in the ground, the humongous tree that had almost been completely uprooted and was leaning teetering on one side, and nothing much else but an emptiness.

"Why is there nothing here? Has someone come here a step earlier than us?" The team leader, who was a middle-aged man, was bathed in sweat from his mad sprint. The high anticipation that had filled his heart suddenly turned to rage as he stared at the large empty hole in the ground.

"Who was it? Who had been faster than us!?"

Just as he finished his statement, Prince Mario Marasigan and the fake Felisa Adonis arrived, rushing in at great speed. When they saw that there was nothing within the large hole in the ground, Prince Mario Marasigan did not show much of a reaction, but as for fake Felisa Adonis, her face immediately changed.

"Who has it?" Her malicious gaze turned sharply to look at the other team, and she asked impatiently, "Where's the Sacred Beast?"

At that moment, she wasn't aware that Prince Mario Marasigan was standing at the side and staring at her, seemingly deep in thought.

As in Prince Mario Marasigan's heart, Felisa Adonis was hot-tempered but she has a gentle voice to show respect to the other cultivators, she knows what to say or not. She was also kind and thoughtful to others. He had known her from a young age, and he had never seen her show an expression with her eyes so filled with such sharp malice like the girl before his eyes.

This had caused him to have to reconsider.

Fake Felisa Adonis seemed to have felt something, and she turned around quickly, and she immediately saw the pair of eyes that were looking at her, seemingly deep in thought. Her heart panicked, and she said in a hurry: "Prince Mario, I was just too anxious...."

Prince Mario Marasigan smiled gracefully and told her in a gentle voice: "For an Ancient Sacred Beast to have manifested in our country is already more than anyone could expect, and the fact that we had even been able to witness its divine light hit the ground is just incredible! A Sacred Beast's descended? Actually, we don't have to be too fixated on whether we can get it as all this has already been decreed by fate and chance."

"Mmm, Prince Mario is right. I'm sorry, I was been too anxious." She reverted back to her composed and gentle self, and her eyes filled up with admiration for Prince Mario Marasigan once more as she looked at him.

"Who has the Sacred Beast?" A loud and forceful voice boomed down from the skies. The voice had been imbued with spirit power, and it could be heard clearly within a large area of the woods. Feeling the undulation of powerful spirit release distinctly, which was different from mystical power.

The people standing near the large hole were shocked as they all lifted their heads and saw a middle-aged man standing on a flying artifact hovering in mid-air, his hands clasped behind his back as he stared at them from his high vantage point. The exponent's awe flared out instantly, engulfing the people down below.

The people below felt a thick and heavy presence suddenly pressing down on them like a mountain, like a huge rock had fallen upon their chests, finding it hard to breathe. Their legs were almost about to buckle under the immense pressure, and they would soon fall to their knees.

In fact, those who were less practiced in their cultivation had already crumbled before the oppressive pressure from above and plopped onto their knees, blood churning in their chests, to seep out down the corners of their mouths.

The powerful oppressive awe had driven cold sweat to run down with fake Felisa Adonis forehead; her face turned pale, and her legs became weak, almost falling to the ground. Prince Mario Marasigan, who was standing beside her, held her up with his arm and summoned his mystical power to shield her heart channels and prevent her blood from surging.

"Senior, could you first retract your oppressive awe and allow your humble junior to tell you in detail?"

Mario Marasigan was looking up at the middle-aged man in the air when he noticed a few more people coming in from the surrounding areas. He saw some of them riding their swords, some on flying beasts, and some standing on their flying artifacts.

"What! The Sacred Beast is gone!" An old man at the side exclaimed as he swept his eyes over the scene below. His brows creased up, and he stared at the middle-aged man who had released his oppressive awe and said: "Retract your awe and listen to what that kid below has to say. So, who's got his hands on the Sacred Beast? Speak now!"

It might be because of the old man's words, or it could be because Mario Marasigan standing below was being neither haughty nor servile, but the middle-aged man retracted his oppressive awe and said, "Tell us everything you know!"

Once the oppressive awe dissipated, the people below felt the huge rocks lift from their chests and found that they could breathe again, and they were finally relieved.

Faced with such highly skilled exponents, none of the people below dared to be disrespectful to them.

Mario Marasigan cupped his hands together and offered his greetings to the expert exponents in the sky above in a bow before he said: "My esteemed Seniors, when your humble Junior rushed here, the Sacred Beast was already no longer here and I do not know who had taken it. Every word your Junior has just said is the truth, and if you do not believe me, you can ask the gentlemen over there. They got here a step before us."

His eyes were looking at another group of people, and those men were already flustered and in a state of panic from the earlier oppression from the middle-aged man's release of his awe, and they had naturally not dared to hide anything: "Yes, yes, it's true. When we got here, there was no Sacred Beast to be seen, and we do not know where the Sacred Beast has gone. If we have the Sacred Beast with us, we will definitely not dare hide it from all our revered and respected seniors here."

Immortality cultivators! These people are really cultivators of immortality! Even if they had a hundred lives, they would never dare lie to a cultivator of immortality!

At that moment, the gaze of another middle-aged man from up in the air was fixed on the figure of Mario Marasigan, and noticing that his demeanor was not ordinary, he asked, "Who are you?"