The Black Swamp didn't smell like nature. It smelled like a mass grave that had been left in the sun for a century.

  ?Jiang Chen stepped off the solid bank and into the muck. He sank immediately to his shins. The mud was warm, pulsating with the activity of a billion flesh-eating maggots.

  ?[ALERT: Environmental Toxin Detected (Necrotic Miasma).]

  [Venom Core Status: Active. Filtering...]

  ?Jiang Chen took a deep breath. The poison gas burned his lungs pleasantly, feeding the core in his chest with a trickle of energy.

  ?"It knows I'm here," Jiang Chen whispered.

  ?The surface of the black water, fifty meters out, was perfectly still. Too still. The ripples from the wind stopped dead at a specific radius.

  ?"It is hunting you," Apeiron noted, sounding like a gourmet critic inspecting a lobster tank. "It senses your hunger. It thinks it is the apex predator because it has eaten a few farmers. Cute."

  ?"Lu," Jiang Chen called out without looking back. "Stay on the cart. If you see water moving toward you, run."

  ?Lu Pao, huddling on the driver's seat of the cart on the hill, gave a frantic thumbs-up. "Just don't die! I haven't been paid yet!"

  ?Jiang Chen waded deeper. Waist deep. Chest deep.

  ?He stopped.

  ?He closed his eyes. He shut down his hearing. He relied solely on the [Void Eyes].

  ?Below the opaque black water, a massive heat signature was uncoiling. It was the size of a house. Five distinct energy nodes—five heads.

  ?It surged.

  ?NOW.

  ?Jiang Chen didn't dodge. He exhaled all the air in his lungs and dropped.

  ?[Skill: Obsidian Furnace Body (Anchor Mode).]

  ?His density spiked. He sank like an anvil, disappearing beneath the surface just as five massive, serpentine heads snapped at the air where his head had been.

  ?SPLASH.

  ?The jaws clamped shut on empty space.

  ?Underwater, the world was a murky blur of green and black.

  ?Jiang Chen hit the bottom of the swamp—a bed of silt and bones—six meters down.

  ?The Hydra, confused, thrashed above him. It couldn't see him through the muck, but it could feel the water displacement.

  ?A massive, scaled tail whipped through the water, aiming to crush him.

  ?Jiang Chen moved. In the water, he wasn't fast, but he was unstoppable. He caught the tail.

  ?[Void Claw.]

  ?His fingers, coated in anti-matter, sank through the scales and into the muscle. He didn't let go.

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  ?"Come here," Jiang Chen thought.

  ?He pulled.

  ?With the leverage of the swamp floor and the strength of a Foundation Establishment furnace, he yanked the ten-ton beast downward.

  ?The Hydra shrieked—a bubbly, gurgling sound—as it was dragged under.

  ?It panicked. All five heads dived, eyes glowing yellow in the murk, converging on the small bronze figure standing on the bottom.

  ?"Five heads," Apeiron analyzed. "Inefficient. Five brains means five decisive points of failure. Pick one."

  ?Jiang Chen chose the middle one. The largest one. The Alpha.

  ?As the Alpha head struck, mouth open to swallow him whole, Jiang Chen jumped.

  ?[Skill: Thunder-Blood Burst.]

  ?The water exploded around him, vaporized by the sheer kinetic force of his launch. He shot up like a torpedo, straight into the open maw of the Hydra.

  ?He didn't stop at the teeth. He dove down the throat.

  ?Inside the beast, it was dark, slimy, and smelled of digested acid.

  ?[ALERT: High Acid Environment. Skin Integrity 98%.]

  ?"Found you," Jiang Chen grinned in the darkness.

  ?He could feel the Beast Core pulsing just a few feet away, embedded in the neck muscle.

  ?He jammed his hands into the flesh of the throat wall.

  ?[Void Claw: Shred.]

  ?He tore his way out from the inside.

