Instantly, without hesitation, he executed Silver Dawn Requiem, his sole ‘defensive’ technique. The Lunar Qi surrounding Sangrelia surged and moved on its own, snapping into a defensive stance against the approaching threat.

The next moment, it felt like he’d been struck by a truck. His arms bent under the immense force—not enough to break, but sharp pain lanced through them—before his entire body was launched backward at terrifying speed.

Body Forging Realm demonic beasts that stood in his path exploded into bloody mist on impact, torn apart as Mikael’s body smashed through them without slowing. The brutal scene repeated itself several times in seconds as he tore through beast after beast, leaving a gory trail in his wake.

Eventually, his momentum waned. With a sharp twist and a controlled backflip, he managed to land on his feet, his heels gouging a shallow trench in the dirt as he skidded to a halt. But at least—he’d stopped.

Raising his head, he caught sight of what had hit him. It was a beast the size of a small hill, dwarfing even the massive demonic creatures around it. Compared to its bulk, the other multi-meter-tall beasts seemed almost small. Its skin was grey, like reinforced metal, and radiated terrifying durability. Mikael didn’t recognize it, but it was a Titanhide Rhino—a powerful Late-stage demonic beast with near-impenetrable defense.

His arms ached, but he pushed the pain aside, eyes locked on the monster. The moment he registered what it was, his expression darkened. ‘A Late-stage demonic beast… fuck, I can’t take it down.’ He scanned the surrounding tide, demonic beasts still eyeing him like a bloody steak. ‘At least not in these conditions, that’s for sure.’

BRUOOOOHHHH!

The Titanhide Rhino let out a deep, rumbling bellow before charging at Mikael, each thunderous step shaking the ground like a mobile mountain. As for the beasts in its path? The faster ones barely dodged. The slower ones were crushed beneath its hooves.

‘Fast!’ Mikael’s eyes widened as the colossal creature crossed the distance in moments, its speed absurd for something of its size.

Because of its unexpected speed, Mikael reacted a beat later than he should have. With a surge of strength in his legs, he launched upward, ‘scaling the hill’ at full force.

But just as he reached several meters above the charging mass, seemingly about to clear it—his eyes widened in horror. “Fuck, the 50-meter limit!” he cursed, the edge of the boundary brushing too close for comfort. What should have been an evasive maneuver had just turned suicidal.

He flipped in midair, twisting his body so his feet were now above his head, directly facing the Titanhide Rhino’s massive skull. His rising form leveled out at the height of the beast’s head—his small emerald eyes locking with its human-sized pupils. For a brief instant, their gazes clashed. Time slowed.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the stalemate shattered. From the sole of Mikael’s foot, a surge of Qi exploded outward. His ascent stopped. A fraction of a second later, he activated his flight ability to halt his momentum completely.

His double-stopping action worked, and he successfully immobilized himself, but now he was directly in the path of the Rhino’s immense horn…

Once again, Mikael repositioned his body midair before making Qi erupt from his sole a second time, this time pushing him to the left, trying to leap out of the Rhino’s path before the monstrous horn could reach him.

And for a moment, it seemed like he would succeed—but sadly, the small delay required to stop himself proved decisive, and the blunt side of the Rhino’s horn slammed into one of his legs before he could pull it fully away.

CRACK.

The bone-chilling sound echoed across the battlefield. It was the kind of sound that turned the stomach just hearing it—but far worse to experience firsthand. Mikael's leg exploded in agony as it bent unnaturally under the Rhino’s seemingly unstoppable charge, and that wasn’t the end of it.

At the same moment, the force of the impact traveled through his leg and into the rest of his body, sending his frame hurtling backward at tremendous speed.

He shot through hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye before he managed to push through the pain and stabilize himself midair—just before colliding with the ground in what would have been an extremely unpleasant impact.

As he landed, he instinctively tried to balance himself and put some weight on his broken leg, sending a wave of pain rippling through his body. But he ignored it, his gaze shining locked on the distance he had crossed. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? If I get myself pushed like now, I can cross a hundred or hundreds of meters “easily”. This is the perfect escape plan!’

The realization actually put him in a good mood; even the pain in his leg seemed to fade a little. But the world wasn’t about to let him be happy for long. 

From beneath his feet, he caught a rapidly approaching subterranean movement. His first instinct was to use Cloudbreaking Stride to vanish from the spot, but the broken state of his left leg made that impossible. Instead, he forced himself to jump straight up.

His decision was proven wise a moment later, when the ground he had just stood on exploded in a spray of dirt and rock. From the crater burst the open mouth of a worm, its maw a grotesque spiral of jagged rows—rows and rows of teeth arranged in a circular nightmare, promising a horrifying death to anything caught within.

Mikael’s brow twitched. ‘What, I’m just a punching bag now? You think I’ll just keep dodging and taking hits without ever fighting back? Keep dreaming, fucker,’ he thought with simmering irritation, already launching a powerful Celestial Moon’s Embrace

at the beast—a Fleshgrinder Worm, which, based on its aura, was at the Mid-stage.

