My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 393 Reunion, Old Friends, Demonic Descent (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
"Little...New Year?"

Lin Xingshi suddenly froze on the spot. Unbeknownst to him, the lion shadows around him slowly faded away.

But behind her, a fiery red swayed in the night. It was a braid. Ever since she left Lijing ten years ago, she had braided her hair every day, so as not to forget the boy who had braided her hair.

Meanwhile, the Stake Demon retrieved the stakes that had been placed on the mountainside. The surrounding area suddenly became much clearer, and White Greed Wolf and the Year Beast Lord were now collapsed in the deep pit.

The Great Lord of the Year Beast narrowed his eyes, looking at the giant shadow protecting him. Wisps of purplish-red flames still floated in the air, like bewitching flowers sweeping across the wilderness. The breeze blowing from the sea carried a thick, bloody smell.

The little beast lowered its head and panted, the clear moonlight shining on the purplish-red giant lion.

Visibly, its body slowly shrank to a miniature length of just over one meter—this is its favorite form, free and easy, with light and agile movements;
Even when fighting is required, it prefers to use this form rather than be a muscle-bound, brainless creature like Agubaru.

A moment later, the little Nian beast raised its head to face the moonlight and breathed a sigh of relief, still shaken.

Then it lowered its head, glanced at the Nian Beast King inside the deep pit, and, confirming that the other party was still alive, secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness we made it in time," the little Nian beast sighed, looking up. "My reputation points were almost permanently reset to zero."

"Why are you here...?"

The Nian Beast King opened one eye and looked at it, then opened its mouth and made a hoarse sound from its throat.

"What? How did you get here? I've come to save you."

After saying that, the little Nian beast suddenly scratched its head with its paw and muttered to itself, "Why does this sentence sound so familiar? Why are all my fathers useless?"

"Go quickly... You are no match for them. Leave Haifan Mountain... Go back to your life, go wherever you like... But don't come back."

The Nian Beast King spoke weakly and hoarsely. He stared at the little Nian Beast, his voice like firewood crackling in a fire, each word accompanied by a crackling sound from his throat.

"I'm not leaving!" said the little beast. "Old man, you just stay there and watch my performance, and don't talk so much."

After saying that, the little Nian beast dug at the ground with its claws and splashed a cloud of sand on the face of the Nian beast lord. "But it is true that I am late, otherwise you would not have been beaten so badly."

In fact, in Ji Minghuan's original plan, the Little Year Beast was supposed to appear earlier.

However, he had been so busy controlling Xia Pingzhou's perspective that he had no time to pay attention to the situation here—this was all because of the immense pressure that Gu Qiye had put on him.

As a cataclysmic superhuman, Gu Qiye's strength is absolutely at the top of the world, and even Gu Zhuoan and Su Wei can hardly reach his level.

Other opponents wouldn't be worth Ji Minghuan abandoning his other mechs to focus on just one.

Putting aside the fact that Xia Pingzhou could be instantly killed by this terrifying lightning man if he wasn't careful, Ayase Origami was also by his side, so he dared not be distracted at that time, otherwise not only would a mecha with great development potential be scrapped on the spot, but the young lady might also lose her life on the spot.

As a result, the two fought for only one round, and the battlefield turned into such a crushing defeat, which was something Ji Minghuan had not expected.

However, after thinking about it carefully, he realized that there was nothing he could do about it. If demons really had the ability to fight against exorcists, then they wouldn't have been forced to live in seclusion in the mountains by humans in the first place.

Not to mention, Lin Xingshi leads the Lake Hunters, an unprecedentedly powerful organization, which is the strongest human organization on the surface.

The Nian Beast King is old and no longer as strong as he once was. He also has a lot of injuries. Without the help of the White Raven Brigade, Ji Minghuan can hardly imagine how he could lead the demons on Haifan Mountain to fight against the Lake Hunter.

Unfortunately... the Lake Hunters had actually prepared for this—they specifically sent members of the Gu family to keep an eye on the troupe and prevent them from participating in this battle between humans and demons.

