Chapter 701: Another Core
Following tradition, the three princes would be sent away from the capital to serve as lords of their own estates.
Depending on their relationships with the ninth prince, the three princes were treated very differently.
The crown prince's lands were rich and fertile, and he had everything he could possibly want there. On the other hand, the third prince was sent to barren land. The ninth prince clearly bore a grudge against the third prince, who had tried to steal his master away from him. The seventh prince's land was rather normal, neither rich nor barren.
The Heijie left with the seventh prince, who promised that he would parcel out some of that land to them.
With the king of the realm in power, it would be tremendously difficult for any of the princes to revolt.
Once everything was settled, the king of the realm asked, "Master, one of the fourth-level beasts has finally evolved. Would you like to head over now? Please, let me send you on your way!"
"Thank you. I'll accept the offer."
With the wave of a hand, Zhang Lie vanished from the king of the realm's sight. The king of the realm had teleported him all the way to the depths of a desert, where Zhang Lie sensed an ancient, primordial aura—the signature of a disaster-grade lifeform.
Genetic energy rippled around Zhang Lie's body. As he raised an arm, water-attuned genetic energy imbued with spatial force circled his fists, moving so rapidly that a hurricane of sand seemed to form around him.
Then, Zhang Lie punched forward. The energy erupted in a flood, drowning the sand from above.
The ground beneath Zhang Lie exploded. A giant dragon of sand emerged from beneath him, soaring hundreds of meters into the air. Its scaly armor was pitch-black, with blade-like protrusions that seemed to be able to cut anything.
The disaster-grade lifeform had been preparing a sneak attack on Zhang Lie, but Zhang Lie had attacked the moment he sensed its presence.
Zhang Lie's [Fists of the Silent Sea] fell like a waterfall from the heavens, striking the disaster-grade lifeform directly.
A frightening wave of energy erupted from the collision. Sand and dust burst into the air, filtering the sunlight and turning the skies dark. The disaster-grade lifeform shrieked in pain as its crystalline armor burst apart, a heavy gash on its head.
If it weren't a disaster-grade lifeform, this blow alone would have bisected its body. Even so, the blow was sufficiently strong that it flung the lifeform away like a half-broken burlap sack.
Subsequently, the lifeform burrowed back into the sand, trying to escape.
"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Quake]!" Zhang Lie struck with his right arm. Even before his punch materialized, the air began to crack.
The world shook. The ground beneath his feet quaked.The skies trembled, and sand and dust exploded in a circle around him.
As the punch landed, space itself seemed to distort, and the desert shuddered ominously. A burst of energy rushed into the air, propelling the sand upward in waves thousands of meters tall. The disaster-grade lifeform was flung up out of the sand.
"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Soar]!" Without giving it an opportunity to react, Zhang Lie punched at it again. Waves of energy warped the space around him, causing the particles of air to vibrate so rapidly that they annihilated anything in the vicinity of the punch.
The disaster-grade lifeform lifted its tail high into the air, forming a shield of sand, but the strength of Zhang Lie's blow tore it all apart. As the ?disaster-grade lifeform roared, sending a veritable flood of sand against Zhang Lie's attack, an explosion erupted in the skies.
Hot wind and flurries of sand scoured Zhang Lie's face. With the sand blocking his vision, Zhang Lie was unable to make full use of his mistmeld clam soulshard, but he didn't mind. Brute force was all he needed here, after all. Genetic energy condensed from all over his body. With another punch, he summoned a gigantic serpent.
"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!" The serpent, thousands of meters long, seemed to encircle the entire desert with its appearance.
It shot out and bit the neck of the disaster-grade lifeform, which struggled as though its life were on the line. Its pitch-black body tangled together with the serpent's, and the protrusions from its carapace cut the serpent apart like blades.
However, the serpent's body was an amalgamation of corrosive darkness- and water-attuned genetic energy, and it began to dissolve the disaster-grade lifeform's carapace instead.
The disaster-grade lifeform's carapace was surprisingly resilient, however, and the serpent couldn't finish it off just yet.
"[The Boundless Blade: Yawning Wave]!" Zhang Lie didn't intend to wait. He made a stroke with his finger, sending a formless will shooting forward.
His attack was plain and ordinary, seemingly unthreatening. The disaster-grade lifeform spun up a shield of sand with its tail, but Zhang Lie's plain attack cut through the sand as though it were nothing, followed by the disaster-grade lifeform's carapace.
As the attack penetrated deep into the lifeform's body, it exploded.
The disaster-grade lifeform was annihilated in an instant. Moments before death, the disaster-grade lifeform cut off the lower half of its body and expended all its energy at once to manipulate the entire desert.
The sand all around them morphed into countless beasts, which flung themselves at Zhang Lie and swallowed him whole. Zhang Lie raised an eyebrow. Summoning the blade Guicang, he slashed forward, shattering the world.
The entire desert split in two, and the disaster-grade lifeform's body along with it.
[You successfully killed a disaster-grade blackhorn viper. By consuming the core of the disaster-grade blackhorn viper, you may receive one to ten disaster gene fragments.]
Zhang Lie sheathed his sword and found the disaster-grade lifeform's genetic core in his head.
It was a mud-yellow color, and it seemed to attract the sand all around him. When Zhang Lie's palm touched it, he could feel pinpricks of pain.
He frowned. "How should I return?"
He felt something focus its attention on him—some manipulation of space from afar.
Zhang Lie allowed the energy to grab ahold of him and send him away, returning him to the palace within moments. Clearly, the king of the realm had been paying attention to his fight.
Zhang Lie glanced all around him. "Is court still in session?"
The king of the realm chuckled. "Master, your fight finished too quickly."
Zhang Lie had killed the disaster-grade lifeform so quickly that even the king of the realm would be unable to match his speed.
"Master, would you like me to teleport you to the soon-to-evolve fourth-level beast?"
"No, not yet. I'll wait until it's fully a fifth-level beast," Zhang Lie replied, then left.
After his ascension to the king of the realm, the ninth prince had granted Zhang Lie a manor within the palace. This would be Zhang Lie's first time heading there. When he saw the signboard proclaiming the name of the manor, he couldn't help but smile—the manor had been granted to 'the protector of the realm'.
Zhang Lie rather liked the position that the king of the realm had thought up for him.
Servants came pouring out of the manor before he could make his way within. They gathered outside in two neat rows, bowing respectfully as they welcomed him. There were all sorts of beauties among the servants, sourced from any number of alien races...
The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr(e)𝒆webnovel