A Giant Beast

A trail of carnage, going from the tenth ring inwards, appeared in the Ten Rings Mountains that day.

It was just a few corpses of ordinary and primitive beasts in the tenth ring, but as one followed the trail deeper, the number and strength of the corpses increased.

There were only twenty in the tenth ring, nothing that would attract attention, as they were spaced out, but they were all in a straight line towards the inner mountains of the tenth ring.

One thing Long Tian had realized and been told while hunting in these rings, was that the type of beasts here were fixed, there being a total of ten types of beasts that the Green Arrow Group had encountered throughout the years, hunting from the tenth ring to the fourth one.

They were the White Lion, Mountain Goat, Bloodthirsty Rabit, Wood Python, Flying Squirrel, Small Green Bear, Forest Deer, Ambusher Boar, Wood Spider and Grass Lizard.

Some beasts were more common in the outer rings and others in the inner ones, depending on their innate strengths compared to the other beasts present in the Ten Rings.

On the Tenth Ring, there were only Ambusher Boars and Wood Spider corpses.

On the Ninth and Eighth, there were still Ambusher Boars but also Small Green Bears and Grass Lizards, their combined numbers amounting to more than a hundred, with two mutants in the eighth ring.

This continued to the sixth ring, where the number of corpses increased even more, with dozens of mutants. By the fifth, there were an abundance of Wood Pythons, hidden in the tall grass that only increased in size and density in the deeper rings.

As one followed this trail up the mountain that divided the fifth and fourth rings, one would end up encountering a figure atop the mountain.

A young man, almost 1.9 meters in height was standing there. He wore a black hoodie and black trousers. The young man's boots and the rest of his clothes seemed new, as if he had just started using them.

The young man's deep red eyes, looking at the forest of the fourth ring with a profound look, gave away his identity.

This young man was Long Tian. He had been dashing across the outer rings as fast as he could, but having reached the fourth ring made him pause.

He took less than one hour to reach here, a speed unthinkable with his previous group, and this is because he stopped to kill all beasts in his path.

The last time he came here, he left almost dead, being carried by his protector, whom he could not detect even now.

And this was also where the Green Arrow Group was exterminated. The clan told him that their bodies were returned to the alliance, returning as corpses to whatever teleporter they entered through.

He stayed there, atop the mountain in silence, for 5 minutes.

Having paid his respect and asked for pardon in his heart, he continued running.

The fourth ring was crowded with mutant beasts, and sacred blood were almost common in its depths, but Long Tian had already proven that he could kill a Sacred Blood beast.

He killed any mutant beast in his path without letting them make any noise, using the mutant beast soul of the white lion, as the sacred blood one was broken that night.

After ten minutes of dashing at a moderate pace, Long Tian saw a massive green tiger.

The tiger was drinking water from a small stream. It was 2.5 meters tall and 7 long. The first thing that passed through Long Tian's mind was that it was a sacred blood beast.

But after stopping silently behind a tree to observe it, he realized it was just a mutant, as it felt much weaker than the deer he killed that day.

So, Long Tian dashed at full speed at the beast and slashed at its head. The tiger heard the noise and was lifting its head when the sword fell, splitting its skull in the middle.

*Ding*

[Mutant Beast Giant Tree Tiger killed. Beast Soul of Mutant Giant Tree Tiger gained.]

[Supreme Evolution activated. Beast Soul of Sacred-Blood Giant Tree Tiger gained.]

[Eat its flesh to gain up to 100 Mutant Gene Points.]

As its corpse fell down, Long Tian summoned the system to see the type of the beast soul, as he had been doing since entering the Ten Rings Mountains.

He had also realized that he had to pay more attention to his system page, so that he would always be using his maximum resources to fight.

[Sacred-Blood Gian Tree Tiger - Weapon: Naginata.]

'Wow, now that's a rare weapon.'

Long Tian thought as he summoned the weapon, deciding to use it.

His other weapons that were stronger than the mutant sword he had been using were an axe, javelins and a staff.

