"I understand." Huo Lie acquired a serious expression and stepped away.
Jin Yun is not the type of person to joke around in serious situations.
"Be careful!" Huo Lie, now far enough away, shouted.
He and Jin Yun could be considered rivals. Both entered the sect at the same time and used to compete, even though, later on, that idiot surpassed him by far.
Thinking about this, Huo Lie's eyes became determined to surpass him!
Jin Yun, who was alone, stood still for a while, in solitude.
"Hmmm..." He let out a long sigh.
He began to walk toward the trees, passing between them through a narrow path, until entering the monster area.
It was an open space, with many wild beasts scattered about, but the top of the food chain was the white wolf, a monster comparable to a cultivator who had opened five cyclones.
Jin Yun ignored these small fry. Exercising his aura, he continued moving forward, causing all the weaker monsters to tremble before it.
An hour later, after walking in a straight line, he reached the swamp.
A contaminated and quite polluted water area, with several dead trees covering it.
If he followed the swamp to the end, he would come out in the northeast, bordering the Soul Empire.
Upon reaching there, Jin Yun picked up a rock from the ground and threw it in a determined direction within the swamp.
The object cut through the air like a guided arrow, heading toward a massive black water lily, nearly five meters in size.
On it was a muddy-skinned alligator. Its eyes were closed.
But suddenly, they snapped open.
Noticing a gray line coming toward it, it barely had time to react before the object struck its scales with a dry cracking sound.
"GHRRAAH!" The alligator let out a painful howl after the impact, but it wasn't injured. Its skin was too tough.
Angry, it looked ahead and saw the young man calmly sitting on the ground.
This only enraged it further. With a roar, the alligator leaped into the swamp and swam swiftly toward Jin Yun.
Noticing its approach, Jin Yun started moving again, heading east.
The alligator, seeing his escape, sped up even more, splashing dirty water everywhere.
After a few seconds, it exited the swamp and, upon seeing the human at a distance, chased after him, completely furious.
A hundred meters ahead of the swamp, Jin Yun stopped and turned around with a smile. The next second, he materialized his soul.
A metal sword with red threads on the blade appeared in his hand.
A cultivator's spiritual root can be materialized in the form of a soul.
After a person awakens the root and establishes a connection, it is necessary to open the mental space, located on the forehead, and create the Spiritual Soul.
The Spiritual Soul takes the same form as the root, but in spiritual essence.
Both are crucial factors in a cultivator's life, as one helps absorb the energy of heaven and earth, while the other can be used for attacks.
In higher realms, the Spiritual Soul becomes even more essential, but Jin Yun doesn't know this yet.
That knowledge has not yet reached him.
...
After drawing his sword, Jin Yun's eyes, which were already red, turned even more crimson, to the point of looking like two pupils of pure blood.
His aura, which had previously been indifferent to everything, became murderous.
The alligator, which had been pursuing him frantically, froze in place when it saw the insane state of the young man.
It wanted to turn and retreat, but its instincts warned it:
If it turned its back, it would be dead!
"Roar!" With no other choice, it decided to fight to the death. To demonstrate its determination, it let out a fierce roar.
"Kekeke!" Jin Yun began to laugh, his laughter sinister.
Positioning the sword in front of him, he began to draw the spiritual energy inside his body.
His eight cyclones began spinning violently.
On the outside, the red threads started to paint the blade.
Jin Yun, holding the sword, seemed to become even more insane.
Flexing his feet on the ground, he shot forward like a lightning bolt.
The alligator, which would not give up easily, drew on the spiritual energy from its eight marks to form an armor over its body.
Unlike humans, a monster's spiritual root is a small core that cultivates marks—each mark equals a cyclone.
Jin Yun, who had studied the entire forest, knew that a monster of this level existed there.
The perfect test for him.
Collision!
The sword and scales collided.
The alligator was thrown through the air, flying forward, while Jin Yun took a step back.
Crashing against a tree, the alligator stopped abruptly. The impact made it howl in pain. Its scales now bore a deep cut from which black blood poured out endlessly.
Getting up and using its cultivation to heal itself, it looked at Jin Yun with hatred.
This time, it decided to initiate the attack.
It launched a wave of mud from its mouth, which advanced quickly toward the young man.
Jin Yun, who wasn't in his best state, simply laughed in the face of the attack.
Putting the sword on his waist, he crouched and closed his eyes. The next second, he sliced forward.
From his blade, a red energy was released.
Colliding with the wave of mud, the energy shattered it into countless fragments.
The mud scattered throughout the area, creating a rain of dirt that flooded the place.
Jin Yun, who had easily defended against the attack, turned his gaze back to the alligator.
His look conveyed only one thing:
"Is that all?"
The alligator, sensing the disdain, felt humiliated.
If it had been fighting for survival before, now it fought for its pride.
Enraged, it tried to launch its final attack.
Striking the ground with all its physical strength, it caused the earth to crack. The ground began to split open.
Jin Yun, taken by surprise, jumped to an area still intact.
In the place where he had been, a deep fissure opened.
This made him look at the alligator more seriously—this physical strength was not normal for this level of cultivation.
"Earthquake!"
The alligator, seeing that its first attack had been avoided, began to strike the ground repeatedly, opening several cracks at once.
This was its special ability.
Since everything in the world needs balance, if humans have spiritual roots, monsters have unique abilities, which vary by race and are engraved in their essence.
Just like spiritual roots, these abilities are also divided into levels: Low, Common, Rare, Celestial, Real, Imperial, and Immortal.
The alligator's special ability was at the rare level—Earthquake!
Capable of causing wide-area damage.
Jin Yun, who didn't know this and thought it was just a low-level ability, saw the entire area shatter.
He was surrounded. There was no way to retreat.
But instead of worry, his smile only widened.
Firming his feet on the ground, he leapt with force, destroying everything beneath him.
Eight meters above the ground.
This time, he would not play anymore.
He gathered all his current power for a final attack.
In the sky, at that moment, a figure shone intensely in red, making it impossible to see its appearance.
Suddenly, the sword he was holding was thrown.
Like a river of blood, it descended from above with a single purpose—to kill!
Below, the alligator, which had destroyed the entire area to prevent Jin Yun's escape, trembled.
It didn't know what to do.
All it could see was its imminent death.
The River of Blood fell upon it, engulfing its body.
Within that crimson sea, the alligator was completely dissolved, disappearing without a trace.