Deep within the Raging Wave Mountains.
Inside a primeval jungle as black as ink.
Several years ago, a massive eruption of the underground Red Radiance Jade Mine had triggered a Spirit Magnetic Storm that swept through everything in its path, semi-permanently altering the terrain and landscape here.
Yet the spirit energy that had burst directly from the earth had destroyed old life while nurturing even more vigorous, flourishing vitality.
In just a few short years.
The plants that had once been blown apart and burned to ashes had already grown back in an even lusher, more grotesque form.
Without high-level monsters galloping through the jungle, trampling thorns and tearing apart vines, the forest appeared denser and more shadowy than before, like layer upon layer of copper walls and iron ramparts studded with spikes.
Of course, no matter how solid the copper walls and iron ramparts were.
They could not stop Meng Chao from walking on level ground as if it were flat land.
He was like a flying insect magnified hundreds of times over.
His feet never touched the dust as he skimmed across the treetops.
With even the lightest tap on a spiderweb, he could silently dart dozens of meters away.
Meng Chao found several monster hunters' campsites along the way.
He even encountered a few hunting and cultivation teams.
But whether in strength or scale, they fell far short of the peak years of the Monster War.
The main reason was that coming to the Raging Wave Mountains to cultivate was no longer cost-effective.
Every Hell Beast and Doomsday Beast here had been slaughtered clean in humanity's fishing-the-last-fish-from-the-pond-style encirclement and hunt.
Only a few Nightmare Beasts remained, especially skilled at camouflage and escape.
To Transcendents above a certain level, Nightmare Beasts served no purpose in cultivation at all.