131: Chapter 131 Pain... Will Be Unforgettable!

The light gate of the seventh floor closed behind him. Lu Cheng stepped forward over the scattered bones covering the ground, looking up to scan the light screen suspended before him.

[Seventh Floor · Abyss Rift]

[Mission Objective: Kill 5 Hua Hai Realm Initial Stage exotic beasts]

[Current Progress: 0/5]

The scene was an underground fault zone.

Beneath his feet was cracked rock, with dark red light surging up from the depths of the fissures. The air was filled with the scorching scent of sulfur mixed with rust. The rock walls overhead were covered in glowing moss, with dark green light spots breathing on the stone walls, dimming and brightening.

Five Abyss Bone Spiders of the Hua Hai Realm Initial Stage crawled out of the fissures.

Each one was the size of a small car, the tips of their eight articulated limbs shimmering with eerie blue corrosive light. Their carapaces were covered in a thin layer of Source Power protective film—the nascent form of the protective Qi unique to the Hua Hai Realm.

Lu Cheng stretched his neck.

The Holy Dragon Armament instantly covered his entire body, and his Holy Dragon Wings unfurled behind him, illuminating the entire fault zone with golden-white light.

"Come."

Lightning burst under his feet, and his entire figure turned into a golden-white afterimage, crashing directly into the spider swarm.

Before the spider in the lead could even raise its head, Lu Cheng's right fist had already smashed into its forehead.

Three Styles of Crushing Fist - Thunder Walk shattered its carapace, and Holy Light poured into the cracks. The bone spider's entire body stiffened for a moment before exploding into motes of light.

[Progress: 1/5]

The remaining four simultaneously sprayed corrosive spider webs.

Lu Cheng did not dodge.

Hardening Pulse was activated instantly, and a layer of pale golden hardened coating appeared on the surface of his skin.

When the webs stuck to him, they made a sizzling corrosive sound, but they quickly dissolved under the purification of the Holy Light.

He raised his hand and tore open the spider webs, triggering his Thunder Step Boots again.

The second one was cut in half at the waist.

The third one had its head blown off.

The fourth one was pierced through by a single punch, carapace and protective Qi alike.

The fifth one tried to crawl back into the fissure to escape, but Lu Cheng grabbed its hind leg and dragged it back, driving his knee into a gap in its abdominal carapace, causing Holy Light to explode from within.

The motes of light drifted away.

[Seventh Floor · Abyss Rift · Completed]

[Time Taken: 3 minutes 47 seconds]

Lu Cheng shook the residual light fragments from his hands and stepped into the teleportation light gate.

Eighth floor.

The scene switched to a lava lake.

Beneath his feet were obsidian platforms floating on magma, each drifting slowly.

[Eighth Floor · Lava Prison Valley]

[Mission Objective: Kill 4 Hua Hai Realm Mid-Stage exotic beasts]

[Current Progress: 0/4]

Four Lava Trolls stood up from the magma. Their bodies were composed of semi-solidified lava and obsidian, with a core emitting dark red light located in their chests.

Source Power fluctuations of the Hua Hai Realm Mid-Stage spread from them, sending ripples across the surface of the lava lake.

Their protective Qi had already formed—a visible dark red light film covering the surface of their lava shells.

Lu Cheng took a deep breath of the scorching air.

Flame Demon Transformation!

Black-red demonic flames surged from within his body, flame horns protruded from his forehead, and his pupils turned molten gold.

Demonic flames and Holy Light overlapped on the surface of his Holy Dragon Armament, burning even more fiercely in the high-temperature environment.

The first Lava Troll swung its fist down.

Lu Cheng dodged sideways, his right fist wreathed in lightning and demonic flames, slamming into the troll's wrist joint.

Thunder Walk · Collapsing Fist - Three Styles: Origin!

Obsidian fragments exploded, and the troll's entire forearm was blown off.

He didn't stop, stepping on the severed arm to leap onto the troll's shoulder, clasping his fists together to smash the back of its head.

Boom!

The core shattered, and the troll turned into a pile of rubble that sank into the magma.

The remaining three launched their attacks simultaneously.

Magma sprayed from their mouths, drawing three dark red pillars of fire in the air.

Lu Cheng unfurled his Holy Dragon Wings, flying directly through the pillars of fire.

The surface of his Holy Dragon Armament was scorched red, but Holy Radiance Regeneration had already begun repairing the burns. He crashed into the second troll's chest, drove his knee into a lava gap in its chest, and grabbed the edges of the gap, tearing them apart.

