The Surge

In just a few minutes, Lin Fan reached a cluster of unfinished buildings not far from the vacant lot.

This place might once have been planned as a high-end residential community in Yi'an District, but now all that remained were a few enormous concrete slabs, like tombstones with half their bulk chewed away, standing lonely amid the weeds.

The pitch-black windows were like a row of eyes, staring blankly out over this wasteland.

Lin Fan peered through a window at the hollow interior of the building, and his gaze immediately sharpened.

He hadn't been able to see clearly from a distance, but there were actually more than a dozen monsters here, each about the size of a small tank, rooting around beside the construction equipment.

"Iron-Bristled Wild Boars..."

Detailed information about the monsters surfaced in Lin Fan's mind.

Iron-Bristled Wild Boars were notorious among monsters as a bunch of hotheaded fools.

Their bodies were covered in a layer of stiff black bristles like steel needles. Their thick hides could deflect small-caliber bullets, and their two saber-like tusks could even pierce ordinary combat suits.

At that moment, the beasts were using the expensive rotary drilling rig as a giant backscratcher.

Scree—scree—

Their hard bristles scraped against the metal casing of the rig, producing a shrill, teeth-grating noise as sparks flew.

Lin Fan crouched on the second-floor platform of an unfinished building, peering down through a gap in the broken wall where the rebar was exposed.

"Sixteen."

"One nearly at the Beast General level, over three meters long. The rest are all Advanced Beast Soldiers."

Lin Fan pursed his lips. There was no fear in his eyes as he looked at the Iron-Bristled Wild Boars. Instead, he seemed annoyed that they'd interrupted his meal.

In Lin Fan's eyes, what were these monsters? They were nothing more than flies rooting around on his dining table.

"Phew..."

Lin Fan slowly straightened and rolled his neck, producing a soft crack.

"Good timing. True Self spent all that time practicing just now. My mind's learned the moves, but my body hasn't tried them yet."

"I'll use you thick-skinned brutes to test my blade."

Lin Fan turned his wrist, and Calamity appeared in his hand.

The next instant,

he made no attempt to conceal himself and leaped straight down from the second-floor platform!

Boom!

The ground shuddered.

Lin Fan's feet struck the rubble-strewn ground with a heavy thud. Even with his Spiritual Force cushioning the impact, the force of several tons made the earth crack at once, and his feet sank into the dirt up to his ankles.

"Roar?!"

The Iron-Bristled Wild Boars, who'd been scratching themselves with gusto, were startled by the sudden commotion.

They whipped around, sixteen pairs of blood-red eyes fixed on the uninvited guest who'd dropped from the sky.

"Snort!!!"

The huge boar leading the herd let out a furious roar. It pawed at the ground impatiently, two streams of white vapor blasting from its nostrils.

Without hesitation, the scattered herd charged at Lin Fan at their leader's angry bellow, bringing with them a suffocating stench.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

More than a dozen two-ton boars charged all at once. The sheer force of it was like an earthquake, sending the rubble on the ground bouncing wildly.

Yet Lin Fan didn't move.

He simply dragged the enormous scythe with one hand and calmly watched the herd charging toward him.

After just a few breaths, the largest boar had already reached him.

Its sharp tusks were less than a meter from Lin Fan's chest. He could even smell the disgusting stench of its breath.

Only then did Lin Fan finally move.

He stepped forward to meet the charging boar.

With his Spiritual Force driving Calamity at full power, he swung it upward from below in a half circle!

"Die...!!!"

Thump!!

A dull impact rang out.

There was no sound of a blade cutting into flesh. Instead, it was like a siege hammer slamming into a rotten watermelon.

The three-meter-long boar didn't even have time to grunt before its skull caved in. The force sent its massive body flying, its feet lifting clear off the ground as it tumbled backward.

Like a cannonball made of flesh, it smashed into the herd behind it.

Crack!

Bones snapped.

Two unlucky boars that couldn't dodge in time had their spines broken by their own leader. Before they could even figure out what had happened, they were reduced to two heaps of meat in the mud.

Three kills with one blow.

"Phew..."

Lin Fan held his follow-through, the veins in his arm twitching slightly as a grin spread across his face.

"That's the beauty of a heavy weapon."

"With enough force, every strike's a critical hit."

This pure, brutal beauty made the blood in Lin Fan's veins begin to boil.

The rest of the battle became a one-sided massacre.

Using the Force Application Technique from the Basic Warrior 36 Forms, along with the full support of his Spiritual Force,

Lin Fan moved through the famously tough-skinned herd like a ghost dancing in a black storm.

Calamity whirred through the air. Any boar struck by the back of the blade was either sent flying or smashed apart on the spot.

As for those cut by the blade, even though the boars' hides were thick enough to stop bullets, they were as fragile as paper against Calamity.

A glancing blow could break a leg. A direct slash killed them outright.

A tusk occasionally skimmed the edge of Lin Fan's clothes, but he didn't even blink. He lowered his shoulder, forcing his weight back into balance, then swung the blade's backhand into the boar's foreleg and broke it.

In less than a minute,

silence settled over the construction site once more.

All that remained was Lin Fan's heavy breathing and the thick, overpowering stench of blood.

All sixteen Iron-Bristled Wild Boars were dead, their bodies scattered across the blood-soaked ground, not one of them intact.

Leaning on his scythe amid the carnage, Lin Fan glanced down at his watch.

Heart rate: 102.

"A little more tiring than I expected."

He wiped a drop of pig's blood from his cheek and flicked his hand in disgust.

"But the warm-up's over. Time for the main course."

Lin Fan couldn't even be bothered to deal with the boar carcasses. He simply waved his hand and stored all the "game" littering the ground in his Space Ring.

Every part of these things was valuable. Their meat and tusks could both fetch a good price.

After that, he eagerly turned to look at the rotary drilling rig he'd had his eye on from the start.

The yellow steel behemoth lay motionless in the grass, its body splattered with pig's blood from the battle, making it look even more fearsome.

Lin Fan walked up to the rig and gently pressed the broad blade of his scythe against its thick counterweight.

Szz.

Like a red-hot knife slicing through butter, the incredibly hard manganese steel counterweight softened and caved in visibly the moment it touched the scythe.

The rig's metal structure collapsed directly, turning into streams of dense, silvery-gray vapor that rushed into Calamity's pitch-black blade like rivers flowing into the sea.

Calamity devoured it at astonishing speed.

The sixty-ton behemoth vanished into thin air in less than two minutes. Not even a single screw remained.

At the same time, blue data streams began refreshing rapidly across Lin Fan's retinas.

[Devoured high-strength engineering manganese steel: 60 tons.]

[Calamity growth progress: +0.55%, current growth progress: 0.92%.]

[Current weight compatibility: +0.55%.]

[Weapon density increased, current weight: 3,650 kilograms.]

"0.55%?!"

Lin Fan's eyes lit up as he stared at the number.

It might've been less than one percent, but that was the contribution from a single machine!

The previous 48-ton tanker truck had only given him a measly 0.2%.

The rig weighed just over ten tons more, yet it provided more than twice the growth progress of the tanker!

"Sure enough, quality is what matters."

"If one drilling rig gives me 0.55%, then here..."

Lin Fan suddenly turned around, his gaze sweeping over the entire construction site, blazing with excitement.

Excavators, bulldozers, cranes...

At least a dozen more massive machines were still lying idle in this abandoned construction site!

If he devoured them all...

Lin Fan's mental calculations raced along, and his breathing quickened.

"I can get past 8%, at least!"

"I've really struck it rich."

Lin Fan grinned, showing a row of white teeth.