The lethal wave of Lunar Qi enveloped the worm, but Mikael didn’t gain a satisfied expression. On the contrary, he clicked his tongue. “It got away…” he muttered, having felt the aura diminish only slightly—signaling it was merely lightly wounded.

Hiss.

Mikael caught the serpentine sound echoing beyond a nearby cluster of jagged boulders. His Divine Sense immediately detected the source: another large demonic beast, this one with an aura also at the Mid-stage.

“Fuck, another one. If this keeps up, I’ll really get overwhelmed,” he cursed, a faint edge of strain creeping into his voice as his leg muscles tensed. The bone fragments in his left leg realigned under his willpower and Partial Body Control, allowing him to keep using the broken limb without too much trouble.

He erupted with full power, a thick cloud of dust blooming from where he started. Navigating between the broken trees, he advanced quickly—and what lay behind the large rocks entered his field of view.

The Mid-stage beast he’d sensed was a serpent tens of meters long, its green-scaled body coiled tightly in that rocky area. Its long form looped on itself grotesquely, packed into the space with coiled menace. The color of its scales and its snake-like form left little doubt on the existence of venom and poisonous ability; it was a Venomscale Viper.

With fast, sharp steps, he reached the enormous creature. His blade gleamed silver as he launched a flurry of Lunar Shadow Slash toward the viper, which—at first glance—seemed inoffensive, merely coiled in its corner in a lazy lunge. Or maybe it only looked that way. Mikael’s Divine Sense caught the viper’s gaze locked on him, and he knew it was only a matter of time before it struck.

And with the subterranean threat now in play since the Fleshgrinder Worm had joined the fray, he knew his chances of escape were dwindling by the second. That’s why he wanted to injure—or if possible—kill the viper before the Worm and the Rhino decided to coordinate and bring him down.

Fortunately, the Rhino hadn’t moved toward him yet. After launching Mikael into the air earlier, it seemed to have lost some interest. But that wouldn’t last, and Mikael knew it. He needed to take care of this one before that changed.

Under the surprise assault and the sharp barrage of Lunar Shadow Slash, the viper was briefly caught off guard. Mikael inflicted several light cuts across its glistening scales, and streams of green blood began to seep out. Wherever it touched the ground, a sharp hiss followed—the kind that left no doubt about the beast’s toxic nature.

In that instant, Mikael identified it fully. It was a poisonous demonic beast—one that couldn’t be allowed to touch him. Even a single mistake could turn this already dangerous situation into something much worse.

His assault didn’t slow. Blades of Lunar Qi moved with relentless precision, striking again and again. But the Venomscale Viper didn’t stay passive. With a violent hiss, it coiled back and unleashed a whip-like tail strike aimed straight at him.

His first instinct was to dodge, but just then, he sensed subterranean movement again—signaling the Worm was about to resurface. Not now, as it had been momentarily pushed back by his attack, but it wouldn’t be long. At the same time, he felt the Rhino’s gaze settle onto his back.

‘No, I need to finish this fast!’ he thought, a sharp urgency rising. ‘But how?’ His mind raced, trying to find a way to take it down in a short moment.

His gaze flicked upward to the eerily calm storm clouds, then dropped to the viper’s incoming tail—thick, muscular, and undoubtedly laced with venom. Seeing this a thought flashed through his mind, without hesitation, he braced his stance, lowering his center of gravity and twisting slightly sideways. His left foot slid back, anchoring him like a coiled spring, while his right arm tensed in preparation.

The moment the tail neared, he angled his body just enough to let it graze past his ribs—then snatched it mid-swing with his arms. But instead of trying to stop it, he let himself be carried by the momentum—not entirely, as he didn’t want to be sent flying. What he did was turn his body with the tail while gripping it tightly and pulling.

And this, combined with the strength even his injured arms possessed, was enough. The Venomscale Viper was pulled by Mikael’s movement, its massive form launched toward him. This created a truly unbelievable scene of the ‘small’ Mikael pulling the tens-of-meters-long viper.

Of course, this also carried the risk of being crushed by the rapidly approaching viper. But Mikael didn’t stay immobile. As the serpent was pulled from its rocky lunge, Mikael turned once more, dragging it with him in his movement. Then Mikael continued to turn on himself while tightly holding the serpent’s tail.

For a moment, the Venomscale Viper was stunned, not expecting something like that. But then came fury at being toyed with by a small human. It began to violently thrash in Mikael’s hands while secreting a high amount of poison from its entire body, trying to force the small human to let go.

As the serpent thrashed violently in his grip, Mikael felt the first prickling signs of venom seep into his hands. He instantly channeled Qi through his arms to suppress it, but even then, he could feel it—slowly spreading.

‘Tch… still creeping in,’ he muttered mentally, his brow twitching. ‘I’ll deal with it later.’

At that moment, his attention fell back on the violently thrashing viper. The combination of thrashing and venom should have made him let go. He didn’t. On the contrary, he tightened his hold. On the green scales, cracks began to spread under his full-power grip.

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— End of Chapter —