Bang! Bang! Bang!

A dense barrage of flesh-on-flesh impacts exploded across the clearing.

No flashy techniques, just pure Strength and speed clashing head‑on.

The forceful gusts howled, ripping the bushes around them out by the roots.

Grey Eagle scrambled and rolled toward the outer ring in a panic, then looked back in horror.

The center of the battlefield was already completely shrouded by flying mud and billowing dust.

The people on the edge couldn’t see what was happening inside at all; they could only hear one deafening thud after another.

The sound was dull to the extreme, nothing like a fight between bodies of flesh and blood.

It was more like a heavy artillery position going berserk, every boom making the ground violently shudder.

The powerful shockwaves peeled up the topsoil, blasting huge gaps out of several nearby tree trunks.

Gravel, clods of earth, and snapped branches came rattling down like a rainstorm, smashing against Grey Eagle’s head and back.

"Ah Cheng!"

Ma Donghe gripped the Dagger in his hand, shouting nervously.

Hou Peng’s big, wind-catching ears twitched; his eyes locked on the dust‑filled center, his face full of shock and doubt.

The three police cadets on the perimeter were even more on edge, so nervous they forgot the pain of their wounds.

Everyone knew it in their hearts.

If even this terrifyingly strong man couldn’t hold back that monster, then everyone here today was going to end up as food in the monster’s stomach.

Bang!

Another dull boom, and the dirt on the ground rippled like water.

The smoke and dust in the air thinned a little.

Two figures gradually emerged in the center of the clearing.

Everyone stared hard; when they finally saw clearly, they all sucked in a sharp breath.

They saw Fang Cheng’s feet nailed into the muddy ground.

His right hand was like a hydraulic iron clamp, locked around Old Dog’s thick neck.

His left hand firmly supported the monster’s lower back.

With a low exhale, the muscles in Fang Cheng’s waist and back suddenly exploded with power, and he forcibly hoisted the frantically struggling mutant monster high above his head.

Then—

The muscles in Fang Cheng’s arms twisted tight like steel cables as he smashed Old Dog down toward the hard rocky ground at his feet.

Thud!

The ground shook violently, cracking inch by inch.

Only then did everyone suddenly realize where those terrifying impact sounds from before had come from.

Old Dog hit so hard it spat black blood; before it could even roll over—

Fang Cheng’s hands shot out again, grabbing hold of it, and with a sudden burst of force, he hurled it back into the air.

The monster let out a shrill howl in midair, claws flailing wildly as it tried to strike back.

Fang Cheng looked up, golden light blazing in his eyes.

He suddenly spread his hands, precisely catching Old Dog’s two hind legs as it fell.

"Break for me!"

Fang Cheng roared, the muscles in his arms bulging to the limit, veins standing out like earthworms.

He yanked his hands apart to either side.

Riiip—

The sound of tearing flesh ripped through the entire forest.

Old Dog’s mutant body, tough as iron, was actually torn in half from the crotch down by Fang Cheng’s bare hands.

Rank black blood poured down like a waterfall, mixed with shredded organs, splattering all over the ground.

Fang Cheng casually flung the two halves of the corpse into the mud with a heavy thump.

The place went dead silent.

Everyone stared, dumbstruck, at the man standing in the middle of the Blood Rain.

Even though the monster’s death had saved their lives—

At this moment, not a single one of them dared relax in the slightest.

Looking at Fang Cheng’s blood‑streaked yet expressionless face, a fear surged up in their hearts that was even stronger than when they’d faced the monster.

He just ripped a mutant monster apart with his bare hands?

So tell me, who’s the real monster here?!

Ma Donghe swallowed hard, forcing himself to take half a step forward, his voice dry:

"A... Ah Cheng? You okay?"

Fang Cheng didn’t look back; he just raised his right hand and made a shushing gesture.

His gaze was fixed on the two halves of Old Dog’s corpse on the ground.

From the bloody flesh that had been gushing just moments ago, countless black threads suddenly wriggled out.

Those strands of black qi crawled and churned violently over the surface of the remains like leeches smelling blood, letting out a faint, creepy "chirp‑chirp" noise that normal people could barely hear.

Fang Cheng narrowed his eyes, locking his gaze onto those drifting black strands, silently pondering in his heart.

These bizarre black mists—are they parasitic lifeforms unique to the High-Dimensional World, or some kind of energy leaking out from within the ruins?

They could, in just a few minutes, completely destroy an adult man’s gene chain and mutate him into a mindless beast.

With this level of corrosion and contamination, if it spread on a large scale, it would probably become an unimaginable catastrophe.

