Dark Forest

"Bear paws..."

Lin Yi crouched behind the grass, staring through his Spirit Eyes at the giant bear still sleeping inside the cave. Images of delicacies he had seen before crossing over drifted uncontrollably through his mind.

Braised bear paws, stewed bear paws, honey-glazed bear paws... Things that had existed only on a screen were now lying alive in a cave, snoring.

"This is top-tier ingredient material. Hehehe." He licked the corner of his mouth, his eyes gleaming with the light of a predator that had set its sights on prey. "I never got to eat it before crossing over. Now that I'm here, I have to at least taste it."

However, he did not rush to act.

His Spirit Eyes carefully swept over the bear again, from its fur to its flesh and deep into its bones, turning everything inside out. Nothing.

Other than normal meridians and circulating blood vitality, he found no Divine Markings structure like those deeply settled within the Savage Bull King or Inkshadow Leopard.

"Does this bear simply not possess a Bloodline Innate Divine Ability, or can my Spirit Eyes not yet see deep Divine Markings in their inactive state?"

Lin Yi thought for a moment and shook his head. "Forget it. I'll know once I try."

He rose to his feet and strode directly toward the cave entrance.

Once he was in position, he took a deep breath and activated the Savage Bull Diagram. Blood-gold patterns lit beneath his skin, and the phantom of a Savage Bull flashed behind him.

He raised his right fist, wrapped in a mighty force of one hundred and sixty thousand jin, and smashed it brutally into the rock wall at the cave entrance.

Boom!

Shattered stones flew everywhere. His fist blasted a basin-sized dent into the entire rock wall, while cracks spread outward like a spiderweb.

The entire mountain trembled. Rubble pattered down from the cave ceiling, striking the ground with a rapid crackling sound.

Roar—!

A deafening furious roar exploded from the depths of the cave.

The giant bear had been thoroughly awakened. Carrying an aura of rage at its utmost limit, it charged explosively out of the cave!

The instant it burst out of the entrance, its enormous body fully unfolded. Its shoulder height exceeded one zhang, muscles bulging beneath dark brown fur. Its bear paws slammed into the earth and kicked up a cloud of dust, while its fang-filled bloody maw bit straight for Lin Yi's head.

"Whoa, quite the morning temper."

Lin Yi stood at the cave entrance. Facing a giant mouth large enough to swallow half his body in one bite, he did not move at all. He swiftly raised his left hand and pressed forward.

At the instant the bear's jaws snapped down, his palm was already braced against the very top of the brown bear's head.

His five fingers spread and clenched. One hundred and sixty thousand jin of force poured down, directly pressing that massive head firmly into the dirt!

The brown bear's limbs frantically clawed at the ground, its sharp talons plowing through dirt and gravel. Its back arched and dropped, every muscle in its body struggling desperately.

Yet the palm pressing on its head did not budge in the slightest, like one mountain pinning down another.

A muffled, furious growl came from the giant bear's throat. Its four paws dug a deep ring-shaped pit into the ground, yet it could not break free by even half an inch.

"No good." Lin Yi looked down at the brown bear struggling for its life, obvious disappointment in his voice. "This doesn't test my strength at all."

He sighed, clenched his right hand into a fist, and drove it into the brown bear's temple with the power of the Savage Bull Diagram. With a muffled impact, the giant bear's struggles abruptly ceased. Its huge body was sent flying sideways by the punch and crashed heavily into the rock wall at the cave entrance.

Rubble tumbled down and buried half its body. The brown bear slid down the rock wall to the ground, already on its last breath.

Lin Yi's Spirit Eyes swept over it. Intracranial bleeding, fractures throughout its bones, and its life force was rapidly draining away.

No Divine Markings, no sign of bloodline activation. It was merely an ordinary vicious beast that had relied on brute force to charge headlong into the Dragonlike Realm.

"No innate divine ability." Lin Yi withdrew his hand and shook out his wrist. "For nothing, I got excited."

He walked over, glanced at the brown bear still breathing faintly, raised his hand, and delivered another punch, ending its suffering.

Then he stood where he was and thought for a moment, gaining a simple understanding of his current strength. An ordinary Dragonlike Realm vicious beast, without any special abilities to bolster it, could not even last a single exchange before him.

The enhancement from the Savage Bull Diagram, combined with the foundation of the Mountain-Sinking Realm, allowed him to easily crush ordinary opponents of the same level.

