The swirling dust had not yet settled when the deadlock between pursuer and prey was shattered in a single violent instant.
The moment Lin Mu opened the distance, the berserk Hundred Beast King was already upon him — bearing down like a runaway war chariot, crude club in hand.
The Hundred Beast King's overwhelming killing intent locked onto Lin Mu without mercy.
Lin Mu let out a cold snort. The Rank 2 upper stage Primeval Essence in his Aperture surged into furious motion.
"Go!"
A streak of dark Metal Rend Leaf Gu tore through the dust and drove straight for the Hundred Beast King's face.
At the same moment, the Earth Spike Gu activated in silence — a thick, razor-sharp spike of rock erupted from the ground beneath the Hundred Beast King's feet.
High and low, the same combination as before.
But the Hundred Beast King, fully in combat mode now, was not rattled in the slightest.
It pressed forward and drove the club downward in a savage, airtight arc.
BOOM!
The erupting spike was smashed to fragments on impact, stone shards scattering in every direction.
Then — with the cunning of a true predator — the Hundred Beast King used the enormous rebound force from that downward strike to launch into a move of startling elegance.
Its massive body vaulted off the ground with the club's momentum, rising like a small mountain into the air.
In mid-flight, it reversed its grip on the club in one fluid motion, crossed several body-lengths in an instant, and landed directly above Lin Mu's head.
The reversed strike that followed carried the full weight of its descent behind it — crashing down toward the crown of Lin Mu's skull like a mountain collapsing.
Lin Mu did not dare take that blow head-on.
He activated Earth Ring Body with sharp urgency and pulled back by exactly one body-length, trying to slip out from under the strike's path.
But the moment the club cleaved through empty air, the Hundred Beast King converted the motion without pause — turning the downward chop into a horizontal sweep in the same breath.
Whooom——!
The thick grey-black club swept out just before it hit the ground, instantly expanding its attack range into a sweeping arc like a massive scythe, sealing off every angle of retreat Lin Mu had left.
With no other option, Lin Mu clenched his jaw, threw both arms up in a cross-guard, pushed Earth Ring Body to its limit, and took the blow.
BOOM——!
A deep, crushing impact detonated through the dust.
A monstrous force poured through his crossed arms and flooded into his body. His organs lurched and churned as though they had been knocked out of place.
Blood rushed upward through his chest in a violent surge. Both arms went numb and leaden, sensation nearly gone.
A sweetness hit the back of his throat — a thin line of red escaped the corner of his mouth, barely holding back what would have been a full mouthful of blood.
"What a savage beast."
Alarm flared through Lin Mu's mind, but even as the force sent him skidding backward, he activated the Rank 2 Wound-Mending Gu in his Aperture without hesitation.
A wash of green light swept through his arms and chest, forcing the internal damage down and steadying his footing by sheer will.
The Hundred Beast King grew more ferocious with every exchange.
That seemingly crude club moved in its hands like a living storm — a seamless, impenetrable wall of force that crashed down on Lin Mu in relentless, hammering waves.
Faced with this kind of overwhelming suppression, Lin Mu could only fight while retreating, his Primeval Essence draining rapidly with every response.
"This peak Rank 2 ape is no simple creature."
After several more brutal exchanges, the battle had grown increasingly savage.
The Hundred Beast King's massive body had been cut in dozens of places by Lin Mu's unpredictable Metal Rend Leaf Gu — its tough hide peeled back in ragged strips, blood running freely across its frame.
But Lin Mu was faring no better.
Even with Earth Ring Body absorbing and deflecting the force, being grazed or shaken by that heavy club was still devastating.
His arms — used repeatedly to block — had gone weak and numb, barely responding. The webbing between his thumbs and forefingers was torn and bleeding from the repeated impacts.
Yet even in the midst of this life-and-death exchange, Lin Mu was gradually reading the Hundred Beast King's rhythm.
He could see it clearly now.
The Hundred Beast King had learned some genuinely refined combat techniques from somewhere — but it was still a beast.