The core was exposed, and he smashed it with a punch...

[Eighth Floor · Lava Prison Valley · Completed]

[Time Taken: 7 minutes 21 seconds]

Lu Cheng stood on the last obsidian platform still drifting, catching his breath.

The Hua Hai Realm Mid-Stage was indeed more troublesome than the Initial Stage.

The defensive power of their protective Qi had risen by more than one grade; normal attacks simply couldn't break through.

Lu Cheng looked at the teleportation light gate that popped up in front of him and grinned.

"Since I'm already here."

He stepped into the light gate.

The ninth floor was surrounded by a massive underground cavern.

The dome was so high that the top was invisible, leaving only pure darkness.

In the center of the cavern stood five pitch-black stone pillars, each wrapped in dense, dark purple patterns.

At the base of the pillars was a flat expanse of black stone flooring, carved with some kind of ancient runes.

The concentration of Source Power in the air was so high it was visible to the naked eye, with dark purple motes of light floating in every corner. Every breath felt like inhaling a mass of solidified energy.

[Ninth Floor · Nether Energy Boundary Pillars]

[Mission Objective: Kill 5 Hua Hai Realm Peak Stage exotic beasts]

[Current Progress: 0/5]

Less than a second after the prompt appeared, the five stone pillars shattered simultaneously.

Those dark purple patterns wrapped around the pillars all came to life, detaching from the shattered pillars like countless snakes, intertwining, tangling, and condensing in mid-air.

The first one.

A bone spur pierced out from the dark purple energy mass. That bone spur was a full two meters long, pitch black, with flowing purple patterns covering its surface.

Immediately after, the second, third, and fourth pierced out simultaneously from different directions.

Five Nether Energy Bone Demons walked out of the energy masses of the shattered pillars.

Humanoid, over three meters tall.

Their bodies had no flesh, only a pitch-black skeleton. Dark purple Nether Energy patterns flowed across the surface of the skeletons, and every flow pulled the surrounding Source Power into their bodies.

Two clusters of dark purple flames burned in their eye sockets.

Lu Cheng stood his ground, unmoving.

Hua Hai Realm Peak Stage.

These creatures had transcended the category of ordinary exotic beasts.

The five Bone Demons moved simultaneously.

Five dark purple light trails bloomed in the cavern at the same time, moving so fast that even Lu Cheng, enhanced by his Thunder Step Boots, could only barely track their movement trajectories.

Danger! Left!

Lu Cheng dodged sideways urgently. A bone spur grazed past the Holy Dragon Armament under his ribs, scraping a string of sparks from the golden-white scales. Before he could steady himself, a second bone spur had already stabbed in from behind.

Thunder Step Boots!

Lightning burst, and he lunged forward ten meters.

The tip of the bone spur barely grazed his back, leaving another deep white mark on the Holy Dragon Armament.

The third.

The fourth.

The fifth.

The attack rhythm of the five Bone Demons was completely different.

One attacked head-on, one flanked from the side, one circled behind to intercept, and two were ready to fill in at any time.

Their coordination was like the five fingers of a single hand, with every action paving the way for the next.

Lu Cheng dodged between the five dark purple afterimages for over ten seconds, and the Holy Dragon Armament already had seven or eight scratches of varying depths.

Too fast.

And their bone spurs had a problem.

He had just taken a sweep head-on with his scales; the moment the golden-white scales touched the bone spurs, he could feel a force seeping in through the gaps between the scales.

Nether Energy Corrosion.

[Holy Purification · Triggered]

[Continuously weakening the Nether Energy Corrosion effect]

The system prompt flashed across the edge of his vision, and the golden-white Holy Light on the surface of the Holy Dragon Armament brightened for a moment, suppressing that cold, slimy sensation.

Dragon Rage!

Holy Dragon Armament!

Flame Demon Transformation!

His limit states erupted in synchronization once again.

Golden-white Holy Light, black-red demonic flames, and blazing white lightning exploded from him simultaneously, illuminating the entire cavern with three-colored light. Lightning burst under his feet, and his figure vanished from where he stood.

His right fist smashed into the sternum of the first Bone Demon.

Thunder Walk · Collapsing Fist - Three Styles: Origin!

The Holy Light and demonic flames at the point of impact exploded simultaneously. The sternum shattered on the spot, and cracks spread from the chest to the entire body. The dark purple flames in the Bone Demon's eye sockets shook violently, but it didn't break.

