'These beasts must have all been chased out by the Super beast that keeps roaring.'
Long Tian finally realized why he had encountered so many beasts.
All the beasts, or at least the majority of them, that were in the first ring must have fled to the outer rings.
Long Tian had read in a forum that the first ring is the largest, and in its center there is a huge mountain that no one had ever managed to climb.
So it is not a surprise that the fourth ring had such a strong beast as that tiger that even the group did not know about, and the third ring was so infested with beasts.
Long Tian reached this conclusion as his naginata pierced the body of the spider, right where its brain was.
Long Tian continued forward, encountering and killing another 3 sacred blood spiders and a sacred blood Ambusher Boar, that was almost 10 meters tall. The most curious thing about these boars was that in the outer rings, where vegetation was sparser, their method of hunting really did not work.
But here, in the forest of death, the boar had almost fallen down on him.
Yes, the boars climbed the trees, somehow, and jumped down to kill prey with their weight.
A bizarre hunting strategy. But it almost got him. It was his Space art that saved him once again, allowing him to perceive the boar just as it was about to land on him.
He killed it by simply stabbing the naginata in its eyes, it did not have enough agility to dodge him.
Its beast soul was a dagger. Truly a strange creature.
He then reached the mountains separating the third and second rings.
There were very few clouds in the region of the sanctuary he was in, very rarely raining. But the few clouds he saw in the sky still seemed to be at a height that still could only be called the base of the mountain.
It was very tall. Almost as tall as the mountain he lived on Long Planet.
Sighing, Long Tian started searching for a low point in the mountains where he could more easily pass through.
...
In the first ring, loud sounds of battle and collisions were echoing all around. However, they did not spread to the other rings as the previous roars because of the massive mountains that encircled the first ring.
That roar had clearly been special.
On the center of the first ring, there was a mountain so high that one could not see its top from the ground. Up this mountain, at a few kilometers of height, there was a cave.
Inside this cave were a group of hunters that had come with the intention of hunting a super beast but ended up being hunted by them.
There was a large number of bodies in the cave, with only ten people alive remaining.
Eight of them were unconscious, but they had been bandaged recently and looked like they would survive.
At this moment, the only two awake people were at the mouth of the cave, looking towards the distance.
They were two women.
One was tall and had a short black hair, reaching her shoulders.
She looked like she was in her twenties and had a strict face. Her face was quite beautiful, but her expression made her seem unapproachable. Uniquely, her eyes were yellow, a rare color in the alliance even in today's age.
Her body was covered in black military clothes that could not hide her figure. Tall and curvaceous, she was a beautiful lady. Her abdomen was covered in bandages. On her left shoulder, there was a type of military insignia, three horizontal silver lines, all stacked on top of each other.
At that moment, the tall woman seemed to see something outside the cave and rapidly signalized with her hands for them to return deeper into the cave.
The other woman was average in height, with even shorter black hair and black eyes, the most common in the alliance.
She was not as curvaceous as the other woman and also had a strict air about her. She wore the same black military clothes that had two silver lines on her shoulder. She was bandaged on her chest, where there was clearly a serious wound.
Once they had walked deep enough into the cave, reaching where their companions were, all wearing black military clothes, the shorter woman spoke.
"Captain, what are we going to do? We only have food for a week and those beasts have been fighting for three days now."
The tall woman sat down with her back to the cave wall.
"We can only wait. I once read in my clan's archives that once Super beasts get strong enough, they will try to ascend. The big one seems to be at this stage, he is probably trying to kill the other two and eat them to ascend. We just have to wait for it to ascend. Then we can leave."
Her voice was surprisingly mellow, having a pleasant ring to it.
The other woman could only nod, going towards their unconscious companions to check on their conditions.
…
Long Tian had reached the top of the lowest point he could find in the mountains between the third and second ring.
The snow layer on the ground was extremely thick, and even with his high fitness, he was having difficulties walking here.
He was lucky and had chosen a spot with no goats to pass through, so he just continued forward.
His armor protected him against the cold, and he was thankful for that, as he had a feeling that even his superhuman body would feel cold here.
Just as Long Tian was getting close to the other side of the mountain.
"ROAR!!!"
The sound was loud, incredibly so. Even though he was sure it came from the first ring, it still made him have to cover his ears.
After the sound ended, a serious look appeared on Long Tian's face. He could feel his ears ringing from the sound.
The beast was tens of kilometers away from him, with a massive mountain between them, but its roar could still make his ears hurt. He was not a common human; he would not feel discomfort even if an explosion happened right by his ear.
But now, there was a beast almost capable of hurting him from so far away.
'I probably can't win against it as I am right now. I will have to hunt a squirrel.'
He continued his journey, now having understood the terror of the beast that he was going to face, he decided to first maximize his Sacred Blood gene points.
The flying squirrel was the smallest beast in these mountain rings. Its mutant version only weighed about 5kg, and its beast soul was a flying type.
Long Tian had never seen one, but he read about it in the forums and the group had talked about it.
It is the rarest beast, only found in the Deep Forest of Death, which is the second ring. They stay on the top of the massive trees and can fly if they feel danger.
There have been few records of people hunting them. And normally those that do have flying beast souls, as it is the only way to reach them.
Long Tian did not have a flying beast soul, but he reasoned that if he could find an ordinary or primitive Flying Squirrel, he could start from the bottom until he had a flying beast soul capable of reaching a sacred blood flying squirrel.
Once Long Tian reached the edge and could finally see the second ring, he was a bit shocked.
The trees were simply too big. From where he was standing, all he could see were treetops.
He should be at 12km altitude, at the very least. And even from up here he could see each individual tree, just proving how exaggerated they were.
