Deep within the Dark Forest…
The trees loomed taller, darker here, their gnarled roots twisting like the bones of buried giants.
Even the air began to feel denser.
Fang Yuan moved without haste, his youthful face serene, hands tucked behind his back as he stepped over mossy stones and ducked under low-hanging vines.
He looked more like a scholar on a countryside stroll than someone wandering into one of the deadliest places in the north.
Then he stopped.
His gaze narrowed slightly.
A pair of amber eyes blinked from the shadows ahead.
From the underbrush slithered a massive serpent, its body the width of a carriage wheel, covered in lustrous scales that shimmered like wet obsidian.
Its head rose above the grass with elegant lethality, tongue flickering lazily as it regarded him.
A Golden Core realm beast, no doubt, its aura oppressive, like a vice pressing on the lungs.
Fang Yuan tilted his head. "Oh? It's already at the Peak of Golden Core?"