At least the blade looked more like a sword than an axe.

Having changed weapons, he continued dashing deeper into the Outer Forest of Death.

As he was alone and was not very concerned with getting surrounded, he went much faster than when he came here the first time.

He encountered five lone mutant tigers before reaching the mountain that led to the third ring.

Not satisfied and wanting to kill a sacred blood beast, Long Tian started running along the mountain, hoping to see it or more members of its pack.

After 10 minutes of running along the mountain, he saw a massive cave mouth.

The cave was massive, the ceiling 20 meters above and the mouth was more than 50 meters wide.

Coming in and out of it, he could see mutant giant tigers, the ones coming in had other beasts in their mouth, including the deer that Long Tian had hunted with the group.

As he approached making a lot of noise, all tigers looked at him and roared.

The 13 tigers close to the mouth of the cave all roared at him, almost creating a shockwave from the sheer intensity of the sound.

Immediately, more tigers appeared from inside the cave and Long Tian was sure more would be coming from the forest as well.

As the tigers started running towards him, Long Tian grabbed the naginata, put it above his head, grabbing it by the middle of its pole.

Then, he crouched, looked at the massive tigers coming his way, and dashed, spinning the weapon above his head.

He almost started flying, so he adjusted the speed of the spinning.

Reaching the first tiger, the blade of the naginata started cutting through the beast, cutting deeper and deeper with each rotation.

Long Tian ended up cutting the beast in half, with the lower half, with the limbs, falling to the ground, and the upper half, with the beast head and spine, flying forward dozens of meters from the inertia.

The other tigers, seeing their companion being killed so brutally and easily, suddenly stopped, with some starting to walk backwards.

But at that moment, a roar more powerful than the one from the thirteen tigers combined from earlier came from the cavern.

Looking there, Long Tian saw an incredible sight.

A colossal tiger with black stripes across its dark green fur. It looked big even compared to the massive cavemouth it came out of.

Long Tian only got a real grasp on its size when other mutant tigers started pouring out of the cave, passing by the massive beast's side.

The mutant tree tigers seemed like cubs compared to the sacred blood that was walking towards him.

It was more than three times taller, probably close to 8 meters, its body seemed more like a house.

This was definitely the strongest beast he had ever faced.

If he could only see it and not feel its presence, he would think it was a Super Beast, but while it felt quite a bit stronger than that Sacred-Blood deer, it did not feel like it was in an entirely different rank.

But he was pretty sure it was a strong beast even among sacred blood ones.

From the moment the beast roared and appeared, making all tigers enter in a state of frenzy, to the moment it started running towards him, Long Tian did stop spinning and killing all tigers that were attacking him.

He was cutting through the eleventh tiger when their leader reached him.

Long Tian had to say, he was a bit intimidated. This was the biggest beast he had ever seen. He had heard of even larger beasts in the higher sanctuaries, beasts that were comparable to entire cities in size, but hearing about something and seeing it are completely different things.

Imagine this, a two-story house that is three buses long. It is a considerably large house, now imagine it coming at you at the speed of a race car and swinging paws that are equipped with meter-long claws.

So, although he knew he could beat this thing, just the thought of being hit by this thing sent shivers down his spine.

Ultimately, he dodged the claw swipe, jumping back and putting distance between him and the beast. Breathing deeply, he equipped the Sacred-Blood armor he obtained from a goat in the mountains between the sixth and fifth sanctuary.

The armor was entirely white, shining with a metallic sheen. It had white fur on the shoulders, arms and legs, while the helmet had two coiled horns sticking out from the top of it, they were entirely black but had a white tip.

The armor appeared around his body in less than a second, constructing itself from nothing. This was the power of the Beast Souls.

The tiger, seeing its swipe miss, roared angrily once again, dashing towards Long Tian. It became even more aggressive because Long Tian had dodged its attack.

Wielding the green naginata and wearing a white armor, Long Tian gathered his courage and dashed to meet the giant tiger in the middle.

