Chapter 1179: The Tablets' Merger
In a region of space sealed by Zhang Lie's four dragonturtle tablets, however, the Null Source's movements were far slower than they should have been. Its body shook violently as it was struck by the shockwaves, and the physical separation between it and the Keys of the Elder Gods grew.
Zhang Lie didn't know why the dragonturtle tablets would suddenly resonate with the Keys. Ninecarp Transformation was a mysterious technique, one whose depths Zhang Lie had barely plumbed.
As the Null Source fought for control of the Keys with the dragonturtle tablets, Zhang Lie made another move.
"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!" Having invoked the dragonturtle transformation, Zhang Lie's genetic energy had turned mud-yellow. His punches were all but unstoppable, and the heavy blow shattered the defensive waves around the Null Source.
The mud-yellow punch, imbued with gravity, was strong enough to destroy everything in its path.
Waves rippled across the Null Source's body, increasing its weight and making its movement even more difficult.
The Null Source retaliated with waves of its own, which spread toward Zhang Lie.
As Zhang Lie activated his blood ant and dragonwolf soulshards, he transformed into a dragonwolf with russet fur and limbs covered with dragons' scales. His aura became magnified as a hurricane of blood spawned around him.
The next moment, Zhang Lie vanished from sight and evaded the waves.
The Null Source was only conscious on a fundamental level. It knew that it had to get rid of Zhang Lie, or it wouldn't be able to keep its Keys. Only then would the dragonturtle tablets vanish.
The Null Source emitted an intense series of waves, as though a bomb had just exploded.
"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!" Zhang Lie punched forward, manifesting a blood-colored dragonturtle.
The huge dragonturtle stood in the way of the intense waves. Its strong defenses allowed it to barrel through the attack and smash into the Keys of the Elder Gods.
The momentum from its charge alone caused the gelatinous Null Source's body to cave in. The waves surrounding its body began to ripple, then resonate at high frequency. Quickly thereafter, cracks appeared on the blood-colored dragonturtle's shell.
A dark yellow glow emerged from within the dragonturtle and spread out all over.
The king of chaos, having sensed something, immediately summoned a barrier of the strongest chaotic energy he had access to over the arena.
The mud-yellow energy exploded with devastating force, imbued with the power of gravity. All that energy spread out all over, striking the Null Source with a blow heavier than anything it had sustained during this battle and forcing it to break the link to the Keys.
The four pieces of the Keys were tugged away by the dragonturtle tablets. The Null Source was just about to stop Zhang Lie from doing so, but Zhang Lie followed up with another attack.
"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Hundred Dragons Soaring]!"
Mud-yellow genetic energy erupted from Zhang Lie, as though there were hundreds, thousands of dragons surging throughout his body. Each muscle was like another dragon.
a horde of dragons launched out of Zhang Lie's left arm as he expended half his genetic energy in one supercharged attack.
The hundreds of dragons soared into the air, covering up the illumination in the hall. Even the halls of chaos, which might as well have been the size of a world, was unable to sustain the hundreds of dragons.
The dragons swooped down toward the Null Source. Even before they struck, the frightening force of gravity caused the floor to cave in for dozens of meters. The Null Source's body was sent flying.
The four Keys merged with the dragonturtle tablets in a dazzling array of light.
The dragonturtle tablets' text grew more abstruse, and the energy in the tablets grew more and more intense.
The king of chaos interrupted, "We'll end the battle here!"
The Null Source's gelatinous body, which had exploded into multiple pieces, was slowly reforming.
Clearly, Zhang Lie's attack had been insufficient to kill it outright.
After all, the Null Source could hardly be considered living matter at this point, and it was surely far harder to kill. If Zhang Lie weren't mistaken, the Null Source was living parasitically on the Keys themselves. As long as the Keys weren't destroyed, the Null Source would live in an unkillable state—and the tablets that had been created during the primordial era surely wouldn't be easy to destroy.
In other words, the Null Source was essentially an unkillable existence, though it had paid a commensurately heavy price to achieve such an objective. It had only basic intelligence, almost none at all—about the equivalent of a single-celled organism.
Trading its own intelligence for a persistent body was, to Zhang Lie, an extremely unfavorable trade. It was like turning into a tree to avoid being affected by death.
The dragonturtle tablets would take a while to merge completely with the Keys. It looked as though trying to absorb more of the Keys would be impossible—it was likely that the four tablets could only merge with four Keys. Zhang Lie refrained from trying to absorb more of the Keys, but he had no intention of giving up on the Keys that he had already snatched away, either.
The Null Source reformed. Perhaps because Zhang Lie had stolen four of the Keys away, or because it had been dispersed by Zhang Lie, it seemed visibly weaker than before.
Zhang Lie glanced at the reformed Null Source warily, worried that the Null Source would try to snatch the tablets back.
A mouth appeared on the Null Source's body, which opened and closed twice over before it began making noise. "Orange, deux, market, identity, flip..."
As though it were practicing how to speak anew, the Null Source ran through a series of exercises before saying in a halting fashion, "Don't worry, I have no intention of continuing to fight with you. I won't keep trying to wrest the tablets away from you, and I benefit from not having complete control over them, at any rate."
Zhang Lie cried out in surprise, "You can speak?"
The king of chaos seemed equally shocked. "You've recovered? When was this?"
The Null Source replied, "I haven't recovered completely. The fact that I can even speak is a miracle. After four of the Keys were separated from the rest, the seal on my body grew incomplete. The Keys' effect on me has weakened drastically, and I can recover a portion of my intellect and ability to think. I don't know how long this condition will last—but at the least, it's much better than it was before."
The king of chaos asked, "Are the Keys cursed?"
"The Keys need a passionless guardian, but now that I've read and understood part of it, it's impossible for me to return to how I was before." The Null Source might have recovered a portion of its intellect, but the changes to its body that resulted from analyzing the Keys were irreversible. "I'll give you the four Keys. I don't want to continue living like a grub."
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