The prison cell door opened, and three guards came in.
Seeing Lu Chen slumped against the wall, all three wore looks of astonishment.
"This kid had a hole gouged through his chest and he's still alive. His life's really tough."
"Stop talking and drag him out!" The little boss said excitedly.
"Perfect, we can squeeze out his last bit of value, stir up the audience, make them scream and revel beneath the blood, hahaha..."
With a wave of the little boss's hand, the two underlings each grabbed one of Lu Chen's arms, hauled him out of the prison, through the long passageway, and into the beast-fighting arena, where they threw him into one of the iron cages.
There were twenty such iron cages, all connected by iron gates.
Whenever the demonic beast in one cage was killed and people continued placing bets, the demonic beasts from the other cages would be driven over to continue the fight.
It was brutally cruel.
Lu Chen had done remarkably well to hold on for a month.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
The spectators on the surrounding raised platforms screamed excitedly.
"Damn, isn't that the guy who got tossed aside by the Bloodfang Boar yesterday? He's still alive? I'm betting he dies this time!"
"I bet he won't last five breaths!"
"I bet he gets four more holes punched through him. Isn't this just handing out spirit stones? Hahaha..."
Wave after wave of noise rose up, mixed with the occasional scream, driving the atmosphere to ever greater heights.
In less than ten breaths since Lu Chen entered, three beast fighters had already been torn alive.
Looking utterly listless, Lu Chen leaned against the side of the cage, his eyes fixed on the figure approaching outside.
It was a Golden Armored Lizard.
Though it was only a mortal-grade juvenile lizard, it was still far more formidable than a Martial Dao Cultivator in the Meridian Opening Realm or an immortal cultivator in the Qi Refining stage.
This thing carried deadly poison. Once bitten, one would soon lose consciousness, only to be either torn apart or reduced to its meal.
Roar!
The cage door opened, and the Golden Armored Lizard let out a roar as it charged over like a hungry tiger pouncing on prey.
Its fang-filled maw bit toward Lu Chen's waist.
Lu Chen, who had long been poised and ready, slapped both hands against the ground and sprang up.
The Golden Armored Lizard bit nothing but air.
Lu Chen leaped above its head.
"Eat him!"
"Bite him to death!"
"Almost, almost, ah..."
As they watched the Golden Armored Lizard open its huge mouth and Lu Chen fall straight into it, ghostly wails and wolfish howls erupted from the crowd.
At the instant the Golden Armored Lizard's jaws clamped down, Lu Chen gave a low shout.
Crack!
The Golden Armored Lizard's closing upper and lower jaws suddenly stopped.
Lu Chen's legs, split wide apart, had braced them open.
With both hands free, he grabbed a long fang in each hand, making it seem as though his whole body had been embedded in the Golden Armored Lizard's mouth.
"Open for me!"
Lu Chen shouted low.
Crack!
Under Lu Chen's two hundred and thirty Bull Strength, the two fangs were forcibly ripped out.
The Golden Armored Lizard loosened its jaws in pain and tried to retreat, but Lu Chen moved too quickly.
With the two ripped-out fangs in hand, he thrust them up and down in one smooth motion.
Squelch!
One fang pierced its lower jaw, while the other stabbed through its upper jaw, churning the Golden Armored Lizard's brain into mush.
Thud!
The Golden Armored Lizard let out a miserable howl and collapsed, dying an unnatural death.
Nearly two-thirds of Lu Chen's body was still inside the Golden Armored Lizard's mouth. Clutching the two sharp fangs, he panted heavily.
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
He looked extremely weak.
When they saw him crawl out of the Golden Armored Lizard's mouth, the entire arena fell deathly silent.
Then curses erupted toward the heavens.
"Fuck your mother! It still didn't die! My spirit stones, aaaah..."
"You damned cheap bastard, die already!"
"Cheating! Cheating!"
Many people in the arena were enraged.
But those in charge turned a deaf ear.
They loved seeing this kind of madness.
The crazier it was, the more they earned!