Just as everyone was holding their breath in Concentration—

Grey Eagle, who had fallen on the muddy ground, suddenly let out a shrill scream:

"Ah! It hurts!"

He clutched his head with both hands in a death grip, his face twisted.

His whole body rolled back and forth on the ground, mumbling incoherently:

"I can feel it... I can feel it... the sound of electricity! There’s a piercing electric current noise!"

Ma Donghe and Hou Peng saw this and hastily raised their weapons, warily retreating a few steps.

Everyone stared in stunned silence at Grey Eagle, who looked as if he’d gone mad, afraid that in the next second he would turn into a man-eating Evil Ghost like Old Dog.

Fang Cheng turned around, ready to step forward and knock out the noisy Grey Eagle, but out of the corner of his eye he suddenly caught a trace of something off.

He snapped his head back to look at the mangled corpse on the ground.

He saw those previously scattered, writhing black mists suddenly, as if drawn by some powerful magnetic field, rapidly condense into a fist-sized black sphere.

Whoosh—

The black sphere shot out like a bullet from a chamber, skimming along the ground as it fled straight toward the depths of the thick fog directly north of the forest.

Fang Cheng’s eyes narrowed slightly, golden light flickering in his pupils.

His gaze instantly penetrated the layers of fog, following the path along which the black mists had escaped.

At the edge of his vision, he vaguely saw the outline of a warped, fluctuating space, like a mirror standing in midair.

"What is that?"

Fang Cheng muttered under his breath.

"Huff... huff..."

By now, Grey Eagle’s screams had gradually died down.

He gasped heavily as he crawled up from the mud, the pain in his eyes completely replaced by fanatical excitement.

"Right up ahead! The entrance is right up ahead!"

Grey Eagle raised his trembling hand, pointing toward a certain direction in the fog, so excited his voice went out of tune:

"Right there. The sound I just heard in my head came from that direction—it can’t be wrong!"

The direction he pointed was exactly the trajectory along which that black cluster had fled.

As he spoke, Grey Eagle turned his head and quickly shuffled up to Fang Cheng, fawning all over as he volunteered:

"Big brother, let me lead the way for you. Believe me, my sensing will never be wrong. This time we’ll definitely find the entrance to the ancient civilization’s ruins!"

Ma Donghe gripped his Dagger, eyeing him suspiciously:

"Didn’t you say you still needed blood to draw some Summoning Array? Now you haven’t even set out the Array Plate, and you can already find it?"

Grey Eagle wiped the cold sweat from his face and let out two dry chuckles:

"Plans can’t keep up with changes, you know. If we really couldn’t find the spatial rift’s position tonight, then we’d have to use that extreme Array."

"But so many people just died, even Old Dog mutated—that proves there’s already enough Qi Blood Energy. The hidden entrance to the nearby ruins has been stimulated into revealing itself!"

As he spoke, he looked at Fang Cheng with eyes full of anticipation:

"Big brother, with the heaven-defying Skills you just showed, plus my instincts as a pathfinder, if we team up and enter that New World, we can definitely clean out all the treasures inside."

"By then we’ll all get rich together. Even if we run into some native monsters in there, in front of you they’d just be free deliveries on a platter!"

Fang Cheng looked at Grey Eagle’s greedy face and gave an ambiguous nod.

Grey Eagle was instantly overjoyed and hurriedly bowed and scraped to get closer:

"Excellent! I still don’t know what to call you, big brother?"

"Just call me Brother Cheng."

Fang Cheng spoke in a flat tone.

"Brother Cheng! From now on you’re our leading big brother!"

Grey Eagle turned and shouted at the two subordinates who had barely kept their lives:

"Mountain Cat, Bald Rat, what are you still standing there for? Hurry up and greet Brother Cheng!"

The two subordinates clutched their injured arms as they shakily walked over together, lowered their heads, and called out in unison:

"Brother Cheng."

"So shall we head over to look for the entrance now?"

Grey Eagle rubbed his hands, unable to wait, and turned to plunge into the depths of the fog.

"Hold it."

Fang Cheng’s gaze swept over the several bloody gashes on Grey Eagle’s body where Old Dog had clawed him, and he said coldly:

"Bandage your wounds first. You’re bleeding so much—don’t die halfway. I have no interest in hauling a corpse around while looking for a path."

Grey Eagle laughed awkwardly twice, quickly calling over Black Bull and Flying Knife. They rummaged through their marching packs for emergency bandages and clumsily tended to their wounds.

Taking advantage of the time while they were bandaging, Ma Donghe moved up beside Fang Cheng, lowering his rough voice, his expression somewhat grave:

"Ah Cheng, what exactly are those ancient civilization ruins? They sound really sinister. Are they dangerous?"