The primeval canopy of the Eastern Mountain Range swallowed the sky, casting long, bruised shadows across the forest floor.
A blur of white and black tore through the thick undergrowth.
Lucien’s boots barely brushed the damp loam as he moved with blinding, fluid speed, leaping over ancient roots and sliding beneath jagged rock faces.
Across his back hung the six-foot greatsword, wrapped in coarse cloth, but its black steel had yet to taste battle.
He didn’t need it.
Crash!
A massive Ironhide Boar, its tusks coated in yellowed venom and its bulk easily exceeding a ton, erupted from behind a thick pine.
The beast was an early Tier 2 creature—the exact biological equivalent of a human first-level Bone Forging cultivator.
Its charge carried enough kinetic momentum to shatter the outer gates of an estate.
Lucien did not retreat.
He didn’t even draw a wisp of Stellar Qi.
Planting his lead foot, he twisted his waist, cocked his right arm, and met the charging beast head-on with a bare-knuckle punch.
Boom!
The collision sounded like a bronze battering ram striking a reinforced city gate.
An explosive shockwave of displaced air rippled through the clearing, flattening ferns and shredding shrubbery.
The boar’s armored skull caved inward with a sickening crunch of fracturing bone.
Its colossal momentum halted dead in its tracks, its crimson eyes rolling back as it slumped lifelessly into the dirt, dead before it could even squeal.
Lucien casually shook out his knuckles, not a single scratch marring his pale, jade-like skin.
He had spent the entire morning testing the terrifying limits of his newly forged body.
Eighteen full temperings of stellar fire had fundamentally rewritten his physiology.
Against Tier 1 beasts and even early Tier 2 monsters equivalent to first-level Bone Forging experts, drawing a weapon was an insult.
He fought them with pure, savage hand-to-hand combat, exchanging claw for fist, testing his muscle density against razor-sharp fangs.
He could go toe-to-toe with early Tier 2 beasts purely on physical might alone.
It was only when he encountered creatures at the peak of the low-tier grade—beasts whose dense bones, thick hides, and savage predatory instincts made them equal to a third-level Bone Forging martial artist—that he had been forced to draw the heavy single-edged blade.
Only against those creatures did his blood truly surge with the exhilaration of an even match.
He occasionally used his Genesis Elemental Control to conjure small sparks, but only as a utility.
Flinging fireballs from afar felt hollow; Lucien craved the raw, visceral impact of close-quarters combat.
The sound of steel cleaving bone, the scent of hot blood, and the adrenaline of dodging claws by a hair’s breadth was where his warrior soul felt alive.
By late afternoon, the golden sun began to sink beneath the distant mountain ridges, bathing the wilderness in twilight.
Lucien climbed into a sheltered hollow beneath a colossal ironwood tree.
He tossed a fresh, skinned wolf thigh onto two sharpened branches, leaning it over a small pit of dry stones.
Instead of striking flint, he pointed a single index finger.
Fwump.
A pure, smokeless crimson flame blossomed at his fingertip, hovering obediently in the air before descending into the pit, wrapping around the meat with gentle, perfectly controlled heat.
During the fifteen years he had been unable to cultivate, Lucien had refused to sit idle while the world looked down on him.
While his cousins practiced martial stances and studied military strategy, he had buried himself in miscellaneous crafts—herbal botany, wilderness survival, tea brewing, and cooking.
He pulled several dried forest herbs from his satchel, crushing them between his fingers and sprinkling the aromatic powder over the sizzling meat.
The wolf thigh began to turn a rich, appetizing golden-brown, dripping sizzling juices onto the hot stones and releasing an intoxicating, roasted fragrance.
Just as Lucien reached out to carve off the first piece, a chaotic series of sounds shattered the evening silence.
Awoooo—!
High-pitched, bloodthirsty howls echoed from the south, accompanied by the violent snapping of ancient trees and the unmistakable, enraged roar of a feline predator.
ROOOOAR!
The roar was deep and majestic, but carrying a ragged, desperate rasp that reeked of near-fatal exhaustion.
Lucien’s hand froze above the roasted meat.
The sound had come from less than half a mile away, deep within a rocky gorge that bordered the low-tier territory.
Out here in the Eastern Range, intervening in beast disputes was usually a fool’s gamble that ended in a shallow grave.
But the commotion was entirely too close to his campsite, and the sheer number of howling predators meant an organized pack was hunting.
“Let’s see what kind of hunt warrants such noise,” Lucien murmured, putting out the fire with a flick of his wrist.
Leaving the roasted meat behind, he strapped the heavy greatsword securely across his back and vanished into the dense canopy, leaping from branch to branch without making a sound.
Five minutes later, he crouched atop a thick oak branch overlooking a sunless, jagged ravine.
His blue eyes narrowed.
