Chapter 176: The Fall of the Beast and the Secrets of the Nest

But Ethan had no intention of fighting it head-on anymore.

He teleported away.

The Eagle King struck the spot where he had been standing, its claws smashing into the rocks.

Ethan reappeared along the cliff wall and immediately launched a Space Fissure.

The spatial blade cut across the Eagle King’s injured chest.

Blood splattered against the stone.

Before the creature could retaliate, Ethan teleported again.

He appeared farther away, raised his hand, and released another attack.

This continued.

The Eagle King chased him through the cave entrance and along the cliff, but its injuries were becoming increasingly severe. Every time it tried to close the distance, Ethan vanished and reappeared somewhere else.

He never gave it a clean opportunity to attack.

Instead, he kept targeting its existing wounds.

"Roar...!"

The Eagle King’s cries gradually weakened.

Its wings began to droop, and its movements grew sluggish. Blood covered its feathers and dripped down the cliff face, leaving dark streaks across the gray rock.

It tried to rise into the air several times, but each attempt ended with another spatial blade tearing into its body.

Five minutes passed.

Ethan appeared on a rocky ledge and looked down at the creature.

The Eagle King was barely moving now.

Its once-dominant screeches had become weak, broken cries. Its eyes, which had burned with murderous fury only moments earlier, were beginning to lose their light.

Ethan glanced at the system panel.

The Lightning Whip had recovered.

He raised his hand.

Blue-white electricity gathered around his arm, growing brighter until the surrounding rocks were illuminated by its glow.

"It’s over."

He swung.

The Lightning Whip cracked through the air and struck the Eagle King’s head.

ZIIII!

A violent surge of electricity coursed through its skull.

The creature gave one final, desperate screech.

Its enormous body convulsed, then collapsed heavily at the foot of the cliff.

Dust rose around it.

This time, it didn’t move again.

Ethan remained where he was for a moment, watching the corpse.

Only after confirming that the Eagle King was dead did he finally let out a breath.

He teleported down beside the body and retrieved a fist-sized, blue-white Core from its skull.

Just as he stored it, a system notification sounded.

[Ding! You have cooperated with others to kill the Eagle King. Energy Points +10,000.]

[Current Energy Points: 88,050/100,000. Rank: Quasi-S-Rank.]

Ethan paused.

"Wait. Why didn’t I get any Energy Points for killing the King-Rank Pangolin?"

He glanced at the Core in his Survival Space, then at the Eagle King’s corpse.

"Was it because I was just picking up someone else’s leftovers?"

He curled his lips.

"That’s ridiculous."

Still, he wasn’t going to complain about the ten thousand points he had just received.

He stored the Eagle King’s Core and returned to its nest.

The cave was even larger inside than it appeared from the entrance.

Ethan walked deeper, carefully examining the surroundings.

More bones were piled along the walls. Some were large enough to belong to Mutant Beasts, while others were much smaller.

After taking a closer look, he recognized several of them.

Viper skeletons.

He crouched beside one and examined its remains.

’So that’s where all the Vipers went.’

He finally understood why he hadn’t encountered many Vipers in the suburban mountain forest.

The Eagle King had been using them as food.

The remaining Vipers had probably fled the area long ago, driven away by the predator that ruled the skies.

Ethan continued toward the back of the cave.

There, in a sheltered hollow surrounded by feathers and dry branches, he discovered two enormous eggs.

Each was roughly the size of a basketball.

Their shells were covered in intricate golden patterns, and faint sparks of electricity occasionally danced across their surfaces.

Ethan’s eyes lit up.

"Eagle eggs?"

He crouched down and examined them carefully.

The eggs appeared intact.

He couldn’t tell whether they were close to hatching, but the faint electrical energy surrounding them suggested they weren’t ordinary eggs.

A smile spread across his face.

’If they hatch, they’ll make an interesting addition to the Survival Space.’

He carefully stored both eggs.

By the time he finished searching the nest, it was already seven in the evening.

Night had fallen over Sunset Ridge, and the cliff was swallowed by darkness.

However, small points of light flickered among the rocks and trees.

Mutant fireflies.

Their glowing bodies drifted through the air, creating a beautiful contrast against the dark mountainside.

Ethan extended his Spiritual Power to examine them.

They didn’t appear hostile or particularly dangerous.

He immediately used Teleportation to collect a large number of them and transferred them into his Survival Space.

With the new Small Ecosystem function unlocked, the fireflies could add another layer of life to the growing environment.

He looked around the cave one last time.

The Eagle King was dead. Its nest had been cleared, and the threat it posed to the surrounding forest was finally gone.

Tomorrow, he could continue transplanting trees without worrying about that particular predator.

"Time to head back."

He glanced toward the distant ruins of the Underground Casino.

"The Eagle King threat is gone. I’ll continue transplanting trees tomorrow and prepare for the next expansion of the Survival Space."

With that, he activated Teleportation.

His figure vanished from the foot of Eagle Beak Cliff.

Several minutes after Ethan left, something stirred deep inside Sunset Ridge.

A massive white figure slowly emerged from the darkness.

It was a fox.

But not an ordinary one.

The creature stood at least two meters tall, and nine enormous tails swayed behind its body. Its thick white fur remained almost spotless despite the rough terrain.

Two narrow, crimson eyes glowed beneath its brow.

The fox approached the Eagle King’s corpse.

It lowered its head and sniffed the air before circling the dead creature. Then it extended one paw and turned the Eagle King’s head, searching through the remains.

Its claws scraped against the ground.

But the Core was gone.

The fox’s ears twitched.

A flicker of irritation passed through its crimson eyes.

It had arrived too late.

Then its gaze shifted toward the direction Ethan had disappeared.

The scent was faint, but it hadn’t vanished completely.

Something about it caught the creature’s attention.

Its red eyes narrowed.

A moment later, its expression changed.

Greed crept into its gaze.

The white fur covering its body gradually darkened, changing from white to black. The transformation spread from its head down its back and along its nine tails until the creature was almost indistinguishable from the surrounding darkness.

Even its nine tails seemed to dissolve into the night.

The fox lowered its body and began moving.

It made almost no sound as it crossed the rocky ground, following the faint trail left behind by Ethan.

Its destination was the Underground Casino.

Two crimson eyes remained visible in the darkness, glowing like a pair of sinister stars.

And whatever the creature wanted from Ethan, it clearly had no intention of letting him escape.