137: The Hunter… the Divine Power of Earth

Seeing Mu Tou and the others looking astonished, the hunter smiled sinisterly and said, "Think this is over? This is a biochemical battle beast from the Anubis Chamber of Commerce, rated as a B-tier combat unit by the plane system!"

Zi Gui held his stomach and laughed, "Oh my! I'm so scared..."

The hunter's mind was still relatively clear. Seeing the unconcerned expressions of Mu Tou and the others, he grew secretly vigilant and scoffed, "Humph! If you know what's good for you, leave all your spatial bracelets, belts, rings, and everything else behind, and Grandpa will spare your lives!"

Mu Tou gave a faint smile and replied, "If we leave these things behind, will you really spare our lives?"

The hunter was overjoyed, thinking to himself, "So they were just putting on a calm front on purpose! I knew it—they're clearly newcomers, they couldn't possibly possess overwhelming strength!" With that thought, he sneered, "Why don't you ask them yourselves!" With a wave of his hand, the lion-beast let out a roar to the heavens and lunged fiercely toward the group.

"You're courting death..." The usually taciturn Baldy took the initiative, rushing forward to intercept one of the lion-beasts and delivering a direct punch to its chest.

As expected of a B-tier biochemical battle beast, the creature actually raised its arms to block Baldy's punch. However, even before fusing with the Dragon King's Heart, Baldy already possessed A-tier strength; the lion-beast naturally could not withstand the sheer force of his blow, staggering back a few steps.

Baldy let out a roar, "Nobody else moves, leave them all to me!" With another ferocious shout, the muscles across his body bulged. With a grunt, his arms suddenly thickened, and he grabbed the retreating lion-beast, slammed it violently onto the ground, and stomped his foot down upon it. The iron armor failed to withstand Baldy's immense strength, and with a sharp crack, the beast's bones appeared to shatter.

Yet the battle beast seemed indifferent to pain; it released its long spear, grabbed hold of Baldy's leg, and the remaining lion-beasts roared and rushed forward!

"Gravity Field!" Baldy roared deeply, and a pale yellow halo expanded outward from his feet. Instantly, the charging lion-beasts were overwhelmed by the sudden surge in gravity and collapsed onto the ground.

Taking advantage of this opening, Baldy bent down, wrapped his hands around the lion-beast's head, and twisted with all his might. With a soft snap, he completely broke its neck.

Immediately afterward, Baldy charged toward the nearest lion-beast. "Beast God Transformation—Power of the Dragon King!" With a single punch, he struck the chest of a lion-beast that was trying to get back up, causing its ribcage to visibly cave inward before it slumped limply, clearly dead.

The Power of the Dragon King was terrifyingly immense. With subsequent punches and kicks, Baldy effortlessly dispatched all the surrounding lion-beasts.

Gu Feng remarked, "Baldy originally possessed strength above the A-tier. After fusing with the Dragon King's Heart, using the Beast God Transformation grants him strength roughly equivalent to the S-tier."

Mu Tou also nodded and said, "Baldy seems to follow the path of pure physical strength. His personality and physique certainly suit it well."

Zi Gui's eyes widened as he exclaimed, "This... Baldy is way too overpowered. B-tier... S-tier, there are two whole ranks in between, how can the gap be so huge?"

Gu Feng explained, "If it were between B-tier and A-tier, the gap wouldn't be this drastic, but Baldy has already reached near-S-tier strength... The chasm in power between A-tier and S-tier is as vast as the abyss."

Seeing Baldy defeat the beasts with such terrifying ease, the hunter was scared out of his wits. With a shrill cry, he traced a finger through the void, summoned two more lion-beasts, and turned to flee.

However, the group had no intention of letting him escape. Gu Feng flicked his hand and softly commanded, "Spatial confinement, lock!" binding the hunter firmly in place.

At that exact moment, the two new lion-beasts intercepted Baldy. However, they differed somewhat from the previous beasts: not only were they taller and more robust, but their iron armor gleamed with a silver luster, clearly crafted from vastly superior materials. This was evidently the hunter's ultimate trump card for survival. Yet, having witnessed Baldy's earlier display, the hunter knew these two beasts were no match for him either, which was why he had attempted to flee the moment he summoned them. Unfortunately for him, his luck was exceptionally poor, running afoul of a powerhouse like Mu Tou who bound him in place with a casual gesture.

Shortly after, he watched in horror as his two trump-card lion-beasts had their brains splattered effortlessly by Baldy, whose fierce glare then shifted toward him. At that moment, he felt his body lighten, realizing he had broken free from the confinement. Yet for some reason, his legs turned to jelly, and he found he could no longer run. He collapsed to his knees and stammered, "No, don't kill me, I'm begging you!"

Baldy walked up to him, looked down from on high, and raised a single hand, preparing to strike.

The hunter knew that with Baldy's immense strength, a blow from that hand would surely crush his skull and leave him dead without a doubt. In this critical moment, he shrieked, "Don't kill me... Alcaeus sent me to track you down, I'm his subordinate!"

"Alcaeus!?" Mu Tou and the others froze, finding the name rather a mouthful.

Believing they recognized Alcaeus's terrifying reputation, the hunter blurted out, "Yes! If you kill me, you'll offend Lord Alcaeus, so..."

"Who on earth is Alcaeus? Why would we not dare to kill you just because you're his subordinate?" Mu Tou asked.

