Meihui crouched down and tilted her head, sniffing Inari’s face and neck, eventually poking at the naked cat-girl on her back. “Nyahaha~, that tickles~! Un~, Mikey~, I wanna eat some fishies~…” Jasmine’s first thoughts upon waking up were regarding those ‘Water Drakes’ that they killed a few hours beforehand.

As the giant green fox, shrunk down to the size of a dog, the half-asleep Gunslinger immediately fell onto the dirt. The vixen yelped and barked a few times while jumping all over the six-tailed Grand Matriarch.

Michael sighed dramatically, and Talia explained “Apparently, the two of them are ‘very’ distantly related… Considering how that woman is over one-thousand years old and has been ‘reproducing’ annually, I would have been more surprised if they were not related.”

Suddenly there was a lot of random barking and growling, as a few hundred red, blue, green, yellow, black and brown foxes began charging towards them. Some of them were tiny, others were as large as wolves, while a few were the size of elephants. The weakest ones were actually just normal animals, without any levels and were rankless, but the strongest among them was rank-D and almost level-thirty.

Seeing that sudden development, Sarah pulled out her wakizashi and dagger, while Jasmine cried “Wah~, scary doggies~! Nyah~, save me Mikey~!” and hid behind the Nephilim.

Elina however, shouted “Aww~! They’re so~ cute~!” as she kneeled down and was instantly covered in tiny ‘kits’. They yipped and some of them even tried to attack her fluffy ears, wings and tail, but she just hugged them against her chest and purred contently.

After the Grand Matriarch sniffed Inari’s anus, she barked angrily at her overprotective children, grandchildren, mates and bodyguards. Then she growled a few times and smiled gleefully, transforming into a dog-sized six-tailed red fox.

Meihui circled around Michael a few times, poking at the terrified cat-girl with her snout, and laying down in front of him, exposing her belly. His gloves were unequipped, as he knelt down and began casually petting her, muttering “Shit, sorry about that, but ya have like eight nipples and it’s kinda impossible to do this without accidentally touching one of em.”

Of course, she didn’t seem to mind, but quite a few of her Quintuple-Tailed Nature-Fox mates were growling furiously at him. It appeared as if they would attack at any moment, but the submissive Grand Matriarch yipped and barked at them.

Talia frowned, “Enough, Miguel, stop molesting that creature! It is attempting to seduce you! I have heard many tales of these filthy mongrels before… When they encounter powerful humanoid enemies, they pretend to be beautiful women or men, but after intercourse, their target would whither and die. Since they are of the Nature Affinity, I believe that it cannot resist your Chaotic aura and certainly would not think twice about murdering you!”

The Huntress was wielding her ‘Longbow of Wind’ and had an ‘Arrow of Wind’ nocked already. Elina shouted “No, don’t hurt them~! How can you even think about killing these innocent and adorable little puppies?!”

“Nyahahaha~! Stupid doggy! Mikey can’t have sexytimes with anyone but us! Meow~!” Jasmine triumphantly revealed the huge flaw in any sort of seduction plan that the ancient fox might have had.

Michael stopped petting Meihui, complaining “Oi, you’re cute and all, but I’ve already got like five girlfriends already, so no thanks. Anyway, that sounds like a buncha bullshit, who the fuck told you that? These adorable little critters might be incredibly slutty, but I don’t feel any kinda hostile intentions from this one. In fact, if anything, this behavior seems more like she’s submitting to me and possibly trying to invite me into her harem.”

Talia grumbled “You were the one who warned me of the ‘dangers’ regarding various races…”

“Ah, I probably made all that shit up, so that you would be too afraid to have sex with anyone but me. Well, who knows, maybe there are some evil, murderous fox-girls out there… but these doggies seem pretty nice.” He stood up and looked around at the huge horde of foxes, noticing that quite a few of them seemed terrified of the angry High-Elf and irritated Dark-Goblin.

