None of the three—Evan Lin, Shadow, or Goldwing—moved. They just stared straight ahead at the disturbance in the distance. After a few breaths, a flurry of hurried footsteps reached their ears, and soon, at least several hundred towering, pitch-black monsters surrounded them.
"What are these things? Dark Immortal Beasts? But there’s no Immortal Essence in here at all!" Evan Lin exclaimed in shock.
He scanned the dark monsters with his divine sense and found that none of them were particularly powerful—at best, they were Golden Immortal level. To the three of them, these monsters posed no real threat.
The monsters let out a series of ear-piercing cries, like the roars of wild beasts. Evan Lin and his companions couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was obvious their appearance here was the cause.
At that moment, several dark monsters close to the trio charged forward. In the firelight from Evan Lin’s conjured flames, he saw that these monsters were humanoid but had no hands.
Where their arms should have been, there were two massive black scythes, each at least two meters long and nearly scraping the ground. At that moment, those two giant scythes were swinging straight at him.
"Shadow, Old Goldwing, wipe out these things! They actually dare to ignore us!" Evan Lin barked.
Shadow and Goldwing were battle maniacs by nature. Hearing Evan Lin’s order, they instantly perked up. Both beasts struck out with a palm, blasting the charging dark monsters away. At their current strength, able to challenge mid-stage Immortal Emperors, these Golden Immortal-level monsters were naturally no match.
One hit sent them flying for hundreds of meters, but Evan Lin quickly noticed something odd: the monsters weren’t actually dying. For example, after Shadow split one open with a palm, the surrounding dark energy instantly poured into its body, and within a few breaths, it was completely restored—like an unkillable cockroach.
If that was the case, then even Immortal Emperors would be exhausted to death fighting these things. Every bit of Immortal Essence used here was gone for good, and with no ambient Essence, only Immortal Stones could replenish it.
"Boss, these things are freaky! They just won’t die—what should we do?" Goldwing complained.
Evan Lin frowned and said, "There’s no such thing as an immortal monster. We just haven’t found their weakness yet. If we can find it, we can kill them. Or maybe they need a much stronger attack that annihilates both body and soul in one blow—only then can they truly die."
Shadow and Goldwing found this convincing. With a flash of light, they shifted into their true forms for battle. Goldwing erupted in golden light, his massive body preparing to take flight—only to find, to his dismay, that flying here was impossible. He was instantly shocked.
"Boss, we can’t fly in here! This place is way too weird!" he immediately called out to Evan Lin.
"Is that even possible?" Evan Lin wondered, trying to use Shifting Position to teleport—only to confirm he couldn’t fly at all. The whole situation reminded him of the Death-Tower Grounds in the lower realm, where some kind of law restricted movement, though he couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause here.
At that moment, Shadow opened his massive jaws and let out a roar so powerful it could rupture eardrums—his ultimate skill, Lion’s Roar, a sonic attack.
The roar instantly created several black, wind-like killing belts around them, shredding dozens of dark monsters to bits. Once inside the wind belts, the monsters were ground to dust, leaving no remains and unable to recover.
Seeing the results, Evan Lin laughed, "Nice one, Shadow! Hit them with ten or eight more Lion’s Roars and these things will be toast!"
Shadow turned back, looking frustrated, and said, "Boss, you really think this is some ordinary skill? Each time I use it, it burns a ton of Immortal Essence. I can manage three times at most—ten or eight would kill me!"
Hearing that, Evan Lin immediately understood—Shadow’s Lion’s Roar was just like his own Divine Cleave. Every use drained massive Immortal Essence, making it a trump card to be used only when absolutely necessary.
There were hundreds of dark monsters around them—killing a few dozen barely made a dent. As the monsters surged forward again, Evan Lin’s temper flared. "Hell no! Just because the tiger’s quiet, you really think I’m a sick cat?" he cursed.
He drew the Frostbane Divine Sword from his storage ring and channeled a strand of Chaos Immortal Force into it. The sword erupted with blazing light, and the charging dark monsters instantly froze, as if sensing mortal danger—some even started retreating.
Seeing this, Evan Lin realized the monsters must have sensed the Frostbane Divine Sword’s overwhelming aura and, on pure instinct, judged it as a deadly threat.
Just then, a sharp, high-pitched roar rang out from the monster horde. The place was pitch-black, but back when Evan Lin trained in space black holes, he’d learned to see in total darkness.
When he first came in, the sudden shift from light to darkness had thrown him off, but now he could see his surroundings clearly. Following the sound, he spotted a monster nearly twice as large as the others.
A dark monster king—Evan Lin’s first thought. If he could kill this one, the rest of the ‘shrimp soldiers and crab generals’ wouldn’t be a problem. But in this space, flight was impossible, so sneaking around to strike from behind was out of the question. He’d have to carve his way through the horde first.
"Shadow, Old Goldwing, clear the monsters in front! There’s a monster king up ahead—we need to take it down!" Evan Lin ordered.
With a flash, he used Shifting Position. The Frostbane Divine Sword unleashed Star-Cleave. At his current level, Star-Cleave barely drained his Chaos Immortal Force but hit like a truck—more than enough to wipe out these monsters.
A devastating wave of sword-qi swept out, knocking down a huge swath of monsters. The dozens in the very front were obliterated—no corpses, no remains—while those behind quickly started regenerating.
At that moment, Evan Lin was like a slaughter machine, madly harvesting the lives of these dark monsters. But these creatures were made entirely of dark energy—there was no blood at all, and even after he cut down swathes of them, not a single drop appeared.
But on the ground, plenty of dark-law beads appeared—just like the one he’d obtained before. "Shadow, Old Goldwing, grab the beads on the ground!" Evan Lin called.
“There are beads over there, Boss, but this place is pitch-black everywhere. We feel like we're blind here—this is something you'll have to handle yourself!” Goldwing grumbled gloomily.
At that moment, after Evan Lin slaughtered a large swath of the dark monsters, the gigantic monster king suddenly threw back its head and let out a sky-shaking roar. The ground all around them began to tremble violently once more...