Suddenly, Reef’s gravelly voice cut through the air again, laced with urgency: “Hey, something major seems to be happening! Those damned enslaved Orcs are bolting like a covey of terrified jackrabbits!” What was that? Heavens above, wait—two Orcs are fleeing in your direction!”

Fang Senyan barely had time to process the implication in Reef’s words before hearing the warning about the charging Orcs, causing every muscle in his body to tighten instantly. He quickly signaled to Fog Song.

Fog Song’s eyes turned glacial, and small pinpricks of emerald light began to coalesce around her hands. The green motes appeared strangely weighty, and as the first Orc rounded the bend of the cavern entrance, the seemingly delicate Fog Song let out a sharp cry. The gathered green light condensed into a wooden javelin adorned with living green leaves and slender branches—she hurled it forward with fierce power! Dawn, the Spear of Prophecy!

The projectile did not seem to fly swiftly, yet it sliced across the air, dragging behind it spiraling rings of disturbed air—as inevitable as fate, slow but determined, as if intent on piercing the very barrier of time!

Accompanying her throw, Fang Senyan felt a violent rush of wind strike his face, as if all the air in the cavern had been violently vacuumed out; even breathing became a struggle. The Orc had only just poked its head around the corner when the javelin impaled its chest clean through! It froze rigidly in place, an indescribable expression freezing on its face. Its mouth opened wide as if to scream, but no sound escaped.

The Orc raised its shaggy hands to its chest, presumably to tear the spear out, but the part of the javelin in contact with its flesh rapidly underwent lignification, transforming into wood. Then, one could clearly see the shaft of the spear dissolving, morphing into gnarled, vigorous tree roots that plunged deep into its body. Swiftly, deep-green moss and bark aggressively spread across the Orc’s surface flesh and muscle. In mere seconds, the Orc struck by the javelin was utterly transformed into a massive, hulking green Treant!

Fog Song pointed a finger, and the Treant swung its stiff, semi-lignified arms and lunged backward toward the rear approach. Green vines snaked along its limbs, writhing like grasping tentacles. The second Orc, thundering down the spiraling staircase from behind, was immediately intercepted. The trapped Orc was clearly enraged, letting loose a string of furious roars before delivering a devastating punch. Its frame was immense; muscles rippled and shook with the impact of the blow, appearing overwhelmingly powerful.

The green Treant raised a stiff, wooden arm to block, stumbling backward from the sheer force—it was clearly outmatched in brute strength. However, the Orc’s punch had been slightly misdirected, smashing heavily into the adjacent stone wall instead. As rock shards sprayed outward, the blow sank deep into the stone up to its elbow. When the Orc wrenched its arm free, a loud crack accompanied the release, showering the area with dust and debris.

Missing its mark, the Orc bellowed in fury and drove its other fist forward. The green Treant met the blow head-on with its chest, refusing to dodge.

With a sickening crunch, half of the Treant’s chest collapsed inward. The cracks spreading from the wound resembled wood splintering, yet the violently overgrown green vines on its body coiled like ropes around the opposing Orc, greedily siphoning its blood like parasites.

The Orc roared incessantly, desperately tearing at the binding vines, only succeeding in ripping away strips of its own flesh. At that precise moment, Fog Song began inscribing the ancient Elven script in the air again with her slender fingers. This time, she drew only a single symbol, but its surface blazed with blinding light—a sharp, piercing ray of sunlight, like that first brilliant beam at dawn!

The symbol began to spin rapidly in the air. Just as the Orc tore free of the vines and charged forward, head down, the mysterious rune shot toward it with indescribable speed!

It passed directly through its body!

The high-speed rotation of the rune carved a blood-rimmed hole, the size of a small bowl, in the Orc’s chest. The edges of the wound appeared scorched, and not a single drop of blood managed to splatter outward!

Even with its formidable physique, the Orc charged another ten meters before an expression of utter disbelief crossed its face. It instinctively reached to touch its chest, only to find empty air. Then, its massive body began to tremble violently. It forced its head upward, meeting the Elven maiden’s gaze, which was as cold and clear as water. The fire of life in its eyes gradually dimmed, flickered, and was utterly extinguished.

