readsfreenovel Chapter 222, Eastern Hunting Grounds
Chapter 222, Eastern Hunting Grounds
The eastern forest opened up gradually as they left the Zhao Family estate behind, the stone paths giving way to dense terrain that had clearly not been managed or cleared by human hands. The trees here were enormous, the kind of growth that only accumulated over centuries in an environment saturated with spiritual energy. The canopy above was thick enough that the light came through in columns rather than as general illumination.
Zhao Yuexin moved through it without slowing.
Lin Yi kept pace.
Lei Bao’s voice came from the blade, low and attentive. "Little one, the energy density here is considerably high. Monsters in this region will be correspondingly stronger."
Lin Yi said nothing aloud. He had already registered the difference. His Celestial Absorption passive was running at a rate that indicated the ambient spiritual energy concentration was exceptional.
Zhao Yuexin stopped at a natural ridge that overlooked a wide valley below. She looked at the terrain for a moment, then at him.
"The eastern hunting grounds are divided into three zones," she said. "The outer zone begins here. Monsters range from level 195 to level 210. The middle zone, two hours further in, runs from 210 to 225. The deep zone beyond that is restricted to family members above level 240." She paused. "You will start in the outer zone."
"And if the outer zone isn’t sufficient?" Lin Yi said.
Her eyes moved to his face. "Then you advance to the middle zone. But do not enter the deep zone. The monsters there are Catastrophic."
"Understood," Lin Yi said.
She studied him for a moment with the sharp attention she had been directing at him since the path encounter.
"I will observe your first engagement," she said. "After that, you continue alone."
Lin Yi looked at the valley below. Predatory Instinct’s enhanced range was already reading the population distribution, the Dragon God’s Eye integration providing spatial mapping data that located entities throughout the valley in precise coordinates rather than general zones.
The first reading that registered clearly was not from the outer edge.
It was from approximately three hundred meters into the valley floor.
---
[Void Crag Stalker]
Level: 202
HP: 284,600 / 284,600
Physical Attack: 4,820–5,480
Physical Defense: 4,240–4,780
Magic Resistance: 3,640–4,120
[A predator native to high-altitude spiritual energy zones. Its body phases partially out of physical space during attack sequences, making standard defensive positioning ineffective. The phase duration is brief but consistent, occurring at the apex of each attack arc. Weak point: the spinal ridge where the phase mechanism is anchored.]
---
Level 202.
Lin Yi looked at the prompt and noted it with the specific attention he had always given the first monster of a new environment. Not threat assessment. Calibration. Understanding where this tier sat relative to what he was capable of producing.
He stepped off the ridge.
He descended into the valley with Phantom Void Step, the spatial transition carrying him to a position sixty meters from the Void Crag Stalker before it had registered his approach. The Absolute Silence passive suppressed his energy signature during the descent, the Void Step Compression Stone’s residue reduction keeping the transition undetectable to perception up to level 220.
The Stalker registered him at forty meters when he allowed the Absolute Silence to drop.
It responded immediately, the phase mechanism activating as it oriented toward him, the partial phase shimmer visible around its body as it prepared its opening attack.
He let it come.
The attack arrived at his position and the phase component carried it through a partial spatial bypass that would have bypassed a standard defensive formation. Iron Body Fortification’s threshold was not a formation. It was constitutional. The phase component did not bypass it.
The attack landed. The threshold absorbed it.
Lin Yi drove the Thunder Surge Blade into the spinal ridge weak point the spatial mapping had marked with precise coordinates. Not a general location. The exact dimensional coordinates.
The blade hit the weak point at full output.
7,600 attack power behind Strength 7,124, the Abyssal grade’s enhanced scaling coefficient amplifying the effective output above the listed value.
The Void Crag Stalker dissolved.
---
[Void Crag Stalker Defeated]
[EXP Gained: +84,200]
[Reward Amplification Triggered — ×10,000]
[New EXP Gained: +842,000,000]
---
He looked at the notification. 842 million from a single level 202 elite. The 10,000x amplification applied to a monster tier he had not encountered before, the per-kill EXP base substantially higher than the level 145 to 165 range he had been working through in the Allheaven Expanse.
