Meanwhile, Ling Xiongtian and Ling Qingyun, father and son, were bottlenecked outside the gates of the Ancient Savage Forbidden Zone, daring not venture beyond the official road, as that entire area belonged to incredibly powerful Ancient Savage Beasts.

Lu Yuan, however, had already infiltrated the Ancient Savage Forbidden Zone beyond the main road—his first time ever venturing outside the established thoroughfare.

Lu Yuan held a measure of curiosity regarding the scenery beyond the official road.

He stealthily entered this region, discovering it to be quite bizarre.

Indeed, bizarre.

In this area, Lu Yuan encountered numerous mighty demonic beasts, yet they all appeared strangely altered. For example, a horse, which should have possessed four legs, somehow manifested eight. This was no anomaly of a specialized eight-legged horse breed; it looked as if it had been forcibly modified.

Furthermore, Desert Scorpions, beasts that naturally favored arid desert environments, were frozen solid within millennia-old profound ice.

Lu Yuan even spotted a Water Spitting Jellyfish whose thirty-two water-spitting apertures had been forcibly sealed, causing its volume to swell several dozen times its normal size; the creature looked utterly miserable.

Lu Yuan lingered in the area, finding the situation profoundly strange. What was going on? It felt as though every beast here had been subjected to some elaborate, malicious prank.

Just then, Lu Yuan saw a colossal, three-headed demonic beast emerge from the dense fog hanging in the void. Before it was even fully visible, an overwhelming aura emanated from it. The sheer power of this presence was so immense that Lu Yuan found his feet rooted to the spot, utterly suppressed by the overwhelming might.

The immensely powerful three-headed beast exhaled a breath, and immediately, an incredibly potent current of air rushed forth from its maw. This blast instantly swept away everything in the foreground—the dense fog—and even reached the distant mountains, causing one of them to instantly collapse under the force of that single breath.

Clearing fog with a breath was unremarkable, but blowing down an entire mountain range with a single exhalation was extraordinary.

This was a massive mountain range within the Central Heavenly Dynasty, and it had just been leveled by one breath.

What kind of demonic beast possessed such power!

Lu Yuan finally managed to discern the beast's appearance.

It stood tens of thousands of zhang tall—not an excessively large size, generally speaking. It possessed three heads, each resembling that of a majestic lion, joined to one enormous body. The body was covered in azure scales, and beneath its feet rested clusters of lotus thrones. Its tail was like a whip capable of striking down immortals.

What manner of demonic beast was this!

Logically, a beast tens of thousands of zhang in size shouldn't be this intimidating, yet Lu Yuan felt this Three-Headed Lion Beast possessed the presence of a Celestial Venerable.

Precisely, Celestial Venerable level.

"Oh, a human!" a majestic voice boomed from the leftmost head of the three-headed lion.

"Humans can be eaten," came a voice from the center head.

"Steamed or fried?" the rightmost head bellowed, its voice sounding like rolling thunder.

This Three-Headed Lion Beast was terrifyingly powerful.

The creature lunged forward suddenly, a razor-sharp gust of wind rushing toward Lu Yuan. In that instant, Lu Yuan tried to use Instant Teleportation, but space seemed to be locked down tightly. He attempted Floating Life as a Dream, but sensing the beast's magic permeating every inch of space, the technique proved utterly useless.

Lu Yuan was certain of one thing: facing this incomparably mighty Three-Headed Lion, he stood no chance of winning; he couldn't even withstand a single move.

"Bang!" Lu Yuan was seized by the Three-Headed Lion.

"Excellent. It has been a long time since we ate a human. This time, we Ancient Savage Beasts can finally feast to our heart's content," declared the center head of the beast.

Damn it! The area outside the official road was truly savage. On his very first foray outside, he encountered a Celestial Venerable-level demonic beast. No wonder Ling Xiongtian and Ling Qingyun dared not pursue him into this zone—were they seeking death? In truth, this was an exception; the areas outside the official road were not usually this ferocious, but this specific location clearly was.

Suddenly, a flash of insight struck Lu Yuan's mind. After entering this area, he had seen the eight-legged horse, the desert-loving beast stuffed into profound ice, and the Water Spitting Jellyfish whose apertures were sealed. This suggested a series of malicious pranks. And the name of this creature was "Ancient Savage Beast"—perhaps this type of beast simply enjoyed playing tricks?

Lu Yuan decided to test the waters: "Since you call yourselves Ancient Savage Beasts, capturing a human just to eat him seems rather tasteless and unoriginal."

"Indeed, our methods are too unoriginal. How can three esteemed Ancient Savage Lords stoop to such common taste?" The three heads nodded in agreement.