Judging from the results, Lake Hunter's move was very successful.

Ji Minghuan didn't think that Lin Xingshi would ask someone to risk their life to help her, given her personality. She was a proud and independent person and would never ask for such a favor. So this crazy idea was most likely Zhuge Hui's. Lin Xingshi was the captain, that's true, but Zhuge Hui was the real mastermind behind the Lake Hunt.

Thus, due to various factors, the situation slipped out of Ji Minghuan's control for the first time.

At this moment, he controlled the little Nian beast and slowly turned his head to look. In the wilderness outside the city wall, he could see the charred corpse of the Green Snake Demon and the Rainbow Horse Demon with its head hanging down, nailed to the ground.
The death of the Aries Demon was even more gruesome—his body was severed from his head. As for the Divine Chicken Demon, he didn't even leave a trace; he was probably crushed into dust by Zhou Jiuya.

At this moment, only the Totoro Demon, the Mad Bull Demon, and the Spirit Monkey Demon are still fighting; the Rat Demon is nowhere to be seen, but the Little Year Beast has keen hearing and can hear its footsteps, and it is secretly approaching this side.

"I'm still too late..." the little Nian beast murmured softly.

Despite the deafening sounds emanating from the mountains and fields outside the city walls, the world seemed silent to Lin Xingshi. The little beast's fur rippled in the sea breeze, and ferocious flames danced on its head.

The shadow before her eyes was exactly the same as the phantom in her memory.

That summer, in the living room of that old apartment building, Lin Xingshi repeatedly demanded that Xiao Nian transform into the Nian beast in a domineering tone.

Then I sat on the sofa with the little lion cub in my arms, rubbing its fluffy fur while watching TV. The fan was blowing slowly, and the snow-white curtains were swaying up and down.

Sometimes, when she gets tired of reading comic books, she'll turn Xiao Nian into a little lion and fall asleep with her head on its fur. Whenever she wakes up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, Lin Xing Shi will hug it tightly and bury her face in its warm fur.

Ten years have passed, and she has grown up a lot, but the little monster is still the same as she remembers it.

Lin Xingshi snapped out of her reverie, looked up at the little Nian beast, and was once again certain. She couldn't believe such a coincidence existed; this must be the little Nian beast.

"……It's you."

In the midst of a noisy silence, she slightly opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She just stared blankly at it, waiting for the little Nian beast to look at her.

But it never did that; it just glanced at the battlefield around it out of the corner of its eye.

It wasn't until quite a while later that the little Nian beast finally turned around and met her eyes.

Lin Xingshi remained stunned for a long, long time before tentatively speaking:

"...Little New Year?"

"Otherwise, who do you think it is? The Nian Beast is almost extinct. Besides my father, is there another demon like me in the world?" The little Nian Beast sighed as it said this.

"It really is you..." Lin Xingshi was silent for a while before speaking, murmuring.

She lowered her head slightly, then raised it again to look at the little Nian beast. At that moment, a clear smile appeared on her lips.

"Long time no see, Lin Xingshi." The little beast also smiled at her.

Lin Xingshi was taken aback: "You still remember this name?"

"Yes, this is the name I gave you. Although it's just a homonym, it's not simple for someone as illiterate as me." The little Nian beast said with inexplicable pride.

“I really like this name,” Lin Xingshi said softly. “I thought you had forgotten it.”

“Speaking of forgetting…” The little Nian beast was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, “You are the one who has forgotten. Didn’t you tell me before that you would come to find me? But you’ve completely forgotten. So many years have passed, and I haven’t even seen a trace of you.”

“I did come to see you,” Lin Xingshi said quickly, emphasizing again as if he hadn’t said it once, “I did come to see you!”

As she spoke, she frowned slightly, a hint of panic flashing across her pretty and delicate face.

"I don't believe it!" The little beast snorted coldly, turned its face away from her, and closed its eyes.

“I really did look for you, I looked for you many times… many times.”

"Really?"