He turned toward the next reading on Predatory Instinct’s map.
From the ridge above, Zhao Yuexin watched him.
---
[Phantom Ridge Crusher]
HP: 312,400 / 312,400
Physical Attack: 5,240–5,920
Physical Defense: 4,680–5,280
Magic Resistance: 3,980–4,520
[A heavily armored predator that generates a seismic pressure field beneath its body. Ground-contact attacks within its field carry compounding force multipliers. Aerial approaches bypass the field entirely. Weak point: the dorsal energy node above the shoulder plates.]
---
He activated Heaven Step and approached from above, the 60% range enhancement from Void Step Compression Stone carrying him to the aerial position in a single transition. He drove the Thunder Surge Blade downward into the dorsal energy node from directly above.
The blade connected.
The Phantom Ridge Crusher’s seismic field had no target to work on. His approach had bypassed the field entirely.
One strike.
---
[Phantom Ridge Crusher Defeated]
[EXP Gained: +91,600]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP Gained: +916,000,000]
[Level Up! — Level 230 → Level 231]
---
He noted the level change with the quiet satisfaction of something resuming its natural function after a long interruption. His own level moving again, his own EXP accumulating, the slave mark’s redirection permanently absent.
He moved deeper into the valley.
---
The clearing rhythm established itself over the next four hours.
He worked through the outer zone systematically, the Predatory Instinct map providing the population layout, the Dragon God’s Eye’s spatial mapping upgrading each weak point from general location to precise dimensional coordinates that the Thunder Surge Blade reached without adjustment. The level 195 to 210 range produced consistent EXP at the 10,000x amplification rate, each kill contributing to a level advancement pace that the outer zone’s density sustained.
---
[Starfall Predator ×6 | Level 198]
[Starfall Predator ×6 Defeated]
[EXP: +78,400 × 6 = +470,400]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP: +4,704,000,000]
[Level Up! — Level 231 → Level 232]
[Level Up! — Level 232 → Level 233]
---
[Abyssal Stone Titan | Level 207 — Rare Elite]
HP: 486,000 / 486,000
Physical Attack: 6,120–6,840
Physical Defense: 5,680–6,340
Magic Resistance: 4,920–5,520
[A rare elite classification native to high-altitude stone formations. Body composed of condensed spiritual stone that absorbs standard energy strikes at the surface layer. Internal structure is less dense. Techniques that penetrate surface layer reach interior at full output. Weak point: the crystalline core in the lower thoracic cavity.]
---
He activated Absolute Domain. The Abyssal Stone Titan’s surface absorption property was the target. Void Severance’s spatial energy component bypassed surface layers by definition, the penetration ignoring physical defense percentage scaling from Spirit 6,131.
He layered Resonant Strike on top. The secondary burst detonated from within rather than from the surface, bypassing the absorption property from the inside.
The crystalline core received both simultaneously.
---
[Abyssal Stone Titan Defeated — Rare Elite Bonus]
[EXP: +142,800]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP: +1,428,000,000]
[Level Up! — Level 233 → Level 234]
---
Lei Bao crackled from the blade during the traversal between kills. "Little one, the monsters here are genuinely stronger than the ones in that floating expanse. I can feel the difference in the resistance when the blade contacts them."
"Yes," Lin Yi said.
"Which means the deep zone will be considerably more interesting," Lei Bao said, with the specific tone of something that found interesting and dangerous to be synonymous.
"The deep zone is restricted," Lin Yi said.
"You say that," Lei Bao replied, "as though you have ever let a restriction stop you before."
Lin Yi did not respond to this.
---
[Graviton Wolf Pack | Level 210 — Elite Pack]
HP: 328,000 / 328,000 each
Count: 8
Physical Attack: 5,480–6,120
Physical Defense: 4,840–5,480
Magic Resistance: 4,240–4,780
[Pack hunters that generate a coordinated gravitational suppression field. Individual gravity output is manageable. Combined field from eight or more creates an atmospheric suppression that compounds with each additional unit.]