He had gambled correctly. Lu Yuan clapped inwardly. While he hadn't escaped the Ancient Savage Beast yet, at least his immediate life was safe. Furthermore, given the beast's apparent fondness for uniqueness and its susceptibility to being easily fooled, his chances of survival were now exceedingly high.

"We Ancient Savage Beasts are the smartest, the most tasteful, and the most unique Ancient Savage Beasts," the Three-Headed Lion declared. "Right, you may address me as Lord Three Spirits Prime Sage. We must engage in something more refined. How about this: the three of us will each test you once. If you pass all three trials, we will let you go. If you fail, we will kill you and eat you. Are we not refined? Among demonic beasts, few enjoy testing people with problems like we do."

Lu Yuan felt a wave of exasperation; he hadn't anticipated such a bizarre turn of events.

The leftmost head of the Three-Headed Lion spoke: "I am the most intelligent array master among demonic beasts. I shall test you on formations. Since you fight with a sword, I will set up a Sword Array for you to break. If you succeed, you pass my challenge."

Immediately, the Three-Headed Lion stirred, its claws weaving in the void to conjure an array, constantly shifting. An incomparably complex formation materialized. The difficulty and intricacy of this array were likely not inferior to the Sword Ancestor Star Formation of the Sword Gate. This Ancient Savage Beast was indeed exceptionally intelligent and unconventional among its kind, possessing high wisdom, and this leftmost head specialized in formations.

In the blink of an eye, a formation enveloped Lu Yuan.

It was a truly staggering Sword Array.

This array was composed of seventy-two sub-formations, and within each of those seventy-two, there were thirty-six variations, each variation containing eighteen micro-changes. This meant the Sword Array was constructed from over forty thousand minute formations, possessing virtually infinite complexity.

Moreover, the forty thousand small formations were interconnected, mutually reinforcing, making breaking the array exponentially difficult.

The Three-Headed Lion was a strange sort of demonic beast; they could naturally simulate any aura—sword energy, blade energy, spear energy—all were possible.

The Sword Array laid down by the Three-Headed Lion was actually named the Heavenly Stellar and Earthly Fiend Ultimate Sword Array. It exhausted all the changes within the Tian Gang Di Sha but contained no inherent trickery; however, the sheer computational scale required surpassed human imagination. This Ancient Savage Beast had learned this formation from the Mechanical Civilization after visiting the Lost Lands. To be precise, the beast races allied with the Central Heavenly Dynasty, who had signed agreements with the Five Ancient Civilzations, actually had considerable ties to the Lost Lands—a tangle of intricate details that threatened to spark an unimaginable upheaval.

Of course, none of that mattered now. Having finished setting up the Sword Array, the Ancient Savage Beast looked smugly at Lu Yuan: "You may begin breaking the array now. If you cannot, I shall eat you. Eating someone who fails to break an array must taste particularly good." It was clearly pleased with the array it had learned from the Mechanical Civilization.

Lu Yuan saw the endless torrent of sword energy and felt a surge of joy.

This was good fortune; absorbing sword energy was certainly beneficial to him.

However, facing the Three-Headed Lion, Lu Yuan first adopted a suitably frustrated demeanor: "What a powerful Sword Array! It seems too difficult to break."

Hearing this, the Three-Headed Lion grew even more delighted: "You can't decipher it, can you? Eating those who can't break the array really does taste good. Who has four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?" It began chanting this rhyme—a ballad of the Ancient Savage Beast clan. Legend held that a wise beast from their clan invented this riddle long ago. Many were stumped, eventually being eaten, until someone finally solved the puzzle with the correct answer.

Naturally, this riddle would not challenge modern people; they were far shrewder than the beings of the Primordial Era. Still, the formation could prove difficult. The Three-Headed Lion thought to itself, if Lu Yuan couldn't answer the riddle, his flesh would surely taste much better than that of ordinary humans.

After feigning frustration for a while, letting the Three-Headed Lion indulge in its pride, Lu Yuan finally summoned his Dao of the Sword Gourd, continuously absorbing the surrounding sword energy. It had been some time since his Dao of the Sword Gourd had taken in any energy. As it absorbed, he sensed that the sword energy within was already nearly full. After collecting the entirety of the Sword Array's energy, Lu Yuan realized his Dao of the Sword Gourd was only missing the very final sliver of energy needed to break through and forge the Gate of the Dao of the Sword.

Lu Yuan felt a pleasant surprise. He absolutely needed to forge the Gate of the Dao of the Sword before confronting the Sword Child.

He had been wondering where to acquire more sword energy, and here the Ancient Savage Beast had delivered an abundance, bringing him to the very brink of breakthrough. He would surely be able to unleash the Gate of the Dao of the Sword when facing the Sword Child. Wonderful, wonderful! This Ancient Savage Beast was truly a good creature—no, a good beast!

(Chapter One delivered.)