Nightmare Leader, Cancer of the Tree Realm!

[You killed a Nightmare Treant (LV5), gaining +150 EXP!]

Experience gained on Nightmare difficulty was also ten times that of Normal difficulty.

One Nightmare Treant was worth ten ordinary Treants. The efficiency made Jiang Chuan nod in satisfaction.

He crouched down and pressed his palm against the Treant's remains.

"Universal Extraction, activate!"

Whoosh!!

A blinding golden light burst forth. Scorching power instantly surged through his limbs and bones, and every pore on his body seemed to cheer.

[Extraction successful. Strength +4!]

An ordinary Level 5 Treant could only yield 2 attribute points. Nightmare ones gave double that!

"Awesome!"

Jiang Chuan licked his lips, his eyes gleaming.

His only thought now was that there had better be so many monsters in this Nightmare secret realm that he could never finish killing them!

Too few simply wouldn't be satisfying!

He continued onward!

Along the way, more and more Nightmare Treants appeared. Some moved in groups of three or five, while others wandered alone. Every so often, he even spotted larger elite monsters with over ten thousand health and even more outrageous attributes.

But without exception, none of them could withstand more than five arrows before Jiang Chuan's longbow.

His experience points surged madly, as if he had chewed some Xuánmài gum and simply could not stop.

Before long, a pillar of golden light descended from above and enveloped his entire body.

[Congratulations! You have reached LV5!]

[Constitution +100!]

[Intelligence +100!]

[Strength +100!]

[Agility +100!]

Another hundred points to every attribute. Jiang Chuan's attributes had all broken past five hundred, while his Strength and Constitution had surpassed seven hundred!

He continued deeper, killing, extracting, and leveling up all the way.

LV6!

LV7!

LV8!

Every level directly granted a hundred points to all attributes. The growth rate was so terrifying that even Jiang Chuan found it unreal!

At Level 8, all four of his attributes had surpassed eight hundred, and his Constitution and Strength finally reached a new cap!

[Extraction successful. Constitution +4! As your Constitution has reached the first-tier limit, the energy from this extraction can be converted into experience points, or converted into the growth of other attributes at half efficiency!]

1,500 points.

That was the limit of the first tier.

In other words, within the Level 1 to Level 10 range, 1,500 points was the highest possible attribute cap. No race could ever surpass that boundary!

Upon hearing the prompt, Jiang Chuan chose to convert it into Intelligence and Agility without hesitation.

Experience was easy to earn.

It was certainly not as valuable as permanent attribute growth.

Even at half efficiency, each monster he killed could still give him 2 attribute points. The rate of growth was still impressive!

Finally, after killing who knew how many Nightmare Treants, Jiang Chuan reached the deepest part of the Nightmare Tree Sea.

He stopped, raised his head, and took a deep breath.

The sight before him

was even more shocking than he had imagined.

The giant tree he had seen from afar now stood right before him, close enough to touch. It was unimaginably enormous.

Its trunk's diameter stretched for an unknown number of kilometers. Its branches reached upward and covered the entire sky, while its roots burrowed deep underground, as though they pierced through the whole world.

But this was not a living tree.

It was already dead.

Its trunk was grayish white, devoid of even a trace of green. Its branches were bare, with not a single leaf in sight. The entire tree radiated an intense aura of death.

And between the canyon-like fissures in its bark were enormous red tumors.

The tumors varied in size. The smaller ones were as large as a room, while the larger ones resembled small hills.

They clung densely to the trunk and branches.

Like...

A swarm of blood-engorged ticks!

A chill ran through Jiang Chuan's heart, followed by an uncontrollable thought. Could these tumors be the culprits that had caused this giant tree to wither and die?

He walked closer, and the monster's information quickly appeared before his eyes.

[Cancer of the Tree Realm (Leader · Nightmare): LV10, HP 500000, Attack 5000, Defense 2000]

A monster with five hundred thousand health and five thousand attack was far beyond the limit that a first-tier professional could contend with.

