Translator: CinderTL
As dusk fell, crimson clouds painted the sky.
Chen Feng's footsteps halted on the sandy earth before a three-meter-tall boulder.
The rock was a mottled brown-yellow, its surface riddled with countless tiny pits and pockmarks—the relentless marks of wind, sun, and sand erosion.
Normally, he wouldn't have given it a second glance.
But then, his gaze drifted downward, and he noticed an arrow-shaped mark etched into the stone.
Palm-sized, the groove was nearly as wide as a finger.
Unlike the clean cuts of a blade or tool, it looked as if someone had pressed their finger firmly into the rock, leaving the impression by sheer force.
Intrigued, Chen Feng reached out to touch it.
After a full day under the scorching sun, the rock's surface felt slightly warm to the touch.
Then, from within the stone...
Crack!
A fissure suddenly split the three-meter-tall boulder, and a wisp of brown Force seeped out like escaping air, as if it had been hidden deep within the rock all along.
Chen Feng's eyes flashed as he swiftly reached out and seized the escaping Force, gathering it in his palm.
The familiar aura emanating from it confirmed his suspicions: this was a strand of Force left behind by Yang Wudi.
And correspondingly, the arrow-shaped mark must have been a signal left by the same person.
"It seems they anticipated you would find this place," the Star Spirit said, floating closer and gazing at the brown Force swirling in Chen Feng's palm.
Chen Feng didn't argue, having already suspected the same. He even wondered if Yang Wudi had deliberately provoked Zhuo Lie to leave clues for him to follow.
As these thoughts flashed through his mind, the brown Force in his palm gradually faded into nothingness. He clenched his fist and turned toward the direction indicated by the arrow he had followed earlier.
As he had guessed, it led to a branch of the Niduo Mountains. Gobi canyons crisscrossed the landscape, and mountain peaks rose and fell in endless waves. Scattered across the earth's surface were rocks, each marked with arrow-shaped symbols pointing the way.
Buzz!
In an instant, a platinum light illuminated the world as Chen Feng summoned the Holy Shield Colossus without hesitation. In this kind of terrain, no one could match the Colossus's efficiency in searching.
Rustle!
At the same moment, a green banana leaf was pushed aside, revealing a lush Greenfield. Towering trees, nearly a hundred meters tall, stood majestically, their dense canopies almost completely blocking the sunlight.
A Unicorn Cicada Ant, nearly a meter long, crawled along a branch. Sensing the humans' presence, it abruptly vibrated its cicada wings and lunged toward the ground, aiming for the cluster of banana leaves.
Boom!!
Blood splattered.
The Cicada Ant, a beast far beyond ordinary human comprehension, was struck by a single finger. Its sturdy carapace shattered into fragments, scattering flesh and blood across the ground.
"This place is truly bizarre," Celine murmured, her expression grave as she slowly retracted her finger.
The metallic-sheened black Sniper Cannon slung diagonally across her back accentuated her image as a gun-wielding warrior.
"These creatures likely carry remnants of Ancient Creature bloodlines, exhibiting more advanced evolutionary mutations compared to our native species," Yang Wudi remarked, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
As he spoke, a Giant Python, nearly half a meter thick and camouflaged among the withered leaves, coiled around to strike.
Thwack!
A flash of brown Force erupted as he stomped the ground, crushing the python instantly.
The ground trembled slightly, sending a puff of dust into the air.
"Should we wait here for Chen to arrive, or head straight to the area we discovered earlier?" Celine asked, a hint of apprehension flashing in her eyes.
She hadn't expected members of the Evil God Cult to be hiding here, especially ones as powerful as Yang.
After a moment of silence, Yang Wudi recalled their previous encounter.
The cultists had proven remarkably tenacious. Had he not already achieved Transcendence and cleared a level of the Heavenly Ladder, they might never have escaped.
"If I'm not mistaken, they're likely preparing some kind of ritual," he said. "Grandmaster Chen's arrival is uncertain, so we'll have to rely on ourselves for now."
Celine nodded slightly, accepting his decision without further comment.
In an instant, both moved simultaneously, once again heading straight for the heart of the primeval forest.
Birds and beasts startled into flight, wings beating against the air.
Looking around, they realized they were on an extraordinarily vast island.
Azure seawater surged around them, and boundless white clouds stretched across the sky.
Rustle!
A wisp of yellow sand drifted on the breeze as a massive shadow approached in the fading twilight, enveloping the grains.
"This is the place, then?" Chen Feng murmured, squinting as he stood at the edge of the ochre-brown rocky earth, gazing down into the massive chasm below.
It was a steep, narrow canyon in the Gobi Desert, stretching endlessly from the Niduo Mountains like a scar torn across the earth.
Within this canyon, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of caves dotted the rock walls. Some were several meters wide, easily accommodating an adult man, while others were barely a foot across.
