Day after day passed, blending together.
Gradually, Oboro became numb to it all.
At least in the human world, he still had a 'biological clock' to follow. But here in the Dark Continent, he had completely lost any sense of time. He simply rested when tired and hunted for prey when hungry.
The unknown dangers that had made him so wary when he first arrived had now become routine. Another change was that the threats he encountered became less frequent. Whenever he appeared in a new area, entering an unfamiliar food chain and ecological environment, various life forms would flee in panic.
The number of creatures that dared to attack him gradually decreased.
He couldn't pinpoint when it started perhaps it was the day Oboro suddenly realized: this continent was safe for him now.
He had finally reached the center of the map, standing beneath the giant tree whose crown covered the entire sky. Yet the door he sought was nowhere to be found.
"How long has it been?" One day, Oboro stood beneath the massive tree, looked up and muttered to himself.
This giant tree had been his first destination when he planned to venture deeper into the Dark Continent according to the map. From the picture, it hadn't seemed far away. But the actual journey had taken an unexpectedly long time.
Progress was slow at first, but as his strength increased, his speed began to improve Even so, he couldn't calculate the exact time that had passed.
This tree, in his hazy vision, wasn't truly a tree. It was like a huge, towering wall blocking his path, with the horizon stretching from east to west with no end in sight. Above, the sky was as black as ink.
He couldn't remember when it had happened, but the sky now only ever showed two colors: black and red. Now, only black remained.
Oboro's body had evolved to the point where he could capture everything in the darkness with his eyesight alone, without needing to speak.
"Ten years twenty years or thirty years?" His mouth opened slightly.
He pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket. There was only one left inside. Taking it out, he placed it between his lips, and the tobacco ignited without fire.
"My speed should be much faster than Don Freecss's He may have experienced even longer than I have It's amazing." Oboro took a long drag and put the empty cigarette box back in his pocket without discarding it. Even with his temperament, he felt a twinge of nostalgia.
Not to mention Don Freecss himself.
"Oh right, the system."
After a few more puffs, he suddenly remembered something. He called up the system panel. Oboro hadn't opened it in a long time.
His age seemed frozen now. On one hand, due to his extended lifespan, it was impossible to calculate according to human metrics. On the other hand, he had now fully integrated into the Dark Continent, where human measurements of age no longer applied.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd activated the system.
The panel remained mostly unchanged. Only the comprehensive attributes, combat power level, food chain status, and ecological score showed differences.
Combat power class: Dark Continent S+ level life form and consciousness (rule-based species).
Comprehensive attribute evaluation: monarch level.
Food chain position: upper reaches.
Ecological score: 100.
"It's already 100 points" Oboro glanced at it, no joy in his tone.
An ecological score of 100 meant he was now completely a member of the Dark Continent. But power it no longer gave him any satisfaction. He now hunted and killed purely by instinct because if you didn't kill the prey, the prey would kill you.
Although few creatures dared to attack him now, there were still some that tried. He seemed to have been assimilated into the rules of the Dark Continent, becoming no different from other species living here.
As for the food chain position that directly reflected his strength, as he became more sophisticated in his control of Aura and his understanding deepened, it reminded him of when he first crossed over to this world and explored his ability. After mastering the power of rules, it became extremely easy for him to manipulate things using the dimension of "life energy."
He had long since broken through the framework of conventional Nen abilities.
The constraints of the six major Nen categories Enhancement, Emission, Manipulation, Conjuration, Transmutation, and Specialization no longer applied. No matter what Oboro wanted, he could use his energy to obtain it.
But his soul that remained his trump card. It had become something like a 'species talent.'
The door remained undiscovered.
Oboro had not yet found the power that could break through dimensions.
He now vaguely understood how to pierce dimensions It was actually quite simple rely on the power of rules. Only with "energy" that transcended the entire world could he hope to open pathways through time and space.
The concept was simple. The difficulty lay in the execution. To have the rules necessary to break the space-time wall of a world, the energy required was unimaginably vast.
At least in Oboro's opinion, it seemed like an impossible dream. He couldn't do it.
However, just because he couldn't didn't mean the creatures that had lived in the Dark Continent for eons were equally limited. For instance, a being or power more terrifying than even the Calamities might possess such ability.
Over the long years, Oboro had witnessed the five great calamities that threatened the human world, and had also found the five great treasures
He had encountered the human-cultivating beast Pap, the plant weapon Brion, and the twin-tailed snake Hellbell but the gaseous life form Ai remained unseen on this side of the Dark Continent.
To put it bluntly these so-called calamities were nothing more than life forms beyond human comprehension, hunting, surviving, and evolving in ways incomprehensible to mankind.
The nitro rice that cures all diseases, the unmanned rock that generates electricity, the metallic twin treasures, the three-source water, the alchemical plants none of these were truly valuable to him anymore. Because of the enhancement of Oboro's own life dimension, these treasures had lost their value and had almost no effect on him.
These things were practically everywhere in the Dark Continent They only held such value for humans because of humanity's inherent weakness. For many creatures native to the Dark Continent, these treasures held little significance.
The value of something ultimately depended on the energy gap between user and object.
Oboro had even discovered treasures far more miraculous than the five hopes.
Different planes of existence simply couldn't be compared.
Crash
At that moment, a noise sounded behind Oboro, and the ground trembled slightly.
Turning around, he found a group of huge moving stones about twenty or thirty of them which looked exactly like ordinary rocks, with different angles and strange shapes. The peculiar thing was that they had hands and feet covered with thick hair, their limbs resembling those of apes.
Cracks appeared on the stone surfaces, revealing enormous round eyeballs.
They had no mouths, but communicated by tapping the surface of their bodies, creating crisp sounds that conveyed information a language unique to their species.
Oboro was clearly familiar with these beings.
"Let's go," he said.
He glanced down and saw that the cigarette between his fingers had burned to ash.
Oboro instantly appeared in the center of the stone group and led the creatures away.
Not all beings in the Dark Continent existed solely for combat and hunting.
Some species were relatively friendly, though they were a minority, driven by innate genes and instinct.
More important was their ability to communicate and exchange ideas they possessed a certain wisdom.
Oboro had traveled with these "stones" for a long time They were the only life forms with a meaningful level of intelligence that he had found in this region of the Dark Continent.
Even if they were merely low-level intelligent creatures.
The reason these stones stayed with him was simple survival.
The journey continues