Evolution Begins with Elemental Domination

Even a Wind Split Arrow shattered on impact, failing to slow its advance in the slightest.

Then, a scarlet, barbed tongue shot from its mouth, striking as fast as an arrow and aiming straight for his head.

No time to think.

The Jingzhe Rune activated once more.

For a moment, it felt as if an invisible hand was squeezing Su Chen's heart, but the terrifying Physique forged by elemental feedback allowed him to ignore the danger.

The next instant, the long tongue shot past his shoulder, kicking up a foul, stinking wind.

He snatched up his battle axe, the blade's edge shimmering with high-frequency vibrations. As he charged, Su Chen used the momentum to twist at the waist and pivot, channeling all his strength into his right arm for a thunderous strike at the creature's head.

CLANG!

A deafening sound, like metal striking metal, erupted as the axe blade shattered into pieces. Aside from the quality of the weapon, the monster's bone armor was absurdly tough.

The thunderous, full-force blow had only managed to slightly dent its skull, and a trickle of blackish-red blood seeped out from beneath its eye socket.

Faced with this desperate danger, Su Chen's expression only grew more focused and calm. His eyes held an ineffable sense of peace; countless trials on the brink of death had long since tempered fear out of him.

He didn't retreat. Instead, he pressed forward, closing the distance until he was nearly in the creature's grasp. The next moment, he brutally shoved the splintered wooden haft in his hand into its eye.

Then, his left hand clamped onto its lower jaw like an iron pincer. After letting go of the broken haft, his right palm slammed down on its forehead.

'Goodbye.'

The thought was a eulogy.

Strong Thought Burst!

A telekinetic blast poured through the pierced eye socket and into its cranial cavity. A scorching power surged in with it, like a sealed furnace being forcibly stuffed with explosives.

BOOM!

The large head exploded from the inside out. Most of the skull disintegrated into dust as blood sprayed wantonly, drenching Su Chen at close range.

The burly body crashed to its knees. Its iron-like arms, rippling with brute force, had already shattered the lightning shield and were just an instant away from crushing the man before it. Unfortunately for the creature, its opponent had seized the final moments of the Jingzhe Rune's effect to find a weak point and complete a stunning reversal.

Its fall triggered a chain reaction. The remaining cave dwellers lost all will to fight. As if having lost their leader, they fled in a swarm deeper into the cave.

"Quick, cut them off!"

Several Enchanted Arrows flew out. Two of them were Wind Split Arrows that pierced the shoulders of two different enemies. The arrowheads tore through their tendons and the wind pressure detonated within their joint cavities, causing the cave dwellers scaling the rock wall to fall screaming in pain.

During the recent skirmish, not all the attacks had been focused on Su Chen.

After the rest of the group poured in from the narrow passage, they successfully drew a good deal of aggro, facing a frontal assault from five of the creatures.

Yan Ruoruo, firing from a high vantage point, completely ignored the danger up close. She let Yan Ziqian handle it, who used frenzied, sprawling tendrils to bind two of the cave dwellers.

Only when the restraints were fully tightened did she shift her aim.

「On the other side.」

Pang Peng stood at the front like an iron tower. Vines grew from his Thorn Armor, wrapping like tentacles around two enemies and forcibly dragging them together. Then, the ground beneath his feet was torn asunder by the Earth Splitting Skill, and they all fell into the pit.

Almost simultaneously, a mud bog spell surged from the fissure. Viscous black ooze spread rapidly, completely trapping all three of them within.

This time, Cao Yutang made his move, using a chain-activated Terrain Transformation Skill to trap the enemies... along with his teammate.

It was a reluctant decision.

But it was also the wisest one at the moment.

They lacked the lethal burst damage to finish enemies quickly and were stretched thin by the sheer number of foes.

"Heal me, now!!"

The dedicated support from the polytechnic university, his face tense, healed Pang Peng from a distance with his Light Healing Skill. Fortunately, this desperate struggle also kept the cave dwellers immobilized.

