Epoch of Twilight

One hundred and fifty meters was not far for the giants, nor for Luo Yuan.

Luo Yuan threw away the short spear in his hand, steadily moving his arms to make sure that his muscles were not strained or aching. His 14-point Physique had made his muscle fibers tougher, and they did not get injured as easily anymore.

The giants kept getting closer, their loud howls buzzing in Luo Yuan’s ears. He opened his eyelids slightly to look at them as they rushed over. A flicker of a cold smirk crossed his face.

He immediately held the handle of his Zhanmadao tighter, his body suddenly becoming a blur as he disrupted the surrounding airflow and disappeared from his original spot. He was carrying the Zhanmadao in his right hand, crouched like a fierce tiger, his toes stepping hard on the soft soil and stirring up dead leaves a few meters high into the air. Each step he took was about five to six meters apart as he sprinted down the hill.

A giant with a big stick in its hand appeared, wearing a ferocious grin. Its grin split its face in half, giving it a fearsome look. As it rushed over, there was something dangling indistinctly under its skin. Before it could manage to come near though, a heavy bloody smell blew on its face.

Luo Yuan frowned in disgust and leapt up high like a swallow, making his body smaller as he brushed past the giant. Meanwhile, the silverish-white Zhanmadao flashed through the air, and the giant’s ugly head shot up under the high pressure of the blood gushing out from its neck. The headless giant continued to run for a few steps before it slumped down on the ground, twitching unnaturally.

As Luo Yuan hit the ground, he run like an agile cheetah into the group of giants and begun killing them with his Zhanmadao.

Their large body size made them larger targets, and as Luo Yuan was both faster and quicker to react, they ended up getting killed gruesomely. Wherever he passed, there were amputated limbs, fresh blood and human-like howls and roars.

Most giants did not die on the spot, because Luo Yuan was only as tall as their thighs. Therefore, most of them just had their legs amputated, the only difference being whether they had one or two legs cut off.

Although it had been less than 10 seconds after Luo Yuan had sprinted into the group, more than 30 giants were already badly injured. On average, he had amputated about three giant legs per second. The giants had been spreading out; otherwise the number of amputated legs per second would have been even higher.

Luo Yuan’s silhouette had turned into a high-speed shadow; one moment he was at one spot, amputating a giant’s head with a quick swish of his Zhanmadao, and the next moment he had disappeared to a place about ten meters away. His sharp Zhanmadao could easily cut through the thigh muscles and bones of the giants. Any giant who tried to escape would slump down on the ground after taking a few steps as both their legs would have already been separated from their body.

The giants were crying miserably on the hillside, the strong smell of blood attracting a lot of attention. Branches were moving about intensely, there was tumult in the tussock, and even some shadows could be seen hovering overhead.

In 30 seconds, no giant could stand up straight anymore, and those giants who could no longer escape because their lost legs were struggling and crying in pools of blood. Miserable, sharp, loud noises were heard echoing in the valley.

Luo Yuan was standing, fresh blood dripping down the edge of his Zhanmadao. Soon, it became as shiny as new. He panted for a few seconds before his breathing quickly became even again. After that last point had been added to his Physique, his ability to recover had improved by leaps and bounds, becoming insanely fast.

He scanned through his surroundings, his eyes as sharp as a knife. He had scared off the giants who had been crawling on their hands, making them forget the pain and shiver in desperation instead.

They were producing some weird sounds. Perhaps they were imploring or scolding, but neither of those things would change their final destiny. Luo Yuan quickly rushed over to kill them all. Soon, there were more headless corpses lying on the ground.

“Finally completed the first step!” Luo Yuan thought silently, his face looking slightly delighted. He got back to the hilltop, picked up the sack with the short spears, put it on his back and briskly walked into the deep valley.

After Luo Yuan had completely disappeared from sight, several mutated beasts surged out of the forest towards the bodies and began tearing them apart.

..................

