Dragon Elephant's First Manifestation

The smoke from the abandoned factory had yet to dissipate, and the potent smell of blood and burnt flesh mingled in the cold air.

Fang Gang stood his ground, feeling an unprecedented, wild power surging within him.

His bones were roaring! His muscle fibers hummed with a low thrum, like steel wires tempered a thousand times!

His blood flowed like a river of magma, bringing a burning sense of power!

Fifty thousand jin of brute strength surged and roared through the completely connected and integrated fascial network of his late-stage Tendon Transformation Realm!

The Dragon Elephant had begun to manifest!

He casually flexed his shoulders, his joints cracking like popping soybeans.

His gaze swept across the devastated battlefield, where scorched corpses and twisted metal fragments littered the ground.

"Let's try..." Fang Gang muttered to himself, his eyes landing on a rusted, bucket-thick I-beam half-buried in the ground not far away.

It was one of the main beams supporting the factory roof, damaged and twisted in the previous battle.

He strode over, extending his hand, which glowed with a faint golden-red light. His fingers, like dragon claws cast from solid steel, clamped down hard on the cold metal!

"Lift!"

He didn't use any martial arts, just a pure burst of his fifty-thousand-jin physical strength!

"Creeeak—Snap!!!"

A harsh screech of metal and the sound of breaking echoed simultaneously!

The I-beam, deeply embedded in its concrete base and weighing several tons, was ripped from the ground by his bare arm! The broken base brought up large chunks of concrete!

Fang Gang hefted the multi-ton steel pillar, as if swinging a light wooden stick! The muscles in his arm bunched like dragons, containing explosive power!

He casually swung it!

Whoosh—!

A dull rush of air sounded like a ghost's wail! The massive I-beam cut through the air, carrying destructive force as it smashed into a pile of scrap machine tools nearby!

KABOOM—!!!!

A deafening roar!

The heavily piled scrap metal was hit as if by a meteorite! It instantly shattered into pieces!

Broken parts, twisted steel plates, and flying gears shot out like cannonballs in all directions! Dust billowed into the sky!

Through the dust, Fang Gang, shouldering the slightly deformed I-beam, his dark golden bald head reflecting a cold, hard sheen amidst the swirling dust.

He casually tossed the I-beam aside like trash. The heavy steel hit the ground with a dull thud, shaking the earth.

"Not bad," he grunted, twisting his neck and feeling the ceaseless torrent of power within him.

Just as he was adapting to this surging strength, the Grudge Pupil brand on his left arm suddenly sent a faint but sharp stinging sensation!

At the same time, a cold sense of being watched, like a viper's flicking tongue, slithered across his perception!

Fang Gang looked up sharply. His eyes, sharp as a falcon's, pierced through the lingering dust and fixed on the top of a massive, rusty, pipe-covered smokestack deep within the factory!

A gaunt, disheveled figure was plastered against the cold metal exterior of the smokestack – the escaped Blood Sacrifice Priest!

His dark red cloak was reduced to charred rags, his exposed, withered skin covered in burn marks, and one arm hung limply.

His remaining hand clutched a palm-sized talisman made of pale finger bones and black crystals!

The talisman flickered with a faint light, aimed at Fang Gang below!

"Target... acquired! Coordinates... confirmed!"

The Blood Sacrifice Priest's voice was hoarse and broken, laced with extreme fear and venom, as he snarled into the talisman, "Physical body... strength... abnormally surging! Far beyond intel! Requesting... requesting... Argh!"

Before he could finish speaking!

Fang Gang's eyes flashed! The ground beneath him exploded! He burst forward! Turning into a golden-red lightning bolt that tore through the dust! The only trace left of him was a deep footprint!

Fast! So fast that the Blood Sacrifice Priest's clouded pupils could only catch a blurry afterimage!

He tried to crush the talisman in terror!

But it was too late!

A large hand, covered in golden-red light, as if cast from solid steel, appeared before him like a claw piercing through space!

Ignoring the dozen-meter height difference and the complex pipe obstacles between them, its five fingers spread, carrying a terrifying power that seemed to bind everything, and clamped down hard on his wrist, which was holding the talisman!

"Crack!"

A crisp bone-cracking sound!

The Blood Sacrifice Priest let out a shrill, distorted scream of agony! His withered wrist, along with the flickering talisman, was crushed by the giant hand!