"Not bad. Feels pretty solid." He rolled his shoulders and looked down at the bear. "But the meat can't go to waste."

The cave was quite spacious. Though its entrance was narrow, it stretched deep inside, and the ground was dry and level.

Lin Yi went inside and walked around. He decided the place was good—dry and concealed.

He turned back, dragged the brown bear's corpse into the cave, and loosely covered the entrance with rubble and vines, leaving a narrow gap for passage.

The brown bear's scent had not fully dissipated yet. Other vicious beasts would not approach this area for a while.

"Leave it for now. I'll deal with it when I come back." Lin Yi patted the dust from his hands and squeezed out through the cave entrance.

He continued exploring along the mountainside.

After walking for a while, the surrounding trees began to undergo obvious changes.

Their trunks grew thicker and thicker, their bark covered in a dense layer of dark green moss. Their branches and leaves were so lush that they almost sealed off the sky completely.

The light dimmed, and the humidity in the air noticeably increased. The soil beneath his feet gave a sticky, springy rebound whenever he stepped on it.

The surroundings were unnaturally quiet. No birds called, and even the sound of wind passing through the leaves was deeper and more subdued than elsewhere.

Lin Yi stopped and looked toward the dim forest ahead.

"This place..." He frowned. "It's a little strange."

His instincts repeatedly hammered at the back of his head.

His mind rapidly analyzed every piece of information before him—the abnormal vegetation, the absence of sound, the peculiar scent in the air.

Every indicator pointed to the same conclusion: there was something inside those woods.

Lin Yi stood at the entrance, conflicted for a moment. Should I go in?

He fell silent for two breaths, then cursed himself. "Fuck, what kind of man dithers like this? Wealth and honor are found amid danger. Let's do it."

He stepped inside.

The instant he entered the Dark Forest, the canopy overhead proved far too dense. Layer upon layer of leaves filtered the sunlight into a murky dark green, barely illuminating the ground within three chi of his feet.

Lin Yi activated his Spirit Eyes at full force. Pale gold Divine Markings surfaced across his eyeballs, and his vision instantly became incomparably clear.

He slowed his pace, keeping the blood vitality throughout his body ready to erupt at any moment.

The gaze of his Spirit Eyes continually swept through the space ahead, like an invisible net cast out and reeled back in, overlooking no corner.

After walking for roughly the time it took to drink a cup of tea, a chill slowly crawled up his spine.

The sensation was impossible to explain, like a pair of eyes watching his back from the darkness.

He swiftly swept his side and rear, then suddenly caught sight of something.

His heartbeat abruptly skipped.

On the branch of an old tree about twenty zhang behind and to his left, a giant spider rested silently.

It was more than two zhang in size. Its body was dark ink-blue-green, its shell covered in mottled patterns like moss, almost completely blending into the dead trees thick with lichen.

Its eight spider legs were long and slender. Fine hairs at their tips gleamed with a faint silver sheen in the dim light, pressed soundlessly against the tree trunk.

The observational power of his Spirit Eyes displayed extraordinary effect at this moment. Lin Yi clearly saw a complex pattern structure flowing inside the spider's body.

Ash-black Divine Markings spread from its core, slowly circulating down its eight spider legs.

Those patterns were incredibly fine and dense, each curve carrying an eerie beauty that instinctively unsettled him.

It had not even spun a web. It was an active predator.

And it had already discovered him.

Lin Yi's pupils contracted slightly, and every muscle in his body tensed at once.

He suddenly realized something fatal: he knew absolutely nothing about this vicious beast.

Savage Bulls, Earth Gnawers, Rock Pythons, Xie Wolves, Inkshadow Leopards—these were all creatures the tribal hunters could name.

But this spider before him was something he had never heard anyone in the tribe mention.

"...I was careless." Lin Yi cursed himself inwardly. When I get back, I need to have the village chief properly fill in the gaps in my knowledge of the Great Wilderness's vicious beast catalog.

His feet did not move, nor did his gaze shift, but his Spirit Eyes had already secretly locked onto every movement trajectory of that spider.

The spider's eight leg joints silently shifted an inch along the tree trunk. Its entire body was creeping toward him with extreme slowness.

The ash-black Divine Markings within it circulated faster and faster.

Lin Yi slowly drew a breath and clenched his fist. Blood-gold patterns began to light up along his shoulder and arm, spreading across the skin on the back of his hand.