"Detecting Tier Six Mutated Creature: Blood Flame Demon Bat..."

...

Li Xiang couldn’t tell them apart, so he decided to kill them all. He leaped into the air, brandishing the Profound Iron Mountain-Removal Rod, and unleashed an incredibly forceful Staff Technique. Backed by tens of thousands of pounds of strength, the rod was a devastating weapon. A mere graze was lethal, and a direct hit would obliterate his targets.

A spray of blood mist splattered all over Li Xiang’s Armor.

"This is a little disgusting," Li Xiang muttered. He altered his Staff Technique, beginning to reduce the force of his blows.

’A Staff Technique can’t just be about brute force,’ he mused. ’All Martial Arts, upon reaching a profound level, must embody a balance of hard and soft, a harmony of yin and yang. A style that is purely forceful can’t be considered top-tier.’

It was just like Guo Jing’s Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms. Originally the epitome of raw power, it could also generate Soft Strength once mastered to a profound level.

The longer he fought, the more fluid his movements became, and his understanding of the Staff Technique deepened. In the end, he wielded the eight-to-nine-hundred-kilogram profound iron rod with dazzling skill. Not only did his kill efficiency increase, but he also conserved more of his Spiritual Power and stamina. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Most importantly, bats no longer exploded into a bloody mist upon impact. Every bat he killed now appeared completely unscathed on the surface, its skin unbroken. Inside, however, its flesh, organs, and brain had been pulverized into a mound of pulp.

Moreover, the potent Soft Strength stirred up by the massive rod created a vortex within the cave, pulling in all the bats. It looked as if they were actively flying into the rod, seeking their own demise.

In reality, the bats were simply unable to escape the suction created by Li Xiang’s swirling rod.

’So this is how the ’stirring’ principle of the Staff Technique works,’ Li Xiang realized. As expected, the power was far greater when hard and soft were in harmony.

That night, Li Xiang killed over a thousand mutated Blood Flame Demon Bats. He harvested nearly one hundred thousand Achievement Points and over three thousand Spiritual Medicines ranging from Tier One to Tier Eight. In addition, he obtained a small Extraordinary item: an exquisitely crafted, albeit somewhat dark-themed, Blood Flame Magic Ring.

Its Tier wasn’t high—only Tier Seven—and it was made of silver. It wasn’t very useful; its only ability was to release a millstone-sized ball of blood flame. This was a type of Demon Flame, with an estimated temperature of four to five thousand degrees, far exceeding that of any Mortal Fire.

It could easily melt even tungsten steel. The only downsides were that the volume of flame wasn’t very large, and it had a cooldown period after each use.

The Blood Flame Ring was likely dropped by a Tier Ten Bat King from inside the cave.

Because he had used the opportunity to hone his Martial Arts, Li Xiang took a bit longer than usual, finishing the job in a full three to four hours. Not a single creature in the Bat Cave was spared.

Finally, Li Xiang removed the giant stone that had been blocking the entrance and vanished into the darkness.

He didn’t return to the deep mountains but instead went to the coast. He washed the filth from his Black Mountain Profound Armor in the ocean, then used his Spiritual Power to vibrate it completely clean.

The boulder was just an ordinary Stone with no special properties, so he tossed it directly into the sea.

He unleashed his Extreme Speed and sprinted across the surface of the ocean. This wasn’t the Wave-Treading Technique; it was purely an effect of his velocity, allowing him to run on water. The force of his sprint kicked up a wake, much like a speedboat cutting through the waves.

After amusing himself like this for about half an hour, he spotted a deserted island, where he started a bonfire and cooked himself a barbecue.

He had some mountain delicacies and wild game, along with a few unidentifiable fish he’d caught from the sea. Their texture was quite good. One of them looked like a sea bass with a pointed mouth; he could tell at a glance that it wasn’t poisonous and was safe to eat.

It was a barramundi, also known as an Asian sea bass, a coastal fish found in the Western Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean that is also commercially farmed.

There are actually thousands of types of parasites in ocean fish, with the most common ones, like Anisakis and tapeworms, being able to infect humans. But Li Xiang wasn’t afraid, so he tried eating some of it as sashimi.

Even if there were parasites, he had reached Minor Spirit Body Achievement and was immune to all illnesses. Neither parasites nor any bacteria from the sea could harm him.

When dawn broke, the staff at the tourist attraction arrived for work and were left dumbfounded.

Countless tourists came to see the famous "emergence of the bats," but unfortunately, there were no bats left.

The attraction’s management reported the incident, and the relevant authorities came to investigate, but they found no leads whatsoever.

As one of the police officers reviewed the clues, he suddenly recalled the recent bizarre incidents in Northern Myanmar and Mandalay. He couldn’t help but gasp. "Don’t tell me that Mysterious Man has come to our P’an?"

"That can’t be, can it? I heard that Mysterious Man and his Mysterious Force are only interested in precious jadeite and gold, or slaughtering drug lords. I’ve never heard of them having a thing for killing bats."

Someone bowed in prayer toward a distant statue of Buddha, then turned to the others and said earnestly, "I believe this attraction offended the Buddha, who then brought down this disaster upon it."

Another person piped up, "I said it all along! We shouldn’t be using bats to make money. See? Now we’ve brought a disaster upon ourselves!"