Red-eyed, Chen Yang crouched low to the ground, a series of deep, rumbling tiger roars rising from his throat.
The male tiger seemed to sense the danger, cautiously retreating half a step. Its animal instincts told it that the enemy before it was no longer the helpless human it could toy with at will.
Yet the fury of vengeance for its mate quickly overwhelmed that instinct.
The male tiger let out a earth-shaking roar and lunged at Chen Yang, its razor-sharp claws slicing through the air in a vicious strike aimed straight at his throat!
Under normal circumstances, Chen Yang would have dodged or blocked.
But at this moment, his beast nature had taken complete control — he neither dodged nor retreated, instead charging forward at even greater speed!
Rip——
The sound of flesh tearing rang out.
Chen Yang's "hand" — or rather, the forelimb that had transformed into a savage claw — drove straight through the male tiger's chest!
The speed was almost unbelievable. The male tiger didn't even have time to react before it was dealt a devastating blow.
The male tiger let out a shrill, agonized wail, its eyes filled with disbelief.
It struggled to pull back, but Chen Yang's other "hand" had already seized its skull.
Crack — a sharp, brittle sound rang out as the male tiger's skull was crushed bare-handed!
A second-rank Blazing Flame Tiger had been killed in a single move!
Had anyone been present to witness it, they would have been scared out of their wits.
It must be understood that a second-rank male Blazing Flame Tiger possessed strength comparable to a human cultivator at the sixth or seventh level of the Qi Refining Realm.
Even inner disciple elites would only dare provoke one by forming a group.
Yet Chen Yang, with only the cultivation of the fifth level of the Qi Refinement Realm, had killed a tiger with his bare hands. His terrifying power had already surpassed all rational explanation.
But this was not Chen Yang's own strength — it was the power that erupted beyond all limits when his beast nature took complete control.
Like a cornered beast, he fought without regard for consequences, driven only by the urge to kill.
After killing the male tiger, the crimson in Chen Yang's eyes did not fade.
He bent down and began to devour the tiger's flesh raw!
His sharp teeth tore through fur and gnawed at bloody meat — the scene was utterly gruesome.
In a short while, nothing remained of the male tiger but a skeleton.
Had he been in his right mind, Chen Yang would have been filled with regret.
The demon core of this second-rank male tiger, if duplicated with a clay bowl, would have been of incalculable value.
But at this moment, only the most primal instinct to feed remained within him.
After consuming the tiger's flesh, Chen Yang dug out the male tiger's demon core.
It was larger than the female tiger's, its crimson color deeper, its spiritual energy far more overwhelming.
Without a second glance, he stuffed it into his mouth and swallowed it whole!
The demon core hit his stomach, and a wilder, more violent surge of spiritual energy exploded outward!
Along with it came the remnant savage consciousness of the male tiger.
Two streams of tiger-ferocity aura clashed and intertwined within Chen Yang's body, causing him to throw his head back and let out a howl of agony.
The howl no longer sounded remotely human — it was more like two great tigers roaring simultaneously!
After swallowing the demon core, Chen Yang's transformation grew even more pronounced: the red tiger stripes across his body became sharper and clearer, his fingernails turned pitch-black and razor-sharp, his spine curved slightly as if he might drop to all fours at any moment. Most terrifying of all were his eyes — they had become completely bestial, with not a trace of humanity remaining.
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He burst out of the cave and ran wildly through the back mountains.
Wherever he passed, birds and beasts fled in panic; those too slow to escape fell victim to his deadly hands.
A second-rank Ironclad Rhinoceros had its defenses shattered by a single swipe of his claw, its heart ripped out bare-handed; three second-rank Wind Wolves that tried to surround him were left bleeding from all seven orifices by a single tiger's roar; even the Stone Turtle, renowned for its impenetrable defense, had its shell smashed apart by his bare hands, its brain matter sucked out.
At this point, Chen Yang had completely transformed into a humanoid savage beast, unleashing a storm of blood and carnage across the back mountains.
Without realizing it, he had wandered into the area of the Frost Pool.
The temperature here had dropped noticeably, and a thin layer of ice had formed on the surface of the pool.
By all logic, the Blazing Flame Tiger's ferocity aura — cultivated through a fire-attribute technique — should have recoiled from this place. But Chen Yang, wholly ruled by his beast nature, was completely oblivious.
At the edge of the pool, a snow-white Demon Leopard was drinking from the water.
The Demon Leopard had a sleek, slender build, its fur smooth as silk, its entire body radiating an icy aura — it was a peak second-rank demon beast, a Glacial Demon Leopard!