Fortunately, its defense was not high.

Only two hundred.

And after Jiang Chuan's Strength reached 1,500, combined with the bonus from his Black Iron Longbow, his displayed attack had already reached 3,026.

"I can take it!"

Jiang Chuan took a deep breath and drew his bowstring, his gaze suddenly turning blade-sharp.

An arrow tore through the air and viciously embedded itself in the nearest tumor.

-2789!!

Bang!!

The tumor exploded.

Dark-green pus sprayed forth.

The remains of the Ancient Tree God shuddered violently, and the ground of the entire basin trembled.

Then,

all the tumors exploded at once.

Countless pitch-black, twisted Treants crawled madly out of the tumors.

Some had seven or eight arms, resembling humanoid centipedes;

some bore three savage faces, all shrieking together;

some were covered in constantly rolling eyes, every pupil brimming with malice!

They roared,

they screeched,

and surged toward Jiang Chuan like a tide!

"Perfect!"

There was no fear in Jiang Chuan's eyes, only excitement.

There were too many monsters.

He would not have time to shoot them with arrows.

Jiang Chuan made a quick decision. He slung the longbow over his back, decisively drew the refined steel one-handed saber from his waist, and charged straight into the monster horde.

One slash.

-3105!!

The three-faced Treant at the front split cleanly down the middle, its body cleaved in two as dark-green fluid splattered everywhere!

He turned and delivered a second slash.

-2987!!

Four arms of a seven-armed Treant fell away in unison, as cleanly as chopped firewood!

Jiang Chuan rampaged through the monster horde, every slash carrying terrifying force like collapsing mountains and shattering earth. Those Treants' iron-hard bodies were no sturdier than paper before him!

His movements had no form or technique. He knew no saber arts and possessed no flashy skills.

He was simply fast!

And powerful!

So powerful that every slash could split a monster's body apart!

Dark-green sludge splashed across his body and face. Jiang Chuan wielded a chipped black saber, like an unrivaled god of slaughter who had clawed his way out of a sea of blood!

His 1,500-point peak Constitution granted him nearly endless stamina. The more he fought, the crazier he became. The more he killed, the more frenzied he grew. He did not know the meaning of exhaustion!

And the number of monsters was ultimately limited!

Ten minutes later.

The last twisted Treant fell with a shriek.

Jiang Chuan stood proudly amid a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, surrounded by severed limbs and shattered remains. The black iron saber in his hand was already covered in chips and nearly breaking apart.

All the tumors had ruptured. The trunk was densely covered in cracks, and a dark-red glow shone from within them, like a dying heart on the verge of going out.

Jiang Chuan put away the ruined saber and drew his longbow once more.

He nocked his final arrow.

He aimed.

His eyes were as still as a dead pool, yet as sharp as an arrow that could pierce clouds and split stone.

Whoosh!!

The arrow shot through the air, passed through the largest fissure in the trunk, and drove straight into the core!

-3184!!

The colossal ancient tree spanning the heavens shuddered heavily, like a long sigh of relief from something that had been tortured for endless years and had finally found release.

The dark-red glow within the cracks of the trunk

went out abruptly.

The entire corpse began collapsing from within.

The mountain-thick trunk shattered into countless massive stones, while the river-long branches broke into innumerable fragments.

But those fragments did not fall.

They floated in the air.

Slowly rising.

As though an invisible hand were guiding them toward some destination high in the heavens.

At the same time,

a continuous barrage of system notifications exploded in Jiang Chuan's mind.

[You killed Cancer of the Tree Realm (Leader · Nightmare · LV10), gaining +50000 EXP!]

[You have successfully cleared—Primordial Tree Realm (Nightmare Difficulty), gaining +200000 EXP!]

[Congratulations! You have reached LV9!]

[Congratulations! You have reached LV10!]

[Notice: Your level has reached its bottleneck. Excess experience points will be stored and returned in full once you break through!]