The clearing below was an absolute slaughterhouse.
Nearly thirty massive gray wolves, their shaggy coats stained with dried mud and blood, had formed a tight, suffocating ring.
These were Moon-Scar Wolves, ferocious predators that hunted in disciplined coordination.
Every single one of the thirty wolves radiated the dangerous aura of an early Tier 2 beast, their jagged fangs dripping with acidic saliva.
In the center of the ring, cornered against a sheer cliff wall, lay a colossal White Tiger.
The tigress was magnificent, her pure white fur etched with deep silver stripes.
She stood as a Mid-Rank Tier 2 beast—equal to a fourth or fifth-level Bone Forging expert.
Under normal circumstances, she would have ripped five or six wolves apart without breaking a sweat.
Now, she was on death’s door.
Her flanks were shredded, covered in dozens of deep bite marks and gouges where her silver-white fur had been torn away to reveal white bone and crimson flesh.
Dark, sluggish blood pooled around her paws.
She was trembling with absolute exhaustion, yet she refused to lie down.
Tucked tightly behind her battered front paws, shivering against the cold stone, was a tiny white tiger cub.
It was barely the size of a domestic kitten, with snowy fur and two wide, frightened silver eyes, crying out in pitiful, muted chirps as it pressed its tiny nose against its mother’s bleeding flank.
The tigress let out another hoarse, trembling snarl, her jaws snapping weakly at the encroaching wolves.
Behind the thirty wolves, sitting atop a jagged boulder with chilling intelligence in its eyes, was the pack leader.
It was nearly twice the size of the others, its fur pitch-black except for a ghastly blood-red crescent marking etched between its eyes.
It radiated an oppressive, tyrannical aura that pressed down on the entire gorge—a Mid-Rank Tier 2 Alpha, possessing the combat strength of a fifth-level Bone Forging powerhouse.
The Alpha gave a low, rumbling growl.
It was waiting for the mother to bleed to death, refusing to waste its own pack members on her final, desperate strike.
Up in the branches, Lucien’s breath caught in his throat.
His gaze had locked onto the tiny, shivering white cub.
It was not a logical memory.
It was an ancient, unexplainable tug at his spiritual core—a primal instinct whispering that this creature was bound to him, a lost thread of an forgotten existence.
He didn’t know why, and he didn’t know how.
But an undeniable decree rang through his heart: I must save that cub.
Yet his cold logic screamed the danger.
Thirty Tier 2 wolves.
An Alpha equal to a fifth-level Bone Forging monster.
Lucien was only at the second level of his Stellar Body.
If he made a single tactical error, the pack’s numerical advantage would tear him to pieces before he could even blink.
To hell with caution, Lucien thought, a cold, predatory smile curling his lips.
If I run from a few mangy dogs, how will I ever hold the heavens?
He reached behind his shoulder and wrapped his fingers around the leather hilt.
He dropped from the branch.
Thud.
Lucien landed lightly on the rocky floor of the ravine, thirty paces behind the perimeter of the wolf pack.
The sudden sound drew the attention of four rear-guard wolves.
They turned their snouts, sniffing the air, their yellow eyes locking onto the pale, white-haired human youth.
When their beastly senses washed over Lucien, registering only the faint, laughable aura of an early Body Tempering cultivator, the wolves didn’t even bother to roar.
They let out low, mocking sneers, their lips curling to reveal serrated teeth as if amused that a fragile human meal had walked straight into their feast.
One of the wolves lunged forward, snapping its jaws toward Lucien’s throat in a lazy, arrogant arc.
It never reached him.
Whoosh—!
Lucien didn’t just move; he vanished.
The ground beneath his boots shattered as eighteen cycles of stellar muscle power detonated all at once.
In a fraction of a heartbeat, Lucien appeared directly beneath the airborne beast.
He didn’t draw a wisp of Qi.
He simply brought the massive, six-foot iron greatsword upward in a textbook, flawless vertical swing.
SCHLICK!
A clean silver arc flashed through the twilight.
The eighty kg blade sheared through the beast’s reinforced hide, thick neck bones, and sinew without meeting an ounce of resistance.
A fountain of dark crimson blood erupted into the air, splashing across the stones as the wolf’s severed head went spinning ten feet into the sky.
Its headless corpse slammed heavily onto the rocks, twitching once before going dead.
The entire ravine fell dead silent.
The mocking sneers vanished from the remaining wolves’ muzzles.
The mother tiger paused her growl, and atop the high boulder, the black-furred Alpha’s slit-pupils contracted into needlepoints.
Lucien flicked his wrist, slinging the fresh beast blood from the blade’s edge with a dull hiss.
His white hair drifted in the evening wind, his piercing blue eyes locked directly onto the pack.
“Next,” he whispered coldly.