Swiftly threading through the mountains and forests, a figure flashed ten yards ahead. Six years as a Hunter team captain had made Teng Qingshan intimately familiar with the Great Yan Mountain range. Whether scaling peaks, leaping off cliffs, or weaving between colossal trees, what should have been a forty-mile journey was reduced to less than ten miles by Teng Qingshan’s near-straight trajectory.

In the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, he arrived at Gourd Canyon.

“Boom!”

A figure plummeted from the sky above the canyon wall, landing on the earth like a falling meteorite. Only someone whose physical body was as formidable as Teng Qingshan’s would dare employ such a brazen landing technique. Even an ordinary Xiantian expert, despite possessing powerful Xiantian True Essence, possessed a physical body vastly inferior to Teng Qingshan’s.

While Xiantian True Essence could dissipate impact, the sheer force generated by a fall from a hundred-zhang cliff—even if only a fraction reached his body—would have instantly killed those Xiantian experts!

“Crash!” A massive stone crater formed where his body struck the ground.

Bracing one hand on the earth, Teng Qingshan sprang up and immediately bolted toward the location of the Bottomless Pit.

He had already spotted from the cliff edge that there was no one else within Gourd Canyon, and he quickly reached the pit’s edge.

“Father and Uncle Yongxiang were ambushed and killed right here…” Teng Qingshan surveyed the surroundings. Dried bloodstains were visible everywhere on the ground, mixed with fragments of flesh, broken bones, and shattered steel. However, there were no complete corpses. “This place has been cleaned up!”

Teng Qingshan could judge this with a careful glance.

With so much blood covering the ground, many people must have died. There were also quite a few pieces of shattered steel. Among the only recognizable weapons visible nearby were long spears—some with wooden shafts, others made of fine steel.

“Fine steel spears!” Teng Qingshan spotted two blood-soaked fine steel spears entangled in the grass some distance away. He rushed over immediately, snatched them up, and focused on a distinct cut mark near the base of one spear. Teng Qingshan’s pupils constricted, and his heart trembled. “This—this is Father’s fine steel spear!” He had watched his father wield this weapon since childhood.

Having looked at it for so many years, recognizing it was instantaneous.

“Father’s weapons are all lost, you bastards from Azure Lake Island!” Teng Qingshan’s eyes flushed red, rage churning in his chest.

“There are quite a few pieces of shattered steel here. They look like the heavy armor worn by the Silver Flood Dragon Army soldiers! And so much of it is broken… so much blood. Many died!” Teng Qingshan deduced. “These heavy armor fragments are fractured quite cleanly. Father’s fine steel spear couldn’t cause wounds like this. It must have been a sharp blade that sliced through the heavy armor! To slice through heavy armor so thoroughly… if it were a master, they would have killed the enemy with a single thrust of a sword. They wouldn't be bored enough to cut up armor! It doesn’t seem like humans… they must have encountered a monstrous beast!”

Teng Qingshan judged based on the wreckage of the steel, which showed damage unlike anything a human weapon could inflict.

“Hmm?” Teng Qingshan’s peripheral vision caught sight of something dozens of yards away.

There was a large pile of ashes from a substantial fire.

Teng Qingshan immediately walked over…

“They burned a lot of wood! And that lingering smell of burned corpses… it must have been cremation!” Teng Qingshan easily pieced together the sequence of events.

After the Silver Flood Dragon Army soldiers surrounded and killed his father and uncle, they must have encountered a powerful monstrous beast! That beast killed the soldiers. Subsequently, when other Silver Flood Dragon Army soldiers arrived, they naturally couldn't leave their brothers’ corpses exposed in the wilderness, so they cremated them nearby.

It was likely that the hunters’ bodies were cremated then as well.

Any undamaged weapons or heavy armor were taken away by the Silver Flood Dragon Army.

“Wait a moment!”

Teng Qingshan frowned. “If they succeeded in ambushing Father, they should have left immediately. Even if they encountered a monstrous beast, they shouldn't have fought here! That means… during the battle with Father, these soldiers hadn’t even managed to retreat when they ran into that beast!”

“Where did the monstrous beast come from?”

Teng Qingshan spun around and looked toward the Bottomless Pit.

“Whoosh!” Teng Qingshan leaped to the edge of the Bottomless Pit. “In the Great Yan Mountain range, besides the Violet Light Flood Dragon I found in the Jade Cold Pond, I’ve never seen any other monstrous beasts! Meaning, the beasts in the Great Yan Mountain forests don't like to stay here! It’s highly probable… this beast originated deep within this Bottomless Pit.”

“And Azure Lake Island was also searching for an underground palace.”

Teng Qingshan noticed a vine hanging near the edge of the Bottomless Pit. There was still blood on the vine: “Someone from Azure Lake Island must have gone down here!”

Teng Qingshan immediately leaped down.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

He plummeted rapidly, stirring up a gale. A damp, earthy smell permeated the Bottomless Pit, faintly laced with the scent of blood. Although the interior of the pit was very dark, ever since consuming the ‘Black Fire Spirit Root’ and continually excavating its energy, Teng Qingshan had developed the ability to see in the dark.

“Hmm?” Teng Qingshan violently thrust both hands into the wall composed of rock and mud!

