He carved into the thick neck with ruthless precision, cutting past scales and flesh until his hand plunged into the wound.

The spirit core came free, hot and throbbing with power. Lin Fang didn’t hesitate. He stored it in the inventory and kicked upward, rocketing back toward the surface.

Before anyone on shore could even react, he burst out of the lake and took to the air in one smooth motion.

He flew straight onto the skull of the undead queen and landed beside Nianxi.

The sudden shift left Li Ying, Mokong, and Ryan staring again in stunned silence. Water streamed off his clothes as he looked toward them calmly.

“As the killer,” Lin Fang said, his voice steady, “it’s within my right to do whatever I want with it. I took the core. As I promised, the body and the head are yours, Li Ying.” He paused, then added simply, “Goodbye.”

The undead anaconda began to move.

Its colossal body turned away from the lake and slid toward the forest, crushing trees, rocks, and undergrowth in its path as if the land itself were made of paper.

The ground trembled with each movement. Lin Fang and Nianxi rode atop it as it disappeared into the darkness.

Li Ying stood there long after they were gone, listening to the distant destruction fade. She exhaled slowly and murmured under her breath, “The Li family really are fools. To force someone like him away from Li Xue… what a waste.”

*

On the monster’s head, Nianxi kept sneaking glances at Lin Fang. Every few seconds, her eyes drifted back to his face before she hurriedly looked away again.

After the fifth time, he finally noticed.

“What is it?” he asked.

Their eyes met. Nianxi’s face flushed instantly, and she turned her head so fast she almost lost her balance. “Nothing,” she said quietly.

But in her heart, her thoughts were in chaos. He’s not scarred or ugly. Not cold like I imagined. This Gege is just… so good looking. Why was he hiding a face like this behind that mask? Is he a celebrity? She couldn’t help but wonder.

*

Meanwhile, far away in the control room of the Command Center, Feng Xiu paced slowly in front of the screens, hands behind his back. The drone feed from Sector 77 still hadn’t returned. His patience was thinning when a staff member suddenly spoke up.

“Sir, the regional lord of Sector 77… It’s gone. It’s been taken down.”

“Taken down?” Feng Xiu stopped mid-step and turned. His brows pulled together as he processed the words. “Was it Lin Fang? Or the Dark Warrior Guild trio? Or did they work together?”

He looked back at the giant map of the wilderness on the wall and muttered, “We’ll find out when the heads are submitted. The one who killed must have the head anyway…”

*

Over the next thirty hours, strange reports spread through the wild zones.

A colossal anaconda was rampaging through Sector 77, tearing through packs of monsters like a natural disaster.

Wherever it passed, beasts fell in droves. Their spirit cores vanished without a trace, yet their massive heads were left behind, untouched and displayed like warnings.

The so-called danger zone turned into a slaughter ground. And with every new report, one name began to spread quietly among the hunters, spoken with a mix of awe and fear.

The Black Wolf.

Since no one knows this mysterious expert, those who managed to take a glimpse at him, they only saw only a man and a short woman, both wearing black clothes and wearing a black wolf mask.

*

On the final day of the trials;

Dawn broke over Sector 94 with a cold, pale light that washed the battlefield in gray and silver.

The ground was torn apart, cracked, and dug into by hours of brutal combat.

At the center of the destruction, Kong, the Emperor Tier beast, the so-called ruler of this entire open dungeon, knelt on one massive fist.

Its fur was soaked dark with blood, one eye swollen shut, its towering chest rising and falling in ragged breaths.

Across the ruined field, four A-rank hunters stood in a loose formation, all of them wounded, all of them trembling from exhaustion, but their eyes still burned with fierce hope.

They had pushed the monster to this point with everything they had left.

Victory felt close enough to touch.

One of the hunters laughed weakly and staggered forward, gripping his weapon with both hands as if afraid his fingers would let go. “It’s done,” he said under his breath.

“Just push once more.” Another hunter tried to stand straighter, wiping blood from his mouth.