The hunter's jaw dropped, clearly not expecting Mu Tou and his companions to be ignorant of Alcaeus. He slapped his own forehead and muttered, "I forgot... you must be newcomers who just entered the Great Spacetime Trading Plane, so you don't know Alcaeus's reputation. He is a powerhouse holding the divine authority of the God of the Earth, having already stepped into the realm of true deities!"

"The God of the Earth?" Mu Tou asked curiously, "He sent you to hunt us down? A powerhouse who has already attained divine authority would stoop to this?"

The hunter replied as if it were the most natural thing in the world, "The Great Spacetime Trading Plane is inherently a world where the strong prey upon the weak. If your strength is lacking, it's completely normal to be targeted by hunters like us."

Gu Feng suddenly asked, "Then do you possess a divine rank bestowed upon you by Alcaeus?"

The hunter answered, "Not yet, my strength is still too weak."

Baldy smiled wickedly, "In that case, go die!" With those words, he brought his fist crashing down.

"Stop!" The hunter screamed in despair, burying his head in his hands. Yet his luck held; just as Baldy's fist descended, a golden round shield came flying through the air, followed by a red-clothed figure that caught the shield and intercepted Baldy's blow.

"Oh!" Baldy let out a strange cry. Although the hunter was weak, he hadn't used his full power, yet he was confident that punch could shatter even solid steel—only for it to be blocked by a mere round shield.

"Lord Lohnos, thank you so much!" The hunter cried out in ecstasy upon seeing the newcomer. "My lord, these people actually dare to disrespect Lord Alcaeus..."

Before he could finish his sentence, the man grabbed him by the collar, tossed him aside as if he were a sack of goods, and stared coldly at Baldy.

The person who had rescued the hunter was dressed in red and white, an extremely robust man whose height and build rivaled Baldy's. His muscles rippled, instantly marking him as a martial artist following the path of physical strength, though his gaze was icy—terrifyingly icy, devoid of the slightest trace of life.

Gu Feng, Baldy, and the others closely inspected the sudden arrival, while Mu Tou stared fixedly at the golden round shield in the man's hand, a strange sensation rising within him. He felt as though the shield was terribly familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

"Lohnos, divine general under the command of Lord Alcaeus!" the newcomer announced his affiliation.

"Baldy!" A fierce, blazing light ignited in Baldy's eyes. He could sense the immense power contained within the opponent's massive frame; clearly, this was a powerhouse treading the exact same path as himself.

"Leave your spatial bracelets behind! I can spare your lives!" Lohnos uttered the exact same demand as the hunter before him.

Baldy laughed heartily, "If you want to take our belongings, you'll have to show us what you're truly made of!"

"Humph!" Lohnos let out a cold grunt, spread his arms wide, and pressed toward Baldy. Intent on testing his strength against the newcomer, Baldy met him with both arms extended. With a dull, muffled thwack of colliding limbs, both men swayed slightly and muttered simultaneously, "Good!" Their physical strength proved to be an absolute match.

Without resorting to special techniques, the two men relied purely on their monstrous might, engaging in fierce close-quarters combat.

"Humph!"

"Ha!"

With every grunt of exertion, the ground where they stood cracked and indented into footprints of varying depths, testifying to the fact that both were unleashing their full strength. After trading blows for a while, Baldy grew excited and roared, "Beast God Transformation—Power of the Dragon King!" He hurled a punch directly at Lohnos.

Lohnos's eyes narrowed as he sensed the terrifying destructive force contained within Baldy's punch. He summoned the golden round shield to protect his front, taking the full brunt of the blow head-on. Although the immense force sent him sliding backward, carving two deep trenches into the earth with his boots, the golden round shield remained completely unblemished, and he himself sustained zero injury—a testament to its formidable defensive capabilities.

Baldy was even more astonished. Knowing full well the devastating magnitude of that punch, seeing Lohnos deflect it effortlessly with that shield, he roared, pressed his body forward, and unleashed a barrage of punches, kicks, and elbow strikes.

His Beast God Transformation had a time limit, and the Power of the Dragon King could only be maintained for a mere ten minutes. Therefore, he launched a storm of attacks, hoping to beat his opponent down as quickly as possible. Yet this Lohnos was extraordinarily formidable. Under Baldy's ferocious assault, though he defended with extreme difficulty—flickering like a candle in a tempest, on the verge of being extinguished at any second—he relied on the shield in his hand to emerge completely unharmed.

Though Mu Tou was racking his brains trying to figure out what that shield actually was, seeing Lohnos withstand such ferocious pressure without injury felt slightly off. After observing for a moment and sensing the fluctuations of heaven and earth genuine Qi, he finally detected the anomaly and said with a shocked expression, "Baldy, he... seems to be drawing strength directly from the earth."

"Hehehe... You finally figured it out!" It was the hunter, hiding off to the side, who spoke. His smug smile paired with his leering triangular eyes looked exceptionally loathsome. "Lohnos is one of Lord Alcaeus's most capable divine generals. He wields the Earthly Power bestowed upon him by our Lord. Fighting him is no different from fighting the earth itself! Hhahaha... You're all dead meat."

"Damn... Is this the influence of the Earth God's divine authority?" Baldy muttered mid-fight. "No wonder! Turns out I've been fighting the earth itself. Well then... I'll just have to make it impossible for him to draw strength from the earth."