---
Eight of them in coordinated formation, the gravitational suppression field building from individual contributions into a combined atmospheric effect that pressed against him from all directions simultaneously.
He activated Gravity Inversion.
The technique reversed gravitational force on all eight targets simultaneously. Grounded entities launched upward. He followed with Lighting Sword Qi in All-Points mode, the wide arc catching all eight in the air before the Gravity Inversion’s window closed.
All eight dissolved before they returned to the ground.
---
[Graviton Wolf ×8 Defeated]
[EXP: +108,400 × 8 = +867,200]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP: +8,672,000,000]
[Level Up! — Level 234 → Level 235]
[Level Up! — Level 235 → Level 236]
---
Two levels from a single coordinated engagement. He noted the increasing per-kill EXP values as the monster level bracket rose toward the top of the outer zone’s range. At level 210, the base EXP per kill was substantially higher than at level 195, the system’s scaling reflecting the quality difference between the brackets.
He moved toward the outer zone’s boundary, where the terrain shifted to indicate the transition into the middle zone.
---
[Celestial Mane Lion | Level 213 — Elite]
HP: 362,000 / 362,000
---
[Celestial Mane Lion Defeated]
[EXP: +118,200]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP: +1,182,000,000]
---
[Void Spire Drake ×4 | Level 217 — Elite]
---
[Void Spire Drake ×4 Defeated]
[EXP: +128,600 × 4 = +514,400]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP: +5,144,000,000]
[Level Up! — Level 236 → Level 237]
---
He was deep in the middle zone now, the terrain changed from the outer zone’s valley structure to a more vertical landscape, the spiritual energy density higher, the ambient sound of the environment different in the specific way of places where high-tier entities had been the dominant presence for long enough to change the character of the space.
The final engagement of the six-hour session was a Rare Elite that Predatory Instinct had been tracking since he entered the middle zone’s interior.
---
[Heaven’s Fang Serpent]
Threat Level: 221
HP: 628,000 / 628,000
Physical Attack: 7,240–8,120
Physical Defense: 6,480–7,280
Magic Resistance: 5,840–6,620
[A serpent of the upper-tier middle zone native population. Body length exceeds forty meters. Venom classified as Dao-disrupting, temporarily interfering with skill activation sequences on contact. Scales composed of compressed heavenly iron, resistant to standard blade techniques. Primary weak point: the third scale behind the left jaw, where scale density is lowest.]
---
He activated Dragon Sovereign. Into the sixty-second window he drove Convergence Blade through the three-second accumulation, the ambient spiritual energy feeding into the blade at the middle zone’s saturation rate, the release multiplier building to its maximum value at the full charge.
He released the accumulated strike at the precise dimensional coordinates the Dragon God’s Eye had mapped for the third scale behind the left jaw.
The compressed heavenly iron at every other point on the serpent’s body was irrelevant. He had not struck any other point.
The third scale behind the left jaw received the full Convergence Blade release at Dragon Sovereign enhanced output.
The serpent dissolved.
---
[Heaven’s Fang Serpent Defeated — Rare Elite Bonus]
[EXP: +198,400]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP: +1,984,000,000]
[Level Up! — Level 237 → Level 238]
---
He stood in the middle zone’s interior as the notification settled and looked at his current level.
238.
Eight levels in six hours.
Behind him, at a distance she had maintained throughout the session without announcing her continued presence, Zhao Yuexin stepped out of the treeline. She had not left after the first engagement as she said she would. She had followed at the distance of someone observing rather than accompanying.
She looked at him.
Then at the space around him, the dissolved remnants of the Heaven’s Fang Serpent still dissipating into the ambient energy.
With her high Cultivation level, she quickly took note of Lin Yi’s level.
238
Her expression, which had been controlled since their first encounter on the path, produced something it had not produced before.
"Eight levels," she said. "In six hours."