Han Sen's focus snapped to a patch of swaying grass. There. Camouflaged perfectly, looking like nothing more than a long, broad blade of emerald-green foliage, lay a Windblade Mantis. Its iconic scythe-like forelimbs, longer than its body and gleaming with a dark, metallic jade sheen, betrayed its lethality. Those blades could cleave skulls like parchment. Their hardness rivaled top-grade Alpha Alloy.
My luck's in. He'd spotted it first. He crept forward, silent and low, gauging the critical distance before its hypersensitive awareness might trigger. At roughly two meters, he stopped. Any closer risked alerting it and losing the element of surprise.
He gripped his worn dagger, muscles coiling. Then he lunged from the undergrowth, blade whistling towards the Mantis's slender waist – a killing strike.
He'd underestimated it. Utterly.
The instant he moved, the Mantis reacted. Wings snapped open with a dry rattle. It launched vertically, a blur of green, then pivoted mid-air with terrifying grace. Like a leaf caught in a gale, it streaked down, its foremost scythe-arm whistling towards Han Sen's head. He barely registered the movement before the blow landed.
CLANG!
The impact rang like a hammer striking an anvil. Han Sen flinched, instinctively stepping back. The force transferred through the armor… and dissipated. A faint pressure, like a pebble dropped on his helmet. Nothing more. He blinked, staring at the spot where the lethal blade had struck. Not even a faint scratch marred the golden surface.
Elation, fierce and primal, surged through him. It works! Seizing the opening created by the Mantis's own attack, he whipped his dagger upwards. The blade bit deep into the creature's exposed, vulnerable midsection. A sickening crunch, a spray of viscous, greenish ichor, and the Mantis fell apart, cleaved cleanly in two.
He stood amidst the gore, ignoring the mess splattered across his divine armor, drinking in the phantom voice echoing in his mind:
<< HUNT COMPLETE: PRIMAL-TIER WINDBLADE MANTIS. >>
<< SOUL BEAST: NONE ACQUIRED. >>
*<< CONSUME FLESH TO ABSORB: 0-10 PRIMAL GENES. >>*
A wild laugh escaped him. He touched the unblemished spot on his helmet where the Mantis blade had struck. "With this armor," he breathed, the realization dawning like a supernova, "the world is mine. I kill what I choose. Nothing kills me. Primals? Trash. Mutants? Bring them on!" A heady sense of invulnerability, of raw power, flooded his veins.
Fear abandoned. Caution discarded. Han Sen straightened, gripping his dagger not as a tool of stealth, but as an instrument of conquest. He strode forward into Gale Valley, deliberately crunching through the undergrowth. His golden form was a beacon.
Instantly, he became the storm's eye. Four, five more emerald blurs erupted from the rustling grass and swaying fronds. Windblade Mantises, drawn by the disturbance and the shining target. Their scythes flashed, a whirlwind of lethal green steel striking his chest, shoulders, helm.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The sound was a rapid, discordant symphony of futility. Sparks flew where blades met gold, but the armor held. Impervious. Unyielding. Han Sen moved with grim efficiency. No fancy footwork needed. Just pivot, slash. Pivot, stab. His dagger, mundane as it was, found chinks in their frantic offense or exploited their exposed bodies after their own attacks rebounded harmlessly.
One after another, they fell. Clean kills. Efficient dismemberment.
<< HUNT COMPLETE: PRIMAL-TIER WINDBLADE MANTIS. >>
<< ... >>
<< ... >>
The notifications chimed in his head, a relentless drumbeat of victory. Twenty Mantises fell to his blade within minutes. He carved a path deeper into the valley, a golden juggernaut leaving a trail of shattered green chitin and cooling ichor. Primal-tier predators had become mere harvesting targets.
Su Xiaoqiao trudged towards Gale Valley, his mood as grey as the overcast sky. Luck of the damned, he groused internally. His parents ran an interstellar conglomerate. They held dual Patrician and Celebrity ranks! Yet he got randomly assigned to Steelhold Sanctuary, this ghastly backwater. Not a single contact, not one friend-of-a-friend resided here.
His goal? Simple. Earn the Patrician rank himself. To do that, he needed to evolve using at least Mutant-tier genes. That meant hitching his wagon to the strongest force in Steelhold: Qin Xuan. He served as her scout, her eyes in the wilds, hoping for scraps of Mutant-tier flesh as payment.
A month of fruitless searching. No Mutants. No Sacred Blood whispers. Supplies dwindling. Gale Valley, dangerous and rarely visited, was his last, desperate stop before returning empty-handed. Maybe, just maybe, isolation had allowed something stronger to emerge here?
He entered the valley cautiously, senses on high alert. Something felt… off. No Mantises. None at all. He walked hundreds of meters, seeing disturbed foliage, trampled grass, splashes of something dark and green staining the leaves and rocks. Signs of conflict, but strangely contained. No boot prints from a large hunting party. No heavy weapon scarring. Just… carnage.
"Who cleared the valley? Fist Brother's crew? Divine Scion's elites?" Su Xiaoqiao muttered, perplexed. "But this… it looks like a one-man rampage." Curiosity warred with caution. He quickened his pace, following the trail of green gore deeper into the wind-scoured ravine.
He rounded a jagged outcrop of rock, and the sight beyond froze him mid-step.
Piled like grotesque cordwood against the valley wall was a mound of Windblade Mantis carcasses – dozens of them. And standing beside this grim harvest, drenched in the fading afternoon light, was a figure that seemed sculpted from molten gold. Gleaming armor, seamless and impossibly ornate, encased the being completely. It radiated power and an unsettling, alien beauty. A machine? A god? Su Xiaoqiao couldn't tell. He could only stare, his breath catching in his throat.