37: Chapter 37 The Name of Asura Gradually Rises

"Ding! Absorbed Rank 2 Beast Core, obtained [origin points + 80]."

Standing at the bottom of the giant crater, Su Chen looked at the core in his hand that had turned to powder, his brows slightly furrowed.

Eighty points? The Gale Giant Eagle he had just hunted, even with a damaged Origin, should logically have provided at least one hundred and twenty points from its core. Why did it suddenly decrease?

"System, explain."

"Ding. Detected a sharp drop in Abyss energy concentration in the host's current area (Wilderness Outskirts). High-intensity hunting has caused high-Rank beasts in this area to die or flee, and the quality of the Origin contained in the remaining prey is decaying."

Hearing the System's mechanical voice, Su Chen understood.

This sheep pen in the outskirts had been plucked bare by him over the past few days. The sensitive beasts had either become origin points in his hands or had tucked their tails and fled deeper into the ruins.

Su Chen opened the System panel.

[Current origin points balance: 2316]

Over two thousand three hundred points. It looked like a lot, but Su Chen was very clear that as his cheat continued to upgrade, this amount of points wouldn't last long at all. Whether it was the higher-tier "Three-Color Haki Infusion," or the "Mangekyo" and "Susanoo" that required tens of thousands of points to unlock, his current balance wasn't even enough for a fraction of them.

"The outskirts no longer yield experience."

Su Chen closed the panel and looked up toward the deepest part of the abandoned city.

That place was shrouded year-round in a layer of dark red toxic miasma, impenetrable even to sunlight. The D-Rank ruins core area—the Mist Forest.

The beasts there were denser and higher in Rank, and naturally, the mortality rate was also more than ten times that of the outskirts.

Su Chen found a hidden underground pipe network in the nearby ruins and used the cold groundwater to wash off the blood and grime from his body.

He changed into a clean set of black high-elasticity combat gear from his backpack and put on that large black cloak again.

Most importantly, he took out the green-faced, fanged evil ghost mask that had cracked during the battle with the Blood Axe Gang. He used black industrial tape to wrap tightly around the cracks several times and fastened it back onto his face.

The Shura mask, covered in black tape, did not look ridiculous at all; instead, it exuded a rugged and ferocious air of someone who had been through a hundred battles.

In this lawless land, the Shura persona must never be taken off.

Shouldering the fifty-jin solid iron blade, Su Chen strode out of the underground pipe.

...

Before entering the core area, the "Mist Forest," one had to pass through a narrow supply corridor.

There was a wilderness outpost supply station here, jointly built by the military and several large merchant guilds; it was a fortress constructed from reinforced concrete and abandoned shipping containers.

Pushing open the heavy windproof door, the supply station's lobby was bustling with noise. Various mercenaries who had just retreated from the wilderness, or who were preparing to enter the core area, were gathered together drinking, chatting, and exchanging intelligence.

Su Chen lowered his hood, walked to the bar in the corner, and tossed out a star coin to buy two bottles of purified water.

He took the water, walked to the most secluded and dim corner of the lobby, sat down, and closed his eyes to rest.

At the next table, five mud-stained men gathered together were arguing fiercely about something.

"Bullshit! Stop your damn bragging!" a man with a Scarface slammed the table and roared, "A Peak Rank 2 Iron-Armored Wolf King, even a C-Rank fireball can't blast through its hide! You're saying someone killed it with just their fists without using psionic energy?"

"I saw it with my own eyes, how could it be fake?"

The mercenary opposite him, drunk and flushed, retorted with a stiff neck, "That was where the 'Wildfire' squad met with an accident! When I rushed over, the ground was covered in wolf corpses! All of them had their internal organs shattered, and there wasn't even a white mark on their bone plates! The Wildfire captain told me personally that it was done by a person wearing an evil ghost mask and a black cloak!"

"An evil ghost mask?"

A skinny man at the next table suddenly leaned in, lowered his voice, his eyes filled with a trace of fear, "Have you all heard of this masked monster too? Just a few hours ago, over by the Commercial Tower... I saw a person walking in the sky!"

"Walking in the sky? Did a Great Grandmaster come to the D-Rank zone?" Scarface frowned.

"It wasn't a Great Grandmaster! There were definitely no wings formed by blood energy!" The skinny man gestured with his hands, his voice trembling, "He looked like he was stepping on invisible stairs, 'bang, bang, bang,' stepping up one by one! He flew straight up to a height of two hundred meters, then grabbed the wing of a Gale Giant Eagle with his bare hands and smashed that eagle into the ground like a meteorite! He smashed out a ten-meter deep crater!"

"Are you fucking drunk? Grabbing a Gale Giant Eagle with bare hands?"

"I swear! I also saw his attire, it was definitely a black cloak and he was wearing an evil ghost mask!"

The surrounding tables fell into a deathly silence.

Scarface gasped: "What kind of freakish level must this hidden expert have polished his Physical Body to? When did such a masked god of slaughter appear in our wilderness area?"

Unknowingly, these bizarre yet real battle achievements were rapidly fermenting in the supply station through the mouths of these mercenaries. The terrifying legend of the "Masked Shura" had already spread like wildfire through the hunter circles in the outskirts of Jiangnan City.

