Amidst the snowy forest, a young man leaned against a withered tree, concentrating on some task at hand.

Meanwhile, five white figures dashed through the snow at the edge of the clearing, heading swiftly toward the young man.

Cloaked in snowy white fur and baring sharp fangs, their true form was the renowned beasts of the forest, snow wolves.

And the young man leaning against the tree, he was their target for the hunt and also the object of their vengeance.

The young man's name was Yechen, seventeen years old, with a head of thick, curly black hair, clad in a warm and sturdy wolf-skin coat.

He had grown up in this world forever drifting with snowflakes, and now he found himself in the mountains for the purpose of hunting wolf packs, to hone his combat skills.

A native of this otherworldly land, that was Yechen's identity.

From the age of five, under the guidance of his teacher, the young man had been living a life of practice filled with battles.

At this moment, by Yechen's feet lay the bodies of five snow wolves.

Three of them had died from gunshot wounds to the abdomen or back, while the other two had succumbed to knife wounds to the neck.

The five ferocious beasts lay silently bleeding, staining the snow with a glaring red.

However, Yechen had no thoughts about these corpses, not even a glance. For him, these were just routine elements of his training, and he was already accustomed to them.

In Yechen's right hand, he held a silver revolver with the cylinder already spun, while his left hand calmly loaded brass-colored ammunition into the magazine.

As the three wolves approached to within thirty meters behind him, Yechen finally left the cover of the tree. His gaze quickly swept over the five vengeful avengers ahead, then he raised the muzzle, his left hand pressed the hammer, his right hand squeezed the trigger, and without hesitation, he fired the revolver at the three closest snow wolves in succession.

Each of the three beasts received exactly two bullets.

Bang, bang, bang!

With the sound of gunfire erupting in the silent snow forest, two of the snow wolves fell, but the one in the middle narrowly avoided two revolver bullets and led the remaining two companions charging madly toward Yechen.

"Tsk."

Yechen wrinkled his brow instinctively at the error in his marksmanship, quickly holstered his revolver, and drew his long knife from his waist.

It was a slender straight blade, its surface stained with warm blood, emitting a chilling aura of slaughter.

The remaining three snow wolves moved skillfully to surround Yechen, seeking to find his weakness and deliver a fatal blow.

Seeing this, Yechen remained calm. With his right hand pressed against the knife guard and his left hand gripping the handle end, he held the long knife steady in a standard posture. Then, with an odd light emanating from his legs, he moved as fast as lightning, passing by the nearest snow wolf in a flash.

"Swish!

A sharp blade of light sliced through the air, tracing a smooth curve before the beast could react, cleanly slicing through its neck.

In the next moment, blood sprayed, and the body fell apart.

Immediately after, the remaining two snow wolves inherited their companion's fury and lunged ferociously at Yechen's back, attempting to bring him down and viciously bite his throat.

However, at this moment, a strange light once again emanated from Yechen's limbs, granting him a noticeable enhancement in both strength and agility.

Yechen's footsteps swirled, dragging out a rapid arc in the pristine snow, evading the attacks of the two beasts and swiftly stepping into their midst. Then, with a thrust of his left hand, he pierced the neck of the left snow wolf, while his right fist struck out, sending the entire right snow wolf flying ten meters away.

Crack!

The snow wolf pierced by the knife collapsed, its blood splattering on the spot, lifeless.

Thunk!

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The snow wolf struck by the fist fell into the distant snow, rolling in a daze for a moment before immediately turning and fleeing.

Yechen watched the fleeing figure and initially intended to let it go.

However, a peculiar hunting instinct manipulated Yechen's hands at this moment, prompting him to calmly reload the bronze-colored bullets into the silver revolver once again.

Bang!

With another gunshot echoing through the snow forest, the last wolf finally breathed its last, collapsing completely in Yechen's hands.

"Ten snow wolves, all taken care of without the help of my teacher, thanks to the power of the Aoling. Truly remarkable."

Yechen surveyed the bodies on the snowy ground, then couldn't help but clench his fist, feeling the surging power, murmuring praises to himself.

With just a six-shot revolver and a slender straight knife, he had single-handedly hunted down ten snow wolves that hunted in packs. Without the protection of his strange power, such a feat would be extremely difficult even for a fully grown man, let alone Yechen, who was just seventeen years old.

If it were a month ago, Yechen would have at most killed the fifth snow wolf before being overwhelmed by the wolves due to his slow movements."

And once in such a situation, several beams of golden light would descend from the dome of the sky as usual, spanning across several kilometers of airspace, piercing straight through the brains of these snow wolves, thereby saving Yechen's life.

