They were completely outnumbered, cornered against an unyielding stone wall with absolutely nowhere to run. The heavy, predatory breath of the tiger pack blew through the dark corridor as the 1st Layer Iron Bone alpha bared its massive, razor-sharp fangs.
Suddenly, Fe Tian’s eyes hardened with absolute resolve. Without warning, he sprinted directly toward the right side of the cavern, violently stamping his feet to draw the attention of the entire pack.
"Live well, Lihan!! Goodbye!!" Fe Tian screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing off the cavern walls as he threw himself blindly into the swarming beasts to buy time.
Lihan froze, a rare wave of pure shock shattering his blank expression. In that single, horrifying second, the sight of Fe Tian being swarmed triggered a dark, agonizing flashback inside his mind—the memory of his mother, Li Meixiu, being violently dragged away into slavery while he was left helpless in the ashes.
Not again, a demonic voice roared deep within Lihan's soul.
A manic, unrestrained fury exploded inside his core. Disregarding all caution, Lihan charged straight into the swarming pack of monsters. He attacked them barehanded, channeling every single thread of his newly unlocked 7th Layer Qi into his fists. He struck with savage, desperate precision, his knuckles instantly splitting open as he methodically broke the spines and crushed the throats of the mid-level tigers. Even as the claws of the beasts tore deep ridges into his flesh and his physical frame became heavily injured, Lihan refused to stop. He fought like a man possessed, desperately trying to carve a path to save his roommate.
But it was already too late. Fe Tian was gone, his body completely overwhelmed and torn apart by the ravenous pack.
Lihan went completely crazy. The last remaining thread of his sanity snapped. Turning his bloodshot eyes toward the massive 1st Layer Iron Bone alpha, he lunged forward with a primal shriek. He threw away all martial forms, driving his bare, bloody fists repeatedly into the beast's face.
Crack! Slam! Smash!
The alpha retaliated furiously, its claws slashing Lihan's chest to ribbons, but Lihan didn't even feel the pain. He kept punching. Even as his physical body began giving up and the bones inside his own hands began breaking under the immense kinetic shock of hitting iron-reinforced skin, he didn't halt his assault. He punched the monster dozens of times until the alpha's solid Iron Bone head armor completely shattered into bone fragments. With a final, explosive surge of his 7th Layer Qi, Lihan’s broken fist drove entirely through the beast's skull, rupturing its brain.
The alpha collapsed into the dirt, dead. Yet, Lihan’s madness wasn't satisfied. He turned on the remaining tiger cubs in the den, methodically slaughtering every single one of them until the entire subterranean cavern fell into a dead, suffocating silence.
Drenched from head to toe in a mixture of his own blood and the black bloods of the beasts, Lihan stumbled through the corpses. He found what was left of Fe Tian. His rommates body was half-eaten; only his lower limbs and his severed head remained untouched by the beasts.
Lihan looked down at the gruesome sight. Tears began streaming silently down his cheeks, yet his face remained completely flat, devoid of any outward facial emotion. His heart had turned into a frozen, hollow fortress. Kneeling in the dirt, he carefully dragged Fe Tian's remaining body parts into a quiet, secluded corner of the cave. Using his broken, bleeding fingers to dig through the hard stone earth, he methodically crafted a deep, proper burial mound, sealing his only true friend beneath the mountain dirt.