The Earth Lizard shrieked, its head thrashing violently.
The brute force yanked Lin Feng's hand sideways, flinging him into the air. He flipped two and a half times, then scraped his foot against the rock wall and bounced off, barely managing to bleed off the impact.
His palm burned. He'd nearly lost his grip on the blade.
The Earth Lizard's right eye had been pierced through. Blood streamed down its head, staining most of its face red.
It struggled and rolled off Bone Mountain.
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With a rumble, the little mountain of bones collapsed. Fragments flew everywhere, raising a vast cloud of white dust.
The Earth Lizard tumbled to the bottom of the basin. Its four legs buckled twice, then it fell again.
Its belly was still contracting—it was still laying eggs!
Lin Feng wiped the blood from his face and stood up.
He could take it.
It had only one eye left, and its strength had already been nearly exhausted during its weakened period. That last bout had drained it even further.
He wasn't going to give it a chance to catch its breath.
"Lin Feng! It's about to spit fire!" Wang Tie shouted from behind the cliff.
Lin Feng had already seen it.
The Earth Lizard's throat swelled, and a dark red glow gathered in its mouth, growing brighter by the second.
This wasn't the ordinary breath of fire it had used before.
The temperature in the air was climbing wildly. The loose stones beneath his feet began to grow hot.
Lin Feng took off running—not backward, but diagonally, circling to the side.
Boom!
A thick pillar of fire blasted from the Earth Lizard's mouth, sweeping straight across the basin.
Where it passed, the rocks melted into dark red streams of molten stone, and a half-meter-deep trench was carved through the ground.
The heat wave washed over Lin Feng, searing his face.
The pillar of fire lasted less than three seconds before it sputtered out.
The Earth Lizard lay sprawled on the ground, panting even harder.
Flickering flames still clung to the corners of its mouth.
That attack had cost it the last of its trump cards.
Lin Feng didn't hesitate for even a moment.
He charged in, stepped on the Earth Lizard's foreleg, and vaulted onto its back.
The scales beneath his feet were scorching hot. Even through his shoes, he could feel the burn, but he couldn't afford to care.
He raised his long blade above his head.
Aiming at the junction between the Earth Lizard's skull and its neck, he brought it down with all his strength!
This strike was unlike any of his previous ones.
With its armor-piercing effect stacked on top of all the qi and blood of a Rank 1 Martial Artist, the moment the blade cut into the scales, even Lin Feng felt the satisfying ease of slicing through tofu.
Squelch!
The blade sank in more than halfway, plunging deep into the spine.
The Earth Lizard's entire body suddenly stiffened.
Lin Feng twisted the blade sideways. A rapid series of bone-crunching cracks rang out.
The Earth Lizard's limbs began to spasm uncontrollably. Its tail thrashed wildly against the ground, sending broken rocks flying in every direction.
Lin Feng gripped the hilt with both hands and pressed down, harder and harder.
He kept pushing until the hilt, too, disappeared into its flesh.
The Earth Lizard's spasms grew weaker and slower.
At last, the light in its remaining Dark Gold Vertical Pupil went out completely.
Thud.
Its enormous body crashed to the ground, making the earth tremble beneath their feet.
The system's voice exploded in Lin Feng's mind.
[You have slain an E-Class Exotic Beast: Red Flame Earth Lizard] [You have obtained Martial Path Points ×50] [First E-Class Exotic Beast slain. Special drop triggered!] [You have obtained Martial Technique: Mountain-Breaking Slash (A-Rank Martial Technique)] [Mountain-Breaking Slash: Split mountains with the blade and cleave the earth with its force. Upon reaching mastery, each strike releases a crescent-shaped Gale Wind that tears across the ground, splitting the earth three feet deep and capable of cutting through the ridges of a hundred-foot mountain. After striking an enemy, the remaining blade energy continues to shred the flesh within the wound, preventing it from healing for three breaths.] [Learn?]
Lin Feng jumped down from the Earth Lizard's back, covered in blood from head to toe. He couldn't tell which of it was the lizard's and which was his own.
"Learn."
A wave of heat surged out from his mind and poured into every part of his body.
A huge amount of information exploded in his brain.
The opening stance, the blade's trajectory, the techniques for exerting force—all of it poured into the depths of his memory in an instant.
