Chapter 574: Chapter 574: The Blood of the Tyrants

It took them two grueling hours of dragging the heavily laden wooden sledge through the carnage-strewn valley before they finally caught up to him. The dense, humid mist of the lower ridges suddenly shattered, blown apart by a catastrophic tempest of shockwaves and violent shrieks.

The moment Mary, Roy, and Louisa stepped onto the ridge overlooking the central nesting grounds, they completely froze, their limbs paralyzed by a wave of sheer, unadulterated evolutionary terror.

The clearing ahead was a arena of chaos. Ethan was locked in a ferocious, high-speed battle against three massive, four-meter-wide elite spiders, while a colossal six-meter matriarch—a terrifying tyrant covered in thick, jagged chitin armor—roared like a maddened beast, slamming its massive, spear-like legs into the earth as it coordinated the assault.

The sheer scale of the collision was breathtaking. The shockwaves from the impact of steel against chitin ripped through the air, felling ancient trees and leaving deep craters in the soil.

"Mother..." Roy whispered, his voice trembling violently as his wide eyes tracked the blinding flashes of silver light below. "What... what level is Master Ethan truly at?"

Without even realizing it, the title of ’Brother’ had completely vanished from his vocabulary. Watching the youth contend with monsters that could effortlessly level a small village, Roy could only view him as a supreme, untouchable master.

Ethan was moving like a localized bolt of blue-white lightning. His plain iron blade gleamed with the raw, conceptual sharpness of his newly awakened Sword Intent. However, these monsters were not the mindless juveniles or the common adults he had slaughtered along the trail. These four titans were battle-hardened veterans, the long-reigning apex rulers of the northern mountain ridge. They possessed a wicked, terrifyingly sharp survival instinct.

The three four-meter elites didn’t even attempt to block Ethan’s glowing blade. The moment his steel cut through the air, they violently twisted their massive bodies, using their superior agility to dodge the trajectory. Ethan’s horizontal sweeps, which usually bisected targets with microscopic precision, only managed to rip through their flanking limbs. Segmented, bristling legs flew into the air, spraying thick, boiling green ichor across the dirt, but the core bodies of the beasts remained lethal.

SHUUU-FUNG!

The six-meter matriarch violently snapped its abdomen forward, unleashing a massive, continuous torrent of corrosive, grey web-nets alongside a lethal spray of emerald acid.

Ethan’s amethyst eyes flashed with a dark, terrifyingly intense light. He didn’t retreat. Planting his boot firmly against the trunk of a massive, collapsing redwood, he propelled himself backward, executing a tight mid-air flip to dodge the sizzling acid cloud. He landed gracefully right on top of the hairy, armored back of one of the wounded four-meter elites.

STAB!

Without a fraction of a second of hesitation, Ethan slammed his iron blade downward, driving the steel directly through the beast’s central nervous system. The elite spider let out a sickening, bubbling screech before its eight eyes went completely dark, its massive body collapsing into the mud.

"Hahaha! Yes! Come on!"

A loud, booming roar of pure, unadulterated laughter erupted from Ethan’s throat, echoing across the chaotic valley like thunder. He wasn’t stressed. He wasn’t fighting for his survival.

He was thoroughly, completely enjoying himself.

For months, while trapped within the modern world under the grand artificial dome, Ethan had felt an unbearable, suffocating weight pressing down on his soul. In that clean, fragile civilization, everything had felt entirely too delicate, too civilized, and utterly insignificant. He had been forced to suppress his true nature, keeping his terrifying instincts chained beneath a veneer of polite restraint.

But ever since he had broken free into this wild, lawless frontier, his blood-soaked, combat-driven mentality had been fully unleashed. His unique Great Amethyst Devourer constitution was actively thriving in the chaos, the primitive, predatory hunger within his marrow singing with absolute joy as the scent of blood filled his lungs. The slaughter didn’t tire him; it intoxicated him, driving his physical limits into a terrifying, bloodthirsty state of perfect synergy.

"Is that all the frontier has to offer?!" Ethan roared, his lips curling into a wild, maniacal smirk as he leaped off the dying carcass, his white-blue Sword Intent flaring to life with a blinding, absolute luminescence as he charged straight toward the remaining titans, completely eager to paint the forest in their blood.

The two remaining four-meter elite spiders rattled their mandibles in a desperate frenzy, sensing the terrifying shift in Ethan’s aura. Alongside their six-meter matriarch, they threw themselves forward in a final, suicidal pincer movement. The air turned toxic as the matriarch unleashed a torrential cloud of blinding venomous mist, completely obscuring the battlefield.

Through the emerald haze, Ethan’s silhouette cut like a shadow. His blade moved in a blur, instantly decapitating one of the elites. *SPLAT.* A geyser of green ichor erupted, but the distraction was exactly what the monstrous matriarch had anticipated.

Capitalizing on the thick shroud of poison, the towering six-meter tyrant blindsided him from the flank. One of its front legs—a massive, jagged appendage as thick as a tree trunk and sharper than a master-crafted spear—lunged forward with supersonic velocity.

*SHUUUK!*

The iron-hard leg struck Ethan squarely in the midsection, piercing cleanly through his midnight-black Star Iron armor and driving straight through his abdomen like a massive skewer. The sheer kinetic impact lifted his body off the ground, pinning him into the mud.

"ETHAN!!!" Mary and Louisa shrieked in unison, their voices cracking with pure, unadulterated horror as they witnessed the terrifying spear of chitin impale him. Roy’s heart stopped, his hand freezing on his hilt, convinced that no human cultivator could survive such a catastrophic, mortal blow.

But Ethan didn’t scream. He didn’t even gasp.

Instead, a chilling, dead silence fell over his form for a fraction of a second. Then, his head slowly snapped up. His eyes, usually a vibrant amethyst, turned into two bottomless, glowing voids of abyssal purple light.

Hehehe... Hahaha... HHAHAHA!

A low, guttural chuckle bubbled from his throat, quickly escalating into a wild, monstrous roar of laughter that shook the very foundations of the ridge. The intense physical pain didn’t weaken him; it acted as the ultimate catalyst, completely shattering the remaining shackles on his Great Amethyst Devourer constitution. The primitive, bloodthirsty hunger in his marrow exploded outwards, materializing into a suffocating, dense crimson-and-violet pressure that physically cracked the earth around him.

The matriarch tried to pull its leg back, but Ethan reached down with his bare left hand, his fingers sinking into the beast’s iron-like chitin like soft clay, locking the appendage in place. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"You actually managed to make me bleed," Ethan purred, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly deep, demonic register that echoed directly in the family’s souls. "Magnificent!"

-------------------

From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.

Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.

Body Refinement Realm

Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement

Spiritual Gathering Realm

Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation

Spiritual Core Realm

Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)

Spiritual Soul Realm

Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion

Golden Core Realm

Prime Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction

Spiritual Sea Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Dao Manifestation Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Spiritual Transcendence

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??