Yuanqi Mountain Range. An underground cavern.
The vast cavern was filled with sticky, foul-smelling black liquid, and countless tentacles writhed slowly, entwined with one another.
From time to time, a series of eerie rustling sounds rang out.
At the center of the cavern, the black slime slowly parted, revealing an enormous carcass.
Though it had been dead for countless years, it was still recognizable as a giant two-headed salamander.
The beast's once-exposed white bones had turned an unnatural blackish brown, as though the immense power they once contained had been forcibly drained away, leaving them rotten and crumbling.
Its sole remaining head looked remarkably lifelike and radiated an indescribably powerful aura, proof of how terrifying it had been in life.
But as the rustling continued, the skin of its head began to bulge, as though something inside was about to break free of its cocoon. This did not last long.
As its flesh and skin continued to swell, they finally reached their limit. With a sharp ripping sound, the skin split, and a black vertical eye emerged.
And that was only the beginning. Like a chain reaction, a succession of sharp cracks rang out from its skin. Black vertical eyes burst through the flesh like bamboo shoots after rain, soon covering its entire head.
As the black vertical eyes blinked rapidly, the salamander beast's plump head slowly began to shrivel.
Several hours later, the lava beast's last intact head had vanished completely, leaving only a blackened, decaying skull.
A drop of black slime fell onto the skull. In an instant, the enormous carcass shattered with a crash, crumbling into a carpet of dust and disappearing entirely.
Then all the slime and tentacles in the cavern rapidly contracted, gathering into a burly figure.
Clad in black armor, the figure stood tall,