Shattered earth, collapsed hillsides, burning forests, a massive carcass emitting a terrifying aura, and a colossal beast that stood tall before it. The beast's body was engulfed in golden-red flames, and lightning crackled around it. Despite the fact that its tail sword was broken, it still exuded a terrifying black-red aura.

The Thunder Fiery Colossal Beast tightened its claws, its muscles bulging slightly as it enjoyed the afterglow of the battle. The ground in the distance trembled, and the Dragon Turtle emerged from its spot, excitedly bounding over with roars of enthusiasm.

Roar! Thunder Fiery, you're so strong! You took down this big guy!

Roar! Thunder Fiery, you truly are our leader, so a-awesome!

Roar! By the way, Thunder Fiery, what does 'awesome' mean? Why do you like to describe things that way?

Watching the Dragon Turtle eagerly crawling around it, the Thunder Beast took a deep breath and swiped a claw.

Boom!

The air exploded under its strike, sending the Dragon Turtle tumbling like a small mountain and crashing to the ground.

The Dragon Turtle was startled, then started to panic when it realized its limbs weren't touching the ground. It flailed about, struggling to prop itself up with its long neck.

Bang!

With another tremor, the Dragon Turtle flipped back over, then whimpered.

Roar! Thunder Fiery, why did you hit me?

Perplexed, the Thunder Beast growled. Roar! Did I hit you? I just gave you a friendly pat. You flipped over so easily because you're too weak.

The Dragon Turtle could only reluctantly accept the explanation. Even though it was larger than the Thunder Beast, it truly was weaker.

Roar! Let's go, let's see what's down there, the Thunder Beast roared softly, its massive body descending toward the distant pool.

Roar! Yes, that's right, let's get some good stuff.

Talking about this got the Dragon Turtle excited again. That was the entire reason they had risked their lives coming up here, after all.

Leaving the giant crocodile's carcass aside, the two colossal beasts quickly returned to the small pool. The Thunder Beast retracted the flames and lightning on its body and led the way into the pond, which was like a bathtub for them.

Gurgle!

As the two massive beasts entered, the water level in the pond suddenly surged, spilling over in large waves and flooding the surrounding broken ground.

Hmm! Something's not right with this water.

Just as it entered the pond, the Thunder Beast sensed that something was amiss. Firstly, the water was deep, not as shallow as it had appeared from outside, but a vast abyss winding downward. Secondly, it contained energy comparable to that found in the depths of the sea below three thousand meters.

In the depths of the ocean, rifts frequently appeared, and the seawater and pressure seemed to lock in the resulting energy, making the deeper sea richer in transcendent energy. In places where spatial rifts frequently occurred, the transcendent energy was as concentrated as liquid, and almost always inhabited by colossal beasts of the deep sea.

Roar! Keep up.

With a low growl, the Thunder Beast swayed its tail and dove downward, following the winding underwater passage to a depth of several hundred meters.

As they descended further, the cave became narrower, with many places showing signs of excavation and destruction, evidently from the crocodile's claws.

By the time they reached a depth of eight hundred meters, the Thunder Beast understood why the pond water was so rich in energy.

In the depths of the narrow cave, which was only about ten meters wide, there were cracks of various sizes in the surrounding rocks, with underground water seeping out. In the middle was a suspended rift, more than a meter long and a dozen centimeters wide, from which flowed a stream of water containing rich transcendent energy.

This was a highly stable spatial rift. The Thudner Beast could even see many white crystals on the opposite seabed. Despite the stability, however, small fish and creatures on this side still couldn't made their way through it to the mythical world.

Tiny black rifts were flashing within the stable one every moment, constantly cutting through the water as it flowed through to this side. The perspective made it seem like there was a white gravel seabed just a few meters away, but in reality, the distance between the two worlds was extremely far..

Roar! Thunder Fiery, where's the good stuff?

With how narrow the cave was, and the Thunder Beast blocking most of the space, the Dragon Turtle behind it could only stretch its neck to try to peer around, barely catching a glimpse of the rift.

The natural treasures they had anticipated, however, were nowhere to be found.

The Thunder Beast's gaze fell on the white crystals on the other side of the rift, and it growled thoughtfully. Roar! The good stuff must have been eaten by that big guy, but there should be more.

As the two beasts growled softly, the current on the other side picked up a fist-sized white crystal from the seabed and carried it toward the rift. However, the moment that crystal entered the rift, it was silently split into three pieces by the black rifts. One of them suddenly shattered and disappeared, followed by the second...

Despite being so close, it took several minutes for the crystal to pass through completely. Eventually, only about a tenth of the small crystal fell from the rift.

Instantly, a special aura permeated the water, causing both the Thunder Beast and the Dragon Turtle to gulp.

Roar! Baxia, let me see the effect of this thing first.

Roar! Mhmm, Thunder Fiery, you go ahead and eat first. The Dragon Turtle nodded with no objections.

Gulp!

With the Thunder Beast's mouth wide open, a powerful suction emerged, swallowing large volumes of water mixed with the crystal into its mouth.

At the Thunder Beast's current size, a crystal the size of a thumb was hardly any different from a speck of dust to a person, so it didn't feel a thing when it swallowed. When that small crystal entered its stomach, however, along with digestion, a surge of pure and majestic energy was released, as if an infinite amount of energy had been compressed into one tiny crystal.

These energies quickly spread out from the stomach; wherever they passed, the cells in the Thunder Beast's entire body began to wildly divide and grow. Muscles swelled, bones developed, and the outer armor expanded.

In just a blink of an eye, the Thunder Beast had grown by twenty centimeters, its massive size appearing even more formidable. That wasn't much compared to its current length, but that was only from a tenth of that crystal. If it was lucky enough to swallow an entire piece, it could grow by two meters, even more than the growth obtained from devouring a level 7 mutated beast.

Phew!

A hot breath spewed from the Thunder Beast's nostrils, its eyes almost completely covered in a blood-red hue as it gazed at the white crystals scattered across the riverbed on the other side of the rift.

With so many super-energy crystals over there, how big could it grow if it ate them all? One thousand meters, or ten thousand...

Even the normally calm Thunder Beast couldn't help but be shaken by this discovery. It was like an ordinary person suddenly seeing a mountain of gold one day, the dazzling light instantly blinding their eyes. Those white crystals were the only thing in the Thunder Beast's sight.

However, the energy contained in these crystals was different from the green crystal sand found under the sea, which contained high-purity life energy. It seemed to only cause the bodies of mutated creatures to grow rapidly, which could be inferred from the evolution points on the attribute page not changing by much.

In addition, the Thunder Beast could feel hunger in every cell in its body, as if the rapid growth just now had depleted all of their stored energy.