However, with the increasingly acute perception of the Aoling aura during this period, Yechen's control over the Aoling energy also became more proficient.

This was a kind of energy obtained from sensing a certain call from the depths of the soul. Yechen didn't know its specific principles, but he deeply understood that once it was present, his strength, agility, and perception would explosively increase, eventually making his movements as swift as lightning and his strength as mighty as thunder, effortlessly hunting down the wolf pack. It was truly a marvelously terrifying thing.

The bone-chilling cold wind blew, interrupting Yechen's reverie.

He shivered, and immediately decided not to waste any more time in this snowy forest. He took out his long knife, and with a skilled cutting technique, he harvested the fur and meat of the prey.

After packing them up, Yechen quickly descended the mountain, trying to return as soon as possible to the old, dilapidated church halfway up another distant snow-capped mountain, which had been his home for years.

However, just as Yechen carried the pelts and had not walked more than a hundred steps, a series of vibrations immediately sounded from behind him.

Thud thud thud—

Hearing this, Yechen's face changed, his gaze turned back, and he saw that the mountaintop where he was standing at this moment had lifted a white frothy wave, rushing towards him.

Oh no, an avalanche!

Yechen exclaimed inwardly, and immediately began to look around for places to hide, such as boulders. However, after searching around, he could only find a dry grove of trees. In the end, he had no choice but to hide behind the largest and sturdiest tree among them.

When the avalanche came, this old tree was crushed without surprise, and Yechen felt a dizzying sensation, his vision immediately plunged into darkness.

He didn't know how long had passed when Yechen opened his eyes and found himself lying on the edge of a cliff on the snowy mountain, with only half a meter left before he fell off the cliff.

And at this moment, there was a strange halo shimmering around Yechen, like a solid barrier, firmly guarding Yechen between the heavy snow and the cliff.

"In the end, I still can't avoid the help of my teacher."

Yechen sighed deeply, casting a grateful glance towards the old church nestled among the distant mountains. Then, he quickly stood upright, brushed off the snow, and was about to leave. However, as his gaze inadvertently swept towards the foot of the mountain, Yechen's face suddenly stiffened.

"Hmm?"

He murmured in suspicion, quickly leaning over to look below the cliff.

Below, there lay a pitch-black abyss. According to Yechen's previous understanding, this mountainous abyss should have only been submerged at the foot of the mountain. However, to his astonishment, with just a glance today, he found that this 'abyss' had risen to the middle of the mountain, seemingly surging like the tides!

"When did it reach this height?"

Yechen muttered to himself, lowering his head further.

After this move, he further noticed that on the surface of the submerged mountain, the uppermost layer of the abyss was teeming with countless black shadows, resembling thousands of newly born maggots or twisted tentacles, eagerly climbing over this peak and pouring into his world.

As Yechen's gaze reached them, these worm-like shadows even began to wriggle their bodies, seemingly waving to Yechen.

At the same time, countless indistinct voices enveloped Yechen's ears, as if inviting him to come down and 'play' with them for a while.

Just for a brief moment.

Immediately after, the pitch-black tide surged into Yechen's mind.

His consciousness, as if under the pull of some force, was drawn into a bottomless abyss.

"Ah!?"

Yechen couldn't help but exclaim in shock, turning his head to look around, only to see nothing but a sea of darkness surrounding him.

However, in the depths of that darkness, countless eyeballs were faintly visible, staring fixedly at him, as if lusting after a delicious meal, filling the deep sea with a greedy and fervent atmosphere.

What is this?

Trapped in darkness, Yechen, pale with fear, kept repeating this question in his bewildered mind.

However, before he could react, a powerful force attached itself to the young man's legs.

Yechen suddenly looked down, only to see countless tentacles spiraling out from below the sea abyss, wrapping around his lower body unnoticed, and immediately dragging him towards that bottomless abyss.

"Uh—!"

Yechen struggled desperately, intending to draw his revolver and long knife to fight for his life against this inexplicable group of tentacles. But the next moment, the snowy landscape abruptly returned to his sight, replacing the previous darkness.

"Huh?"

The young man hesitated, turning his head to observe his surroundings, only to see the familiar continuous snow-capped mountains and sparse pine forests.

At this moment, Yechen was still standing on the edge of the cliff.

There was no deep sea, no tentacles. Everything seemed to be just his imagination.

The young man inexplicably fell into a hallucination and inexplicably returned to sobriety, a situation truly perplexing.

"What's going on?"

Confused, Yechen couldn't bear the curiosity in his heart and once again peered down into the abyss below the cliff.

However, the darkness there remained calm as water, silently absorbing the light shining down from the dome, without any response to the young man's intentions.