"Roar!!!"
With a savage roar, the Black Rock Giant Ape moved first.
Its enormous hand shot toward the roadside. Its fingers hooked into the bodywork like steel claws, and it lifted an abandoned bus right off the ground.
The steel wreckage weighed several tons, but in its hand it seemed as light as a piece of foam board.
Then the giant ape swung its arm in a wide arc and hurled the bus straight at Lin Fan.
Whoosh!!
The bus howled through the air.
The massive shadow spun overhead, blotting out the moonlight above Lin Fan in an instant.
That sheer, brute force was enough to make any junior War God's scalp tingle.
But Lin Fan didn't take a single step back. He stood his ground, gripping the cold shaft of Calamity tightly in both hands.
Then his spine snapped taut, sending power surging through both arms.
"Break!"
Lin Fan barked, sweeping the scythe upward from below.
Screee!!
A streak of black steel flashed through the night, followed by the teeth-grating sound of metal being torn apart.
The bus hurtling toward him was cleaved cleanly in two in midair.
Bang.
The two halves scraped past Lin Fan and slammed into the shops on either side of the road.
Sparks flew, igniting the fuel left in the tanks.
Boom!!
A ball of orange-red fire shot into the sky. The blazing light flooded the entire street, illuminating Lin Fan's impassive face in flickering shades of light and shadow.
The next second.
A suffocatingly massive shadow burst through the sea of flames and appeared before Lin Fan as if it had teleported.
The Black Rock Giant Ape's savage face looked especially terrifying in the firelight. Its millstone-sized fist, wrapped in a suffocating gust of wind, came crashing down toward Lin Fan's head!
"Roar!!!"
Forget a person—if a main battle tank took that punch, it would be flattened into a pancake.
"Bring it on!"
There was no fear in Lin Fan's eyes. They were filled with excitement instead.
He gripped Calamity with both hands and swept upward again, meeting the giant ape's enormous fist head-on!
"Mountain Collapse!"
Clenching his teeth, Lin Fan poured the power of vibration he had only recently begun to understand—still somewhat crude—into the blade.
Force against force!
Bang!!!
The earth-shaking impact sounded like thunder exploding from a clear sky.
The shock wave swept through the entire block. The few remaining panes of glass in the surrounding buildings instantly shattered into dust.
A terrifying shock wave surged outward from the two combatants. The concrete beneath their feet cracked and caved in.
"Roar!"
The Black Rock Giant Ape let out a cry of pain.
The massive beast had actually been knocked back several steps by that slash!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Each step left a footprint half a meter deep in the ground.
A gash nearly two meters deep had been carved into its iron-hard fist, and black blood dripped continuously from the wound.
Lin Fan hadn't come away unscathed either.
The terrifying recoil sent him flying backward. His feet dug into the ground, carving two furrows more than ten meters long before he finally managed to stop.
"Ugh..."
"That thing's... damn strong."
Lin Fan shook out his numb hand, feeling his internal organs tremble.
That beast's strength was probably close to a hundred thousand kilograms!
If Calamity hadn't been so heavy, that punch would have killed him outright.
"But..."
Lin Fan licked his lips, excitement shining even brighter in his eyes.
"That's exactly the kind of whetstone I need!"
Bang!
Lin Fan pushed off the ground and shot forward again like a black bolt of lightning!
"Roar!!!"
The giant ape was thoroughly enraged by the pain in its hand. With a roar, it charged at Lin Fan!
In the firelight, a streak of black light darted around the enormous ape.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Relying on his nimble footwork and Calamity's unparalleled sharpness, Lin Fan carved one dreadful wound after another into the giant ape. Black blood sprayed everywhere.
But every so often, a fist caught him, sending him flying.
A man and an ape collided again and again on the abandoned street.
"This isn't working..."
Lin Fan furrowed his brow.
His command of the first stage of the Calamity Killing Art was still far too crude.
He couldn't make use of that special vibrational force at all. Calamity was incredibly sharp, but the giant ape was simply too large, and none of the wounds were fatal.
They looked horrific, but none had actually reached its organs. It was like scratching an itch through a boot.
And if he tried jumping up to attack the giant ape's head, it would knock him out of the air first.
"If this keeps up, I'll be the one to drop from exhaustion."
Bang!
They collided violently once more.
Lin Fan's stamina had dipped, slowing him down by the slightest fraction. The giant ape seized the opening and slapped the side of Calamity.
Clang!!
A massive force struck, nearly knocking Calamity from Lin Fan's grasp. He went flying sideways like a baseball and crashed into the ruins of a collapsed building, sending dust billowing into the air.
"Roar!!!"
The Black Rock Giant Ape seemed to realize that Lin Fan was running on fumes.
It roared, its rock-hard muscles bulging as its speed surged.
It had no intention of giving Lin Fan a chance to catch his breath. Its massive body bore down on him like a collapsing mountain.
It spread its arms wide, like two hydraulic clamps closing around Lin Fan in the ruins, trying to crush him in its embrace!
The classic—and terrifying—killing move of ape-like monsters: the Embrace of Death!
Once caught, even a High-level War God would have every bone in his body crushed and be reduced to a lump of mush.
Its foul breath washed over him. The shadow of death fell over Lin Fan in an instant.
And yet.
A trace of helplessness flashed through Lin Fan's eyes.
He released one hand from Calamity and gently spread his fingers toward the snarling beast face inches away.
"That's enough of this farce."
Sky Splitter appeared behind him in an instant.
Hum!
An invisible Spiritual Force burst from Lin Fan's mind.
Under the control of his Spiritual Force, Sky Splitter instantly came apart!
Whirr, whirr, whirr.
Two hundred and sixteen paper-thin feather blades slowly spun around him, guided by Lin Fan.
"Go."
Lin Fan barely moved his lips.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
A series of shrill whistles tore through the air.
Driven by his powerful Spiritual Force, the feather blades instantly accelerated to their limit, leaving streaks of silver in their wake.
A Spiritual Force user!
In that instant, the Black Rock Giant Ape's blood-red eyes, once filled with savagery and cruelty, turned to pure terror.
As a highly intelligent primate monster, it knew all too well what this meant.
It tried to turn back, tried to shield its vital spots with its arms.
But... it was too late.
Its body was still charging forward from the force of its momentum, and the silver feather blades were already upon it!
The blades joined tip to tail in midair, instantly forming a silver metal tornado.
Its target was the series of wounds Lin Fan had opened with his scythe—the weakest points in the giant ape's defenses.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
More than two hundred feather blades burrowed unhindered into the wounds on the giant ape's limbs. They began to churn wildly, then gradually, bit by bit, drilled into its chest.
The Black Rock Giant Ape's massive body crashed to the ground. It opened its mouth, trying to roar, trying to unleash its soul-searing agony.
But all that came from its throat was a bubbling "gurgle."
Gurgle...
A flood of blood mixed with dark red chunks of viscera gushed from its open mouth.
No matter how tough the hide, what lay beneath was soft.
In that instant, the blades inside its body had churned its heart, lungs, and blood vessels into a lump of mush.
The copper skin and iron bones it had so proudly relied on became a ridiculous ornament against Lin Fan's utterly unreasonable attack.
The light in its eyes quickly faded, its life force draining away.
Crash!
The Black Rock Giant Ape hit the ground, smashing a crater into the concrete and kicking up a cloud of dust.
Its body twitched a few times, then lay completely still.
Only the black blood pooling across the ground continued to flow.
Lin Fan stood up from the ruins, rubbed his chest, and looked at the corpse before exhaling heavily.
"Ah, what a shame. I still had to use Sky Splitter in the end."
Before you continue