His hands, encased in ‘Heavenly Eagle Claw’ gloves, easily pierced the wall, pulling down over three feet of material before stopping.

“There’s a deeper shaft here.” Teng Qingshan discovered an angled, dark opening higher up the wall. In front of this opening, half a corpse was embedded in the wall, the upper body still clad in heavy armor, severed cleanly at the chest. “A monstrous beast must have burst out from below ground and instantly torn an ascending Silver Flood Dragon Army soldier—who was clinging to the vine—in half. The powerful impact embedded the upper half of the soldier’s corpse into the rock and mud of the wall.”

The nightmarish scene could be clearly deduced.

Teng Qingshan yanked his hands free!

Whoosh!

He continued to fall deeper. In the darkness, Teng Qingshan’s night vision was almost as good as daylight. Although the walls of the Bottomless Pit were uneven, after falling over ten yards, Teng Qingshan could clearly see the bottom—there was water!

** “Hissing sounds!” When he was still about ten feet from the bottom, Teng Qingshan forcefully halted his descent.

“So many corpses…” As he approached the pit floor, Teng Qingshan realized the bottom was entirely covered in water, and within the water, one could vaguely see the shapes of severed bodies floating. Every corpse was wearing heavy armor, which, naturally, was mangled and ruined along with the bodies.

“This water has no trace of blood. It seems it connects to another body of water, and the blood has all flowed away.”

The water was relatively clear; though dark, Teng Qingshan could still make out the stone floor beneath.

“The water isn't deep?” Teng Qingshan jumped down lightly.

Indeed—

The water only reached his waist before his feet firmly met the ground.

“There’s a passage ahead.” Teng Qingshan moved slowly along a wide waterway to the side. The water in the waterway only reached his waist, quite shallow.

Yet, this waterway was three to four zhang high, and its walls were also rock. However, the rock walls resembled a honeycomb, with numerous small caves frequently visible. The width of the waterway varied, being quite wide in some places and narrow in others.

“A beast’s lair?” Teng Qingshan mused inwardly.

As he advanced, Teng Qingshan felt the water gradually deepening… it now reached his neck.

“Hmm?” Teng Qingshan’s pupils constricted as he stared at a black monster in a small alcove on the cave wall about ten yards away—

“Black Iron Centipede?” Teng Qingshan identified it instantly.

The centipede’s pale, massive eyes fixed on Teng Qingshan. In the completely dark environment of the underground waterway, even Xiantian experts had very limited visibility.

The Black Iron Centipede, believing Teng Qingshan could not see it, silently submerged itself and began swimming slowly toward him along the bottom.

“Vermin!” A cold glint flashed in Teng Qingshan’s eyes. Pretending not to see it, he continued forward.

Finally, Teng Qingshan was completely submerged. With the capabilities of his internal organs, he could remain underwater for many hours. In terms of physical conditioning, he was already comparable to some powerful monstrous beasts.

The water was pitch black.

The centipede’s densely packed, blade-like claws slowly churned the water as its iron-cast body twisted, swimming silently toward Teng Qingshan.

Teng Qingshan also moved along the bottom. Clad in heavy armor and carrying items like the Reincarnation Spear, he naturally sank to the very bottom of the water.

“Swish!”

The dozens of sharp claws suddenly swept out simultaneously. The Black Iron Centipede shot forward from the bottom like an arrow aimed at Teng Qingshan. Its massive jaws, bearing two scissor-like fangs, gaped open, ready to deliver a ‘scissor cut.’ Many Silver Flood Dragon Army soldiers had met their end this way, sliced in two.

“Gurgle~~”

The water flow at the bottom violently shook as Teng Qingshan’s hands shot out like lightning. He grabbed the centipede’s two fangs, eliciting a roar from the beast’s throat.

Teng Qingshan’s gaze turned cold. With a surge of strength from both hands!

“Hiss~~” The two fangs were ripped apart, tearing even from the root, causing the entire head of the Black Iron Centipede to split open. Green blood dyed the dark water, and the creature immediately went still.

“In absolute darkness, those experts from Azure Lake Island, suddenly ambushed by a monstrous beast, even Xiantian experts might have lost one or two,” Teng Qingshan knew well that if he lacked night vision, he certainly wouldn’t have dealt with this Black Iron Centipede so easily during a sneak attack.

“Splash!”

Teng Qingshan began swimming along the bottom.

With his precise muscle control, supplemented by Xiantian True Essence, his swimming posture underwater was nearly perfect, moving swiftly like a fish. He also discovered that this underground lake was vast. After swimming through the waterway, he entered an immense underground lake whose far reaches were beyond the scope of even his night vision.

“Absolute darkness… underwater… excellent.”

This environment was best suited for slaughter!

…

In the waterway Teng Qingshan had just traversed, the honeycomb-like walls were riddled with countless caves of seemingly unfathomable depth. Deep within one of these caves, nearly a hundred zhang down.

“Drip, drop!”

A single drop of milky-white liquid seeped down from a crack above, falling occasionally.

A blood-stained body was curled up inside this niche. Its lips were barely parted, attempting to catch the milky-white droplet falling from above. Although the person was motionless, appearing lifeless, with eyes shut tight, the effort shown by the opening lips indicated that he… was still alive!

“Alan, wait for me to come home!”

A resolute belief echoed, again and again, in his mind.