The little Nian beast tilted its head and opened one eye to secretly peek at her.

Lin Xingshi nodded and said softly, "I went to Lijing to see you. Every time I took a vacation and wanted to leave everything behind, I would take a boat to Lijing and visit the apartment building where we used to live... I went there many times, and later I even bought that apartment building."

"No way? You actually bought that godforsaken place?" Little Nian was shocked. "The neighborhood is so noisy and chaotic. In the morning, you can hear horns on the street. In the summer, the refrigerator keeps losing power, and our popsicles have melted several times."

It gripped its paws, which dug deep into the ground, and said angrily, "Lin Xingshi, you big idiot, you might as well have bought a big villa. If you did that, I would definitely come crawling back tonight when I heard about it."

"I don't have the money to buy a big villa."

"So you really bought that apartment building?"

“Yes, I used to go back once a month, and each time I would write your name on the calendar in the living room so that you could come find me if you saw it,” Lin Xingshi smiled. “But later, you never came back, so I stopped waiting.”

"But you were the one who told me to run away back then. You said I should run as far away as possible and never come back, or you'd hate me for the rest of my life." The little beast pouted. "I don't want you to hate me, so where in Lijing can you find me?"

“That’s true…” Lin Xingshi was silent for a moment, then said self-deprecatingly, “I was too weak back then, I couldn’t protect you, so I could only let you run far away…”

She paused, then suddenly looked away. "But... you still came back."

"Yes, I'm back."

The little monster looked into her eyes.

Lin Xingshi remained silent for a while.

She lowered her eyes and murmured to herself, "When you should have come back, I couldn't find you anywhere; when you shouldn't have come back, you came back..."

"What do you mean by this?"

"Actually... I really hoped you wouldn't show up, but you still did. The world is so cruel."

"What are you sad about? You're so strong now, you've become the world's number one exorcist. You could kill your whole family with a single slap, so you don't need to dress up as a boy anymore," Little Nian said calmly. "Although I've heard from others that you still like to dress up as a boy, I really don't understand what you're thinking." Lin Xing Shi was taken aback.

“I’m just used to it,” she said. “Besides… I’m not dressed as a boy today.” As she spoke, she raised her hand to brush her long, thin, fiery red eyebrows and curled the corners of her lips. “I knew you would come back.”

She still remembers herself as a child, with red eyes, curled up in the bathtub, complaining to the little beast that she didn't like being raised as a boy by her family.

Back then, the little beast had told her, "In front of me, you can always be a girl." Thinking of this, a look of daze flashed across Lin Xingshi's face.

"Alright, let's not talk about boys or girls for now..." With that, the little Nian beast pointed its paw at the Nian beast lord in the pit and continued irritably:
"Come on! After ten years, the first thing I see when I come up is you beating my old man half to death! I was almost moved to tears when I saw you, but I was so angry that I had to hold them back!"

Lin Xingshi was taken aback.

She shook her head and explained, "The Great Khan wants to invade Sea Sail City. If it continues to stay on the mountain, I won't do this to it... I am human, and I can't watch people suffer. I'm sorry, but I also have my own stance."

“Actually, that’s true. I already advised my father that it’s no match for you.” The little Nian beast tilted its head. “But how could it listen? That’s how demons are; it’s precisely because we only have our own desires in our eyes that we are born as demons…”

It paused, then suddenly lowered its voice coldly: "So, what do you think now... are you going to kill my old man right in front of me? Just like you did just now."

Lin Xingshi was startled, then slowly raised his head and looked into the cold eyes of the little Nian beast.

Just then, a man dressed in a Zhongshan suit with slicked-back hair suddenly fell from the city wall, kicking up a cloud of dust. He approached expressionlessly, his hands in his pockets, a compass emitting rainbow light hovering above his head.

The little beast turned its head and silently looked at Zhou Jiuya.

Zhou Jiuya's opponents were the weakest; he dealt with the Divine Chicken Demon and the Gluttonous Demon in an instant, while the Rat Demon, seeing the situation was unfavorable, immediately fled. Unable to find them, he simply gave up and headed towards Lin Xingshi's side for reinforcements.