The sunlight that filtered through the canyon's cracks was swallowed by these caves, each one resembling a bottomless pit leading to unknown depths.
"The final arrow points here," the Star Spirit said in Chen Feng's mind, confirming his suspicions. "And it's not just electromagnetic signals. I sense extremely chaotic energy fluctuations originating from this place."
Her small face was filled with curiosity and confusion, as she detected something akin to spatial fluctuations.
Chen Feng pondered this, then focused his mind and turned his attention to the shared vision in his mind.
The Holy Shield Colossus had already used Earth Vein Power to stealthily burrow deep underground.
Each cave connected to a narrow, winding passage, forming a labyrinthine network beneath the surface.
But through the Holy Shield Colossus's abilities, Chen Feng could clearly see that deep within the rock walls, a thousand meters below ground, lay another world entirely.
However, that wasn't all.
Chen Feng withdrew his gaze, his expression calm as he surveyed the Gobi Canyon from above.
Within the cavern, scattered white bones lay buried, stained with fresh blood.
Simultaneously, humanoid shadows emerged silently from the corners, steadily closing in.
As if his arrival had disturbed hidden figures lurking in the darkness.
"The Evil God Cult, then?"
His perception registered an icy chill, and he sensed the presence of the Crows of the Dead.
The rustling wind whispered past his ears, but he wasn't surprised.
The current situation in the Luoyue Nation was complex, and the Evil God Cult was a major factor.
Buzz!
In that instant, as his thoughts flashed through his mind,
the shadows behind him stirred. A figure in a worn black trench coat materialized silently.
Crimson eyes flashed with mockery, and a slight bulge on its back suggested folded, grotesque wings pressed against its body.
With a casual gesture, its right arm transformed into a razor-sharp black eagle claw, aimed directly at Chen Feng's heart.
"Another sacrifice..."
Boom!
Blood erupted, and everything fell silent.
Black feathers tinged with crimson scattered like down, mingling with fragments of the tattered trench coat and splattered flesh, threatening to rain down upon the earth.
The figure's eyes widened in disbelief, reflecting the world in their pupils. Before it could fully register what had happened, it was engulfed in Crimson Flame, reduced to nothingness.
"A pathetic swarm of vermin."
Boom!
Crimson flames surged skyward, coalescing into a towering pillar of fire!
The Cosmic Flame instantly engulfed the Gobi Canyon, transforming it into a molten landscape reminiscent of volcanic lava flows.
One by one, black-robed Believers of the Crows of the Dead were consumed by the flames, their screams cut short as they burned to ash.
Rustle.
A sudden gust of wind swept through the canyon, the extreme heat creating an abnormal pressure gradient that whipped up a fierce gale.
Chen Feng's robes billowed in the wind, but he didn't turn back.
His calm eyes, reflecting the molten earth and black ash, held only boundless indifference. To him, these followers of the Evil God had long ceased to be human.
Moving against them required no sympathy.
Buzz!!
With a thought, the extreme heat vanished, and the air stilled.
The crimson flames disappeared without a trace. He leaped down, plummeting hundreds of meters to the ground.
Boom!!
The rocky ground trembled, and the gale reversed, plowing back across the earth.
Yellow sand swirled several meters into the air as he fixed his gaze on a two-meter-wide cave entrance.
A new shared vision from the Holy Shield Colossus shattered all remaining mysteries.
Without hesitation, Chen Feng stomped the ground and dove into the cave, vanishing in an instant.
Whoosh!!
That evening, the last crimson rays of sunset were swallowed by the encroaching darkness.
As night fell, a convoy slowly approached Zhuo Lie's armed camp.
Collapsed steel barracks, barbed wire fences torn apart by flying bodies, shattered firearms, and the burning wreckage of armored vehicles and tanks littered the scorched ground.
"This..."
Witnessing the scene, the white security personnel who had disembarked from the convoy's vehicles exchanged uneasy glances. They activated their searchlights and flashlights, inspecting the scattered corpses around the area.
"Young Master, Noel is dead," a burly white man in a suit said gravely, standing beside a headless corpse and sweeping his searchlight across it, clearly recognizing the deceased.
Surrounded by his entourage and shielded at the center, the young white man frowned slightly, his short, wavy brown hair curling at the ends.
"Who did this?"
"We haven't yet identified the perpetrator."
"All the technological devices here have been destroyed by electromagnetic interference, leaving no useful data. Given the earlier lifeform camouflage fluctuations, I suspect the enemy may have a specialized hacker team or similar capabilities."
The man in the suit shook his head and retrieved a damaged biological device from the corpse.
His security personnel worked with remarkable efficiency, scouring the entire camp and confirming that all the instruments were beyond repair.
"However, though little data remains, the perpetrator's strength must be at least Peak Flying General-level."