With weapons in hand, Lu Chen felt even more confident.
The second beast to enter was a Bloodfang Boar. It was not the one that had wounded him yesterday, but one that was relatively stronger and more burly.
As it ran, the earth trembled and the mountains shook, kicking up clouds of dust with ferocious savagery.
The instant its tusks came thrusting over, Lu Chen sidestepped and punched its snout.
That was its vital point, and also the Bloodfang Boar's weakness.
The Bloodfang Boar rammed its head into the ground. Its tremendous momentum sent its hindquarters high into the air, and it flipped over.
Lu Chen arrived while it was struggling.
With a squelch, a fang pierced its eye and stabbed into its brain.
Another one.
This kind of life-or-death close-quarters combat was the most thrilling, and the easiest to make people scream in excitement.
Especially when Lu Chen was supposedly seriously wounded.
Even though some cursed furiously, cheers and screams still surged skyward.
"This kid's got some skill. As expected of a Martial Dao Cultivator, he's hard to deal with!"
The person in charge of the arena lounged crookedly on the main platform, attended by two delicate Maidservants. Seeing this, his eyes lit up.
"Congratulations, Young Master Luo. These two matches alone will bring you a fortune beyond measure. Look at those people, they've lost until their eyes have gone red. Hehe..."
A young man beside him seized the chance to flatter him.
"Not bad. Continue. Send in a mortal-grade mid-level demonic beast!"
Luo Tiansheng laughed.
Whether it brought wealth or not did not matter. What mattered was whether it could pique his interest.
Lu Chen had already been dressed in tattered rags. After killing two demonic beasts in succession and becoming stained with even more beast blood, he now looked completely like a blood-soaked man.
Who would notice whether his injuries had healed?
He crouched slightly, gripping a pair of fangs. Panting, he stared at the newly arrived Crimson Blood Thunder Leopard.
No matter how fast the Crimson Blood Thunder Leopard was, it was only mortal-grade mid-level. Against Lu Chen's eighth level of the Meridian Opening Realm, it was still not enough.
It looked as though he barely dodged every attack, but in truth, he did so deliberately.
He was simply afraid of letting anyone notice.
After "struggling" to evade and wrestle with it, Lu Chen slipped beneath the Crimson Blood Thunder Leopard and sliced open its belly at the instant it leaped up.
Three consecutive victories.
Then he continued.
After another three vicious battles, he finally killed a mortal-grade high-level Green-Eyed Fire Lion, and only then did they stop and send him back to prison.
Naturally, they would not give him all six monster corpses.
He only dragged back two.
And he had only managed to claim one of them after glaring viciously at the guards and putting on a desperate, ready-to-fight-for-his-life stance.
They were both spoils of battle and the key to filling his stomach and staying alive.
One Green-Eyed Lion corpse and one Raging Earth Ape, both mortal-grade high-level monsters.
Their blood and qi were abundant.
"Damn it, eating raw meat and drinking blood!" Lu Chen cursed. Not caring about the stench, he drank the gushing beast blood until his belly was full.
He had not eaten anything since transmigrating here and had long been starving.
Then he skinned them, removed their bones, and cut off their meat.
His knife was a bone knife freshly ground from the fangs. Though it was very blunt, he had already condensed Blood Qi.
Though it was extremely weak, even invisible to the eye, it was countless levels stronger than an immortal cultivator's projected spiritual power.
It could cut through anything.
Slicing meat and removing bones could not have been easier.
"I wonder how many meridians I can open?" Looking at the two bloody skeletons, Lu Chen's thoughts stirred, and he stored them all in the Myriad Manifestations Furnace.
These were fresh Corpse Bones. Their energy was far more abundant than the old white bones he had stored before.
Setting aside the condensed energy essence, he obtained ten drops of bone marrow alone.
One drop could increase his strength by one Bull Strength. Ten drops meant ten Bull Strength.
And the meridians opened through the essence of their flesh, blood, and skeletons would allow his strength to make another leap.
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