PERILOUS LANDS, ANTHONY.

Anthony slashed out at the claw that narrowly missed his face, and more blood splashed at him. He was holding a pair of daggers, fighting like his life depended on it while executing all the techniques he learnt from the old man. No, his life depended on it. Defeating the horde of hell's beasts was the only way to escape the entrapment.

Anthony's body was covered with different colors of liquid; a mix of his blood, monsters blood, and liquids from their corpses. His long hair looked disheveled, and sweat was running down the length of his body. On his back was a diagonal slash, showing four claws. The claws tore through the three layers of his clothes and then grazed his skin. That one slash would have done him in, but luckily he was vigilant, and quickly avoided it, making it not to slash in as deeply as it should.

He had just exited the cave and arrived at the top surface of the perilous lands, making his way to the ancestral hall to rest a bit and chat with Lan Xuanyu the perverted god before he got ambushed by a horde of monsters.

He had been surprised at first because he had only heard legends about how everyone who entered the perilous lands were torn apart within five minutes of entering the perilous lands by the hell's monsters which escaped into it. Although he had encountered monsters the moment he entered, he didn't meet a set that banded together against him. The most he had fought was two or three together, but they often came alone.

He had been happy at first, after his initial shock passed, treating the situation as an opportunity to hone the skills taught by the old man and the ones he learned. After all, only through combat can one's true abilities be polished and perfected. He could also let out the excess energy he absorbed from the pool during the combat, since executing techniques required spiritual energy and cultivation energy.

He had been carefree at first, using different weapons to practice. At times, he would throw his shuriken, other times, he would use the short sword, or simply the hell breaker fist.

However, it didn't take long for Anthony to realize that it was not a child's play. The more he killed, the more they appeared. At first, he didn't mind it because most of the beasts were of the grand master realm, so their quantities didn't matter. Before he knew it, monsters of the ancestor and emperor realm began to join them, making him exhausted. Recall that Anthony's current cultivation was at the peak of the martial emperor realm, albeit not fully solidified.

All the energy he stored in his reserve was nearly gone. He had been fighting since early morning. It was evening, yet the fight didn't seem to be ending anytime soon.

"Give up, mortal, you can't defeat us." One of the more powerful monsters growled.

"You're just wasting your time. Before us, there's only one outcome waiting for you—death." Another added, taunting him.

Anthony was gasping, he had killed more than seventy beasts which had lower cultivations. But currently, there were twenty one emperor ranked monsters surrounding him.

Anthony smirked at them.

"The problem with you foolish creatures is that you boast too much. Since I entered this place, all of your kind that fantasized about killing me met the same end in my hands. You should worry about protecting yourselves better." He whispered and wiped off the disgusting liquid matting his face.

"Graaaaaah." A weird looking monster roared, sending a spiritual attack to him. It had the shape of a bee with stingers. But it was fleshy, and had a little tail, in addition to the hide of a pig.

Anthony shut his eyes immediately, protecting his spiritual sea. This was the problem he had with these sets of monsters. They had the ability to send out spiritual attacks to their opponent, making them incredibly hard to guard against. But luckily, Anthony had learnt the technique to protect the mind from the old man. Each time he felt headache from the mind attack, a cold energy spreads in his mind, calming him down.

He growled and hurled a shuriken at one of the monsters coming for him. The attack took the monsters by surprise because they thought he was still disoriented by their spiritual attack.

They turned to their companion in shock, just in time for the beast to fall to the ground, leaking out purplish red blood. Anthony had infused the shuriken with flames and lethal spiritual energy. In addition to being unexpected, the attack was lethal, letting him take down the middle tier emperor realm monster in one fell swoop.

He called back his shuriken. And as if they snapped out of their trance, they snarled simultaneously at him.

"You. How dare you hurt our brother? Do you have a death wish?" One of the monsters growled at him. They were monsters that had gained intelligence, so they could speak. And somehow, Anthony could understand them perfectly.

Anthony smirked and adjusted the two daggers in his hands while getting into stance, ready to take them on.

"I don't have a death wish. But since you guys want to block me, of course I will fight back. If I don't fight back, I will still die in your hands. But if I fight back, you will be the ones to fall here. So cut the crap, you all will be the ones to fall here today. Bring it on, I should test out my newly gained abilities."

"You're confident, I like that. But overestimating your own abilities would only lead you to death. Do you think it's possible to take down all of us?" Another monster shouted, seemingly outraged by Anthony not cowering in fear before them.

"With me, there's no such thing as impossibility. There's only efforts. As long as I'm willing to make it work, why will it fail?" Anthony asked with a smirk.

He knew fully well what he was up against. They were all monsters that escaped from hell—the dreaded ghost realm. So they were not just monsters, they were demons. That's right, they were demonic monsters. Ones that have gained sentience and unique spiritual energy nonetheless. But Anthony knew that only by defeating them could he continue his journey.

At first, he was confused as to the reason the beasts migrated towards him. But it only took home a while to realize that it was because of the immense spiritual energy swirling around him. He was practically breathing cultivation energy after leaving the cave, due to the fact that he did not manage to digest everything. With his sweet smelling skin rosy and swirling with energy, lots of the monsters began to search for the source of the month watering dish, and came to him. The energy in his body were their targets; they wanted the energy inside his body.

Without warning, they all rushed towards him. Anthony quickly activated his ghost steps technique and glided among them, making some of them collide with each other.

Anthony slashed out with his dagger, while interchanging it with his fist technique. He held his dagger in his right hand in such a way that his fist was clenched, allowing him to slash with the dagger and also punch out without warning.

Two more monsters fell around them, but they didn't have the time to be shocked. Anthony was moving around them like some phantom. He had decided to go all out, not caring that he had drawn his energy reserves past their limits. Nor did he care that his cultivation might drop because he had not fully solidified his current cultivation realm. He just wanted to kill them and get out alive.

After an hour, the entire horde of boastful monsters lay on the floor bleeding with their other counterparts. Anthony looked around to see if there was any that still had some breath left in them, and finally collapsed to the ground on his knees, gasping.

He spat out the traces of disgusting liquid that escaped into his mouth from his face and wiped his lips with his sleeves, making an even bigger mess because his sleeves were dripping with blood.

This was probably where they got the innuendo 'drenched with blood'. He was truly, and literally, covered with blood with his clothes torn up into rags.

An idea occurred to him and he stood up and walked to the nearest emperor ranked monster. He made a deep slash in the monster's chest, creating a gaping hole. After groping around for a while, he dug out its beast core. He sat cross legged and began to absorb it.

"I need to finish here and leave before nightfall to avoid attracting a beast tide." He muttered, going into a trance. He began to cultivate, absorbing the beast core. Without his knowledge, the beast core from the horde of dead monsters burst out of their bodies, and floated around him, connected to the one he was holding by a ring of light. He was absorbing the energies altogether, creating formation made up of beast cores.

Without knowing it, he lost consciousness, as the beast core trapped him in a haze which was enabled by mental fatigue. Darkness was fast descending, it was nightfall. Somewhere in the distance, a beast howled, searching for the source of the bloody energy. However, Anthony was too far gone to notice the fast approaching beast. He had entered another dimension.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.