“Those other two are really slow,” Zhou Jiuya said as he walked over. “You’re not done fighting here either, Old Lion?”

He turned his head and looked at the distance, where Zhuge Hui was still dealing with the "Monkey Demon" in the Zodiac Team.

There was nothing that could be done about it: this monkey was incredibly agile on the mountain, taking full advantage of the terrain, and was not as easy to subdue as other demons.

Although Zhuge Hui could stop the monkey's exploding fruits, he couldn't catch it. He couldn't possibly overturn an entire mountain, so he could only play a fruit-catching game with the monkey demon. The monkey demon would throw out fruits, and Zhuge Hui would wave his folding fan to block them, and so on.

Meanwhile, Zhong Wujiu was busy dealing with the Mad Bull Demon and the Dragon Cat Demon. These two demons were tied for first place in the Zodiac Team in terms of individual combat power, and they were currently in a berserk state, so they were not so easy to defeat.

Even without the Aries demon, their physical regeneration ability is extremely strong, and their skin is thick and tough.

To kill them, one must pulverize them into air in an instant, and even Zhong Wujiu would need to find the perfect opportunity for two top-tier demons to join forces.

"Old Hui and Wu Jiu are no good either... A few small fry can make them waste so much time."

Zhou Jiuya said dismissively, snorting lightly and looking away from them.

He put his hand on Lin Xingshi's shoulder, tilted his head, and looked at the little Nian beast expressionlessly.

The little lion was silently digging its father out of the deep pit, as if it were digging a grave; at other times it would throw a smear of sand on the king's face, as if a puppy was burying its own excrement. Its movements were extremely casual and reluctant, which made Zhou Jiuya fall silent for a moment.

"Old Lion, what is this thing?" He stared at it for a long time but couldn't figure out what the Little Year Beast was.

“He is…” Lin Xingshi was silent for a moment, “the son of the Nian beast.”

Zhou Jiuya asked, "Wow, how come I've never seen such a small Nian beast before? Is it a deformed species?"

"Deformed my foot! Can't you speak properly?" The little beast glared at him. "Listen up, I don't care if I'm bigger or smaller than you, I'll beat you up anytime."

Zhou Jiuya frowned: "Then let's give it a try."

As soon as he finished speaking, a giant bronze pillar descended from the sky. The little beast reacted swiftly, retreating rapidly. The bronze pillar was deeply embedded in the ground, cracks spread out, and a huge crater appeared, with sand and gravel sinking into it.

"That was close, I almost got smashed into a 'year-old sauce'," the little beast thought to itself.

“It seems this thing is indeed no small fry. Since it is the son of the Nian Beast, let’s deal with it together with the Nian Beast Lord,” Zhou Jiuya said expressionlessly. “Let’s eliminate it completely and clean up all the trash hiding in the mountains tonight, so we don’t have to smell their stench while staying in the city.”

"Crow..."

After a long while, Lin Xingshi suddenly spoke in a low voice.

"What do you want to say?"

Zhou Jiuya turned to look at Lin Xingshi.

"Don't make a move yet," Lin Xingshi said in a low voice.

"What a joke! Since they've come to Haifan City to cause trouble, they should know the consequences. If they lose, they'll die." Zhou Jiuya lowered his face and said coldly, "If we just let them go like this, there will definitely be a next time."

He paused: "What are you thinking? Have you forgotten that the Great Khan killed your parents? The Lin Xingshi I know is not such an indecisive person."

Lin Xingshi's eyes widened slightly. She remained silent, lowered her head, and reached out to block him.

“Old Crow, don’t rush, let me talk to it some more,” she said.

"What's there to talk about?" Zhou Jiuya asked coldly.

Out of respect for Lin Xingshi, he took a deep breath and did not make a move immediately.

He said, "Lin Xingshi, let me make this clear first: I can wait, but I will absolutely not let them get away. Once they show any signs of escaping, even if you try to stop me, I will crush them into dust, understand?"

