“Six hundred and seventy-nine times...” The memory of being torn apart by the saber-toothed tiger was still vivid. Brian Carter now stood once again, perfectly restored, in the midst of a barren wasteland.

“This time the death wasn’t in vain, I’ve improved... As expected, you still have to fight desperately, otherwise dying a hundred more times would be pointless...” Brian Carter narrowed his eyes slightly. Gathering his strength, he suddenly stomped on the soft sand and leapt up. Even under 2.5 times gravity, he managed to jump five meters high.

Just as his momentum was about to run out, Brian Carter gave a shake of his arms, stretched his left leg straight, and with the tip of his right foot lightly tapping the instep of his left, his body rose another three meters. After a brief moment suspended in the air, Brian Carter flipped nimbly and landed steadily on the ground.

“It’s a pity that the martial arts I comprehended in ‘Blade Tomb’ are all just theoretical, and most are incomplete—after all, they’re ancient martial arts from a game. Otherwise, with this move ‘Cloud Ladder Vault,’ I could at least leap ten meters into the air a second time.”

At that moment, Brian Carter suddenly felt the sand beneath his feet tremble violently. In just 0.1 seconds, Brian Carter reacted, and without a second thought, dashed straight ahead. His speed was so fast that he covered a hundred meters in less than five seconds.

The area where Brian Carter had just been standing—within a ten-meter radius—the sand was all thrown up. It was a giant sandworm, its metallic shell revealing its formidable defensive power. If Brian Carter had reacted even a bit slower or moved less nimbly, he would have become the meal of this level-six creature, the Golden Armored Worm.

“Dead worm meat tastes terrible, I don’t have time for you.” Clearly, this wasn’t Brian Carter’s first encounter with a Golden Armored Worm; he knew it well enough. “Poor mobility, extremely high defense, and uses highly corrosive acid as its main attack...”

Brian Carter sprinted in a straight line for two minutes, completely leaving the Golden Armored Worm far behind. Just as he was about to rest for a moment, an unexpected change occurred: hundreds, even thousands, of level-two Fire-Eyed Jackals came charging at Brian Carter from not far away.

Level-two creatures were no longer a threat to Brian Carter, but when faced with the intelligent and pack-hunting Fire-Eyed Jackals, Brian Carter was convinced that even level-six creatures would have to retreat, let alone himself.

A desperate escape... relentless fighting... In the end, after killing over a hundred Fire-Eyed Jackals, Brian Carter was exhausted and torn to pieces by thousands of frenzied jackals...

Chapter 8: Crossing the Forbidden Zone

In the Death Black Desert, there was never a moment when one could fully relax. Even at night, even though Brian Carter had more than once found fairly hidden caves or tree hollows, he had still been hunted and killed by fierce beasts in his sleep more than once.

Every death was a searing lesson. The unimaginable pain and realism made Brian Carter remember every single mistake. To avoid dying again, Brian Carter had to change himself. While strengthening his body, he also had to put vigilance first. Now, even if he went seven days and nights without sleep, he could still, at the very instant he dozed off, flee a hundred miles at the slightest unusual sound.

After dying thousands of times, Brian Carter had developed a miraculous ability to sense danger in advance. Perhaps it couldn’t even be called an ability, but rather an instinct forged through countless trials—like how animals can sense disasters before humans do. Only now, Brian Carter’s danger sense far surpassed the instincts of most animals.

The central region of the Death Black Desert was a forbidden zone, covered year-round by hundreds of sandstorm tornadoes. Even after surviving in the Death Black Desert for a year and a half, Brian Carter had never dared to set foot there.

But now, he had a reason he could not avoid entering: the most powerful creature in the Death Black Desert, the ultimate target for Brian Carter to escape the first trial scene—the “Scarlet Ao King”—was lurking within this forbidden zone.

In a year and a half, during the first six months, Brian Carter died seven hundred times; in the second six months, he died three hundred and fifty times; in the third six months, he died one hundred and twenty-three times. From last month to today, Brian Carter had already broken his own record for longest survival in the Death Black Desert: thirty-six full days—injured but not dead.

Now, Brian Carter could easily kill any mutated creature below level seven in the Death Black Desert. Even when facing powerful level-eight or even level-nine creatures, Brian Carter had enough ability to protect himself. If luck was on his side, it wasn’t impossible to kill them either.

According to the statistics of the Immortal Program, the completion rate of Brian Carter’s tasks, accumulated from hunting mutated creatures in the Death Black Desert, had already exceeded 70%. The reason Brian Carter had not yet been recognized by the program was because he still hadn’t completed one mandatory task—obtaining the crimson venomous stinger from the tail of the Scarlet Ao King.

※※※

Cloud Body Technique—a basic ancient martial lightness skill of the Grand Federation. As early as age six, in his first year at school, Brian Carter had already learned this Cloud Body Technique, known as one of the six must-learn ancient martial arts for Grand Federation citizens.

This was an ancient martial art for lightening the body and raising one’s qi. Legend had it that if one mastered it to the extreme, they could travel a thousand meters through the air. Of course, that was just a legend. Since the founding of the Grand Federation, no one had ever reached such a realm—at least, not publicly.