Chapter 62: Rage-Forged Cleaver

He bought it without giving himself time to overthink.

[Rage Points Spend : 48,000]

[Current Rage Points : 6,900]

The moment the purchase confirmed, a weight settled into his right hand. Lin Feng looked down and a blade rested in his grip as if it had always belonged there. For a long second he simply stared. Then a sharp, disbelieving laugh tore out of him.

"Holy shit."

Yu Mei’s head turned. "What now?"

Lin Feng turned the weapon slightly, watching the way the dim light of the hollow ran along the edge. The unstable qi in his meridians no longer felt quite so chaotic when it flowed toward the blade. Some of the constant grinding leakage eased, as if the weapon were drinking the excess and giving it shape.

"I think," he said, still half-laughing, "I just got something really useful."

It’s name was [ Rage-Forged Cleaver]

[Type: Weapon (heavy one-handed or short cleaver)]

[Effect: Scales with residual hostility and Rage Points spent on activation. ]

[Each hit converts a portion of the damage into residual hostility that feeds back into Lin Feng’s foundation (helps repair cracks while fighting).]

[Short burst mode: floods the blade with condensed killing intent, letting him cut through high tier defenses for a few strikes]

He stood. The two bound beasts shifted, sensing the sudden change in his residual output. Lin Feng rolled his wrist. The weapon moved with him far too naturally for something he had only held for a few breaths.

"I’m going to test it."

Yu Mei rose as well, spear in hand. "Wait where did you even get that? Don’t tell me it was one od your ’items’ you were hiding all along. "

"Everyone have a secret to keep, Yu Mei. " He grinned. And then went to test his new blade.

A cluster of mid tier residual nodes sat only a short ridge away and three separate beasts that had been drawn by the earlier noise and were now squabbling over the leftover hostility. None of them were on the level of the creatures he had struggled with days ago. Under normal circumstances he would still have treated them carefully.

These were not normal circumstances.Lin Feng walked into the open and did not bother with a long plan. The first beast lunged and he stepped in to meet it. The new weapon met the creature’s claw in a short arc. Qi flared along the blade at the moment of contact, and the scavenger’s limb folded with a wet crack. A follow-up cut opened it from shoulder to mid torso. It dropped before it could even scream properly.

The second and third came together. Lin Feng’s body still felt the grind of the cracked foundation, but the weapon gave the leaking power a direction. Every time the blade bit into flesh or plate, a portion of the force fed back into him as usable residual hostility, patching micro fractures even as he moved. The efficiency penalty was still there, he could feel the System straining. It simply no longer mattered as much.

He cut the second beast down in three exchanges. The third tried to flee. A short Fleet Footed Dash closed the distance, and the weapon took its rear legs out from under it. One final downward stroke ended it. And silence returned to the ridge.

Lin Feng stood over the corpses, breathing harder that. Blood,not his dripped from the blade. The constant painful leakage in his meridians had eased from a grind to a dull throb. The two bound beasts watched him with a new wariness.

Yu Mei walked up beside him, eyes moving from the dead beasts to the weapon and then to his face.

"Those were no ordinary beasts... And you slayed them with ease."

"Yeah." Lin Feng looked down at the weapon again. The residual light along its edge was denser now, fed by the short fight. A slow, fierce satisfaction settled in his chest. The first uncomplicated positive emotion he had felt since waking up after the stones.

He gave the blade a final testing swing, then rested it against his shoulder.

"I think I’m ready for our mythical beast."

Yu Mei studied him for a long moment. The mist moved behind her. Far deeper in the swamp,

"I can see that you’re now in a better shape than before and far more stringer. But are you sure? Remember there won’t be any time for regret later. "

Lin Feng glanced once more toward the deep direction where the Skypierce had screamed and then gone silent. The private certainty of what that sound had meant still sat cold in his gut. He tightened his grip on the new weapon anyway.

"For now we should keep moving. Next dense residual field we find, I patch more of this foundation. After that..."

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

The two bound beasts fell into reluctant step behind them as they left the small battlefield. The weapon stayed in Lin Feng’s hand, heavy and real and finally his.

The deeper they walked, the more the swamp changed character. The usual background noise such as distant water shifting, roots creaking under their own slow growth etc faded piece by piece until nothing remained except the soft sound of their own footsteps and the low breathing of the two bound beasts.

Mist thickened into slow curtains that parted reluctantly and closed again behind them. The Ironback Marsh Reaver noticed first. The big plated beast slowed, then stopped completely, claws digging into the root. The Water Beast went further it tried to turn around entirely in the stream, yanking against Lin Feng’s control hard enough. Both creatures were trembling. Not from resentment but from instinct.

Then the pressure arrived. The two bound beasts locked in place, terror pouring off them so strongly that Lin Feng could feel it. He halted and looked at them. For once he did not try to drag them forward.

"That’s far enough," he said. "Both of you. Stay here."

A normal order would have slid off the damaged binds. Lin Feng gathered will and qi, forced it down the frayed connections, and drove the command in deep enough that both beasts staggered. The relief that radiated off them was almost embarrassing in its honesty.

Yu Mei watched the whole exchange with a neutral expression.

"They won’t move even if you start dying in there."

"I believe from here on, no other beasts are allowed to venture further." Lin Feng rolled his shoulder, absorbing the cost of the forced command. "We go alone from here."