The overlords behind the scenes are too ferocious; I'm begging for monthly tickets! ... Under the devouring power, the life essence of this piece of snake corpse was quickly absorbed into the body, forcibly refined, restoring the vital energy depleted during the fierce fight, and even increasing it slightly.

The snake corpse, stripped of its life essence, quickly withered. Its smooth, jade-like golden-black scales turned dull and lusterless, and with a gentle squeeze, it crumbled into dust.

Ye Chen moved in a flash, opening the Rune Space and darting inside. He immediately compressed the space to allow external air to circulate in. The Black Snail Worms were small and required little oxygen, but he needed a vast amount. If he sealed the space, the oxygen would be rapidly depleted, leading to suffocation.

Once inside the Rune Space, Ye Chen saw the monsters controlled by Xiao Hei and the other Black Snail Worms gathered on the metal platform of the spacecraft. Hearing the movement, the Black Snail Worms all turned their heads. Especially Xiao Hei, upon seeing Ye Chen’s impassive face, felt a flicker of panic in its eyes and quickly scurried over. The Blood-Toothed Tiger plastered a smile on its face, offering a fawning greeting: "The Boss is here! I didn't expect that after just one day apart, you would become even more handsome. My admiration for you, Xiao Hei, is like the Yellow River descending from the heavens, ceaseless, like the mighty Yangtze River, never-ending..."

Ye Chen glanced at it, and that look seemed to pierce through the Blood-Toothed Tiger’s body, landing directly on the core of Xiao Hei’s true form in its brain. His gaze, detached and bearing a hint of majesty, held not a trace of emotion, causing Xiao Hei's heart to jolt. It felt as if its entire body was encased in ice. It immediately knelt down, trembling, "Boss, spare my life! Xiao Hei knows its mistake."

Ye Chen glanced at it once more, then paid it no mind, his expression cold. He stepped forward, arriving at the metal platform on the spacecraft. The assembled monsters controlled by the Black Snail Worms all retreated three feet, clearing a path, standing respectfully on either side as they watched him.

Ye Chen walked straight to the body of the Golden Silk Python in the center. He flipped his hand, summoning the Blood-Red Battle Saber. With a light flick, the sharpness of this eighth-tier weapon easily sliced open the Golden Silk Python’s corpse.

"Bring a crystal box," Ye Chen instructed the old Green Talisman man.

The old Green Talisman man floated out from the cabin, looking at Ye Chen with a face full of grievance. Using the control center's system, it maneuvered a coffin made of crystal to land before Ye Chen—a rectangular container the size of a coffin.

Ye Chen sliced open the Golden Silk Python’s side, and immediately, black blood flowed out, filling the crystal coffin. Before long, the wound on the serpent’s body showed signs of healing; the cellular vitality of this Golden Silk Python was simply too strong. Ye Chen had to cut another gash, tearing open the wound that was nearly closed.

Thus, the wound would heal, and Ye Chen would tear it open again. Soon, all the blood from the middle section was drained. After allowing the wound to heal again, Ye Chen positioned the head section of the Golden Silk Python over the crystal coffin, punctured it, and let the bloody poison flow out.

After more than ten minutes, Ye Chen had drained all the blood from the Golden Silk Python, accumulating enough to fill more than half the crystal coffin. Ye Chen instructed the old Green Talisman man to store it in the spacecraft’s refrigerated compartment below. Upon returning to Base City, this poisonous blood could be smeared onto weapons for killing enemies or used to create poisons to eliminate other monsters.

Although the toxic blood possessed strong corrosive properties, crystal was a miraculous substance, highly resistant to corrosion.

After the poisonous blood was drained, Ye Chen hacked off the Golden Silk Python's fangs and discovered a venom sac inside its tongue cavity—fist-sized, dark green, saturated with potent venom, and filled with liquid poison.

Ye Chen handed this over to the old Green Talisman man for refrigeration. Then, using the Blood-Red Battle Saber, he cut open the Golden Silk Python's hide and scales, commanding the remaining monsters to work together to strip it off, yielding a complete set of serpentine scale armor, over twenty meters long. Without its skin, the Golden Silk Python was covered in blood, looking terribly gruesome.

Ye Chen's expression was unchanged. He sliced open its body with one strike and found a snake gall within—fist-sized, its heavy bile containing abundant spiritual energy.

Ye Chen activated his energy flow, devouring frantically. The snake gall gradually shriveled, eventually becoming rotten and foul-smelling, turning into a pile of residue that he tossed out of the Rune Space.

Next, Ye Chen positioned the Golden Silk Python in a coiled heap, sitting in the center, fully absorbing the life essence from its body. As time passed, the energy within him grew stronger, while the corpse rapidly decomposed and withered. Before long, it was reduced to a pile of refuse.

Ye Chen activated his bracelet, and a white light enveloped the pile of rot. Many white light particles floated up from it and flew into his body, becoming part of his Light Armor.

Afterward, Ye Chen left the Rune Space, went outside the mountain, opened the external space, and instructed Xiao Hei to move the snake corpse out.

Hearing that he was being assigned hard labor, Xiao Hei was not only not angry this time but was overjoyed. With a face full of excitement, it grabbed the snake corpse and, under the gaze of the surrounding Black Snail Worms, swaggered out of the Rune Space, as if proclaiming: "See, Black Master is still Boss's number one subordinate!"