After they successfully surrounded and killed the enemy that Le Yuxuan had been holding back, the other nearby cave dwellers suddenly began a frantic retreat.

"Thank God."

They didn't know what had just happened, but the sight was certainly morale-boosting.

Before coming through the passage, they had never expected to face a group of cave dwellers that more than doubled their own numbers.

If it hadn't been for Su Chen...

"Huh?"

Someone let out a soft gasp, a faint tremor in their voice.

When they were finally able to fix their gazes on him, they saw the tall, grim figure standing right in the center of the carnage.

The front of his upper clothing was almost completely soaked in blood. Viscous, blackish-red liquid dripped continuously from the hem, forming a small, dark puddle at his feet.

And his eyes held a hint of pleasure, as if he were savoring the afterglow of battle.

'Is he some kind of Chosen of the Blood God...?' Cao Yutang thought, startled.

But he didn't stop there.

Su Chen stepped over the shattered bones and severed limbs, walking toward the heavily injured cave dwellers who were still breathing or had merely lost the ability to move.

Every time he stopped, another cave dweller died.

BOOM!

The first creature's head imploded, its brains splattering against the cave wall.

BOOM!

The second's chest cavity caved in, its heart turning to a mass of charred fragments.

After taking a few more steps, Su Chen suddenly changed his method, simply raising a hand and pointing.

VMM!

Telekinesis shot like a needle through the enemy's eye and into its skull, churning its contents wantonly.

'This saves a lot of energy.'

As his brain's reward mechanism subsided and his hormone levels returned to normal, Su Chen switched to a more energy-efficient method of finishing off the downed cave dwellers.

In fact, it was never the dopamine rush that drove him to take risks. 'To be precise, I moved past that novice phase long ago.'

It was just like in the past when he'd challenged high-difficulty, high-speed mountain descents. During those runs, he would feel completely focused, exceptionally calm, and ruthlessly efficient. His spirit would completely dominate his body, and at times, he would officially enter the self-transcendent state of Heart Stream.

Only then would he experience the feeling of transcending reality, of flying just above the ground.

His inner self would no longer dissolve; all voids and fissures would be filled.

And it was precisely this sensation that Su Chen was obsessed with, infatuated with—he was even willing to devote his entire life to chasing it.

The hormonal rush that came after was merely the dessert after the meal.

If people mistook him for some kind of sadist, or a Chosen of the Blood God, it was a complete misunderstanding.

Su Chen, of course, didn't care what others thought. When his gaze fell upon his teammates, some of them subconsciously averted their eyes, unable to meet his stare, as if afraid he might choose one of them to devour.

"Thank goodness you're okay, Brother Chen! You're incredible."

Pang Peng, having just climbed out of the mud pit, was the first to speak. Despite his own wretched state, he didn't forget to look out for others' feelings first.

It was no wonder the man was such a people person; he had the personality of a little angel.

"Here, to wipe your face."

Just then, Yan Ruoruo walked over and took a clean cloth from her quiver-pack.

"Thanks."

Su Chen replied politely and accepted it, wiping the blood from his face. With his current Physique, he had no need to worry about any potential germs penetrating the conjunctiva of his eyes or the mucous membranes of his lips.

Meanwhile, Xiaoye and two Netherworld War Dog avatars continued to seek out any signs of life, tearing into the nearly dead cave dwellers to finish them off for good.

Finally having a moment to spare, Su Chen shone his flashlight around the area. This part of the cave was like a magnificent hall, incredibly spacious. In the distance, he saw a strange glint of light on the cave wall.

Upon closer inspection, it was another deposit of some unknown, dark ore. Judging by its volume, it was clearly much larger than the last, and its surface even had some protruding crystalline clusters that were reflecting his light.

The quality was clearly a tier higher.

"Why don't you name this area?" Yan Ziqian suggested humbly as he walked over.

The reason for this went back to the common rule in the international caving community that Su Chen had mentioned before: discoverer's rights.

The naming rights were his.

Su Chen didn't give it much thought and just picked a simple name.

"Let's call it the Hunting Hall."