Deep within the mountains and forests.
The first day quietly came to a close. Once the giant tiger had been eliminated, there were no further major dangers within a radius of more than ten miles. Eight groups of able-bodied young men had already returned to the campsite carrying their prey.
The tree hollow was very spacious—in fact, it was the hollow of a severed tree stump. The top was conveniently blocked by the broken wood, making it extremely concealed and well-suited for hiding prey.
A few small campfires burned outside the tree hollow, around which the men rested, either lying down or leaning against one another.
A day of hunting was immensely physically taxing, but fortunately, the giant tiger overlord had been slain without causing any casualties.
Nighttime belonged to ferocious beasts. While human hunting relied on eyesight, ferocious beasts could pick up scents from over ten miles away. Since today's hunting team had completed their rest, they needed to transfer to the next hunting spot tomorrow, leaving people behind to guard the day's catch. It was hardly unreasonable that Shi Village's prey had been snatched by Bei Village in the original story.
"Today we owe it all to A'heng, otherwise this hunt would have gotten off to a bad start. It looks like I'll have to drop the 'kid' and just call him A'heng! Haha!" Shi Linhu rubbed the bruise on his chest with a medicinal pill made by the village elder, then said to the young men of the hunting team.
"Right! A'heng didn't even budge before unleashing a massive move, absolutely formidable! If Linhu-ge had been injured, our journey ahead would have been very difficult, and we wouldn't have been able to bring back enough precious blood and Precious Medicine for the little ones!" Shi Feijiao was also overjoyed upon learning of Shi Heng's six-thousand-jin arm strength. He continued, "The depths of the mountains really are full of prey—it's night and day compared to the meager results we used to get on the outer fringes! Besides, the giant tiger A'heng killed this time already contains bone artifacts and precious blood within it, which is more than enough to take back for the little ones' Medicinal Bath!"
"Indeed! With A'heng here this time, we can try hunting a few more ferocious beasts that contain Precious Medicine!" Shi Linhu nodded.
"Linhu-ge, stop flattering me. If you hadn't kept the giant tiger in check, and if the tiger hadn't been careless and overconfident, there's no telling whether that tiger would have finished us off instead!" Shi Heng waved his hand, knowing full well that his one-hit kill was only possible because of the beast's carelessness; his combat awareness was still far behind Shi Linhu and the others.
The village youths knew each other inside and out. Taking advantage of the rest time while eating flatbread and roasted meat, they bantered and chatted idly for a while before gradually drifting off to sleep one by one.
"All right, no more idle chatter, let's all get some rest! The seventh and eighth teams take turns keeping watch, everyone else keep your energy up! Tomorrow we head to the next hunting spot." Shi Linhu said to the youths who were still awake.
Shi Heng brought a pelt blanket from the village, found a flat spot, laid it right on the ground, and went to sleep.
Dozily, the ground trembled intermittently, and the distant roars of mountains and forests echoed along with the faint, miserable cries of ferocious beasts.
"Up, quickly!" Shi Linhu and Shi Feijiao circled around, rousing all the youths.
"There are giant beasts passing by outside! They seem to be searching for something! And it looks like some ferocious beasts met with this catastrophe. Now that dawn is approaching, pack up quickly and let's follow them to scavenge! The eighth team leave four men behind to guard the prey!" Shi Linhu said in a low voice to everyone.
*It must be Maoqiu and the others!* Shi Heng knew in his heart that Maoqiu and Little Red were searching for the Mountain Treasure, and he had no objections to the hunting team tracking them.
The group packed up briskly and, led by Shi Linhu, headed in the direction where the footprints had just trodden.
Walking along, Shi Heng indirectly witnessed the power of the Venerable ones at the apex of the Eight Regions' pyramid.
Giant trees in the forest were knocked down everywhere, with massive footprints spanning a hundred meters across at a single step. The battlefield was expansive, littered with the remains of injured or dead primordial remnants—fire rhinoceroses, Pixiu, dragon-horned elephants, and other forest remnants he couldn't even identify. The villages around the vast primeval mountain range probably had a prosperous year precisely because these ancient divine remnants were searching for the Mountain Treasure.
Yet fortune and misfortune are intertwined; aside from Shi Heng and the Willow Deity, who could have foreseen the disaster two years later?
In the original story, two years later, the four divine beasts—Maoqiu, Little Red, and the others—engaged in a massive brawl after unearthing the Mountain Treasure, directly leaving a hundred thousand li around the primeval mountain range completely devoid of human habitation, with not a single bird or beast left alive!
A hundred thousand li!
Fifteen times the surface area of Earth!
Because the journey was purely a scavenging mission, it was extremely relaxed, and Shi Heng filmed videos the entire way.
"@Peerless Martial God - Xu Qi'an, a major battle wiping out life over an area the size of fifteen Blue Stars—could you pull that off?!"
*Ding. The Group Leader sent a group red envelope.*
*Ding. The Group Leader sent...*
*Ding...*
Over the past few days along the way, too many ordinary fierce beasts had died, so he sent them all into the chat group where they could be stored or claimed by group members.
Killing two birds with one stone.
As for the rarer ferocious beast remnants that carried precious blood and Precious Medicine, he set them as exclusive red envelopes.
Shi Heng was traveling separately from the main group. Maoqiu's hundred-meter footprints were everywhere deep in the mountains, and Shi Linhu had split the hunting team into several groups to operate. Shi Heng's strength was in the top five of the hunting team, so they didn't mind him going off.