Its immense bulk tumbled down the slope with a deep, rumbling sound, finally hitting the cavern floor below with a heavy thud.

Simultaneously, the vines covering the Treant rapidly plunged into the ground, taking swift root. In just over ten seconds, it fully transformed into a genuine tree, the remains of the unfortunate Orc’s flesh serving as its sustenance.

However, the sudden appearance of a lush, leafy tree seemed strikingly out of place in the cavern environment.

Fog Song advanced slowly, placing her slender, snow-white fingers upon the tree’s leaves. Continuous emerald light flickered across them, absorbed directly by her. The spiritual energy and mana expended during the battle were instantly drawn back. The tree formed from the Orc withered and decayed before their very eyes, eventually crumbling into ash that scattered across the ground.

This method of ‘fighting to replenish’ was occult and cruel, yet infused with the unique elegance of the Elven race. Manipulating those specks of green light, it was brimming with vitality, yet one could scarcely imagine the sacrifice of life required to fuel it.

“Truly powerful,” Fang Senyan couldn't help but marvel aloud. Having lost his equipment buffs, facing an Orc head-on now would mean utter defeat. Yet the Elven girl had dispatched both of them with ease, seemingly still possessing reserves of strength. Before Fang Senyan could complete his reflection, Reef’s frantic shouting echoed up from below: “Damn it! Get down here and help me take care of these hateful idiots before that old, stupid, damned fat female octopus gets back!”

Hearing Reef’s uncharacteristic fury and panic, Fang Senyan dared not delay, sprinting down the spiraling tunnel carved into the cavern wall. When he emerged from the narrow opening, he stopped dead in shock.

Before him opened a colossal, hollowed-out mountain belly. Phosphorescent underground mosses clung to the rocks within, casting a faint, ethereal glow that kept the space from being truly dark. This cavern was vast—easily large enough to hold four or five football fields. The terrain sloped unevenly, lower in the west and higher in the east, with the highest peak soaring nearly a hundred meters and the lowest points still reaching over ten meters high.

In the western section of the belly, water shimmered, forming a vast, undulating subterranean lake that occupied roughly a quarter of the cavern’s floor space. Fang Senyan deduced this lake must connect to the body of water they had swum across earlier, perhaps leading through underground channels to even wider aquatic realms. The giant octopus, Hechumga, must have gained access through this interconnected lake.

In the eastern floor area, the rocks emitted a strange, sulfurous odor. Their color was an indescribable, charred black. If one touched the surface, a noticeable warmth could be felt—easily around twenty degrees Celsius. Moreover, the air throughout the chamber felt warm and humid, carrying a faint scent of sulfur. To find such a stifling environment beneath snow-capped peaks was a testament to the bizarre majesty of creation.

At the far eastern end of the cavern, one could vaguely make out a massive, deep-black rock archway. This arch appeared naturally formed, but the heavy scent of profound danger wafting from it was remarkably similar to what Fang Senyan and his companions had sensed at the mouth of the passage in the valley bottom. It seemed this arch led to the same immense cavern system they had just traversed.

Fang Senyan and his group had entered the mountain belly near the middle, slightly closer to the underground lake. Following Reef’s shouts, they raced toward the commotion, finding a cluster of rock fissures to their immediate right. These cracks, varying in size, were uniformly coated in copious amounts of frothy, viscous slime.

Some of this slime had solidified on the surface, looking like plastic sheeting, while other parts remained semi-molten, possessing a crystalline sheen. Scattered within this slime, like dark, glittering stars, were countless small, round, or oval black objects.

Fang Senyan recognized these instantly: they were the “black stones” he had noted throughout his journey—the Hechumga Eggs... What’s more, Fang Senyan and the others could observe that the smallest eggs were only pea-sized. Inside the viscous fluid, they constantly writhed, and whenever two encountered each other, they would immediately adhere, engaging in a desperate, frenzied mutual cannibalism! There was no shred of sibling affection whatsoever.

An egg the size of an orange, like the one Fang Senyan had picked up, must have consumed at least ten other embryos to reach that maturity! Once the eggs evolved to the orange size, they seemed to enter a new incubation phase, sinking to the bottom of the foam, making direct contact with the rock, apparently using the stone’s residual heat to incubate.