The Tail Cannon had punched a cavity through the Swiftclaw Leopard's body. Blood turned the pit water red.

Shen Cong didn't pause. He worked the remote, retracting the drill assembly from the wound, charging hydraulic pressure for a second shot. But the Swiftclaw Leopard had sunk below the water's surface — blood spreading across the water, the creature itself invisible.

It won't die from that immediately.

A Heavyweight beast doesn't go down this easily. It's playing dead.

And you think I'm going to fall for that?

He pressed another control on the remote. The water surface in the pit began to tremble. A low mechanical roar came up from underground — getting louder.

The pit wall where the Tail Cannon had fired collapsed inward, and Great Vajra's rear section burst up through the earth and into the pit space from below. He was using the vehicle to block the pit's opening. Seal it. Trap the leopard inside.

The Swiftclaw Leopard, exactly as predicted, found it could no longer play dead. It erupted from the water — no visible sign of distress despite the hole still bleeding freely in its side — and launched itself upward.

This is the moment.

Shen Cong was already airborne, moving to intercept. The Ape King War Hammer came down on the Swiftclaw Leopard's head.

His strength was less than the leopard's. The rebound force knocked him clear — but it had also stopped the leopard's upward momentum. The creature's four limbs churned for purchase and found nothing. It dropped again.

Shen Cong was still in the air when he hit the remote.

BOOM.

The Tail Cannon fired again. The high-speed rotating drill drove into the Swiftclaw Leopard's shoulder blade at full hydraulic force. The sound of bone shattering was audible. The drill buried itself deep.

"RAAUGH... ugh..."

The Swiftclaw Leopard hung from the drill assembly, pinned. It tried to bring its tail — the Activity core, still unused in the fight — around to strike the mechanism. The position made it impossible. The roars grew less frequent. The struggling reduced.

Went still.

Shen Cong got…