It had not reached the level of a human martial grandmaster, where technique flowed like water, seamless and instinctive. Between each move, there was a perceptible hitch — a moment of muscular inertia, a forced transition driven by habit rather than mastery.
Sweep — strike — retract — chop.
Lin Mu counted the beats silently.
"Now."
As the Hundred Beast King's chain of club strikes cycled back around to the chop beat, Lin Mu's eyes went cold with killing intent. He seized the fleeting opening without hesitation.
The club came crashing down with mountain-splitting force.
Lin Mu did not guard this time.
Instead, he feigned a sudden stumble — as though his Primeval Essence had given out — and left a gaping opening in his defense.
The Hundred Beast King saw the prey expose a fatal gap. Ferocity blazed in its eyes. It would not let this chance pass.
Every muscle in its arms swelled as it drove the strike down with everything it had.
The club screamed through the air toward Lin Mu's face.
"Rise!"
Lin Mu slapped the ground with one palm. Primeval Essence erupted from his Aperture. The Rank 2 Red Mud Gu was pushed to its absolute limit.
The hard stone surface beneath his feet dissolved in an instant into a wide, deep pool of viscous, dark-red mud.
Shluck!
The Hundred Beast King's devastating strike missed Lin Mu entirely and plunged deep into the mud.
It tried to use the rebound — the same trick as before.
But in the next instant, the Hundred Beast King felt something it had not expected.
The club was not bouncing back. The mud clung to it with suffocating, immovable grip. No matter how the Hundred Beast King pulled, the club would not come free.
"Now!"
In the half-second the Hundred Beast King spent wrenching at the club — its body locked in a brief, rigid struggle — Lin Mu closed the distance like a ghost, cold light blazing at his fingertips.
Several streaks of Metal Rend Leaf Gu cut through the air like venomous snakes in the dark, aimed with lethal precision at the Hundred Beast King's club-gripping wrists.
ROAR——!
Sensing the lethal threat at its wrists, the Hundred Beast King let out a furious, deeply aggrieved bellow.
If it held on, those unstoppable metal-rending edges would sever both hands at the wrist without question.
Between its weapon and its life, the beast's instinct made the choice.
It released the club in a desperate lurch backward, its massive frame crashing away just barely fast enough to avoid losing both hands.
Without its weapon, the Hundred Beast King's combat strength fell sharply.
"Trying to run?"
Killing intent blazed openly in Lin Mu's eyes. He gave it no room to breathe and pressed forward without pause.
He activated the Earth Spike Gu — a stone spike slid low along the ground with vicious intent, driving straight for the Hundred Beast King's Achilles tendon, aiming to cripple the beast's mobility entirely.
Then — everything changed.
In the moment Lin Mu surged forward, something happened that he had not anticipated.
The grey-black club — the one he had trapped so cleverly in the Red Mud — began to twist.
It writhed.
The grey-black surface cracked apart inch by inch. From both sides of the club, pairs of long, blade-sharp, barb-covered segmented legs erupted outward.
In the world of Gu, powerful Thousand Beast Kings often played host to wild Gu worms that had taken up residence within or upon their bodies. Between beast and worm, a deeply instinctive symbiosis formed.
When the beast faced a life-or-death crisis, the Gu worm felt the threat as well — and acted to defend its host.
But the Gu worm living with this Hundred Beast King was not inside its body.
It had been in its hand the entire time.
The club that the Hundred Beast King had been wielding was the Gu worm itself.
A rare, Rank 2 Stick Insect Gu.
Hiss——!
The Stick Insect Gu wrenched its razor-edged legs free from the red mud.
Like an assassin that had been coiled in patient stillness for exactly this moment, it snapped its body taut and launched — a streak of grey light, moving in reverse, driving straight for the unguarded blind spot on Lin Mu's back as he charged forward in pursuit.
In an instant, the roles of hunter and prey reversed completely.
Lin Mu found himself caught in a lethal pincer from both sides.