CHAPTER 321: FIRST MOVE

"Hey! Hey! Get back here! Don’t say something like that and just disappear!! What the hell?" Damon started sweating. So he was right after all! The damn thing had seen him and was definitely continuing to see him. Then why the hell hadn’t it attacked him yet?

He waited for the damn snake woman, but she went completely radio silent and did not bother answering anything he asked. Could she even do that, considering he was now bonded with the ring?

Damon did not know, but it sure looked like it. "Whatever!" Damon gave up after a few minutes. The corrupted continued recklessly running towards him, and nothing had really changed. There was only one question in front of him.

Leave now? Or stay a while and leave later?

A part of him also doubted if he would be able to leave peacefully. What if the thing was only calm because he hadn’t tried to leave yet? What if it decided to finally make its move when he activated the teleportation skill?

Damon thought about it, but then shook his head. He was definitely overthinking things. He had come here only after knowing how dangerous things were but this was not the same as the purification raid. Even if the boss was triggered, it wouldn’t be an impossible fight.

The big boss inside was peak C rank at most. Damon still had no idea what specific beast it was but the information about its power level was rock solid. He knew it was some sort of draconic beast but the exact boss details were not released to the public.

The only thing everyone warned about was the noxious environment here and how the players were susceptible to mental corruption and physical sickness once they stepped into the zone. Apparently some even experienced sudden health loss and inexplicable death.

Damon still hadn’t experienced this sort of sudden health loss but everything else was well within control. The only thing that was slightly shocking was the mana sense of the beast.

Damon couldn’t help but feel that something was off. Could a peak C rank beast really have such strong mana sense? Mana sense spreading to this distance without even stepping outside its lair felt unnatural.

Even the strongest C ranks he had fought before couldn’t project their perception through layers of stone, poison haze, and corrupted mana streams like this.

He cut down another plagueforged ogre, its corpse collapsing into a puddle of oily sludge, and the thought stuck in his mind like a burr, either the intel he had was wrong, or this "peak C rank" wasn’t what it seemed.

Maybe it was wounded, maybe it was sealed, or maybe it was something far older pretending to be weaker so idiots like him would wander in unprepared?

Maybe it was using some sort of natural array to sense those who wandered into its territory? Maybe its power depended on the amount of corrupted here and since he was culling down quite a few, it came to notice him?

Damon had a lot of theories and a lot of hypothesis but ultimately it did not matter. As long as the thing was silently observing him, he was not prepared to leave this gold mine just yet. Not just his skills but his mental resistance and soul resistance was also increasing little by little.

He needed to prepare at least this much for the Blood lands. A lot was riding on his trip to Blood lands including finding a suitable soul cultivation technique.

Besides, he took out a shiny stone and rolled it in his palm. He had already acquired two evolution stones here. If he could somehow acquire a few more and then he would be able to evolve his race once again.

Damon quickly doubled down and continued his slaughter. He stuck to the outer area and farmed some more. Soon some more time passed by and system shut down kicked all the players within the world. Damon was still fine inside the world and he used this time to continue grinding.

The next twelve hours as well passed by in a jiffy and once again everyone else logged back into the game. By this time Kaelthorn had somewhat adjusted to the toxic environment but he still only managed to stay in the outer boundary, not able to get too far in.

Damon, on the other hand, finally encountered something interesting. As he cut down the abonimation in front of him, he noticed a sudden disturbance in the distance. The abominations seemed to be clustered together weirdly.

The corrupted creatures that only roamed in threes or fives until now, all of a sudden started gathering together, heading in a single direction, his direction!

The huge herd of corrupted abominations were heading straight for him!

The ground began to tremble under the synchronized, uneven march of hundreds of feet, claws, and talons. Damon narrowed his eyes, his vision cutting through the poison haze just enough to make out shapes, twisted silhouettes moving in jerky unison, their glowing eyes fixed entirely on him.

The poisonous mist seemed to grow thicker with every heartbeat, curling around their bodies like a living shroud, hiding their numbers but not their intent. A wave of hostile intent crashed against him like an icy tide. This wasn’t random. This was a call to arms, and the big boss had blown the horn.

Whatever was inside that mountain had finally made its first move!

Damon was grinning inwardly. He was just now thinking that all of this was taking too long and he needed to hurry up if he actually wanted to meet the deadline and get the money ready before the next city raid started.

And just as he wished, things had started to speed up.

So many bodies, so much blood and endless toxicity, all for him to devour!

Damon’s entire body trembled with excitement. However, the next second he turned around and started to run. He was even screaming at the top of his lungs with a look of shock and terror on his face.