After the two of them put away their weapons, Meihui rolled off of her back and began transforming back into her humanoid appearance. There was a wry smiled on her pink lips, as she tilted her head to the left and asked “If you are not here to mate with me, then why do you smell so alluring… I can even ‘feel’ your arousal. I have never encountered a creature such as you before… such a voracious lust. Um~, but if it is as you say, then I can understand. Your pack is indeed, quite interesting. What is it that you desire from us? Why have you come to the Shrine of Huxian?”

Michael smirked, as he gazed around to the various buildings that were scattered about. At the very center was a massive pagoda, with red walls and green roof-tiles, which stretched upwards for fifty-meters. There was a shallow incline, that lead up to the peak of the mountain, and hundreds of levels had been created. It was obvious that while they likely went out to hunt animals, they also had rice-paddies and many orchards. There were also dozens of fairly large and exquisite mansions, but most of the foxes obviously just lived in miscellaneous burrows.

“I can tell that you guys seem pretty ‘civilized’, so you probably use gold, silver and copper to buy shit, right? Well, we were just passing by and were looking for a place to spend the night… We’re also interested in finding some sort of teleportation gateway; if ya happen ta have one of those just laying around here, we’d like to use it. Aside from selling some stuff, it’d be nice if we could rent out a room at your inn, if you have one.” Once they heard what the Nephilim had to say, a small blue vixen transformed into an adorable, five-foot tall, dark-skinned woman.

The level-twelve, rank-F, Triple-Tailed Nature-Fox walked up to him and excitedly yelled “Hi, my name’s Hu Mei! I’m the one who usually buys and sells things to the Villages, Clans and Sects near the bottom of the mountain! Come~, come~! This is no place to be doing business! Follow me over to my shop~!”

Then she grabbed Michael’s hand and attempted to pull him towards her store, but his body was impossible to even budge. Once he started following her, his Companions were all walking beside or behind him, except for Inari; she stayed behind to ‘talk’ with the Grand Matriarch.

After crossing a small bridge, which nearly collapsed under the Nephilim’s weight, they walked through a vegetable garden filled with radishes, ginseng, cabbage and lettuce. Then they finally arrived before a huge structure, Hu Mei explained “I’m obviously not the only person who works here at the Fox Immortal Trading Company, but my mother is the current owner, so I handle most of the larger deals…”

That red and green building had many decorative arches and pillars, and the huge double-doors seemed to be made out of carbon-steel. The silver handles were so large that even Alice was able to grab hold of them, and when she pulled with all of her ten-points of Strength, they just barely moved.

Watching that, Hu Mei giggled, before whistling loudly and the doors instantly swung open. Michael snickered, muttering “Everything looks so archaic and ancient, but you still have fucking automatic doors…”

He turned towards Elina and yelled “Oi, stop playing with those damn puppies!” There were still a large group of foxes following them around and barking incessantly.

She complained “No! They’re too adorable~, I don’t wanna~!” and pouted, while holding half a dozen orange-furred kits in her arms. Their parents were growling and biting at her legs, but they were just ordinary animals, so they didn’t have the physical capabilities to even rip her silky gown.

Jasmine whined “Nyah~, I don’t like em~! Lina~, play~ with~ me~!” Finally, Michael telekinetically removed the little critters from her grasp, and released them.

After that, most of the normal foxes scattered around and a handful of them transformed into adult humanoids. Some were men, but most of them were women. Before the Nephilim had the chance to ask about it, Hu Mei explained “Typically, those of us who are able to shapeshift, lose our original gender identity… It isn’t too difficult to become male or female, compared to the differences between our original forms and that of a humanoid. Still, it is much easier to find a mate when you’re a woman. The stupid Elves down at the bottom of the mountain are mostly men and it’s easier to trick them into paying exorbitant prices for useless junk, when you show off your body, hehe~. I once made twenty gold coins, just from dancing for the Xu Tian Sect’s Patriarch.” As she was speaking, the brown-skinned fox-girl wagged her tails back and forth, while leading the seven of them into the massive building.