The moonlit night submerged the entire venombane glade in an aura of mystery.

However, this mysterious glade was now packed to the brim with hunters. The Yun, Chu, Qin, Zhou, Li, and Zhao clans had poured all their elites into this expedition, brightening the glade with hundreds of lanterns and conjured flames.

Their bodies were all covered in a generous quantity of soulbloom pollen, so despite all the commotion, they weren't attacked by the venombane scorpions.

As the elites of the Blacksteel settlement, they had noticed the stealthed venombane scorpions surrounding them almost instantaneously. On the rock walls, in the earth—these venombane scorpions seemed to be omnipresent within the glade.

The cave tunnel that they had passed through seemed to be their lair. However, because of the soulbloom pollen, the scorpions ignored them all. As a result, before the hunters attacked the scorpions, the scorpions wouldn't attack them of their own accord.

Although they had learned a little about the area from Wang Xiaohua, they forged on cautiously. Even Qin Xiao, brash and boisterous, had become extremely careful upon exploring the glade. Nighttime in the dimensional world was filled with danger; as an experienced hunter, Qin Xiao certainly wouldn't let his guard down.

After passing into the venombane glade, the hunters found that the glade really wasn't all that large, and there were only a very limited quantity of valuable herbs. Even after exploring the entire glade, no one discovered any other lifeforms. Although the glade was filled with spiritual herbs, they were all relatively common varieties, and most had clearly been harvested already.

The gathered hunters clearly didn't think much of the remaining herbs. In that case, the most valuable objects they could hope to find in the glade would be a mutated- or superior-grade venombane-scorpion soulshard.

The fight that had taken place had left a fair bit of evidence that the hunters were able to make out. Although there were only a few marks left on the ground by the tunnel exit, it was clear that a fight had taken place.

Qin Xiao stopped by a gigantic mound of earth, frowning. According to Wang Xiaohua, this was where Qin Xiaotian had been buried. Qin Xiaotian had revered his older cousin Qin Xiao, and Qin Xiao had regarded his cousin highly as well. How could he have died so suddenly?

"My condolences, Qin Xiao," Zhou Qian spoke up, his face a blank mask.

Li Jin and Zhao Jia echoed the sentiment, but their words seemed insincere, as though steeped in vicious schadenfreude.

Chu Feng clucked his tongue. How pitiful, for someone like Qin Xiaotian to be buried here!

"Qin Xiao, I told you your cousin was a weakling, didn't I? You didn't believe me, and according to Yun Bing, you bet three hundred thousand points on him? Surely even you can't afford to squander your wealth like that! I suppose you'll want to retrieve his corpse and bring it back to Earth? We'll leave you to it, then."

Chu Feng's words turned Qin Xiao's face an angry purple.

Qin Xiao was the most arrogant hunter of the top three hunters on the gene leaderboard, and that attitude was something he had embraced on a day-to-day basis. Even if Yun Bing and Chu Feng were slightly stronger than he was, he had never feared either of them.

When had the arrogant Qin Xiao suffered such humiliation? He didn't even know how to repudiate Chu Feng's words! After all, Chu Feng was right—no matter how much he didn't want to admit it.

As a scion of the Qin clan, Qin Xiaotian, whose mutated gene fragments were at capacity, and who had brought his entire team with him—how could he have lost to someone like Zhang Lie, well known to be at the bottom of the gene leaderboard? How shameful! How abominably shameful!

It was a rare opportunity for Chu Feng to gibe at his old rival. Leaving Qin Xiao to grieve, he signalled his elites to head toward the cave entrance.

As Chu Feng left, Yun Bing followed suit. She wasn't on good terms with Qin Xiao, either. "Qin Xiao, what Chu Feng said was harsh, but not unreasonable. Take your cousin's corpse and give him a burial back on Earth."

She turned to leave with her team.

The three corporation heads, Zhou, Li, and Zhao, naturally couldn't stand still after seeing both Chu Feng and Yun Bing going into the distance. They glanced at each other, waved a hasty goodbye to Qin Xiao, and hurried to the cave.

After having explored the glade, they now knew what was most valuable inside. It was very late at night, and the gathered hunters intended to finish their work quickly before heading back to the settlement.

As he glanced at the mound by his feet, as well as the disappearing hunters from the other five clans, Qin Xiao began to smile. "Qin Feng, stay here with a few hunters and dig out Xiaotian's corpse. Everyone else, head to the entrance with me. Xiaotian's lost us a lot of money and face, and we'll have to hunt down whatever superior-grade lifeforms are around here to make up for the loss."