The bone strength of the Hua Hai Realm Peak Stage was such that it could take his full-power punch head-on and still stand.

Lu Cheng's left knee had already driven into the side of the second Bone Demon's waist, the blade of his Radiant Light Slash followed closely behind, and his third punch smashed into the third Bone Demon's spine.

In just three seconds, he threw twelve punches.

The golden-white, black-red, and blazing white light exploding in the cavern intertwined, and the sound of the Bone Demons' skeletons shattering mixed with the sizzling of Holy Light burning.

The first two Bone Demons finally couldn't hold on, exploding into a large cloud of light motes from the inside out.

[Progress: 2/5]

The remaining three retreated simultaneously, creating distance.

Lu Cheng dared not use Roar; that thing consumed too much energy, and with the targets dispersed, if he couldn't take them all out at once, the energy in his own body would be drained dry.

The positions to which the three Bone Demons retreated happened to form a triangle.

He stood right in the center of the triangle.

The runes on the floor lit up.

Dark purple light surged out from the grooves of every rune simultaneously, instantly constructing a cage.

Pillars of light shot straight from the ground to the dome, each pillar wrapped in dense Nether Energy patterns.

The rune Lu Cheng was stepping on suddenly sank.

His feet were firmly adsorbed onto the rune by an invisible force, and his entire body felt like it had been nailed to the spot.

The three Bone Demons raised their arms simultaneously.

On their arm bones, every bone spur was extending, splitting, and reforming.

Three brand-new bone spurs grew out from the arm bones, with dense Nether Energy light clusters condensing at the tips, the dark purple light so thick it was almost black.

Lu Cheng's pupils constricted.

[High-concentration Nether Energy accumulation detected]

The three bone spurs stabbed out simultaneously.

The first pierced through his left shoulder.

The bone spur stabbed in at the shoulder blade and came out the back.

The Holy Dragon Armament shattered under the Nether Energy corrosion at the tip of the bone spur, and the golden-white scales exploded into a shower of light fragments.

The second pierced through his right ribs.

The bone spur went in between the rib gaps, stabbing through while grazing his lung.

This time, he clearly felt the path of that corrosive energy spreading through his body, cold and slimy, like a snake swimming in his veins.

The third pierced through his abdomen.

The three bone spurs pinned him right in the center of the rune cage.

Blood gushed out from the three holes simultaneously, flowing down along the bone spurs and dripping onto the glowing runes; every drop of blood evaporated with a sizzling sound in the dark purple light.

Pain.

Pain he hadn't felt for so, so long.

The three Bone Demons exerted force simultaneously, and the Nether Energy light wrapped around the bone spurs surged, wanting to tear him apart from the inside.

Then they heard a sound—it was the sound of Lu Cheng's heartbeat.

Thump.

It wasn't a normal rhythm.

It was a deeper, duller sound, like a drumbeat coming from deep underground.

[Status Acquired: Berserk Blood]

"Berserk Blood...?"

Lu Cheng muttered; he hadn't triggered this state in a long time...

Thump!

The second heartbeat exploded, and the blood and Qi inside Lu Cheng burned like an out-of-control furnace.

He gritted his teeth, his hands violently gripping the three bone spurs piercing his body, and he yanked them out by force.

Flesh tore.

The excruciating pain almost made his vision go black.

But the next instant, three powers poured into his fists.

"Shatter... for me!"

Thunder Walk · Collapsing Fist - Three Styles: Origin!

Three fist shadows exploded almost simultaneously. Holy Light, demonic flames, and lightning tore through the Nether Energy cage, and the remaining three Bone Demons were blasted until their skeletons cracked and their dark purple flames extinguished one after another.

[Progress: 5/5]

[Ninth Floor · Nether Energy Boundary Pillars · Completed]

Lu Cheng stumbled, his armor fading away inch by inch, blood dripping down from his wounds.

He finally couldn't hold on any longer, falling backward onto the cold stone floor, his chest heaving violently.

[Eternal Calamity · Passive Triggered]

[Detected host is severely injured; Damage type: Bone spur piercing attack, Nether Energy corrosion]

[Resistance will be permanently increased when facing the same type of attack next time]

[Pain... will be etched into the bone!]

Scalding blood surged from his heart, instantly flooding Lu Cheng's body, and the several severe wounds on his body immediately stopped worsening.

Clasping the wound on his abdomen, Lu Cheng limped into the teleportation light gate.

Outside the Simulation Tower, on the ranking light screen, the halo for the ninth floor dimmed...