The Creation of the Heavens and All Realms

Chapter 3: Devouring

Zhou Tianci continuously circulated the *Blood Battle Art*. Before he knew it, his entire body was gradually enveloped by a blood-red aura. This aura was invisible to ordinary people, but wild beasts reacted to it with keen sensitivity—especially the short-tailed hyenas closest to Zhou Tianci, which had already become somewhat unsettled by it. Time passed slowly as Zhou Tianci sat motionless, as if he had turned into a stone statue. The martial aura on the battlefield was growing fainter, and the wild beasts all around were itching to pounce—especially the three human-faced bears to the south, which were already attempting to close in. Zhou Tianci keenly sensed the beasts’ stirrings and decisively halted his cultivation. At that very moment, having fully recovered to his peak condition, Zhou Tianci—clad in heavy armor and wielding a long halberd—exuded a fierce fighting spirit. “Hum…” Zhou Tianci swung his long halberd, startling the short-tailed hyena across from him. “How powerful. Although I’m only at the Post-Heaven Bone Refining Realm, my arms possess at least 2,000 jin of strength—otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to wield this 80-jin halberd with such ease. It’s a pity I don’t have the time right now to break through to the Marrow Refining Realm; otherwise, I could reach 5,000 jin of strength and lift even a small sedan with ease.” Zhou Tianci said regretfully; what he lacked most right now was time. “Caw… caw… caw…” The incessant cawing of the Nether Crows echoed across the vast grasslands, their cries sounding like trumpets, followed by a massive uprising of ferocious beasts. The mightiest of them all—the Human-Faced Bears—were the first to step onto the battlefield. Three Human-Faced Bears, each standing five or six meters tall, charged in like tanks, closely followed by the Red-Spotted Tigers. “It’s finally beginning!” Zhou Tianci’s heart sank; his entire body felt as if it had been wound tight, every muscle taut, ready to spring into action at any moment. Hundreds of ferocious beasts and birds of prey, large and small, roared in. The battlefield, where the smell of blood had already faded somewhat, instantly became even more blood-soaked. Under the faint starlight, the scene turned utterly terrifying; the sound of beasts chewing on corpses reached his ears, and Zhou Tianci couldn’t help but shudder. Zhou Tianci had no time for fear; he knew he had to flee immediately, or else he would likely end up like those corpses—a meal for the beasts. Although he now possessed extraordinary strength, he was no match for this pack of ferocious beasts. To name just a few, those three human-faced bears—each possessed immense strength, comparable to a human warrior at the peak of the Postnatal Realm. If they set their sights on him, Zhou Tianci would have no chance of survival. What unsettled Zhou Tianci was that the pack of short-tailed hyenas directly in front of him seemed to have set their sights on him. More than thirty pairs of eyes, glowing like ghostly flames, were fixed on him—a sight that would likely terrify a timid person to death! “I have to get out of here now,” Zhou Tianci thought to himself. At this moment, all the ferocious beasts and birds of prey had entered the fray, including the short-tailed hyenas across from him. However, as they tore at the corpses on the ground, they kept a wary eye on him—clearly, they had no intention of letting this living creature escape. Zhou Tianci dared not waste a moment. He pushed off with all his might, and his entire body shot forward like an arrow leaving the bowstring, covering the distance of over 50 meters in the blink of an eye. His movement did not escape the short-tailed hyenas’ notice, and three of them charged toward him from different directions. Zhou Tianci remained on high alert. With a swift flick of his long spear, he sent the lead short-tailed hyena flying. Immediately afterward, he gave the spear a slight flick to block the hyena charging at his midsection. At the same time, he twisted his body to evade the hyena lunging at him while kicking the other one in the abdomen with his right leg. In the blink of an eye, he had severely wounded all three beasts. “This is what combat feels like!” Zhou Tianci thought, his heart racing with excitement. He had never experienced a battle like this before. Although he had encountered situations far more dangerous than this one during his centuries-long career as a space explorer, he had never been in such a hands-on, face-to-face struggle. In the past, he had relied on spaceships and technology to escape danger, but now he was relying solely on himself! Fueled by a surging fighting spirit, Zhou Tianci’s focus was sharper than ever. In the past, he had practiced hand-to-hand combat alongside his cultivation, but how could those drills compare to the battle unfolding before him? This was a fight where death could come at any moment! The tension and passion here were nothing like the staged performances he’d seen in the arena! “This is the true battlefield for cultivators—the arena of life and death brings out the full extent of a cultivator’s power!” Zhou Tianci shouted inwardly, his grip never loosening as his long spear flashed through the air, cutting through it with a piercing whistle. After the three short-tailed hyenas, the other hyenas not only failed to back down but instead formed a formation and launched an attack on Zhou Tianci almost simultaneously. Although the individual strength of these short-tailed hyenas was equivalent to that of a Muscle-Refining Warrior, their collective power was enough to force a Marrow-Refining Warrior to retreat! Zhou Tianci had no room to retreat. His black halberd