Night Falls, the Lava Giant Ape Horde

Lin Yi spat, turned back, and continued on his way, shifting the spider corpse on his shoulder into a more convenient position as he walked.

By now, more than half the sky overhead had darkened.

"Dusk came so quickly." Lin Yi quickened his pace, recalling what Biao had once said: the Great Wilderness at night was several times more dangerous than it was during the day.

Those creatures that hid by day and emerged by night would gradually awaken once darkness completely descended.

He made his way back to the vicinity of that cave. From afar, he saw that the broken stones and vines piled around its entrance remained exactly as they had been when he left, without a trace of having been disturbed.

After approaching, he swept the area with his Spirit Eyes once more. The cave's interior was laid bare at a glance. The brown bear's corpse was still in its original spot, and though a faint scent lingered in the air, there were no traces left by intruders.

Lin Yi pushed aside the stones at the entrance and crawled in. He casually restored the covering outside, then tossed the spider corpse into a corner.

The brown bear's corpse lay quietly at the bottom of the cave. The temperature inside was several degrees lower than outside, carrying a dry, earthy smell.

Lin Yi sat down on a flat rock just inside the entrance, and his stomach promptly let out a loud protest.

"Almost forgot about that. Time to eat first."

His gaze fell upon the brown bear's left forelimb, and the corners of his mouth curved upward despite himself.

"Bear paw, here I come."

He rose and walked over, crouching beside the brown bear's corpse and gripping that thick forelimb with both hands.

Power surged from his shoulders into his arms. With a low shout, he tore hard. Accompanied by a dull sound of flesh and sinew ripping apart, the entire bear paw, along with a section of arm bone, was torn cleanly free. Bright red flesh and white tendons were clearly visible at the severed end.

Lin Yi carried the bear paw to an open patch near the cave entrance, then casually cut several thick branches and piled up some dry moss to make a small fire.

When the firelight flared up, its orange-red glow danced across the cave walls several times, lending this cramped stone cave a touch of warmth.

He set the bear paw over the fire and slowly turned it. Fat dripped from the paw into the coals, sizzling into wisps of bluish smoke carrying the fragrance of roasted meat.

Lin Yi stared at the bear paw for quite a while, taking several deep breaths of the charred aroma filling the air. Unable to help himself, he swallowed.

Once the surface had roasted to perfection, he impatiently tore off a chunk and stuffed it into his mouth.

"Mmph—" He chewed twice, and his eyes lit up. "The meat's quite fragrant, and really tender." But then he frowned. "Still, there aren't any seasonings. Just roasting it plain feels like something's missing. If only I had some salt, some sauce, or something..."

He lowered his head to look at the bear paw in his hand, roasted until it gleamed with oil. In the end, he sighed and lowered his head, taking huge bites.

Though it lacked seasoning, the meat of a Dragonlike Realm ferocious beast naturally carried an intense meaty fragrance and abundant vitality. The sheer fullness that came from chewing it was enough to satisfy anyone.

After eating, Lin Yi gathered the remaining bones and charcoal ash together and buried them beneath the soil.

He swept the lingering scents inside the cave with his Spirit Eyes again. Only after confirming that no obvious blood stench had drifted outside did he sit down once more.

"Now, it's time to get to work."

He sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and sank into his mind, beginning to comprehend that gray-black Spider Divine-Mark Diagram.

His progress was even faster than he had anticipated.

In less than a quarter of an hour, he had fully comprehended the entire Spider Divine-Mark Diagram. Its structure was not complicated. The key lay in distinguishing and allocating its two functions. Once he understood them, everything became clear at a glance.

This Divine Markings diagram had two primary functions.

The first was to strengthen the piercing power at the extremities of one's limbs—the same kind of stabbing attack that spider had once tried to use to ambush him. Once the tips of the spider's legs were enhanced by Divine Markings, both their hardness and penetrating power would increase dramatically.

The second function was rather special: concealing one's aura. The Divine Markings could interfere with one's vitality and blood from radiating outward, making it difficult for nearby creatures to determine one's location or strength through aura alone.

However, this concealment effect was limited. It could only weaken one's aura, not erase it completely.

Lin Yi gave it some simple thought and quickly made his decision.

He intended to handle these two functions separately.

For the piercing Divine Markings, he would not derive them into a martial skill for the time being. Instead, he would first commit them to memory and wait for a chance to try engraving them onto a weapon in the future.

The novels he had read before crossing over often featured things like "rune weapons," where Divine Markings were carved onto the surface of weapons to grant additional abilities. Logically speaking, it made perfect sense.

The other Divine Markings, however, were more suitable for his current use. "As for concealing aura, I'll derive it first and put it to use."

True to his word, he immediately immersed himself in deriving the concealment portion of the Divine Markings.

This portion contained very little of the overall Divine Markings, and its structure was highly independent. Adjusting it was even simpler than he had imagined.

He only needed to shift several key shielding nodes from the Spider Divine-Mark Diagram to the corresponding meridian positions in the human body, then redesign the route of vitality and blood circulation. That completed most of the work.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, the derivation was complete.

Lin Yi circulated his vitality and blood along the new route once. An extremely faint sensation rose from beneath his skin, as though something on the surface of his body were being drawn back in and restrained.

He lowered his head and sensed the aura around him. The heavy, oppressive feeling unique to the Mountain-Sinking Realm was steadily weakening, as though something had wrapped layer after layer around the waves of vitality and blood that had been spilling outward, preventing them from being exposed so clearly.

From Mountain-Sinking, down to First Cry.

He curled his lip, a trace of disdain in his tone. "It only dropped by two minor realms? This effect is way too mediocre."

Still, this had only been one part of the Spider Divine-Mark Diagram's function, not its central purpose. Achieving this much was already an unexpected gain.

He casually gave this newly derived little technique a name: the Breath-Concealing Art.

"That's what they always call it in novels," he muttered. Lin Yi had just been about to take advantage of his still-circulating vitality and blood to better feel out the details of the Breath-Concealing Art when a dull sound came from outside the cave.

Boom... boom... boom...

The sound came from very far away, as though something immensely heavy was rhythmically striking the ground in the distance.

Lin Yi immediately caught this trace of abnormality. His eyes snapped open, and his body, which had just relaxed, tensed again.

He quickly moved to the side of the cave entrance, pried open a narrow gap between the stones, and fully activated his Spirit Eyes. His white-gold vision pierced through the twilight and forest, stretching toward the source of the sound.

In the distant open lowlands, enormous shadows were slowly moving.

Those shadows were absurdly tall, their outlines exceptionally magnificent beneath the twilight.

Giant apes were marching forward in a line. Even the smallest stood over thirty meters tall, while the several leading the group reached more than fifty meters.

These giant apes had no fur. Their bodies were covered in thick dark-red armor, cracked like rock and marked by ravine-like patterns that resembled flowing lava.

Every time they stepped down, the ground beneath their feet trembled faintly.

When the wind blew past their bodies, Lin Yi could even see tiny sparks drifting from the gaps between those armored plates, flashing out of existence in the night.

A horde of more than thirty giant apes was slowly crossing the lowlands, heading deeper into the Great Wilderness.

Watching this scene from behind the crack in the stones, Lin Yi's mouth gradually fell open.

A powerful urge surged up from the depths of his heart.

"Should I record the Divine Markings of this Lava Giant Ape horde..."