Lin Xingshi frowned his fiery red eyebrows, remaining silent.

After a while, the little Nian beast slowly dug the Nian beast king out of the ground, then trotted over and carried the white wolf out as well.

It put the two together and then dusted off its paws.

At this moment, the Rat Demon suddenly appeared. It darted out from behind a rocky mountain, its eyebrows twitching and eyes squinting, stroking its trembling whiskers as it said:

"You little brat, what are you doing here?"

"You're still alive, rat." The little Nian beast raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were dead."

The Rat Demon said, "Didn't I say that children shouldn't get involved in this kind of thing?!"

"What did you say?" The little Nian beast shrugged. "My dad would be dead if I didn't come."

"Hey...you, you." The Rat Demon trembled, hiding behind the Little Year Beast, and glanced at Zhou Jiuya, whose face was indifferent, and couldn't help but shiver.

It said in a low voice, "Let me make this clear first... Old Chicken, and that good-for-nothing Seven Deadly Sins is dead. That Lake Hunter was very strong. Even the Great Lord and White Wolf couldn't beat Lin Xing Shi, let alone you."

"Let them be strong if they want, do you think I'm afraid of those two?" The little Nian beast tilted its head.

It raised its paw and patted the Rat Demon's shoulder. "Rat, take White Wolf and the Great Lord with you. Isn't your ability to shrink other creatures? Turn them into a ball and hold it in your hand. Then go back to Spirit Heart Lake and let the Lotus Leaf Demon heal their injuries."

As he spoke, the little beast glanced at the scene in the distance again: "The mad bull, the tortoise, and the spirit monkey are still fighting. I will buy them some time to retreat."

"Are you crazy?! You want to fight two against one?" The Rat Demon's eyes widened.

“I can’t fight two against one, but I can still delay them,” said the little beast.

It paused for a moment, then said, "Leave this place to me. Hurry up and go. I'll buy you some time to take the Great Lord away."

"Are you crazy! You idiot!" the Rat Demon shouted urgently. "I've seen Zhou Jiuya before, you're no match for them! There's no time to lose, let's run together!"

“We can’t escape. You know their strength. Only one of us can go… Trust me, don’t look back. Take the Great Khan and get as far away from here as possible, understand?”

The Rat Demon was silent for a moment, then gritted its teeth and said, "Alright then." After saying that, it reached out and touched the Nian Beast King and the White Greedy Wolf, shrinking their size into a ball and holding it in its hand, before turning and running away.

At that very moment, a massive bronze pillar suddenly crashed down, striking the head of the Rat Demon.

"Crow!" Lin Xingshi shouted, a blazing light flashing in his eyes.

Zhou Jiuya remained expressionless and didn't even turn his head to look at her.

At this moment, the little beast suddenly turned around, its hind feet touching the ground, and its body immediately charged forward with all its might, transforming into a pillar of purplish-red flames that shot out, overturning the pillars that were falling like a rainstorm, thus giving the Rat Demon a chance to escape.

[Fierce Strike of Demonic Flames: The little Nian beast charged forward with all its might, transforming itself into an unstoppable torrent of flames that swept towards the enemy.]

Immediately afterward, the little Nian beast tumbled to the ground, turned its head, gave Zhou Jiuya and Lin Xingshi a cold look, and then spoke:

"The devil is coming."

As soon as the words were spoken, a purple-red system notification panel appeared before its eyes.

[Demonic Descent (Branch End) - The Little Year Beast enters its "Demonic Descent" form, going completely berserk for 10 seconds. Its entire body is covered in purplish-red demonic flames, and its physical abilities are greatly enhanced. The cost is that it will temporarily lose its sanity.]

In the next instant, the little Nian beast's eyes were covered by a deep, infernal red, and its body was suddenly enveloped in a blazing, purplish-red flame.

Surrounded by flames, it slowly raised its head, its face contorted as it looked at Lin Xingshi and Zhou Jiuya.

(End of this chapter)