The Demon Leopard sensed the intruder and immediately spun around in alert.
When it saw the tiger stripes and red eyes on Chen Yang, it visibly froze for a moment.
The natural opposition of ice and fire made it instinctively feel threatened.
Under normal circumstances, two demon beasts of opposing attributes would avoid each other.
But Chen Yang at this moment was driven only by the desire to kill, and he lunged straight at the Demon Leopard!
The Demon Leopard let out a sharp cry and breathed out a blast of freezing air, instantly coating Chen Yang in a layer of frost.
An ordinary cultivator would have been frozen stiff on the spot.
But the Blazing Flame Tiger's ferocity aura within Chen Yang activated on its own, the crimson markings glowing as the frost rapidly melted away.
Fire against ice — the two opposing attributes clashed violently, making Chen Yang roar in pain.
Yet that very pain only ignited a deeper savagery within him!
His speed surged explosively, and he closed the distance to the Demon Leopard in an instant.
The Demon Leopard hurriedly swiped back with its claws, sending ice crystals scattering in all directions.
The two "beasts" grappled with each other, trees snapping and boulders cracking wherever they passed.
This battle was far more grueling than the fight against the Blazing Flame Tiger.
The attribute opposition put Chen Yang at a constant disadvantage, and the Glacial Demon Leopard's agility far surpassed that of the Blazing Flame Tiger.
After multiple exchanges, Chen Yang's body bore several deep wounds that cut to the bone, blood streaming freely.
But the Demon Leopard was not faring well either.
It had been struck by Chen Yang's tiger claws multiple times, and each wound left a searing, burning mark that its Ice-Attribute Demon Energy could not heal.
The battle lasted one hour.
In the end, Chen Yang, relying on his superior ferocity, caught the Demon Leopard in a moment of vulnerability and sank his teeth into its neck!
His sharp teeth pierced through the fur, and blood gushed forth. The Demon Leopard struggled for a short while before finally collapsing and going still.
Without hesitation, Chen Yang dug out the Demon Leopard's demon core.
The demon core was pure white throughout, radiating an icy aura.
Without a second glance, he swallowed it whole!
The ice-attribute demon core hit his stomach and clashed violently with the fire-attribute Demon Energy already within him!
Two forces — one blazing hot, one bitterly cold — warred inside him, as if they would tear him apart.
Awooo——!
Chen Yang let out an agonized roar and thrashed wildly on the ground.
His skin alternated between blazing red like fire and pale white covered in frost, the sight utterly bizarre.
Any normal cultivator would have already died from the explosion of conflicting energies within their body.
But the Baleful Ferocity Aura within Chen Yang was extraordinarily tenacious, and it barely held the two forces in check.
In the end, the ice and fire energies reached a precarious balance — but this only drove his demonic nature deeper, his reason utterly extinguished.
At this moment, Chen Yang's eyes were crimson as blood, his body half covered in red markings and half encased in frost, radiating a Baleful Ferocity Aura that made one's heart tremble.
Never mind Zhao Yanran and her three Senior Brothers — even a Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator would be shaken to the core at the sight of him.
He wandered aimlessly through the mountain forest, leaving devastation in his wake wherever he went.
Then, all of a sudden, he caught the scent of an extraordinarily rich, bloody aura.
This scent was unlike ordinary beast blood — it contained an exceptionally pure Spiritual Energy, several times more concentrated than the Spiritual Energy within the demon cores of the Blazing Flame Tiger and the Glacial Demon Leopard!
His bestial instincts told Chen Yang that the owner of this blood would be a tremendous supplement.
He immediately dropped to all fours and sprinted toward the source of the scent like a wild animal.
He crossed a dense stretch of forest, and the view suddenly opened up before him.
It was a valley, and the scene within it was shocking: a cyan Flood Dragon lay collapsed on the ground, its body covered in wounds, its dragon blood staining a vast swath of earth red.
Beside the Flood Dragon sat a woman.
She appeared to be in her fifties or sixties, her hair entirely silver yet her face remarkably fair and unwrinkled.
She wore a pale violet Spirit Robe that was torn in several places, yet it still could not conceal her transcendent bearing.
At this moment she sat with her eyes closed in meditation, a trace of blood at the corner of her mouth — clearly she, too, had suffered serious injuries.
The rich, bloody spiritual aura was emanating from the wounds of both her and the Flood Dragon!
Chen Yang's red eyes locked onto the woman immediately, and a greedy, low growl rose from his throat.
"Kill… eat… kill…"
In his beast-driven perception, this woman was nothing less than a human-shaped great elixir!