Before the titanic beast could obliterate the frontline defensive stance Mary had braced herself into, Ethan sprinted forward. To the wide, terrified eyes of the family, it looked like a suicidal act of sheer panic. He didn’t draw the blackened scrap metal from his back; instead, he threw his bare hands directly onto the charging behemoth.

As the beast closed the distance, Ethan ducked beneath the sweep of the lethal, glittering tusks, his fingers wrapping like iron clamps around the bases of the silver horns. Activating the raw, unadulterated density of his physical conditioning, he executed a precise, violent downward twist.

He didn’t need to match the boar’s immense kinetic energy with absolute, crushing strength. By utilizing a fluid combat technique he had mastered under the White Unicorns’ brutal regime, he used the boar’s own massive, forward momentum against it. The sudden, forced redirection of its head completely ruined its balance. The Silver-Horned Boar let out a muffled, choked grunt as its snout slammed into the floor, its heavy hindquarters flipping forward before the entire three-ton frame crashed heavily onto its side, completely exposed.

"Now!" Ethan screamed, his voice cracking with a perfectly fabricated panic as he pinned the thrashing head down. "Sister Mary! Roy! Strike it now!"

Roy, who had been completely paralyzed with terror a second ago, reacted with the pure adrenaline of a cornered animal. Dropping his weight into his stance, he lunged forward and drove his notched iron spear directly into the soft, unarmored white flesh of the beast’s exposed underbelly.

It was exactly the opening Ethan had calculated for the boy. While the Silver-Horned Boar was a literal tank from the top, its underside was soft, vulnerable, and completely unprotected by its thick, armored hide. The iron spearhead slid smoothly through the flesh, piercing the creature’s massive heart in a single, definitive blow. The violent thrashing stopped instantly, and the light faded from the monster’s crimson eyes.

Ethan immediately let go of the horns and collapsed backward onto the dirt, chest heaving violently as he covered his face with his hands, panting for air like a man who had just escaped the jaws of death by a millimeter. "Heavens... that... that was way too close," he gasped out, his voice trembling on cue.

Mary dropped her heavy hunting dagger, her ample chest rising and falling rapidly as she stared at the mountain of black meat before her, then at Ethan. "Impressive..." she breathed, her voice filled with a mixture of profound shock and deep gratitude. "Ethan, your reflexes... to tackle a beast of that caliber with bare hands..."

Ethan slowly sat up, dusting off his tattered linen tunic, making sure to look entirely miserable and worn out. He offered a weak, self-deprecating laugh, his shoulders slumping. "It’s... it’s not much, Sister Mary. Back in Green Mountain Village, I was always assigned to the heavy hauling crews. I guess I was just born with a bit of freakish, natural physical strength. But..." He looked down at the rusted, twisted piece of iron on his back, a bitter, defeated expression settling over his face. "But raw muscle doesn’t help me with my cultivation. It doesn’t help me with my fencing. I’m still just a talentless reject who can’t even manifest a proper sword light."

Roy drew his bloody spear back, his previous contempt completely vanished, replaced by a lingering look of awe and embarrassment as he stared at the floor. The boy had realized that without the "coward’s" sudden intervention, his family would have been turned into unrecognizable paste.

Ethan wiped a layer of grime from his forehead, looking down at the massive, bleeding carcass of the beast. "Should we clean and dress the meat here, Sister Mary? It might make it a bit lighter to haul back down the path."

Mary immediately shook her head, her gaze snapping upward toward the jagged peaks above. The sun was dipping below the tree line, casting long, bruised shadows across the stone plateau. "Absolutely not," she said, her voice dropping into a tense, urgent whisper. "Look at the sky. It’s going to be dark soon, and this entire ridge becomes a slaughterhouse at night. The Bloody Black Wolves will be coming out to hunt. They are the undisputed kings of this sector of the forest. We need to leave right now."

Ethan offered a quick, submissive nod, but internally, his mind was already shifting gears. He reached deep into the vast, inherited memories of the Ancestor, pulling up the records regarding the local ecology of the Azure Mist Province.

A sharp mental image materialized in his consciousness. The Bloody Black Wolves weren’t standard forest predators; they were monstrous beasts easily the size of a fully grown lion, possessing matted, obsidian fur and terrifying jaws lined with teeth as hard as refined steel. They were pack hunters capable of tearing a mortal or a low-level cultivator apart like wet paper.

The pieces of the puzzle instantly clicked together in Ethan’s analytical mind. These wolves were the exact reason the Silver-Horned Boars had evolved such a unique anatomy. To survive the devastating, crushing jaw pressure of the wolf packs, the boars had developed their dense, heavily armored upper hides and titanic bone structures. However, because the wolves always targeted the head and spine during a chase, the boars had left their underbellies soft and unprotected—creating the exact structural blind spot that Ethan and Roy had just exploited.

"Roy, grab the hind legs," Mary commanded, snapping Ethan out of his thoughts as she gripped the heavy silver horns. "Ethan, use that natural strength of yours to help us lift the main torso. We need to move, fast."

"Right behind you, Sister Mary," Ethan muttered, putting his shoulder against the coarse, bloody hide of the beast.

As they began to drag the massive carcass down the darkening mountain trail, the distant, blood-chilling howl of a wolf echoed through the ravine, vibrating right through the soles of their boots.

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Author Comment: Hi everyone..!! How are you all doing? I really hope you are enjoying the novel so far. It would help me out a lot to know what you think about everything that’s happening lately. What do you think of these new sagas? And how about the footnotes with the skill explanations? I added them to keep things clear and avoid any confusion, so I’d love to know if they are working for you.

Any comments, recommendations, or suggestions are super welcome, and I read all of your feedback! Thanks a ton for all your support.

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From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.

Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.

Body Refinement Realm

Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement

Spiritual Gathering Realm

Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation

Spiritual Core Realm

Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)

Spiritual Soul Realm

Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion

Golden Core Realm

Prime Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction

Spiritual Sea Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Dao Manifestation Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Spiritual Transcendence

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??