With a pained howl, the saber-toothed tiger collapsed helplessly to the ground. Its fearsome fangs had been completely useless in this swift, crushing encounter. The prehistoric Earth predator had not even realized how it had been wounded before its heart was instantly roasted by the searing blade of the plasma spear.
Hao Ren casually twirled the spear. Though the plasma blade never retained any bloodstains, he still felt the motion effectively boosted his coolness. He then glanced around and, after confirming that there were no enemies left besides the saber-toothed tiger that had suddenly leaped out without looking where it was going, let out a quiet sigh of relief.
The primitive, savage Earth was dangerous everywhere. Humanity was still far from reaching the upper levels of the food chain, with wild beasts that regarded humans as prey roaming all around. Though they posed no threat at all to Hao Ren, driving them away was still a real headache.
Hao Ren looked back and saw a distorted rift floating in midair, about two people wide. On the other side of the rift, the crumbling icy spire lay quietly on the ground. The landscape of 7715 BC was imprisoned inside that rift, already completely covered by the gray-white color representing temporal stasis.
In truth, he did not know exactly what year he had reached during his previous regression. That precise year could probably only be found in the sandbox system's records. He merely had an increasingly distinct intuition—as he drew closer and closer to the starting point of this distorted spacetime, that intuition had grown clearer as well. He knew he had entered the final stretch. Perhaps here, or perhaps during the next regression, he would reach the beginning of this severed river of time. This long journey would eventually reach its