At that moment, Ye Chen glanced at the sky and saw it was already afternoon. After a moment of thought, he decided not to hunt further. He took Xiao Hei back into the Rune Space, then entered the mountain, opening the Rune Space and crawling in. He moved the Anaconda’s corpse aside, peeled off its scales and skin, broke off its fangs, and then jumped inside its body, desperately sucking in the life essence. This Anaconda, aside from its venomous fangs, had blood that was not poisonous, unlike the Golden Silk Python.

Its corpse was severely damaged; even controlled by the Black Snail Worms, it couldn't exert much strength. Therefore, Ye Chen absorbed it without reservation.

Time quietly slipped by.

Night fell.

The moonlight was pale, and the mountain wind whistled gently.

Ye Chen sat beside the Anaconda’s corpse, his hands resting on his knees, palms like twin spirals, drawing in the life essence from the serpent and rapidly devouring and refining it.

Xiao Hei and the other Black Snail Worms dared not approach, fearing that their own life essence would be absorbed as well.

He sat like this for three full days!

Ye Chen neither ate nor drank, using life essence as sustenance. His body was petrified, completely still. The Anaconda’s corpse before him gradually withered. By the third day, the serpent’s blood had significantly reduced, the dried blood wrinkled, and the life essence floating off its body grew fainter and fainter until... there was none left.

Ye Chen opened his eyes, and two sharp points of light shot out, causing a nearby Black Snail Worm to involuntarily shiver when it caught sight of them.

"As expected of an Anaconda, it reached at least the sixth tier; its life essence was more than ten times that of the Golden Silk Python!" Ye Chen clenched his fist, feeling that the energy within him had reached the late stage of the first tier of the Qi Force Master level, just shy of reaching the second tier!

"Once I reach the second tier, I can use the moves 'Qi Sword' and 'Lagging Air' for Qi Force Masters!" Ye Chen yearned in his heart. Qi Force Masters did have offensive methods. Currently, as a first-tier practitioner, he could use 'Object Grasping' to remotely seize objects with his energy, and 'Minor Qi Sword' to condense energy to a single point and flick it out.

Upon reaching the second tier, he would be able to briefly sustain himself mid-air using his sheer force.

Ye Chen glanced at the Overlord Lion next to him, hesitated for a moment, and ultimately abandoned the idea of absorbing it. This Overlord Lion possessed the physical strength of a fifth-tier creature. Once the Black Snail Worms reached level 50 in the future, he could control it, gaining an extra fifth-tier enforcer!

Ye Chen used his bracelet to extract the light substance from the Anaconda, immediately feeling his Light Armor expand slightly. When deployed, it could completely cover his forehead, though he was uncertain of its defensive capability.

He left the mountain, letting Xiao Hei and the other monsters move the Anaconda’s corpse out. He then left the area, traveling a few kilometers away to find another hillside, where he dug a pit in the mountainside.

Not long after, the sky darkened.

Ye Chen sat in the mountain, searching the surroundings for some trees, chopping them into firewood, and lighting them with the lighter he carried. He then carved a chunk of meat, the size of a fist, from the Blood-Toothed Tiger’s back—a piece so small that it had absolutely no effect on the towering, over ten-meter-tall creature.

After roasting the meat, Ye Chen ate it, satisfying much of his hunger. Afterward, he extinguished the campfire. His eyes inadvertently swept over the communicator in his hand, and a thought struck him. He opened it and immediately saw numerous missed call requests and many text messages.

He opened them one by one to check.

"Boss, where did you run off to?" Yue Heng had left a message.

"Come back quickly, Boss, we still need you to manage the overall situation," Zhuge Fan had messaged.

"Little Chen Chen, have you been captivated by some beauty that you won't even reply to texts?" Bai Long had written.

Seeing this message, Ye Chen rolled his eyes with mild irritation. Scrolling down slightly, he saw many messages from the same name.

"Brother, Bai Long said you had an accident? Where are you? I’ll come find you!"

"Brother, why aren't you replying to texts? Everyone is so worried."

"Brother, Bai Long, Yue Heng, and I all went looking for you today, but we didn't see you on Nine Dragon Mountain."

"Brother..."

One message after another detailed the progress of his sister, Ye Zhu, every day. Ye Chen's heart warmed, and a trace of apology appeared in his eyes. Just as he was about to reply, he suddenly saw the message below: "Brother, we've mobilized all our resources, but we can't find you anywhere. I was going to go to the Dragon Soaring Guild, but Bai Long stopped me. Brother, I want to avenge you, but my strength isn't enough. I will train hard; no matter how long it takes, I will make them pay for what they did to you!"

Ye Chen's heart jolted, and his hand trembled slightly. This normally composed man felt a few drops of cold sweat run down his spine. He only relaxed when he saw the subsequent content, "Good thing he didn't act rashly; otherwise, with his current strength, going alone to kill the leader of a massive guild commanding over a hundred thousand people would still be too much of a stretch."

Seeing that there were no terrible messages from his sister or Bai Long and the others, he felt significantly relieved. He then put away his communicator and fell asleep, planning to travel for another day before reaching Base City. The speed he achieved when activating his superhuman state was terrifying; the distance he now needed one or two days to cover, he once traversed in a mere minute!