Davis loosened his grip from the handle of the Dark Crimson Scythe and plopped to the ground as exhaustion coming from his soul hit him hard.
He had used most of his Soul Force and felt lethargic, even weak, so he rested for a few minutes before he finally glanced at the dead centipede again.
He turned to look at two other two Magical Beasts which were dead at some point after the centipede died.
Their bodies were bloodied, mangled and the wounds were horrendous and aghast, to say the least.
Two of the four limbs of the Armored Stone Tiger were nowhere to be seen while the Viridian Hawk’s body was entirely bald, with few little feathers remaining on its majestic tail.
"Good work..." Davis mumbled to Fallen Heaven and stood up.
He didn’t receive a reply and wasn’t bothered by it.
Collecting the souls and their bodies, he felt some gazes looking at him with some greed and bloodlust.
He instantly concealed himself and retrieved the Dark Crimson Scythe and the corpses as he left to a place where there was no magical beast to be found.
He suddenly spotted a waterfall far away running down from the above mountains and turned to look at his bloodied robes which even contained the putrid stench. He couldn’t remove them easily due to its blood vitality.
Feeling exhausted and tired, his mind felt that he needed to take a bath obsessively.
So he acted on his thoughts and neared it in a few minutes, and once he arrived, he could see the mist spreading around the place where the water fell.
’This...’ Davis’s eyes glowed with fervor as he inadvertently shouted, "It’s a hot spring!"
Then calming down a little, he corrected himself inwardly, ’It’s a hot river...’
He saw the river flowing before him in a stream as it disappeared into the distance, hidden by a valley.
Even so, the warm river was unnaturally quiet and the steam emerging from the place where the waterfall met the river covered the area.
This gave an eerie sensation to him, so he released his Soul Sense and checked the waters for any Magical Beasts.
With a few sweeps, he heaved a sigh of relief as there wasn’t any magical beasts or some terrifying monstrosity lying in wait to ambush him.
With a few more sweeps, he checked his surroundings and confirmed that there weren’t any more Magical Beasts that could potentially threaten him.
He didn’t think that a Magical Beast could hide from his Soul Sense in the inner region unless it was specialized in stealth or was at the Seventh Stage.
The former seemed likely but he took his chances and the latter seemed less likely since he guessed that Seventh Stage Magical Beasts should only exist in the core region.
Taking off his robes and storing it inside his space ring, he jumped into the river, washing away the bloody filth that stained his body with energy.
’Ahhh... Feels so good!’ Davis groaned in pleasure and his taut muscles relaxed naturally. He let himself float in the river as he let his body be taken away by the stream.
As the stream took him away, he could feel the temperature dropping slightly.
He didn’t like it, so he immediately swam back to the foot of the waterfall, and let the falling water hit his back.
*Tat tat tat!~*
The force behind the falling waterfall felt as if there were countless hands behind him, performing a massage technique on his back.
"Good!!" He gleefully shouted and stayed there for some time.
At the same time, he tried to enter meditation to recover his soul force but the pleasurable massage didn’t let him enter that state.
Even so, he didn’t feel like going as so far as to extricate himself from this position.
It was just that good!
After a few hours, morning became afternoon, and Davis felt that it was enough and stood up as he turned back.
Suddenly, he noticed something.
He moved forward and his lips turned into a curve.
’A cave!’ Davis cheered for himself.
Wasn’t this just perfect? He was just going to carve one for himself behind this place but he found one instead.
It was as if it was made just for him!
’Just perfect! I can make a breakthrough here...’ Smiling lightly, he moved in cautiously, extending his Soul Sense into the cave.
Other than a few dried up remains of some Magical Beasts, he didn’t find anything.
The cave stretched for about 50 meters into the mountains and it widened as it went deeper.
At the 50 meter mark, he arrived and set up the concealment and defensive formation, although he doubted if it would be able to conceal his breakthrough from powerful outside forces since his formations were only Mid-Level and not High-Level.
Well, the waterfall and the misty area acted as a barrier of sorts, so he wasn’t worried as much.
After finishing up his preparations, he sat crossed leg on the cold ground and entered into a state of meditation.
Without any disruption, he was able to clear his mind as easy as swallowing food.
As time passed, he finished refining two out of the three Peak-Level Grand Beast Stage Magical Beast Souls and without facing any bottleneck, he smoothly stepped into the Peak-Level Elder Soul Stage.
The exhaustion that dwelled in his soul got swept away instantly as he felt rejuvenated to the extreme.
But he didn’t stop his refinement process.
He continued to refine the third Peak-Level Grand Beast Stage Magical Beast Soul Essence to stabilize his foundation.
This went on some time before he finally stopped as he opened his eyes.
Flashing in his eyes was a kind of excitement he never felt before!
Once he stepped into the Sixth Stage, not only would he be invisible to almost ninety-nine percent of the people in this territory, he would be able to return to the second layer and reunite with his family.
It had been more than 5 years since he left, but it was enough to get him homesick.
This was a feeling that he never felt before in his time as an earthling, a dream that was never realized.
But now...
Davis beamed as he closed his eyes. This was an opportunity he wasn’t going to miss as he felt that his comprehension had already reached the Sixth Stage in a sense.
He entered his sea of consciousness and looked at the centipede shaped light swirling around Fallen Heaven.
"Let’s start..." He uttered in a confident tone.