During this time, he also encountered tenacious ferocious beasts that remained troublesome even after being injured, which he simply treated as arranged training for himself.
Along the way, Shi Heng only needed to pick things up without having to carry them, and he salvaged far more than anyone else on the hunting team.
Of course, there weren't many ferocious beasts bearing precious blood and Precious Medicine—after all, he was only one person.
"Such swagger! You're still just a little scum with ten thousand jin of arm strength, and yet you're acting so high and mighty! Even if you wiped out a galaxy, it wouldn't be your own power. What are you showing off for?"
*Ding. Xu Qi'an claimed your red envelope.*
*Ding. Ning Yi claimed...*
*Ding. Bai Yuekui...*
"Tch! Tsundere much? If you've got the guts, don't claim it!"
"I don't care for it! It's not like my local specialty ferocious beasts aren't lacking here; if the Heavenly Dao hadn't kept pestering me to claim it, I wouldn't have bothered! Oh right, He asked when you're going over to collect your reward! Also, ordinary ones are fine for now, but next time I want bone artifacts!"
"..., Task completed? How is it still a chained task?! Bone artifacts will have to wait a few years, I don't have that kind of strength right now. I'll come over when we return to the village tomorrow~"
*(Xu Qi'an OK sticker)* — Xu Qi'an.
Amidst the group chat banter.
"Whoosh!" An iron arrow from the nearby jungle shot fiercely toward Shi Heng's chest!
Shi Heng felt a jolt of alertness, rolled onto the ground, and dodged the deadly iron arrow.
"Who goes there?!"
"What a sharp kid! Our Bei Village has taken a fancy to the fire rhinoceros in your hands! If you want to live, leave the prey and get lost!" Three figures emerged from the hill's jungle.
"Ha! You folks from Bei Village are truly shameless beyond compare! The fire rhinoceros was already hunted by me, and you still come to snatch it—aren't you afraid of kicking a steel plate?!" Shi Heng laughed out of extreme anger.
An almighty Blood-Moving Realm expert with ten thousand jin of arm strength—how could he fear the petty cowards of Bei Village?
"Hmph! The kid has a very tender face; I wonder which village he hails from, never having heard of our Bei Village's reputation?" Bei Shan said to Shi Heng with a dark expression.
Bei Shan had also been leading the able-bodied youths of Bei Village to scavenge in the mountains over the past few days. However, they were walking behind Shi Heng, and because Shi Heng didn't have to make round trips back and forth to the campsite to haul prey, he traveled extremely fast. His presence spanned tens of miles in every direction, and this range happened to be the direction from which Bei Village entered the mountains, leaving Bei Village's hunting team virtually empty-handed to this day.
Bei Shan brought two young men from the village and pressed straight into the depths of the mountain range, finally running into Shi Heng today—though whether it was their good fortune or misfortune remained to be seen.
Shi Heng hooked his index finger at Bei Shan and the other two, saying, "Want to know? Come on then, the fire rhinoceros is right here. Kill me and you can take it away!"
"Kid, don't be arrogant. Let me teach you a lesson, you ignorant little wretch." Bei Shan and the three of them could not possibly endure a young man holding them in such contempt.
Bei Shan and one other drew their iron broadswords, while the third nocked a bow in place, aiming squarely at Shi Heng.
He didn't stand on ceremony either, drawing his iron broadsword and meeting them head-on.
Putting aside Bei Village's actions in the original story, just that single arrow meant to take his life meant this matter would not end here.
Shi Heng did not hold back. Even when a tiger hunts a rabbit, it uses its full strength. His ten-thousand-jin arm strength and physical fitness were far superior to Bei Shan and the three of them. Bei Shan was on par with Shi Linhu and the others in the original story, currently possessing only around five thousand jin of arm strength.
Bei Shan perceived Shi Heng's blinding speed and felt his heart turn half cold, roaring to the archer behind him: "Hurry, go notify the rear team, retreat immediately!"
"Want to leave? Too late!"
How could Shi Heng let Bei Shan have his way? With a burst of acceleration, he appeared directly in front of Bei Shan. Bei Shan's face was filled with horror; before he could even react, Shi Heng swept his sword horizontally.
"Ugh!" Bei Shan's iron armor and body were cleaved in two from the belly by Shi Heng, dead as a dead could be.
"Ah!!" The other Bei Village youth holding a broadsword saw Bei Shan cut in two by a single sword strike, dropped his weapon in terror, and fled into the forest.
"You two needn't leave either! Keep him company!" Shi Heng drew the dragon-horn bow, drew it to its full limit, and loosed two consecutive arrows at the remaining two.
"Ah! Ah!"
The two Bei Village youths perished instantly.
This battle had lasted less than half a minute, and Shi Heng had completed his first ever kill.
Looking at Bei Shan, who had been cleaved in two by his own hand in the distance, and the youth shot dead further away, he suddenly felt a turbulent wave of nausea rise in his stomach.
"Ugh!"
Knowing full well that this was not yet the right time to go to war with Bei Village—since Bei Village had an old Bei Sacrificial Spirit, and the Willow Deity was still in Nirvana seclusion—waiting a couple of years to deal with them would not be too late...
Thus, paying no mind to the belongings carried by Bei Shan and the others, Shi Heng headed straight back to Shi Village's campsite.
Newcomers, new book! Please recommend! Please collect and review!