Chapter 1338: Chapter 349: All Things Furnace, Blood Sacrifice of Solitude

Li Zheng didn’t take it to heart.

Eternal was a Demigod Realm powerhouse; if it really wanted to kill him, it could do it anytime.

There was zero need to skulk around in secret.

His understanding was that Eternal was learning how to live like a higher Intelligent Creature.

Even though Eternal’s consciousness and memory were a fusion of countless Evil Gu Worms.

Its memories only had capacity, not depth or emotion.

No matter how many Evil Gu Worm memories it had, they were still just insect memories; there was no way to find out how to become a higher Intelligent Creature from them.

So he could fully understand Eternal’s curiosity.

In this world, perhaps only the Player Clan counted as Eternal’s own kind in its eyes.

As for other beings, there was an unbridgeable gap between them and Eternal in the architecture of Life.

Li Zheng started getting used to that gaze watching him.

The seventh day at dusk.

In a basin overgrown with black thorns, Li Zheng, who had just finished Hunting, found a clearing and lit a campfire.

He then took out some pre-seasoned roast meat from his Space Bag, prepared by a Spirit Food Party player, and started getting dinner ready.

The act was undeniably showy.

Lighting a fire and roasting meat in the dangerous wilds was an easy way to attract Monsters.

But Li Zheng didn’t care.

Since the Blind Jump Trial began, he hadn’t had a single bite of hot food.

It was about time he enjoyed a proper meal.

But before he could skewer the Spiritual Meat with his Rune Resonance Weapon, a low growl sounded from behind him.

He decisively stowed away the roast and the Rune Weapon, then turned around to look.

He saw a massive creature, its body as large as an artificial hill, that had somehow appeared behind him without a single wisp of Qi-Blood leaking from it.

A Decomposition scan swept out, and the target’s information surfaced in his mind:

[Prison Beast]:

Hunting Level: 135.

Target description: A Monster unique to the Lan Steel Region, formed from pure "Lan" attribute Energy. Every breath it takes stirs up a corrosive black mist, and it feeds by Hunting other creatures. Its special stomach structure can Decompose and convert other substances into "Lan" attribute Energy.

...

Seeing the other party’s Hunting Level, Li Zheng instantly felt a headache.

In this area, aside from the sewn body he’d encountered before that was under the Control of the Evil Gu Insect Clan, Monsters’ Hunting Levels mostly hovered around Level 30–Level 50.

This was the first native Monster he’d encountered that surpassed Hundred Level. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The Rune Resonance Weapon twisted and reshaped in his hand into a Golden Great Bow.

He drew the string with Gang Qi as a guide, and blazing Red Arrows rapidly formed.

But when the Arrow struck the Prison Beast’s body, it only knocked it back for a moment before being slapped to pieces with a single palm.

Then the two figures moved at the same time, intersecting at the center.

The Prison Beast charged straight at him like a stampeding mountain range.

On the frontal collision, Li Zheng was completely crushed in terms of Strength, his body blasted away like a fired cannonball.

As he was sent flying, the Rune Resonance Weapon in his hand turned into Liu Guang and reassembled into a pair of gloves.

With a low shout, faint golden air currents surged up around him, Gang Qi spurting out behind him as he barely stabilized himself and landed.

Then he launched another offensive.

In the exchanges that followed, Li Zheng was completely on the back foot.

His body showed signs of starting to come apart.

Facing a Prison Beast whose Strength far outstripped his own, he stopped clashing head-on. His figure flitted around the Prison Beast like a ghost, the Rune Resonance Weapon shifting into a Light Saber, targeting only the soft flesh around the beast’s joints.

Every hit came with bursting Hua Huo, but it also left him exposed within range of the Prison Beast’s whipping tail.

He narrowly dodged several times, but the Prison Beast finally caught an opening.

Smack!

The instant the tail landed across his back, Li Zheng felt his spine groaning, his whole body slamming into a tumble of rocks like a kite with its string cut.

The blood he coughed up was laced with bits of broken bone. Just as he pushed his upper body up, he saw the Prison Beast open its maw full of fangs and spit a thick stream of pitch-black Black Energy acid.

He rolled aside to dodge; the acid splashed onto the rock wall behind him, instantly eating out a deep, white-smoking pit that kept collapsing inward.

And the Prison Beast’s offensive surged on like a tidal wave, its massive claws slamming down with tremors that made the ground itself quiver.

Cracks webbed across Li Zheng’s Gang Qi shield under the repeated impacts; the wound on his left arm, sliced open by a claw tip, was deep enough to expose bone, and the rate of Corrosion was speeding up.

"Easy there, brothers, I’ll crank the difficulty up for it."

Snarking through gritted teeth, Li Zheng crushed the Elixir in his mouth; the medicinal power instantly spread through his body.

When the Prison Beast’s giant claw once again blotted out the sky above his head, a hint of resolve flashed in his eyes. He was just about to unleash his remaining Gang Qi for one last gamble when that sky-covering claw suddenly froze in midair.

The next second, a golden figure plummeted from the heavens, moving so fast that only the trail of light it left behind could be seen.

Under Li Zheng’s stunned gaze, the Prison Beast’s entire body dissolved into countless Blood Color motes, drawn by an invisible force to converge on that golden figure in the sky.

All that remained on the ground was a wisp of black mist, dissipating on the wind.

But the absorbed Blood Light then overflowed from the mouth of the golden figure, which stood with its jaws open, and under the effect of All Things Extraction, it flowed into Li Zheng’s body.

Transforming into Challenger Tips that rang out in Li Zheng’s mind.

At that moment Li Zheng also looked up. The golden figure hovering not far away was Eternal.

Right now Eternal was looking at him as well, its eyes showing not the slightest ripple of emotion.

Li Zheng pushed himself up, one hand braced on his knee. Meeting that calm gaze, he couldn’t help but ask curiously:

"Why did you save me?"

Eternal was silent for a while, then nodded seriously.

"Same kind."

"I’m not your kind."

"Same kind." Eternal nodded again, firmly.

Li Zheng: ...

Just as he was about to keep talking, Eternal suddenly turned, becoming a streak of golden light that shot toward the sky.

Li Zheng wiped the blood off his face with the back of his hand and shouted toward the direction Eternal had vanished in:

"Thanks, yeah."

Eternal didn’t answer, already gone beyond the horizon.