The view was beautiful at least. In the distant horizon he could see a massive wall, that should be the mountains that contained the first ring.
He could actually see a bit of the curvature in those mountains, as all other mountains he had traversed before just appeared to go on a straight line due to the magnitude of their circumference.
The bottom of the view, occupied solely by treetops almost looked like a magical garden, a very oversized one.
He could occasionally see small dots flying in the air. Those should be the squirrels.
They apparently could fly over the mountain he was on top of. But they chose to remain in the first and second ring, as the trees were tall enough to make them virtually untouchable.
Looking straight down, Long Tian could see the edge of the forest, and it was overflowing with beasts.
"This is going to be fun."
Then, with a smile, he jumped off the edge. He stabbed the naginata into the mountainside as he fell, slowing down just enough so he would not lose control.
He took almost 5 minutes to reach the ground, proving how high he was.
Upon reaching the ground, he was immediately attacked by a sacred blood grass lizard together with dozens of mutant ones.
Grass lizards were not tall, with this sacred blood one only being two meters tall at the shoulder. But they were incredibly long, almost like a snake.
Seeing the 10-meter-long mutants and their 20 meters long leader come at him, Long Tian simply dashed towards the sacred blood and hacked at its head, splitting its skull.
The beast soul of these lizards was an arrow, a green one.
Just remembering about the green arrows made Long Tian feel a little sad.
After killing all the beasts in the vicinity, Long Tian summoned the super beast soul arrow just to see how they looked.
In his hands suddenly appeared a meter long arrow. It was a very light green; its point was extremely sharp, and it looked extremely beautiful.
'I will keep it as a memento.'
Unsummoning the arrow, he continued forward. He remembered that the squirrels were flying over the middle of the forest. So that was probably where their bands were.
Long Tian had to fight even more beasts than in the third ring. And sacred blood beasts appeared almost every 100 meters, almost always fighting against other sacred bloods.
He fought Bloodthirsty Rabits, Wood Pythons, Small Green Bears, Forest Deer, Ambusher Boars, Wood Spiders and Grass Lizards.
He also found a few beasts that he had never seen or heard of before, probably unique to the first ring.
King Gorillas, Giant Mouses and even a Green Beetle that could fly for short distances.
After fighting the entire catalog of the Ten Rings Mountains, Long Tian reached what he felt was the middle of the forest.
He chose a tree, took out two swords, and started climbing the tree by stabbing the swords into the wood, using them as support.
He climbed for a good while, losing sight of the ground due to the lower branches and leaves of the trees.
When he passed another layer of leaves, Long Tian looked up and finally saw what he had been searching for.
A hole in the tree, a pretty big one, actually.
This was probably where some squirrel colony lives.
As Long Tian approached the hole, he became more careful, making as little noise as possible, as he did not want to be attacked by hundreds of flying squirrels while atop a giant tree.
As he got closer to the hole, he realized that it was pretty big, enough to allow him to enter while standing up.
When he was about to reach the hole, a little head suddenly poked out of it.
Long Tian froze, still some meters from the hole. The squirrel first looked up, seeing no threat in the sky, it looked towards the sides before looking down.
But the moment it looked down, a blade impaled it.
*Ding*
[Mutant Beast Flying Squirrel killed. Beast Soul of Mutant Flying Squirrel gained.]
[Supreme Evolution activated. Beast Soul of Sacred-Blood Flying Squirrel gained.]
[Eat its flesh to gain up to 100 Mutant Gene Points.]
There was a sudden noise from inside the hole, and Long Tian immediately summoned the beast soul of the squirrel.
Suddenly a pair of wings grew out of the armor on Long Tian's back. It was covered in white fur, so its true appearance could not be discerned.
Long Tian suddenly felt a new connection in his brain, as if he had gained a new limb.
He tested moving it and the wing behind him moved.
At that moment, hundreds of noises came from the hole and an army of squirrels came flying out.
Long Tian desperately started flapping the wings, shooting up with incredible speed, colliding with a dozen squirrels before hitting a branch.
He grabbed the branch and started more gently flapping his wings. Gradually, he felt the force he needed to make to not fall diminish before he was making force to not go up.
He then released the branch and started floating.
Looking around, there were thousands of squirrels around him, in the air and in the other trees, all looking at him.
The majority of them were very small, about the same as a common squirrel, but some were larger, the size of rabbits.
At this moment, a screech came from high above, and an even bigger squirrel appeared.
The other squirrels were all brown, with the mutant ones having a lighter color.
But this one was almost orange. It was the size of a bulldog and had a wingspan of about two meters.
Seeing him, the orange squirrel screeched once more and threw itself at him, with the others following.
These beasts hunt with their canines, that can change size depending on their target.
Seeing little thin knives growing out of the mouths of every squirrel, Long Tian was a bit spooked, thankful that he had a Super armor.
As the sacred blood one approached, Long Tian dashed towards it, taking a boost from the tree before starting to flap his wings.
When the two were about to collide, the squirrel lifted its head, making the canines point in his direction.
Long Tian, seeing that the canines were 'only' a meter long, just thrust his naginata forward, holding it towards the end of the pole so that it had more range.
The effect was as intended. The beast was skewered in the neck.
It made some struggling noises before the sound he was waiting for appeared.
*Ding*
[Sacred-Blood Beast Flying Squirrel killed. Beast Soul of Sacred-Blood Flying Squirrel gained.]
[Supreme Evolution activated. Beast Soul of Super Flying Squirrel gained.]
[Eat its flesh to gain up to 100 Sacred-Blood Gene Points.]
The rest of the squirrels, as usual, started to flee with some coming at him.
After he finished killing all that tried to attack him, he took the sacred blood body and returned to the hole where the squirrels came from.