<h4>Chapter 280: Prowess: Part 2</h4>


    Lin Sheng stood before the sculpture and looked up to get a better look at things.


    He was trying to look for the written records just like the ck tome from before. After all, the Cultivation and Assimtion techniques that came after Purification could be the key to enhance his bloodline.


    After circling around the sculpture, aside from realizing that the giant hawk sculpture being hyper-realistic, there was nothing else. The sculpture stood on the empty ground at the end of the path. It was a massive ringed valley, and all around were high cliff walls without any other entrances.


    “There’s probably a ce that I haven’t noticed yet.” Lin Sheng felt like something was still hidden and he just had not detected it yet.


    “There’s probably some sort of mechanism in this sculpture...”


    He started circling the sculpture again, and just as sudden, heshed out at the gemstone base of the sculpture.


    *Bam.*


    The base was unmoving, as a powerful, tough feedback reverberated throughout his fist.


    “That’s tough! Something’s not right.”


    Lin Sheng sensed that it was not only tough, but there was also some sort of unknown warmth to it.


    He refocused his gaze andshed out another powerful punch at the base again.


    *Bam bam bam bam!*


    With a flurry of punches, the green gemstone base of the sculpture was getting warmer and warmer.


    Lin Sheng sensed the changes and increased his rate of attack.


    *Crack.*


    A sudden crack suddenly rang out from above.


    Lin Sheng paused, and his expression turned slightly incredulous.


    “Sh*t, could it be...” This sort of familiar crack reminded him of a very unpleasant memory.


    He slowly looked up, and what entered his eyes was a giant amber eye.


    The eye was like a prison, and within it were countless of pale faces that were writhing and crying out wordlessly.


    More importantly, the eye-ball itself was already about his height...


    *Bam!!*


    Lin Sheng quickly pulled back. And only after retreating about ten meters back, that he once again reassessed the massive hawk sculpture.


    It was alive?!


    A good portion of the two-story-tall sculpture’s outeryer had already fallen off and revealed a real, living giant ck hawk’s head.


    Its head itself was already two-story tall, and Lin Sheng could scarcely imagine its true size.


    Just with that amber eyes staring at him alone was enough to give Lin Sheng the terror of being stared at by an apex predator.


    The echoes of the wind rang across the circr valley.


    Lin Sheng was about thirty meters away from the hawk’s head, yet he could still feel goosebumps all over him as if there was an impending disaster.


    “Hello.” Lin Sheng opened his mouth, speaking in Ancient Rehn. “Can you understand me?” he asked.


    “Hello?” Lin Sheng switched to a differentnguage, and this time he used the weird tongue spoken in the giant hawk’s memories.


    Sadly, there was no reply aside from the howling winds.


    Lin Sheng did not give up and switched to Deviltongue instead, using the contents he had learned from the tome in Snowgale Fortress.


    While he was not fluent at it, he felt that he could still manage simple conversations.


    Yet the giant hawk’s head stood still there, as calm and quiet returned to the valley.


    If not for the basteryer of the hawk’s head had fallen off, he could scarcely believe that this tiny-mountain of a hawk sculpture was actually alive.


    As calm returned, Lin Sheng, still not willing to admit defeat, slowly got close to the giant hawk’s head sculpture again.


    This time around, he stood about ten meters away. Therge hawk’s head opened its eyes again and looked at him.


    Lin Sheng circled around the head once again, and while the gargantuan beast did not turn around with him, but its eyes never left him.


    Within the eyes, it was a quiet sea of despair, terror and ambivalence.


    Lin Sheng observed for a while, and as he did not encounter any hostilities or danger, he calmed down somewhat.


    As he looked at the giant hawk’s head, he pulled some distance away and pulled a short ax from his back.


    *Hiss...*


    A surge of holy power infused the ax. His Level 7 holy power now was beyondparison to his Level 3 power back then.


    The short ax started glowing in a pure white glow as his body radiated excess strand-like holy power.


    *Huff!*


    Without a word, Lin Sheng activated his half-dragon form, alongside holy power as he unleashed all of his strength into tossing the short ax in his hand.


    The ck short ax howled as it turned into a ck shadow, an afterimage was left in its wake as it smashed into the amber eyes of the giant hawk head.


    *Bam!!!*


    The ax struck the amber-like eyes straight in the bulls’ eye, and at that same instant, a blunt thud was heard.


    The giant hawk’s head simply looked at him in quiet despair.


    *ng.*


    The short ax fell limply onto the ground, its edge had already shattered into jagged teeth.


    *Gulp.*


    Lin Sheng felt his throat dry as he gritted his teeth hard, all the while staring at the eye at the ax had just struck. It was still smooth as a mirror, with nary a scratch.


    “Bloody hell, I don’t believe this won’t work!”


    Lin Sheng took big steps to get close as he pulled out another ax, increasing his pace into a charge.


    *Bam!!!*


    With all his might, his body radiated in holy light as the short ax burst into an overwhelming force, driven by his Crag Dragon blood and his Sacred Blood ability.


    The keen eye of the ax ripped through air in Lin Sheng’s hand as he leaped into an arc to smash therge eye.


    *Pooow!!*


    Lin Sheng only felt a powerful recoil brutally pushing back against his axe. The axe snapped into two, and its upper hand flew away, and embedded into the surrounding cliff wall.


    Lin Sheng threw away the broken haft and simply resorted to his bare hands, as he leap again and startednding a storm of powerful blows upon the giant hawk’s eyes.


    *Bam bam bam!!!*


    A series of thuds quickly followed.


    The hawk’s head seemed to be covered by ayer of seemingly impregnable material, and no matter how much strength Lin Sheng had tried to muster, no matter how hard he tried to look for weaknesses, no matter how he tried to pierce through thatyer...


    It was futile.


    The giant hawk did not even flinch or resist. It just looked on in quiet despair at Lin Sheng as it monitored his every move.


    *Huff... Huff... Huff...*


    Lin Sheng pulled back to about a thirty-meter distance, sweating profusely as he looked at that incredible giant hawk’s eye.


    “It is...” He had no idea how to describe it.


    The gulf of their prowess was just too huge, and staying here any longer was meaningless.


    After his body recovered, Lin Sheng gave the giant hawk head onest nce before leaving the valley.


    Very quickly, he returned to the bottom of the cliff wall and looked at the tightly packed nest holes.


    Taking a few steps back, he darted forward, using the uneven cliff wall as leverage as he mbered up. From afar, he looked just like a nimble monkey that was quickly scaling and jumping along the cliff wall before entering a close-by nest hole.