I am the Main Character? No Thanks! (Volume 3): Chapter 1

The Crimson Realm Holy Land was aflame.

As is name sake, the various buildings and lands of the realm were flaming in the night as battles raged across its land.

Brothers fought brothers, sisters killed sisters, and it was absolute chaos. A chaos that was further propagated as Demonic Beasts rampaged across the land.

The skies above the realm were no different as battles rages between powerful experts, loyal Elders, and Cultivators of the realm fighting against those that had made a deal with the Demonic Path and turned traitor.

It was in such chaos that a group of three Cultivators sneakily ran out of the Holy Land as their loyal subjects sacrificed their lives, placed decoys, and masked their escape from the traitors.

For hours, the battles would rage on, hidden from the outside world through the usage of their defensive formation that isolated them.

By the end of the battle, the barrier fell, and word reached the other holy lands and the world at large.

The ruler of the Crimson Realm Holy Land, Yan Huo’er, had gone mad with her curse and killed the majority of their disciples and Elders.

The remaining Elders had no choice but to fight against her and her Ancestor using the power of the other Ancestors and drive her out.

On that day, the woman who was once considered one of the most powerful and beautiful cultivators of the South was reduced to a traitor and wanted criminal along with her two loyal servants.

How much of this narrative was true and how much was propaganda, nobody knew, and nobody cared.

After all, History is written by the victor.

The only thing that was of interest to the common cultivator was the fact that the Crimson Realm Holy Land offered a large bounty for any information on her whereabouts and even offered a Heaven-rank treasure should someone manage to kill her and bring her head to the Crimson Realm Holy Land.

And so, a manhunt began across the Southern border of the Continent, with loose cultivators hoping to catch the attention of the Holy Land with this bounty and men of the other factions hunting her for her treasures, her cultivation, her physique, and many other reasons.

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Jin Tianrui had a serious expression on his face as he worked on his task, making sure to use the stealth artifact given to him by his master to keep himself hidden from his target.

In the clearing in front of him, he spotted a massive avian creature that looked like a mix between an Eagle and a Hawk.

Its plumage shone with multi-colored light like a rainbow as its crown feathers had distinct gold and red coloring.

The most distinct feature of its body was the embers on the tips of its wings that occasionally glowed despite the bright sunlight shining atop the mountain where he was.

This was the Volcanic Roc, a rare Demonic Beast that is extremely strong but very shy. Making it very rare to spot one in the wild. And just like with most of the other beasts of the south, its elemental affinity was fire.

It was also the beast he had been searching for since two months ago when he first heard of its presence in the region.

Silently watching the bird nudge its eggs and lazily sit on them, he continued capturing its form on the pages of his book, making sure to draw even the tiniest of details that his eyes could capture, just like he did with hundreds of beasts in the past year he had been travelling the continent.

Originally, his master had been reluctant to let him wander without supervision, his overprotectiveness coming out when Jin Tianrui talked about it. However, his father had managed to convince his master, his mother, and his sister about the necessity of honing himself in the wild.

And hone himself he did as he broke through from Foundation Establishment and straight into Core Formation realm in the span of a single year, a record which was second only to his ‘senior sister’ Da Ling.

Shaking his head to get rid of those depressing thoughts that always made him feel inadequate compared to the little girl, he concentrated back on the bird in front of him.

Ever since he began traveling on his own, aside from cultivation, Jin Tianrui spent all his time tracking down difficult-to-find beasts that had very little known about them. His mission was to see these creatures in the wild, capture their image, note down information about their habits and the way they live, and then publish that journal as a series of bestiaries at the local Merchant guilds to make money for his travels.

Needless to say, his attention to detail and his professional writing amassed a great following and made his work extremely popular across the continent.

Recently, his bestiaries had even become a mainstay for any Loose Cultivator or Mercenary worth their salt, signifying how successful he had become.

As he continued his work, Jin Tianrui suddenly felt a change in the ambient Qi around him, a change that the Volcanic Roc picked up on as well, as it instantly expanded in size, becoming nearly ten times its normal size.

It immediately swallowed its nest whole before fleeing the area on wings of embers, shooting into the distance towards a different area, much to Jin Tianrui’s irritation.

“Damnit! Who the hell is it!? Who ruined my work!? Come out and fight me!”

Despite his rage and shouts, Jin Tianrui did not turn off the stealth artifact, knowing that if the opponent was stronger than him, he would stand no chance.

A decision that proved to be a wise one as the fabric of reality cracked open, spitting out three figures before the crack closed, returning to normal.

The first thing that Jin Tianrui noticed was that two of the three unconscious figures looked extremely familiar.

With cloaks and their cultivation in the Soul Transformation realm. The man and woman looked extremely haggard and were covered in blood.

Looking closely, he immediately realized that it was none other than the two goons that had come for Da Ling more than a year ago, trying to kidnap her.

Yan Xinyan and Yan Liehuo.

But his main focus was not on these two idiots who were thoroughly humiliated in his village back then.

No, it was on the extremely beautiful woman with crimson hair, similar in shade to Da Ling, and shared similar facial structure as the little girl that he called ‘Senior Sister’.

The woman was being shielded by the brute of a man, Yan Liehuo, as blood flowed freely from the various wounds on her body despite the bandages and cloth trying to cover up her wounds, while the other woman, Yan Xinyan, was shielding her brother with her own body despite the clear sword wound that had skewered her like a piece of meat right through her abdomen.

‘….Fuck! why am I always caught up in situations like these!?’

With a curse, Jin Tianrui watched the three heavily injured cultivators, not knowing what to do with them.