Su Chen, sitting in the shadows of the corner, heard the conversation at the next table clearly.

He ignored it. Whether it was a legend or a monster, as long as it didn't block his path to farming origin points, it didn't matter what others said.

He tightened the water bottle cap, picked up the iron blade resting on the chair, and prepared to get up and leave.

However, just as he was about to stand up.

The originally noisy supply station lobby suddenly became unusually quiet. All the chatter and the sound of glasses clinking disappeared at the same time.

Immediately after, a bone-chilling coldness spread in from the lobby entrance without any warning.

The edges of several iron tables near the entrance instantly froze into a layer of thin ice.

A five-person squad with extremely luxurious equipment, completely out of place in this dilapidated supply station, walked in.

All of them were wearing pure white, specially made high-dimensional combat suits, with a striking badge embroidered in gold thread on their chests — "Kyoto First Military Academy." On their shoulders, they also wore "S-Rank" talent badges representing status and strength.

Walking at the very front of the team was a young girl.

She was stunningly beautiful, with exquisite features that couldn't be faulted, but her temperament was as cold as an iceberg that had not melted for ten thousand years. She carried a long sword wrapped in white cloth in her hand, and with every step she took, she left a faint frosty footprint.

The top contender for the championship of this year's national college entrance exam combat rankings, the possessor of the SSS-Rank Frost talent.

The Young Miss of the Kyoto Lin Family, Lin Qinghan.

The mercenaries lowered their heads one after another and consciously retreated to the sides, clearing a wide path. In this world with strict hierarchies, no one dared to provoke such top-tier prodigies.

Lin Qinghan ignored the awe-filled gazes around her. She led her team straight through the lobby, preparing to head to the military VIP passage inside the supply station.

And the path to the VIP passage happened to pass by the dim corner where Su Chen was sitting.

"Step. Step. Step."

Lin Qinghan, who had been staring straight ahead, suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Her super-strong perception, belonging to her SSS-Rank Frost talent and extremely sensitive to the surrounding life magnetic fields, felt like an electric shock the moment she passed this dark corner, triggering a frantic, trembling alarm!

She felt an aura.

It wasn't the pressure of psionic energy, nor the fluctuation of blood energy. It was a terrifying killing intent that was extremely restrained, yet tightly compressed within the body like a dormant abyssal beast!

Lin Qinghan gripped the long sword in her hand tightly and suddenly turned back to look.

At the end of her line of sight sat a person draped in a large black cloak, wearing an evil ghost mask patched with black tape on his face.

There was no psionic fluctuation, yet it was so quiet that it made one feel suffocated.

"Hey, Loose Cultivator over there, keep your eyes clean! Is our captain's path something you can block?"

The S-Rank male student Lei Yu, who was following closely behind Lin Qinghan, stopped. Looking at this black-robed person who didn't even have a trace of psionic fluctuation, Lei Yu's face was full of disdain and arrogance.

Facing this reprimand.

Beneath the mask, Su Chen's deep black eyes did not ripple with a single wave.

He did not retort. He simply stood up slowly, picked up the thick-backed iron blade weighing fifty jin with one hand, casually rested it on his shoulder, and walked toward Lin Qinghan's squad.

"You're courting death..." Lei Yu's face sank, and he was just about to condense lightning in his palm.

"Hum—"

Just as the two were less than three meters apart.

Su Chen's eyes, hidden behind the holes of the mask, glanced at Lei Yu with extreme indifference.

Just one glance!

A tangible killing intent, condensed like a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, followed Su Chen's gaze like an invisible dagger, piercing fiercely into the depths of Lei Yu's brain!

The lightning in Lei Yu's palm extinguished instantly.

He only felt as if his heart had been tightly gripped by a cold, large hand, his breathing stopped abruptly, and the blood throughout his body seemed to be completely frozen at this moment! A drop of cold sweat slid down his forehead, his legs were stiff, his mouth was open, and he couldn't even utter half a syllable.

"Stop! Step back!"

Lin Qinghan felt this terrifying oppressive force, her expression changed drastically, and for the first time ever, she took a big step back to the side, forcefully pulling the stiff Lei Yu to clear the path!

Su Chen did not pause in the slightest, walking steadily through the middle of this group of arrogant Kyoto prodigies.

The moment they brushed past each other.

Lin Qinghan could even clearly smell the strong, sickening scent of high-Rank beast blood that had not yet dissipated from this masked person.

"Thud."

The heavy door of the supply station was pushed open.

The black-robed Shura strode into the thick fog of the core area and disappeared completely.

The lobby was so quiet that a pin drop could be heard.

"Ca... Captain..." Only then did Lei Yu gasp for air, his legs weak as he leaned against the table, "What on earth was that thing? Just now... I felt like I was going to die!"

Lin Qinghan turned around and looked at the door that was still slightly swaying.

Her palm holding the sword had actually broken out in a light cold sweat. Looking at Lei Yu's terrified appearance, Lin Qinghan's voice contained a rare, extreme gravity.

"Do not provoke him."

"If you had dared to make a move just now, you would be... a corpse by now."