The Samsara Jade

Chapter 25

The alpha wolf died without making a sound. 

The other five wolves smelled the blood and rushed in. They leaped at Li Chen, their jaws snapping wildly. 

Li Chen did not panic. He let one wolf bite his forearm. 

The wolf's sharp, magical fangs clamped down hard. 

Ting! 

A sharp metallic sound rang out. The wolf's fangs did not pierce Li Chen's flesh. Instead, the wolf let out a painful yelp. Its teeth had completely shattered against Li Chen’s maturing Void-Iron skin. 

Li Chen smiled a cold, predator's smile. "My turn."

He swung his arm, smashing the wolf into a rock wall. He spun around, catching another wolf by the leg, swinging it like a club into the remaining three. 

The fight lasted less than a minute. 

Li Chen stood in the center of the broken bodies. He was covered in sweat and wolf blood, but there was not a single scratch on his metallic skin. 

He knelt down and ripped the cores from their chests. He ate the energy instantly. His dark Qi grew heavier and denser. 

He continued his brutal march. He hunted Ghost Spiders that dropped from invisible webs. He dragged them down by their legs and punched their bodies into mush. He fought giant, heavily armored rock-turtles, using the Void Shattering Fist to crack their impossible shells. 

Every battle was a lesson. Every kill made him sharper, faster, and more efficient. He did not waste movement. He did not feel pity. The chasm was a place of death, and he was the master of it. 

…

Exactly one month after falling into the Beast Chasm, Li Chen sat cross-legged on a large, flat rock. 

Around him lay the dead bodies of ten Rank-2 Poison-Tail Scorpions. Their deadly stingers were broken, and their heads were completely smashed in. 

In front of Li Chen sat a pile of ten glowing purple Beast Cores. 

He closed his eyes and opened his hands. The Devouring Art activated like a roaring black hole. The ten cores quickly turned to grey ash, sending a massive flood of pure energy into his body. 

His dantian was completely full. The liquid dark Qi was boiling violently, pushing against the walls of his meridians. 

Li Chen gritted his teeth. He commanded the energy to push forward. 

BOOM! 

A massive, powerful shockwave erupted from his sitting body. The shockwave was so strong it blew the heavy dead scorpions completely off the rock. The purple fog around him was pushed away for fifty yards, creating a massive clear space. 

Li Chen slowly opened his eyes. 

"5th Level of Qi Condensation," he announced to the empty air. 

He stood up. He felt completely different. At the 5th Level, a cultivator's Qi could finally leave the body and form a protective layer over the skin. 

Li Chen pushed his dark Qi outward. His dull, grey metallic skin suddenly glowed with a beautiful, terrifying dark golden light. The dragon-turtle tattoo on his chest seemed to move, as if it were breathing. 

His Void-Iron Physique had finally matured to the first stage. 

Li Chen picked up the sharp, broken stinger of a Rank-2 scorpion from the ground. The stinger was as sharp as a high-quality sword. 

Without hesitating, Li Chen stabbed the stinger directly into his own stomach with all his strength. 

CLANG! 

Loud sparks flew. The sharp stinger bent completely in half and broke. Li Chen looked at his stomach. There was not even a red mark. 

"Normal swords will just bounce off me now," Li Chen smiled. "Even if I stood still, Zhao Feng could not cut me."

Zhao Feng. 

The name brought a cold anger back to Li Chen's mind. The arrogant disciple who had stepped on his head in the mud. The boy who had shattered his mother's jade pendant. Zhao Feng was at the 5th Level of Qi Condensation. 

"We are at the same level now, Zhao Feng," Li Chen whispered. "But my Qi is heavier than mountains, and my skin is made of iron. When I get back up that mountain, I will break every bone in your body."

But first, Li Chen needed to find a way out of the chasm. 

He had spent a month moving deeper and deeper into the abyss, hunting for monsters. The walls of the cliff had slowly closed in, creating a dark, narrow canyon. 

Li Chen picked up a piece of a scorpion shell to use as a knife, tied his wolf-fur waistcloth tighter, and began to walk forward into the unknown canyon. 

The purple fog was strangely thin here. The air felt colder. 

After walking for an hour, the narrow canyon suddenly opened up into a massive, unimaginably large underground cavern. 

Li Chen stopped walking. His jaw dropped in pure shock. 

At the far end of the cavern, built directly into the solid stone wall of the mountain, was a giant building. It was not a cave. It was a temple. 

The temple was incredibly ancient. It was made of massive blocks of black stone. Huge pillars held up a grand roof. But the temple was ruined. Parts of the roof had collapsed, and thick vines covered the stone. 

But what shocked Li Chen the most was the giant, heavy iron door at the front of the temple. 

Carved deeply into the iron door was a massive symbol: Two crossed swords beneath a floating cloud. 

"The symbol of the Azure Sword Sect," Li Chen whispered. "Why is there an ancient sect temple down here at the bottom of the Beast Chasm?"

He walked slowly toward the massive iron doors. The doors were slightly open, leaving a dark, terrifying crack leading into the temple's depths. 

As Li Chen got closer, his sharp eyes noticed something on the stone steps leading up to the door. 

He crouched down. 

There, perfectly clear on the dusty stone step, was a footprint. 

It was not the footprint of a beast. It was the footprint of a heavy metal boot. 

Li Chen touched the footprint. The mud inside it was still wet. 

Then, he saw something else resting on the step next to the footprint. He picked it up. It was a small, broken piece of a white jade token, glowing weakly. 

Li Chen’s heart began to race. He recognized the shape of the token instantly. 

It was an Enforcement Hall tracking token. 

Li Chen stood up straight, his dark eyes staring into the pitch-black crack of the open iron doors. The hair on his arms stood up. 

He was not alone down here. 

Someone from the sect was here. They had survived the fall, or they had found another way down. And they had gone inside this ancient, forbidden temple very recently. 

Suddenly, from deep inside the absolute darkness of the ruined temple, Li Chen heard a sound. 

It was not the roar of a monster. It was the clear, desperate sound of a human woman screaming in terror.