Bone fragments and shards of black crystal mixed with thick black blood splattered from between his fingers!

"Aaaargh—!!!" In agony, the Blood Sacrifice Priest lost his balance and fell screaming from the smokestack tens of meters high!

Fang Gang didn't even glance at the falling corpse. His gaze fell upon his own palm.

Besides the shattered bone fragments and grime, there were a few larger shards of black crystal. They retained faint but extremely pure traces of sinister energy, and a hint of... cold data stream essence?

This bone charm is not only a communication device, but it also seems to contain some kind of… higher-level power imprint?

Just then, the largest pieces of black crystal shards suddenly lit up with a dazzling, eerie glow! The shards detached from Fang Gang's palm and floated in mid-air!

Hummm—!

The eerie light projected by the shards twisted and intertwined wildly in the air, instantly forming a blurry humanoid silhouette composed of pure dark data streams!

The silhouette had no facial features, only a constantly shifting vortex that seemed to be made of countless 0s and 1s, replacing where a face should be!

A cold, indifferent, terrifying intent, as if looking down from above all living beings, scanning with scanner-like precision, instantly locked onto Fang Gang!

The intensity of this intent far surpassed that of the Blood Sacrifice Priest, even more than ten times stronger than the Phantom Nightmare Priest! It carried a cold, oppressive feeling of seeing through everything and analyzing all things!

The Faceless Cult Master! A projection of an SS-class existence!

"Sizzle…"

The Blood Sacrifice Priest, whose wrist had been crushed and who was falling from a great height, suddenly began to convulse violently!

His remaining single eye erupted with extreme terror and disbelief, and a gurgling, leaking sound came from his throat! It was as if something inside him was being forcefully extracted!

"No… Cult Master… spare… my life…"

His plea came to an abrupt halt!

"Pfft!"

The Blood Sacrifice Priest's mangled body exploded in mid-air like a popped balloon!

It turned into a mass of viscous blood mist! This blood mist did not dissipate; instead, it was swallowed whole by the dark data stream projection, like a great whale absorbing water!

The projection, having absorbed all the essence of the Blood Sacrifice Priest, seemed to solidify slightly.

The vortex face made of 0s and 1s slowly "turned," its cold "gaze" fixed on the figure in the smoke and dust below, the one carrying the Bronze Battle Halberd, his dark golden bald head reflecting a faint data glow.

There was no anger, no killing intent, only a pure, specimen-like scrutiny, and a trace of… indescribable greed.

A cold, emotionless voice, like electronic synthesis, sounded directly in Fang Gang's mind:

"Flesh body… data… anomaly… leap… sample… locked…"

"Bald head… coordinates… anchored…"

"Fear… broadcast… initiating…"

Before the words even finished, the projection made of dark data streams flickered violently a few times, like a signal-inconsistent image, before instantly disintegrating and vanishing!

All that remained were a few black crystal shards, completely devoid of luster and turned into ordinary stones, which "clattered" onto the oil-stained ground.

The sensation of cold scrutiny and the oppressive feeling of the data stream also vanished.

The factory ruins fell back into silence, with only the mournful sound of the night wind blowing through the holes.

Fang Gang stood in place, his brow furrowed. That cold intent from just now… was it the Faceless Cult Master of the Nightmare Holy Cult? SS-class? That feeling… it wasn't like a pure evil spirit, but more like… some kind of cold machine? A data-based evil entity?

"Fear broadcast?" He chewed on the last words he heard, his eyes cold.

It seemed that killing the two priests had completely enraged this group of rats. Bigger trouble was coming.

He looked down at his left arm.

The Grudge Pupil, at the moment the Faceless projection appeared, had transmitted not fear, but an extremely subtle… trembling excitement? As if it had encountered an entity of the same origin but of a higher level.

"Hmph." Fang Gang snorted coldly, his powerful mental barrier suppressing the fluctuating waves from the imprint. He bent down to pick up the crystal shards that had turned into stones. They were cold and rough to the touch, devoid of any abnormality.

He shouldered his battle halberd and turned, striding away from the bloody graveyard of steel. His dark golden bald head, under the dim moonlight, flowed with a metallic cold sheen.

The excitement from the surge of power was diluted by the cold pressure brought by the Faceless Cult Master's projection. But the fighting spirit burning in his eyes became even more intense!

"Come on," he whispered into the darkness of the city, "Let's see if your broadcast can broadcast my fists!"