149: Chapter 149 Ironclad Rhinoceros

Its size was significantly larger than the Silver-Backed Bull, approaching eight zhang from head to tail.

Its entire body was covered in iron-gray scales, each the size of a palm, with edges as sharp as knives, gleaming with a cold, hard metallic luster under the sunlight.

The scales were not smooth surfaces but bore fine hammer marks, as if beaten out one by one by a blacksmith.

Along its spine was a row of protruding bone spurs extending from its neck to the base of its tail. Each spur was as thick as an arm, with slightly yellowish tips. Dark red fascia connected the spurs, rising and falling with its breathing.

The most striking part was its head.

In the center of its forehead grew a thick, solitary horn. The horn was as pitch-black as iron, with spiral patterns on its surface, and its base was as thick as a lower leg.

The tip of the horn was not a sharp cone but a blunt, rounded hammerhead—larger in diameter than a bowl, its surface pitted and covered in white dents left by impacts.

Its four legs were thick and short like pillars. The scales below the knees were especially thick, layered many times over, as if it were wearing a pair of iron boots.

Its hooves were flat and wide. When they pressed onto the gravel, the stones sank directly into the ground, emitting a harsh, crunching sound.

Second Order, Low Grade. Iron-Armored Rhinoceros.

Every hair on Lin Xuan's body stood on end.

It was not from the wind, nor was it fear, but a purely physiological reaction—like someone dragging a cold needle tip from the back of his neck all the way down to his tailbone.

The purple thunder seed in his Dantian pulsed frantically, beating more violently than ever before, almost ready to leap out of the Qi vortex.

The spirit control tower in his Sea of Consciousness continuously emitted cold tremors, one after another, as if someone were striking a bell inside the tower.

The Iron-Armored Rhinoceros crawled slowly out of the gravel pit.

It shook its head, and gravel fell rustling from the gaps in its scales.

The horn-hammer on its forehead smashed into a millstone-sized rock nearby—it didn't hit it directly, but the side of the horn-hammer merely grazed it while it shook its head, and the rock shattered into dust as if it were tofu.

Stone dust rose up, obscuring half the sky, forming a grayish-white mist under the pale purple sunlight.

Then, it turned its head.

Its dark golden pupils swept toward the direction where Lin Xuan was hiding.

That eye was the size of a fist. The pupil was horizontal, like a goat's eye, but countless times heavier than a goat's eye.

The gaze of the Silver-Backed Bull was steady and cold, carrying a sense of vigilance and hostility after its territory had been violated.

But the eyes of this Iron-Armored Rhinoceros were purely indifferent—it wasn't that it couldn't see, but that it didn't care even if it did.

Like a rock looking at an ant.

It exhaled a puff of white air from its nostrils. When the white air sprayed out, it carried tiny water droplets, condensing into a cluster of white smoke in the dry air before being dispersed by the wind.

Lin Xuan had already moved.

He was not running far away. Although the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros was slow, he had just seen the power of that horn-hammer with his own eyes—a millstone-sized rock shattered at a single strike, just like smashing tofu.

Running to an open area would make him a living target; this Iron-Armored Rhinoceros didn't need to catch up, as long as it got within a certain distance, a single hammer strike would create a shockwave capable of shattering his defenses.

He charged toward the pile of rubble on the side of the ridge.

The stones there were the densest, with large and small ones piled together, forming a natural barrier.

If the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros wanted to come over, it would have to either go around or smash through—either way, it would buy him time.

"Extreme Speed" talent fully activated. As his soles stepped on the gravel, each step sent stones flying, and his body left a blurred afterimage among the rubble.

The wind whistled in his ears, and heavy footsteps sounded from behind.

The Iron-Armored Rhinoceros had started moving.

Its speed was indeed not fast; each step was as heavy as moving a mountain.

When its hooves stepped on the gravel, the stones were not kicked aside but directly crushed—that cracking sound was not the collision of stones, but a duller sound of being forcibly ground to pieces, a crunching, grinding noise like a millstone crushing beans.

But the distance covered by each stride was astonishing.

Five breaths.

It was less than eighty zhang away from Lin Xuan.

Lin Xuan charged into the rubble pile. He wove back and forth between the stones, stepping on a slanted millstone-sized rock with his front foot, then pushing off with his back foot, slipping through a gap between two massive boulders squeezed together.

The gap was very narrow, barely enough for one person to pass through.

The Iron-Armored Rhinoceros followed behind.

It did not go around.

The first rock blocking its path—a piece of rubble half a person's height—was smashed to pieces by a single blow from its horn-hammer.

When the horn-hammer fell, the air was compressed, emitting a short, sharp sonic boom, followed by the deafening sound of the rock shattering.

Gravel shot out in all directions; some fragments hit nearby large stones and bounced back, striking the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros's scales and making clanging sounds.

The Iron-Armored Rhinoceros didn't even blink.

The second rock was even larger, an entire rock slab that had peeled off the mountain, stuck diagonally in the ground, standing two people high.

When the horn-hammer struck it, countless spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the surface of the rock slab, but it did not shatter.

The Iron-Armored Rhinoceros turned its body and slammed into it with its shoulder—the moment the shoulder armor made contact with the rock slab, a thunderous boom erupted, and the entire rock slab was uprooted from the ground, flipped over, and smashed to the side.

The ground shook.

Lin Xuan could feel the vibration coming from beneath his feet; the soles of his feet were numbed by the shock.

Fifty zhang.

The distance was still closing.

Lin Xuan's breathing began to quicken—it wasn't from fatigue; the "Extreme Speed" talent didn't consume much physical strength, but the oppressive feeling of being chased by a Second Order Yao Beast made his heart beat frantically, as if gripped by someone.

He could hear his own heartbeat, thud-thud-thud, even louder than the footsteps of the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros.

He reached into his bosom and felt the earth-escaping talisman.

The earth-yellow talisman paper still held his body heat, its edges softened by sweat.

Thirty zhang.

The smell of rust mixed with dry, cracked earth from the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros surged into Lin Xuan's nostrils.

It wasn't the smell of blood, but the scent of steam rising when red-hot iron from a blacksmith's shop is plunged into cold water—dry, scorching, and pungent.

Its breathing was heavy; every exhalation was like a bellows pumping, the expelled airflow blowing gravel on the ground into a flurry.

Twenty-five zhang.

The Iron-Armored Rhinoceros lowered its head, aiming the horn-hammer on its forehead at Lin Xuan's back.

Lin Xuan's back felt ice-cold. It wasn't sweat, but the instinctive reaction of being locked onto by danger—like someone pressing an ice cube against his skin, sliding it from the back of his head all the way to his tailbone.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and even his scalp was tingling.

He did not look back.

His fingers crushed the Seal of the earth-escaping talisman.