The tiger swiped its claws once more, this time even faster than before. Long Tian, starting to feel frustrated by his fear of this giant beast, decided to meet the claw of the beast with his weapon.

As the claw and blade touched, there was a loud sound. Long Tian, that had expected to be thrown back, stood in place, unfazed. The tiger, however, was sent back ten meters, almost falling backwards from the force.

Long Tian's eyes widened, surprised at his own force. He even looked at his own arms that seemed so small compared to that giant beast, but that was the absurd effect of gene points, allowing human bodies to contain a power that simply didn't fit their size.

Even the beast seemed surprised, as it expected to squash that human under its massive paws.

Confidence renewed, Long Tian once again dashed at the beast, this time with even more speed. The beast once again threw a claw swipe at him, but he used what was basically his signature move by this point.

He slid under the swipe, arriving beneath the beast, but just as he was about to discover the insides of the tiger, the beast jumped.

And it seemed to have done so in fright, as it jumped way too high, with too much force.

Thinking fast, Long Tian jumped after it, reaching it as it was still going up.

Without having anywhere to support himself to stop going higher, he stuck the naginata into the tiger's body, cutting through its side as he came to a stop above it.

He stepped on the tiger's back just as it was about to start coming down. Then, he slashed in the middle of the tiger's back. The blade only got so deep before stopping, so he instinctively tried to use the Space Sword art, but it didn't work.

Frustrated and almost losing contact with the beast as it had begun falling, he used the stuck naginata as a steppingstone and launched himself towards the neck of the beast.

He crashed into the head of the tiger, almost overshooting it but managing to grab its fur, causing it to continuously roar in pain, as it had been doing since started experimenting with air maneuvers using its body.

As it accelerated towards the ground, Long Tian, still grabbing its fur, took out one of the mutant swords from the white lions, and started slashing at the beast's neck.

As it was extremely thick, Long Tian had to slash four times using the Space Sword art and going around the neck, just to make sure it would die.

Then, as the beast was about to reach the ground, Long Tian somersaulted away from it, just for style points, even though the only one watching was the overseer.

The beast hit the ground without any of the grace of a feline, falling on its side, clearly too injured to control its body properly.

As the beast started twitching, Long Tian once again dashed towards it, killing two more mutant ones in the process, before finally jumping and hacking down with his blade, cleanly separating the head from the body.

*Ding*

[Sacred-Blood Beast Giant Tree Tiger killed. Beast Soul of Sacred-Blood Beast Giant Tree Tiger gained.]

[Supreme Evolution activated. Beast Soul of Super Giant Tree Tiger gained.]

[Eat its flesh to gain up to 100 Sacred-Blood Gene Points.]

'Pretty ironic for a Tree Tiger to live in a cave, but I think the trees here don't support it anyway.'

This was the second Sacred-Blood beast that Long Tian killed, and it was definitely harder than the first one, as he was actually panting.

Having used the Space Sword Art so many times, he was naturally tired. Good thing is that as his fitness and level in the art increased, he would be able to cut space more easily.

Then, Long Tian looked around and saw that all tigers were frozen on the spot, seemingly shocked at seeing their leader die to such a small creature.

Then, in what seemed like a common instinct of all Gene Beasts, the majority started to run away while 20 came running at him.

From the almost 100 that came from the cave and forest, for only 20 to attack him was actually a good thing in the tired Long Tian's eyes.

He then summoned the Super Beast Soul he got from the tiger, and an entirely black naginata appeared in his hands. Its blade was a dark green with black stripes.

Then, Long Tian just repeated the move that worked before, started spinning the naginata above his head and cut through the beasts with even more ease than before, feeling almost no resistance in cutting them in half.

After 20 seconds, everything returned to calm, with dozens of big tiger bodies cut in half on the ground, and a giant tiger without head in the center of it all.

'Anyways, onwards.'

And so, Long Tian started climbing the mountain towards the third ring, not wanting to eat tons of meat just for a single gene point. Even if it were sacred blood.