  ?On the surface, Lu Pao watched in horror as the water began to boil.

  ?"He's dead," Lu Pao whimpered, covering his eyes. "He got eaten. I knew it. I'm going to have to drive back alone..."

  ?Suddenly, the Hydra breached.

  ?It rose out of the water, thrashing wildly. Its central neck was bulging, convulsing.

  ?RRRRIP.

  ?A spray of black blood erupted from the Hydra's throat.

  ?A hand—bronze and black—punched through the scales from the inside. Then a shoulder. Then Jiang Chen, covered in gore, dragged himself out of the gaping wound.

  ?He stood on the Hydra's heaving neck. In his hand, he held a pulsating, fist-sized crystal that sparked with green bio-electricity.

  ?The Hydra's Alpha head went limp.

  ?The other four heads screamed in confusion, striking at Jiang Chen.

  ?Jiang Chen looked at the Core in his hand.

  ?He didn't bag it.

  ?He bit into it.

  ?CRUNCH.

  ?He swallowed the Beast Core in three bites.

  ?[Critical Essence Ingested.]

  [Target: Swamp Hydra (Tier 1 Late Stage).]

  [Processing...]

  [EV +350.]

  [EV +350.] (System Note: One core, high density).

  ?A shockwave of energy blasted through Jiang Chen's meridians. The hunger in his gut vanished, replaced by a roaring fire. The [Void Foundation] spun up, digesting the raw power instantly.

  ?Jiang Chen's eyes flared with a blinding violet light.

  ?He turned to the remaining four heads.

  ?"I'm still hungry," he roared.

  ?He launched himself off the dying neck. He was a blur of violence.

  ?He landed on Head #2. Void Claw. Decapitation.

  He kicked off the falling skull, twisting in the air.

  He landed on Head #3. grabbed the jaw, and ripped it apart at the hinges.

  ?The Hydra tried to flee. It tried to submerge.

  ?But Jiang Chen was the monster now.

  ?He chased it down, leaping from coil to coil, dismantling the beast piece by piece.

  ?Slash. Crush. Tear.

  ?Two minutes later.

  ?Silence returned to the Black Swamp.

  ?Jiang Chen stood on the floating carcass of the Hydra. The water around him was thick with black blood.

  ?He was panting, but he wasn't tired. He felt alive. He felt... full.

  ?[Combat Concluded.]

  [Total EV Gained: 1,200 (Core + Biomass).]

  [System Tax (50%): -600 EV.]

  [Net Gain: +600 EV.]

  ?[Current EV: 1,498.]

  ?"Acceptable," Apeiron said, the voice sounding satisfied. "The texture was rubbery, but the vitality was dense. You have stabilized the foundation for at least a week."

  ?Jiang Chen wiped the slime from his face. He looked toward the shore.

  ?Lu Pao was standing on the cart, his mouth hanging open. He looked from the massive, mutilated corpse to the blood-soaked boy standing on top of it.

  ?Jiang Chen waved.

  ?"Lu!" Jiang Chen shouted. "Bring the cart closer! We need to load the meat!"

  ?Lu Pao blinked. He slapped his own face to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

  ?"You..." Lu Pao stammered. "You ate the Core? You can't just eat a raw Core! You'll explode!"

  ?Jiang Chen jumped from the carcass, skipping across the water on floating debris, landing on the bank with a heavy thud.

  ?Steam was rising from his skin as his body processed the energy.

  ?"I have a strong stomach," Jiang Chen said, walking past Lu to the cart. "Start cutting. I want the skin, the teeth, and the poison sacs. Leave the meat for the scavengers; I already got the best part."

  ?Lu Pao scrambled down from the cart, pulling out a set of butchering knives. He looked at Jiang Chen with a mix of terror and awe.

  ?"You're not human," Lu Pao whispered.

  ?Jiang Chen looked back at the swamp.

  ?"No," Jiang Chen agreed. "Not anymore."