The man in the suit found several more bodies, his searchlight cutting through the night curtain like a pillar of daylight, illuminating the fatal wounds on each corpse.
"Rudd was at least a Sixth-Tier Mech Warrior, but judging by the evidence, he didn't even last a single exchange with the assailant. His head was crushed instantly."
"Every casualty in the camp was killed with a single strike, exhibiting fatal injuries resembling those caused by extreme heat explosions. We can't rule out the possibility of some high-energy thermal source."
The detailed analysis and deductions caused the Roth Family members who had arrived to adopt serious expressions, a chill running through their hearts.
If even a Sixth-Tier Mech Warrior could be killed in a single blow, could it have been the work of a Peak Flying General from the Luoyue Military?
"Where's Zhuo Lie?"
The short-brown-haired youth frowned slightly, surveying the camp before asking.
"He's likely dead too," the Man in Suit replied somberly, walking over to a patch of scorched earth where black ash lay scattered. Amidst the debris, fragments of shattered crocodile armor could barely be identified.
Seeing this, the accompanying Security Personnel grew solemn, instinctively focusing their consciousness and activating their Scanning Modules to scan the surroundings with renewed vigilance.
"Even Zhuo Lie is dead..."
The brown-haired youth narrowed his eyes, a flicker of doubt crossing his face.
Though Zhuo Lie was merely a dog he kept, he was still a dominant warlord in Luoyue, his strength among Sixth-Tier Flying Generals not to be underestimated.
Yet the outcome...
"Teacher Amon, what's your take on this?"
The blond youth tilted his head slightly, glancing at the elderly figure who had stood silently by his side from the beginning, without uttering a word.
The old man wore a gray wool coat that accentuated his lean frame. His silver hair framed a face lined with wrinkles, yet his complexion remained remarkably ruddy. His azure eyes, deep and vast like the starry night sky, held such profound depth that even a fleeting glance made many bodyguards' minds reel.
Even the middle-aged Caucasian man in a suit, who had previously been responsible for surveying the scene and deducing the situation, now looked at him with deference.
"Luoyue Nation has only one or two Peak Flying Generals, and both are affiliated with the Military and the Enforcement Bureau," the man in the suit explained. "Their capital is in chaos, with High-Ranking Envoys of the Evil God Cult repeatedly assassinating key political figures. They couldn't possibly leave easily, let alone stray far from the center of the turmoil."
The gray-robed elder, addressed as Teacher Amon, shook his head gently. With a flick of his wrist, two silver streaks flashed across his body.
Buzz!!
In an instant, two silver beams tore through the night sky, like a celestial river splitting the darkness.
Under the night curtain, the camp was bathed in artificial daylight. The collapsed buildings, fallen corpses, scattered instruments, and wreckage of armored vehicles were all illuminated with stark clarity.
"We discovered the remains of Zhuo Lie's squad along the way," someone reported.
"These men were found 3,400 meters from the camp, yet their time of death was nearly simultaneous."
The speaker's voice carried a hint of solemnity, a newfound gravity in his tone.
Teacher Amon, the gray-robed elder, delivered his conclusion: "A Peak Flying General rarely possesses both such speed and destructive power."
His words sent a ripple of shock through the crowd.
Milan, the brown-haired man with slightly wavy hair, immediately grasped the implication.
A Legendary-grade being?
"The Luoyue Nation doesn't seem to have mastered Legendary Technology, does it?" the man in the suit asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.
But before he could finish, realization dawned on him.
"Lord Amon, are you suggesting this is a Legendary-grade being from outside Luoyue?"
Since the Luoyue Nation couldn't possibly possess such technology, there was only one explanation.
This entity, like themselves, must be a foreign powerhouse from the Platinum Federation or the Red Nation.
"Indeed," Amon confirmed.
Amon nodded calmly, neither confirming nor denying the implication.
Milan's expression darkened, and the man in the suit also recognized the significance of this.
Legendary-grade modified humans and Mech Warriors rarely ventured far from their territories.
Even setting aside the suddenness of their appearance, the timing alone made it impossible to dismiss their presence as mere coincidence.
After all, they had just requested Zhuo Lie's cooperation in searching for traces of the legendary-grade super ancient creature.
In other words...
"They're here for the same reason?" Milan's voice turned icy, his eyes flashing with cold light.
He suspected a rival faction within his family or another consortium from the federation might be interfering.
As if to confirm his suspicions, the elderly Amon, clad in a gray wool coat, waved his hand, causing the starry sky above them to vanish in an instant.
Within a few breaths, he pointed toward a desolate stretch of land beneath the night curtain.
The sprawling branches of the Niduo Mountains loomed faintly, resembling colossal beasts crouching in the darkness.
"The energy fluctuations there are highly anomalous," Amon said. "If I'm not mistaken, the answer lies hidden within those mountains."
(End of the Chapter)
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