Even the third, slumped against a shattered boulder, forced himself upright with shaking legs. They could all feel it. The Emperor Tier beast was about to fall.

Then the world around suddenly bent.

An invisible force slammed down on everything without warning.

The four hunters were driven to their knees in an instant, bones creaking under crushing pressure.

Even Kong let out a deep, pained roar as its massive body was forced lower, its arms trembling violently as the weight doubled again and again and again to the point that it couldn’t get up anymore.

“Wha…”

“what’s going on…”

“This suppression…”

“Who is it?”

“This isn’t aura. It’s Gravi… Ugh…”

Footsteps echoed calmly through the warped gravity.

A woman stepped forward as if she were walking through shallow water instead of a storm of pressure.

She wore a sharp, tailored suit more fitting for a corporate boardroom than a battlefield. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes. Her steps were unhurried, clean, precise. The strongest gravity in the region bowed to her will.

One of the hunters lifted his head with trembling effort. His pupils shrank in horror, recognizing the stranger. “You…” his voice cracked. “Myra… how did you get here?”

The woman paused and took off her shades with a faint, amused smile. “Oh,” she said lightly, “you’re still alive, Captain Ryder? I remember you from that Grade-1 instant dungeon back in Western Chu. You did better than I expected.” She tilted her head slightly. “That won’t last, though.”

The hunter clenched his teeth, blood dripping from his chin as he forced out words under the pressure. “You think you can kill us and steal the kill and still escape? Look up. The drones already saw you. You’re finished.”

Myra’s smile widened. She raised one finger and snapped.

In the next heartbeat, the air shimmered around them.

Dozens of figures appeared as if peeled out of nothing, heavy silhouettes landing around the battlefield in a perfect ring.

At their feet, dark cloaks slipped from invisible bodies and fell to the ground like discarded skins. The hunter’s face twisted in fury and disbelief.

“Cloaks of invisibility…” he growled.

Myra nodded with casual pride. “Simple. Effective. Expensive too.” She glanced at Kong, still struggling under the monstrous weight. “The gorilla isn’t even our main target. It’s just a bonus that I decided on a whim. Thanks for weakening it for us.”

The hunters tried to rise, but it was already too late.

The robots lifted their mana blasters in perfect unison.

Blue-white light flared.

The battlefield exploded in flashes and thunderous shots.

The four hunters were cut down where they knelt, bodies collapsing without another sound.

In the sky above, the remaining drones tried to flee, but precise beams tore through them before they could escape. Burning wreckage fell in spirals of smoke and sparks.

Silence rushed back in, broken only by the labored breathing of the Emperor Tier beast.

Myra walked closer to Kong, her heels pressing lightly against shattered stone as if the ground were solid marble beneath her feet.

She raised her hand slowly, palm facing downward.

“Kneel,” she said.

The gravity surged again.

Eightfold became sixteenfold.

Kong’s arms buckled. *Graaaaa* Its roar turned into a strangled bellow as its massive body was driven flat into the earth. The shock split the ground in deep radial cracks.

The Emperor Tier beast lay pinned, muscles shuddering, rage and pain glaring through its one open eye.

Myra watched it calmly, then murmured to herself, “Once you’re taken care of… we can finally proceed with our plan.”

*

Meanwhile, elsewhere;

The massive, corpse-pale body of the undead Green Anaconda slid forward through the broken forest like a moving hill of bones and ruined scales.

Its coils crushed bushes, snapped trees at the root, and ground monster carcasses into the soil as it advanced.

Another Elite-tier Armored Babirusa lay split open beneath its path, blood still steaming in the early morning air.

The thing barely had time to squeal before the anaconda’s shadow swallowed it whole.

Above all the destruction, Lin Fang lay sprawled on the monster’s skull like a man sleeping on a drifting boat, one arm dangling over the edge, breath steady and slow.

*Ding!

*Ding!

*Ding!

A soft chime echoed every few seconds, and the pale-blue holographic screen floated lazily beside his face, stacking reward after reward in quiet succession.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep