Chapter 170: Bastion of Humanity

"Did he just tank the attack of a Demi-god?!" Meng’s eyes widened to the size of saucers as he stared at the unclad Adam, who was seated comfortably and completely at ease upon the broad, feathered back of the golden raptor.

For several breathless seconds, Meng genuinely wondered if his senses had been shattered by the concussive pressure of the cavern.

The conceptual distance between a Demi-god and a mortal practitioner was often likened to the vast gulf between a Tier 9 and a Tier 5. But the practical reality was far more nuanced and terrifying.

A Demi-god was not merely faster, heavier, or more durable.

Their very fundamental existence was rewritten upon crossing the divine threshold.

The sheer volume of condensed divinity circulating through their meridians, the absolute dominion they exerted over local domains, and the qualitative transformation of their soul matrices made them virtually untouchable to mortal cultivators.

Under standard circumstances, a single Demi-god could slaughter an entire legion of Tier 5 specialists without suffering a single scratch. If you stood below that threshold, you were little more than dried leaves waiting to be swept away by an autumn gale.

Yet Adam had just taken an unmitigated, point-blank tactical bombardment from an enraged Demi-god.

And now he was sitting there, humming softly to himself as if enjoying an afternoon breeze.

"He’s weird like that," Ethan remarked with a wry, dry chuckle, glancing back at his fifth summon.

Adam appeared utterly tranquil, his legs crossed casually across the raptor’s golden plumage. His long, vibrant blonde hair drifted loosely in the turbulent updrafts, while the faint wisps of white smoke rising from his fair skin dissipated completely into the damp air.

This was the first time Ethan had witnessed the passive authority of *Perfect Body* tested against authentic, high-tier hostility.

The trait’s initial description had read like mythic hyperbole: crafted directly by the hands of a god, Adam’s physical vessel possessed an infinite capacity to absorb, disperse, and endure kinetic, thermal, and arcane trauma, scaling his structural resilience directly with his internal energy reserves. Considering his ultimate evolution trial demanded withstanding the unmitigated strike of a true, living God, Ethan had anticipated absurd survivability.

Seeing it demonstrated in real time was another matter entirely.

Adam hadn’t raised a defensive ward.

He hadn’t deployed a kinetic barrier.

He hadn’t woven an abjuration matrix to disperse the impact across the local ley lines.

He had simply opened his bare chest and absorbed the entire divine nova into his flesh.

"He’s weird, yeah..." Meng muttered under his breath, shaking his head with a hollow, self-deprecating laugh.

If he were in Ethan’s position, he would have offered the exact same deflection. How could anyone logically explain to an outsider that this naked young man was the conceptual First Man of humanity, the progenitor of the species, possessing a primordial vessel engineered to shrug off Demi-god martial arts as minor nuisances?

Some secrets were far better left buried in comfortable ambiguity.

"Demon spawn ahead," Ethan’s tone suddenly flattened, the relaxed atmosphere vanishing in a fraction of a heartbeat.

He reached smoothly into his spatial storage and drew the heavy frame of the Storm Crossbow, locking the reinforced firing mechanism into place with a crisp, heavy metallic click.

Having outpaced the pursuing Demi-gods and crossed the red-line perimeter ahead of schedule, they had arrived at the upper stratum far earlier than the proctors had anticipated. But that temporal advantage brought its own severe complication, the abyssal hordes inhabiting this subterranean basin were completely fresh, undisturbed, and unthinned. There were zero signs of recent culling by the Bastion’s border garrison.

Ahead of them, the massive cavern floor, towering stone pillars, and jagged cavern walls writhed with thousands of grotesque, chittering abominations.

Some scuttled on six segmented, chitinous limbs; others clung to colossal stalactites like bloated, leathery bats; many were sickening amalgams of fused torsos, weeping acid pustules, and serrated mandibles, the undying vermin spawned from the ancient demonic horror sealed deep within the mountain’s roots.

And their numbers were utterly overwhelming.

"Take the left flank," Ethan commanded, leveling the heavy crossbow across his forearm. "I’ll clear the right landing corridor."

Meng nodded sharply, his playful facade instantly shedding to reveal the focused edge of an S-Rank prodigy.

The golden raptor leveled its glide thirty feet above the jagged cavern floor as Ethan squeezed the cold iron trigger.

*Boom!*

A specialized high-yield explosive bolt drilled straight through the armored carapace of a hulking multi-legged horror, detonating its cranial cavity into a violent shower of corrosive black ichor.

*Boom! Boom! Boom!*

Ethan fired in rapid succession. Every shot was cold and mathematically calculated; every bolt targeted structural clusters within the swarm to maximize kinetic shrapnel dispersion, trigger localized rockslides, and clear a clean landing lane toward the inner mechanism.

Meng was just as lethal. Channeling his *Air Nomad* authority, dense currents of pressurized wind coiled around his bolts like whistling serpents. He curved his projectiles mid-flight with terrifying aerodynamic mastery, bending trajectories around massive stone pillars to strike nesting clusters before they could launch their concentrated acidic volleys.

A localized tempest of concussive detonations, whistling wind blades, and roaring shockwaves tore through the cavern.

Minutes blurred together under the relentless hum of bowstrings, the clatter of spent casings, and the deafening roar of exploding ordnance. Slowly, the shrieking tide of deformed flesh and severed limbs began to thin, leaving behind sprawling mounds of smoking, charred carcasses.

Ethan lowered his warm weapon and glanced back toward the lower red-line boundary. "The trailing pack should be arriving right about now."

As if answering his words, heavy, panicked footsteps and desperate shouts echoed from the lower transit tunnel.

The first vanguard of surviving Tier 5 candidates finally broke through the boundary threshold.

They looked nothing like the polished, arrogant aristocrats who had strutted across the testing platforms in Ascension City that morning. Their fine silk robes were shredded and soaked in filth and blood, several candidates were missing forearms or fingers, and many were physically carrying maimed, unconscious squad mates.

"Fuck!" a bloodied noble scion roared, collapsing heavily against a shattered boulder while clutching a mangled shoulder. "This whole mountain is a fucking meat grinder!"

Nobody answered him; the survivors were entirely drained of breath, stamina, and mana.

Without the blazing vanguard of an Angel like the Son of Nezha to incinerate the initial hives, the trailing candidates had been forced to fight through the claustrophobic depths with pure, bloody attrition.

The demon spawn were relentless—their acidic saliva dissolved enchanted plate, their barbed claws carried necrotizing venom, and for every ten monsters butchered, twenty more surged from the dark fissures.

The brutal trial had already claimed dozens of promising lives.

"Look ahead..." a scout rasped, pointing a trembling, bloodstained blade toward the cavern floor.

The exhausted aspirants forced their heads up.

Stretching across the entire subterranean basin were hundreds of slaughtered demon spawn. Heavy carapaces were cracked wide open, bloated heads had been blown to fragments, and entire swarms lay shredded in scorched, smoldering craters.

The candidates stared in stunned disbelief. They had braced themselves for another fatal bottleneck, only to realize the slaughter had already concluded long before their arrival.

"Who cleared all of this?" someone whispered in the dark.

"Over there! Look at the lift!"

Every head snapped toward the far cavern wall.

Rising steadily along a massive vertical track was an enormous, runic levitating platform—the grand ascension lift.

Standing at its outer edge, bathed in the faint blue glow of the upper boundary formations, were four calm figures: Ethan, Ella, Hela, and Meng.

They were already ascending toward the summit.

A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the battered survivors as the reality of the scene sank into their minds.

Four people. Only four.

They hadn’t just survived the descent—they had carved a path through the apex horrors of the second stratum, bypassed the Demi-god barricades, and secured the final lift completely unscathed.

"That’s... that’s absurd," a young warrior muttered, swallowing hard as his hands shook.

Nobody contested the statement. Even those who had initially dismissed Ethan as a lucky novice from the provincial borderlands now understood the terrifying divide between theoretical talent and authentic, lethal combat ability.

Five S-Rank summons. An S-Rank Air Nomad companion. Two Tier 5 partners. And the martial ruthlessness to conquer the Under Mountain ahead of an entire generation.

The grand lift continued its smooth, rhythmic ascent, carrying the party higher into the colossal vertical shaft.

The damp, suffocating darkness of the Under Mountain slowly receded beneath the edges of the platform.

Ethan looked upward into the shaft.

For the first time since entering the subterranean abyss, natural daylight pierced the gloom. Brilliant golden sunlight cascaded through the opening above, washing over his face and banishing the cold subterranean chill from his bones.

A crisp, familiar resonance echoed in his mind, carrying the weight of ancient authority.

[Welcome to the Bastion of Humanity.]

[The Mad God Karth is smiling in your general direction.]

Ethan’s eyes narrowed slightly as he read the divine prompt, a profound sense of relief finally washing through his exhausted meridians.

After surviving the treacherous conflicts of the Demi-human territories, outlasting the fallen Blood Serpent God, conquering the continent-shattering deluge, completing his evolution trial, summoning the First Man, and conquering the trials of Ascension City—he had crossed the final threshold.

The lift breached the mountain’s summit and locked into place with a heavy, resounding mechanical click.

The darkness vanished completely as the vast, open horizon of the peak unveiled itself before them.

Stretching across the mountain range stood a colossal citadel that defied mortal scale: towering obsidian battlements, floating arcane spires, vast military drill grounds, and celestial formations that anchored the very sky.

Countless powerful auras moved across the grounds—the supreme commanders, legendary summoners, and elite scholars who guarded the mortal realm from extinction.

Ethan stepped off the platform onto the polished stone of the summit, his hand resting calmly on the dark hilt at his side.

He had finally arrived at the true summit of human power: the Bastion of Humanity.