It was a strange sensation, as if he had practiced this blade art for ten years and knew every movement by heart.
[Mountain-Breaking Slash (1/1000), learned]
Lin Feng tried swinging the blade.
The air split with a sharp hum.
The blade passed through a boulder half a person's height in front of him, cleaving it cleanly in two. The cut was smooth as glass.
"Holy crap!"
Wang Tie's voice came from behind the cliff.
He and Li Ming ran over. They stared at the enormous corpse on the ground, speechless for a long moment.
"Brother Lin, you... you really took it down by yourself?" Li Ming's voice trembled.
Lin Feng pulled the blade from the Earth Lizard's spine and wiped the blood off on its corpse.
"I got lucky. It happened to be in its weakened period."
Wang Tie circled the Earth Lizard's body, clicking his tongue in amazement.
"Lucky? You call that lucky?"
He crouched down and looked at the appalling gash in the Earth Lizard's neck.
"That strike had the force of at least a Rank 2 Martial Artist. What realm are you at, anyway?"
Lin Feng didn't answer.
"Dig out the Magic Core. It's worth money."
Wang Tie immediately perked up, pulled out a dagger, and got to work.
An E-Class Exotic Beast's Magic Core could fetch tens of thousands at the very least.
While they were busy, Lin Feng glanced at the System Panel.
[Host: Lin Feng] [Realm: Rank 1 Martial Artist (0/100)] [Art: Basic Body Tempering Art (10/10)] [Martial Technique: Mountain-Breaking Slash (1/100)] [Talent: Steel of the Blade 76/500] [Martial Path Points: 150]
Looking at his talent and martial technique on the panel, Lin Feng nodded in satisfaction.
This trip into the Rift had yielded far more than he'd expected.
"Got it!"
Wang Tie excitedly held up a fist-sized, dark red Magic Core and weighed it in his hand.
"Good lord, this thing's worth at least fifty thousand!"
Lin Feng took it and tucked it into his bag.
"We'll split it three ways when we get back."
Wang Tie and Li Ming exchanged a glance but didn't say anything.
The three of them gathered up their spoils and headed back the way they'd come, toward the Rift's exit.
The path was much quieter. The F-Class Exotic Beasts they'd encountered earlier had probably fled after the Earth Lizard's final shriek. They didn't catch sight of a single one.
After walking for about forty minutes, the light at the Rift's entrance was already faintly visible.
Lin Feng stopped.
Wang Tie and Li Ming stopped with him.
"What's wrong?"
Lin Feng tilted his head and listened for a few seconds, then slowly drew his blade.
"Someone's outside."
Wang Tie's expression changed.
"How many?"
Lin Feng closed his eyes and focused his senses.
A Martial Artist's ability to sense auras was more than a whole level above that of a Martial Disciple.
The people outside weren't trying to conceal themselves at all. Their auras spread openly on either side of the Rift's entrance.
"Seven."
Lin Feng opened his eyes.
"All Martial Artists."
Wang Tie's face darkened completely.
"That old bastard Zhao Tianxiong kept a backup plan."
Li Ming's legs started trembling. "Seven Martial Artists? Th-then are we still going out?"
Lin Feng sat cross-legged and shut his eyes.
He had to improve his strength. Forcing their way out was their only option now.
[Martial Path Points ×100 consumed] [Realm increased: Rank 1 Martial Artist → Rank 2 Martial Artist!]
Wang Tie saw what was happening and took two steps back, his face full of shock.
"You're breaking through? At a time like this?"
Lin Feng didn't answer. He gritted his teeth.
The heat inside him gathered in his dantian, compressing and refining itself again and again.
A wave of heat rolled off the top of his head. The loose stones on the rock walls shook free and fell to the ground.
Lin Feng slowly straightened his back.
Wang Tie and Li Ming retreated five paces away, not daring to breathe too loudly.
It wasn't fear. They'd been forced back by the oppressive presence radiating from Lin Feng.
"Done."
Lin Feng flexed his fingers, then tightened his grip on the hilt.
"Let's go."
"Wait!" Wang Tie grabbed his arm. "There are seven Martial Artists out there. Even at Rank 2, you'd be in trouble against seven, wouldn't you?"
Lin Feng didn't look back. He spat out two words.
"Not a problem."
At the Rift's entrance.
The instant sunlight pierced through, all seven figures moved at once.
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