moved with ghostly speed, repeatedly thrusting the hyenas into the air just as they closed in. Zhou Tianci attributed this effectiveness entirely to the superb combat skills inherited from this body. In a matter of seconds, Zhou Tianci had reached the edge of the battlefield! The 3- to 4-meter-long hyenas seemed to have singled out Zhou Tianci; while the other beasts were focused on devouring the corpses, these hyenas followed Zhou Tianci toward the edge of the battlefield. This did not surprise Zhou Tianci; from the memories of his predecessor, he knew of the short-tailed hyenas’ tendency to hold grudges. “I can’t linger here any longer. There are over a hundred short-tailed hyenas in this area. If I waste any more time, the rest of them will likely come after me too…”The thought flashed through Zhou Tianci’s mind, and he immediately picked up his pace. To his surprise, the short-tailed hyenas were just as fast as he was; in the blink of an eye, two of them had already surged ahead of him. “Die!” Zhou Tianci growled, unleashing all his strength in a sudden burst. “Boom…” One hyena was struck by his long spear, sent flying more than ten meters away, and died after tumbling several times. “Whoosh!” In the blink of an eye, a black shadow lunged at him. Before Zhou Tianci could even make it out, he felt excruciating pain shoot through his leg. “Damn it, what a cunning beast!” Zhou Tianci immediately realized his leg had been bitten by a hyena, and his expression darkened. He realized he had underestimated the ferocity of this world’s predators—not only did they possess extraordinary strength and speed, but their intelligence was also far beyond that of any wild animals on Earth! Clouds drifted in, blocking the starlight and plunging the battlefield into deeper darkness. At the same time, the short-tailed hyena’s eyes glowed even brighter. Zhou Tianci channeled the *Blood Battle Art*, his mind overflowing with murderous intent—to his surprise, he could no longer feel the pain in his leg, which was precisely one of the *Blood Battle Art*’s effects! “Kill! Though his heart was filled with murderous intent, Zhou Tianci remained calm. This unique state greatly boosted his combat effectiveness; despite his injuries, he actually managed to force more than twenty short-tailed hyenas back to a distance of one zhang! “Aaaah!” The short-tailed hyenas lunged at him frantically. Zhou Tianci swept his long halberd through the air, severing the heads of three hyenas, but he couldn’t fend off the five approaching from behind! With a “ripping” sound, the hyenas tore through Zhou Tianci’s heavy armor. Two hyenas, each over three meters long, instantly clung to his body, causing his movements to slow abruptly. Zhou Tianci’s heart sank, but he didn’t panic. Holding the long spear in one hand, he suddenly thrust his other hand into the neck of a hyena behind him, severing its head with the flat of his palm! Zhou Tianci didn’t notice that, just as he severed the head with his palm, a blood-red glow entered his body from the decapitated, short-tailed hyena, then vanished without a trace. Zhou Tianci dared not let his guard down for even a moment. After killing one hyena, he swung the spear with all his might, flinging another hyena that had been cowering behind him away. At the same time, his left fist followed through, piercing the hyena’s abdomen—its greatest vulnerability. The bloody struggle stirred Zhou Tianci—and the short-tailed hyenas as well. They grew even more frenzied, with several of them taking turns lunging forward to clamp down on Zhou Tianci’s long spear. “What ferocious beasts!” Zhou Tianci was suddenly startled; he realized what these hyenas were up to—they clearly intended to seize his long spear. Just as he was about to struggle to reclaim it, a hyena launched a surprise attack, wounding his right arm, and in the end, he could only watch helplessly as his long spear was snatched away. “This is bad!” Zhou Tianci realized he was in unprecedented danger. Without his spear, how could he possibly fight these ferocious beasts with his bare hands! However, Zhou Tianci was not about to sit idly by and wait for death. As a cosmic explorer, he had faced countless perilous situations; staying calm had become second nature to him. Zhou Tianci grabbed the hyena carcass in his hand, using it as a weapon, while lowering his center of gravity. He suddenly broke through to the right, dodging the attacks of several hyenas, and with a swing of his right elbow, sent a hyena blocking his path flying. “Something’s wrong…” In the heat of battle, Zhou Tianci keenly noticed that the hyena carcass in his hands had become much lighter, and at the same time, his stamina had actually recovered somewhat! Zhou Tianci was a cautious man, yet he maintained a spirit of curiosity and exploration toward the unknown—otherwise, he would never have become a cosmic explorer. The unusual occurrence before him caught his attention, and after confirming it wasn’t an illusion, Zhou Tianci couldn’t help but feel exhilarated. “It seems something extraordinary must be happening to me… Come to think of it, what could be stranger than time travel?” Zhou Tianci cast a quick glance at the hyena in his hand—now reduced to a desiccated corpse—and swiftly tossed it aside. At the same time, he grabbed another hyena and snapped its neck. Feeling the hyena’s corpse in his hand grow lighter and lighter, while a steady stream of vitality flowed into his body, Zhou Tianci formed a hypothesis. “Could it be that I can devour these hyenas to strengthen myself?” Zhou Tianci couldn’t believe it, but the scene before him left him no choice but to accept it. Still, this was ultimately good news for Zhou Tianci, and it gave him a glimmer of hope for escape. Main Text