The next second.
Before the figure emerging from the pit could strike first, Xiaoye executed a swift shadow pounce, leaping a great distance to land on its back. Her sharp claws flashed, but she hit nothing but air.
Perhaps thanks to its triple-core drive, the cyborg’s reaction speed was extraordinary.
It used the Earth Escape Skill and vanished.
Soon.
A faint tremor emanated from deep underground where Su Chen was located. Before the fissure that opened in the ground could swallow him, he had already anticipated the attack through the Resonance of the earth’s pulse. His body went weightless, and he floated into the air as lightly as a feather.
BOOM!
The cyborg burst from the ground. When it reappeared, it was already clad in a layer of Earth Armor. Not only that, but under the combined effects of Lv4 Stone Skin and a Lv4 Barrier, its skin was as hard as tempered black rock.
It thrust its arms upward, palms facing the sky. Two Earthquake Waves overlapped, forming a visible ripple in the air that shot straight toward Su Chen.
In a duel between glass cannons, there was no room for error.
The slightest mistake would mean complete annihilation of the physical body.
However...
The shockwave, powerful enough to make the very air ripple, struck only a distorted afterimage.
Using his Shadow Leap ability, Su Chen appeared in a shaded patch of woods some distance away. Despite the relentless pressure, his brow didn’t furrow in the slightest. His breathing was even, and he even had enough leeway to effortlessly load a Single-Headed Bullet—imbued with the power of Flame Burst, Holy Radiance, and Strong Will—into the chamber.
Everything was still within his comfort zone.
In fact, the extreme pressure naturally sharpened his focus to a razor’s edge, allowing him to enter the Heart Stream state without any external assistance.
CLICK.
With a crisp sound from the mechanism, he pushed the Single-Headed Bullet into the chamber with his forefinger.
Just then, the cyborg used the spore pheromones drifting in the air to instantly lock onto Su Chen’s new position. It completely ignored the Soul-devouring Dog’s flanking attack and stomped its feet hard into the ground.
It activated the Earth Escape Skill again.
In less than a breath’s time, it erupted from the earth a meter to Su Chen’s side.
He wouldn’t be fooled a third time.
Having predicted its movement through the pulse of the earth, Su Chen had a crystal-clear image of the cyborg’s trajectory in his mind. With a flick of his right wrist, the shotgun swiveled smoothly, its muzzle aimed precisely at the head just emerging from the ground.
In a way, it was as if the cyborg had delivered its own head to the muzzle of his gun.
BOOM!
’Goodbye!’
He pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
The muzzle spewed forth a torrent of Destruction, interwoven with red and white light. The cyborg’s head instantly burst apart like a ripe watermelon.
The thick armor and high Defense Power had helped somewhat; at least half of the skull and a ruptured fungal core remained. Within it, a single Rune had survived, not yet vaporized.
The headless body remained stuck in the earth. At the stump of its neck, purple-black mycelia twitched and writhed frantically like tentacles, attempting to close the wound. At the same time, it tried to activate the secondary fungal cores in its abdomen and heart.
Before it could react...
As Su Chen leaped back, he used his Strong Will to snatch the Lv5 Earth Element Rune. Then, he telekinetically sent a blast of Sun Flame straight through the closing wound and into the creature’s chest cavity.
The next moment.
BOOM!
Like a bomb in a pressure cooker suddenly going off, the entire body exploded from within. Bone fragments shot out like shrapnel, and charred viscera wrapped in mycelia splattered everywhere. The blast left a massive, spiderweb-like network of cracks in the surrounding ground.
The acrid smell of burning flesh filled the air.
All that remained of the incubated creature was a pile of scorched remains, not enough to piece together even a single complete organ.
Su Chen had tried to restrain his power output to recover as many Earth Element Runes as possible, but it was difficult to hold back the doubled damage that came with his Elemental Mastery trait.
Fortunately, higher-level Runes tended to have a denser and more stable structure. Five Lv4 Earth Element Runes now floated slowly above the scorched pits.
"I’ve struck it rich."
This cyborg was an absolute treasure trove of Earth Element Runes.
Without hesitation, Su Chen used his Strong Will to quickly gather the Runes into his bag. He immediately followed up with a Shadow Leap, diving into the pit. He had just realized what an absurd number of Runes must be concentrated in the other three incubation chambers.

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