The entire ring was occupied by the core layer's top powerhouses and strongest hunting teams.
The core source generated various polluted creatures every day, sometimes in the form of Abyssal creatures, or aberrant species, or perhaps evil spirit types, or demons… Sometimes, it even produced evil weapons with strange abilities.
As for the information about the core source producing evil weapons, Shadow Wing deliberately kept it from Lin Huang.
These evil weapons were growth-type items similar to God Weapons. For Abyssal creatures, their value was not below that of lord-level god relics.
These powerhouses stayed here in the core layer for the long term, mainly to guard the evil weapons—hunting was merely their second priority.
Lin Huang followed Shadow Wing, moving at a swift pace, and quickly arrived near the hunting ground.
"The first target I've chosen for you is a three-person team. The three members are all rank-5s, and two of them are about as strong as me. One is stronger than me and is estimated to have mastered over thirty types of Control-level Rule Bending Powers..." After Shadow Wing had helped Lin Huang to choose his targets, he then revealed various pieces of information about them.
Not only did Shadow Wing reveal their general level of strength, but he also gave a comprehensive description of their areas of expertise and their weaknesses.
"Do these three fellows have a grudge against you or something?" Lin Huang squinted at Shadow Wing after hearing this.
"It's not a grudge, per se. There's just some slight conflict between us," Shadow Wing smiled and said. In front of Lin Huang, he did not dare to lie openly. He had decided to be as honest as possible, especially in obvious matters. After all, his life was still in Lin Huang's hands.
When he saw Lin Huang looking at him wordlessly and smiling, Shadow Wing finally revealed with some embarrassment, "They stole my prey and tried to chase me down."
As they closed the distance, Lin Huang turned his gaze from Shadow Wing and looked in the direction of the three targets. The three monsters had already entered his Divine Telekinesis sensing range.
Based on the intensity of their aura, they were indeed rank-5s.
However, Lin Huang could clearly feel that the auras of the three monsters were much stronger than Shadow Wing. Two of them were slightly stronger and one was more powerful by a full level. In terms of aura intensity, they definitely surpassed the Demon Baby's group of three monsters that he had just killed.
Shadow Wing had evidently exaggerated his own powers when evaluating the strength of the three monsters.
"Seems like prey walked right up to our door!" The one who spoke was a huge creature with a body that mostly resembled a mouse. However, its head was that of a human—it was bald, bearded, and had a gaunt face. The only part of it that was not human-like was its eyes that shone dazzlingly scarlet even in the dark.
"It seems like that birdman Shadow Wing is with him, too." The one who said this was a fish-headed monster. It looked like an intensely muscled giant bullfrog that walked upright. Both its huge eyeballs protruded outward, and it had organs that resembled fish gills on both sides of its neck.
"Don't let it get away this time!"
Among the three, the monster with the most powerful aura—a batwing monster—finally spoke.
It looked a bit like a fiend with fiend-like wings and ram's horns. However, apart from the pair of ram's horns on its head, it possessed no other facial organs and looked just like a faceless human. Its spine tapered to a long tail that had a poisonous scorpion-like sting at the tip.
The three monsters abruptly went into action without waiting for Lin Huang and Shadow Wing to get any closer.
Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis sensed the movements of the three monsters. Initially, he was a little worried that they would run away. However, the next instant, he saw all three monsters starting to charge toward himself and Shadow Wing.
It only took a moment for both parties to come face-to-face.
The batwing monster headed the monster team; the three of them surrounded Lin Huang and his companion in a triangle formation.
"Tsk tsk tsk... so you're working with a human. Birdman, how degenerate have you become?" The fish-headed monster saw the two of them and mocked Shadow Wing.
When Shadow Wing saw the three monsters, he clearly looked a little nervous at first. However, when he glanced at Lin Huang beside him, he immediately gained back considerable courage. "You're a fish-headed monster working with a damn bat, and you have the gall to call me degenerate?! Do your fish-headed monster friends know about this?"