Luo Yuan met some returning giants on his way down, thus confirming that he was in the right direction. Of course, he killed them all too.

The larger trees by the roadside had been cut off and only tree stumps had been left behind. All along the way, he had seen more than two thousand tree stumps, and the number only increased as he progressed. His face looked grave. He did not know what the giants were doing with these logs, but their number was big enough to build a small city already.

After walking for a few kilometers, Luo Yuan reached a large cliff.. He took a closer look and saw many caves with giants in them. However, what seemed strange to him was the thick ascending smoke that saturated the air with a heavy smoky smell. Hot waves of it occasionally blew on his face.

He slowed down and hid amidst the tussock as he crept forward. After about 10 minutes, the heatwave had already become burning hot. The temperature was more than 70 degree Celsius, causing the tussocks nearby to dry up. A flicker of a doubt flashed through Luo Yuan’s mind, but he walked a few steps forward. When he pushed the grass aside, what he saw shocked him.

There was a huge brazier in an open space in front of the cliff. He roughly estimated that it was about a hundred meters wide, with a raging flame that occasionally reached about a hundred meters into the air. Numerous giants were sweating profusely while they threw logs into the huge brazier. Their skin appeared to have been scorched by the high temperature, and their hair had curled up. However, they still looked solemn and excited.

The high temperature was indeed a tough challenge even for the thick, rough skin of the giants; none of them could endure it for more than three rounds, so they were all replaced quickly.

The number of giants were incredible. Counting the ones standing in the open space, there were already 156 and there were countless more looking from a cliff above. It was difficult to differentiate between the giants as they all looked the same; solemn and enthusiastic.

Luo Yuan had considered many possibilities about what the giants were using those logs for. A few examples that came to mind were that the logs had been used to build houses, make weapons for hunting, or build fences for defense. However, it had never crossed his mind that the giants had been chopping down the trees to ignite a huge brazier.

After observing them for a while, Luo Yuan began to understand their actions. Fear of fire had been imprinted deep into the genetic material of every living thing, and that fear had also turned into worship - an ancient kind of worship that all human beings had gone through.

Besides, the brazier was not used only for religious purposes. It could also be used to prevent other mutated beasts from getting close. Therefore, that brazier had the ability to save the lives of countless giants living in that dangerous forest.

In fact, the ability to use fire was a critical step for the development of an intelligent species.

As Luo Yuan thought of the freshness of most of those tree stumps, he confirmed that this fire pit had not been made too long ago. Therefore, the incident that had taught the giants how to use fire must have been recent. He thought that incident must have been related to the thunderstorm and the forest fire that had taken place not long ago. That must have been the turning point.

Human beings had experienced millions of years of eating raw food before they found fire during the Neolithic Period. However, it looked like those creatures had only needed a few days. Even if had taken them a long time, it would still have been less than two years. There was a huge gap between two years and millions of years. The thought that this group of intelligent creatures had progressed so fast chilled Luo Yuan. He could not imagine how they would evolve if they were to live for another few years.

An urge to wipe off the entire group flashed through his eyes as he realized that he could not spare even a single one of them.

Still, killing them all would be extremely difficult. He carefully observed his surroundings, his eyes finally landing on the cliff and staying there.

The cliff was about 300 meters high, and its slope very steep, almost 90 degrees. The surface had traces of it being polished, looking smooth without any holes or crevices for hands to hold on to. There was only a zigzag path extending from the bottom inner part of the cliff up to the middle of it.

Excavating such a path from the inner part of the cliff must have been an enormous undertaking even for those powerful giants. A few giants could still be seen excavating at the top, which proved that they were planning on elongating the path.

All the caves on the cliff had been dug along that path.

The topography of the place was easy to defend, but difficult to attack from. One man could hold out against tens of thousands of enemies. However, one would have no choice but to enter from the entrance of the path at the base of the cliff if they wanted to kill the giants.

Luo Yuan frowned deeply.