The procession of hunters headed to the entrance to the tunnel and began slaughtering the venombane scorpions in earnest.

Yes, a slaughter. After all, the hunters present were the elites of the Blacksteel settlement, and even the weakest among them had capped out his mutated gene capacity and possessed at least a dozen superior gene fragments.

The venombane scorpions had no effective means of attacking them with anything but their poison. Although they swarmed the hunters, just as they did with Qin Xiaotian's team, they weren't able to harm the hunters at all.

The hunters' genetic techniques slaughtered horde after horde of scorpions. Such endless slaughter would quickly generate soulshards, regardless of how rare they otherwise were.

As Yun Bing lightly waved her blade, wreathed in a curious white mist, a stealthed mutated-grade venombane scorpion was split in half. A thumb-sized purplish-black soulshard began to form over the scorpion's carcass.

A mutated-grade soulshard! Yun Bing's face lit up. After so much effort, she'd finally obtained one.

The next moment, as she quickly absorbed it into her soulspace and activated it, her body turned translucent, then transparent. Chu Feng and the others immediately noticed the transformation.

Such a useful soulshard made the gathered hunters quite envious. They earnestly slaughtered the scorpions skittering toward them, hoping for that rare treasure.

"Argh!" As more and more soulshards began to drop and the hunters were becoming complacent given their accumulated spoils, a hunter suddenly cried out in pain.

The shout had emanated from a member of the Chu clan. Some attack had drilled a hole through the unlucky hunter's forehead, and he slumped to the ground amidst a flurry of commotion.

"Be careful, there's a superior-grade lifeform around, a superior-grade venombane scorpion!" a hunter to his side shouted, having seen something flash by.

Chu Feng's eyes brightened. "Quick, surround it!"

A superior-grade lifeform! To think that a superior-grade venombane scorpion was in their midst!

After all, Chu Feng and the others had long since maxed out their mutated gene capacity, and the only reason they were still here, without having advanced to the second realm of the dimensional world, was because they were waiting to fill their superior gene capacity as well.

And although superior-grade lifeforms were prevalent in the dimensional world, they were quite rare within hundreds of kilometers from the Blacksteel settlement.

Furthermore, killing just one superior-grade lifeform and consuming its flesh would usually only provide between one to ten superior gene fragments.

To reach the limit of a hundred superior gene fragments would require a dozen or more such lifeforms, each of a different type. Given how dangerous it was to go too far beyond the settlement, the difficulty of filling their superior gene capacity was obvious.

How could Chu Feng not be excited to encounter a superior-grade lifeform while surrounded by his elites? With a burst of wind, he immediately appeared before his fallen subordinate.

At the same time, his elites had begun blockading the area. Four walls of wind, like heavy curtains, separated the Chu team from the outside world. 

Within the enclosed space, several hunters whose framework was geared toward detection began spreading out and searching for the superior-grade lifeform.

"It's there! Ah, it's moving so quickly!" By the southeastern corner of the enclosure, the orb of water that a youth was holding up suddenly began to ripple. The moment he spoke, several beams of genetic energy shot toward where he was pointing.

The revealed crystalline scorpion jumped up, evaded all the attacks, and vanished out of sight once more.

"[The Whispering Wind]!" Amidst the commotion, Chu Feng closed his eyes, stilled his body, and began emanating waves of genetic energy, rippling as they interacted with the solid objects around him. 

"I've found you!" Moments later, his eyes shot open, and he struck toward the eastern wind wall.

His sword, glowing blue, traced out an electric arc as he struck at the skittering scorpion, only to have his attack blocked by its stinger with a resounding metallic clash. Immediately after countering the blow, the scorpion vanished from sight again.

Superior-grade lifeforms possessed a significant level of intelligence, and the venombane scorpion behaved much like a skilled assassin. If its blow were to miss, it would immediately hide in stealth. Under normal circumstances, it certainly wouldn't fight head-on with its target.

However, Chu Feng wasn't such an easy opponent to mislead. Wreaths of wind surrounded him, and it seemed as though he could sense the currents of movement all around. 

Despite how quickly the superior-grade scorpion moved, Chu Feng seemed to be able to predict its location and strike with his blade. However, all his attacks were either blocked or knocked aside by the tip of the scorpion's stinger.

Although Chu Feng was unable to hurt the scorpion, he had managed to trap it.

At this point, the other hunters in the cave had all reacted to what was going on. Chu Feng's team immediately joined in the fight, trying to corral the scorpion so that Chu Feng could land the finishing blow.

However, just as Chu Feng's team was doing so, outside the walls of wind, the red-eyed Qin Xiao was stalking toward the scorpion as well.