Lin Huang knew something about these two monster tribes.
Batwing monsters belonged to the Night Devil tribe in the Abyss, while fish-headed monsters belonged to the Water Walkers. The Water Walkers were one of the many staple foods of the Night Devils, which made the Water Walkers extremely hostile to the Night Devils. The two tribes could almost be said to be arch-enemies.
This fish-headed monster and batwing monster in front of them working together were indeed much more outrageous than an Abyssal creature working with a human being.
"Birdman, do you have a death wish?!" The fish-headed monster had not expected that Shadow Wing would talk back at it, and its humiliation turned into anger.
Just when the fish-headed monster was about to start arguing with Shadow Wing, the batwing monster secretly sized up Lin Huang.
However, after observing for a moment, he did not notice anything out of the ordinary.
Under Thousand Face's camouflaging, Lin Huang was an extremely run-of-the-mill ninth-rank True God of normal ninth-rank combat level. He possessed the same aura strength as an ordinary ninth-rank True God, with absolutely no special features whatsoever.
Thousand Face's disguise was good enough to fool a peak heavenly god-level powerhouse. The batwing monster was only true god-level and could not see through the subterfuge.
However, this also puzzled it slightly because Shadow Wing was aware of their abilities. It was illogical for Shadow Wing to bring along an easy kill who was weaker than himself. It was equivalent to bringing food right to their doorstep.
Lin Huang was also sizing up the three monsters in front of him.
A Night Devil, a Water Walker, and a human-faced rat—these were Abyssal monsters that had appeared in the monster guide. According to the records in the monster guide, these three types of monsters had considerably large tribes and belonged to the lower-ranking tribes in the Abyss. However, the three monsters in front of him seemed to be individuals of note within their respective tribes, and their abilities were that of peak True God powerhouses.
Among the three, the Night Devil's aura was obviously the strongest, and it did not try to hide it at all.
Lin Huang's lips slowly quirked up because after seeing the three of them, he was absolutely sure that they were the rank-5s that he wanted to hunt.
Without waiting for the fish-headed monster and Shadow Wing to finish bickering, the battle sword in Lin Huang's hand transformed into three blood-red lightning bolts and sliced toward the trio.
The blood-red lightning bolts swept across the void in a flash, closing the distance and directly appearing in front of the three monsters.
Before the fish-headed monster could even react, its body had been impaled.
The human-faced mouse noticed Lin Huang's attack, but it could only watch as the sword gleams pierced through the air. It had no time to escape.
Only the Night Devil dodged immediately when it saw the glow of the sword gleams, but it was a touch too slow. It managed to avoid the attack that could have ruptured its head, but the sword gleams pierced through its left wing.
"That's fast?!" As the Night Devil teetered on the verge of life and death, its entire body was drenched in cold sweat from shock.
It had assumed that the human Shadow Wing brought along could not possibly be weak in terms of ability, but it had not expected Lin Huang to be so powerful.
When Lin Huang saw the Night Devil dodging his rapid speed sword skill attack, he raised his brows but said nothing. Instead, he immediately attacked a second time.
The Night Devil had only just calmed down a little from its shock when it instantly sensed an even bigger threat heading its way. When it looked up, the second blood-red lightning bolt was already right in front of its face.
"I'm going to die..." Before it could finish its thought, half of the Night Devil's damaged horn flew off. Its entire head burst open.
"If one slash doesn't do the job, the second one will..." Lin Huang murmured as he sheathed his sword.
Next to him, Shadow Wing was completely caught off guard; a moment later, it still had not recovered from the shock.
It knew that Lin Huang was very powerful, but even having witnessed the event with its own eyes, it still found it hard to believe that Lin Huang could have killed off the Night Devil's team so easily.
"Let's go!"
Only after Lin Huang had gathered up the loot and shouted at Shadow Wing did it finally came back to reality, gazing at Lin Huang with eyes full of awe.