Chapter 472: Avatar of the FaeMore walls of the pit crumbled as creature after creature popped out. Some were horrifying combinations of genetic lifeforms, and others were sewn together from hundreds or thousands of humans—a veritable mad scientist's museum.
They immediately cut apart the three human centipedes that Zhou Ying controlled.
When Zhou Ying saw the groups of humans that had been stitched together, she couldn't help but feel a growing sense of anger and fury.
[Storm of Leaves] and [Willow's Caress] took care of most of the lifeforms. With their vision obscured, Zhou Ying danced through the creatures, stabbing each with her little dagger and subverting Fenghe's control.
As Zhou Ying yelled out, the creatures that had been corrupted by her peak-grade dagger each turned to Fenghe and pounced at him.
Beneath Fenghe rose a hydra composed of countless snakes tied together, and to which insect appendages had been forcibly spliced. The creatures that Zhou Ying sent charging at Fenghe were, one by one, caught by the snake heads, lifted into mid-air, and torn apart viciously.
Fenghe stood calmly atop one of the larger snake heads as he observed the battlefield from below. "This is one of my favored creations, the hundred-headed hydra. Beneath your feet is another interesting one, a hybrid crab-scorpion that enjoys burrowing under the ground. I hope you find it interesting too."
Zhou Ying felt the ground give way beneath her feet as her body sank. A pair of pincers broke through the ground. Zhou Ying lowered her head to see a disgusting creature burrowing out of the earth to attack her.
"[Avatar of the Fae: Dance of the Earth Dragon]!" Two jade-green dragons darted out of her hands in twin beams of light, tightening around the crab's pincers. A black stream of energy shot out of the crab's mouth, knocking her aside.
With [Avatar of the Fae] to protect her, however, Zhou Ying's wounds healed near immediately, causing Fenghe to stare at her in surprise. "What astonishing vitality! I'm surprised there's someone like you among these humans. I'll certainly capture you and study you carefully."
Fenghe waved an arm, sending a large group of creatures scurrying toward Zhou Ying.
"[Avatar of the Fae: Earthbound Prison]!" Zhou Ying stomped on the ground, her feet seemingly becoming rooted. The patch of ground beneath and all around her began to glow green, and hundreds of jade-green roots flew into the air, rushing into the air like countless wood dragons. They stalled the creatures' advance.
"Go!" Fenghe commanded the hundred-headed hydra beneath him to move forward as it launched an onslaught against the wood dragons.
Rather than avoiding the attack, Zhou Ying grabbed her dagger, leapt up onto a snake head, and stabbed it deftly into its forehead. The head of the snake began to writhe and struggle as Zhou Ying leapt up in midair, rebounded off the wall of the pit, and headed straight for Fenghe.
The snake head chased after her as she summoned a wood dragon to lift her higher and higher, adroitly dodging the attacks from the snake heads in her way.
She maneuvered her body in a breathtaking manner, avoiding attacks by the barest of distances, as though she were a trapeze artist or tightrope walker. She landed firmly on another snake head, slashed down on it with her dagger, then leapt away.
She landed on another snake's head, using its momentum as a launching pad to shoot forward and upward once more. Eight more snake heads rushed forward, blocking off any space in which Zhou Ying could maneuver.
"[Storm of Leaves]!" Zhou Ying's body rotated in mid-air, and the leaves that manifested from her body cut apart the snakes as though they were a flurry of daggers.
She escaped from the encirclement of the snakes and landed right beneath Fenghe. Wielding her dagger in her hand, she leapt forward and shot toward her target.
Fenghe calmly plucked off his gloves. Dragon scales covered his arms, which suddenly grew taut as he clenched his fists. Zhou Ying's face turned pale as she sensed the changes in his aura.
Such was the strength of his fists that the very air cavitated when he attacked.
"[Chestnut Shield]!" A firm, sturdy chestnut enveloped Zhou Ying in mid-air. Struck by Fenghe's fists, the chestnut cratered into the ground, but Zhou Ying, ensconced firmly within, was unaffected.
Fenghe sighed. "What gave you the impression that I, as a sura king, would be physically weak? I don't like resorting to brute strength, but there's no reason I can't."
The sura revered strength. Not only was Fenghe adept at creating and manipulating his horrendous creatures, he was one himself. Sᴇaʀᴄh the NʘvᴇlFirᴇ.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.
The rock spirits gaped at the sight. Fenghe had experimented even on himself!
As he glanced at the rock spirits, Fenghe smiled proudly. "I might look like a sura, but over ninety percent of my body came from other lifeforms."
The snake's head that had been struck by the dagger slowly began to turn black. One of the nearby heads bit the corrupted head off by the neck, tossing it away before Zhou Ying's dagger could corrupt its main body.
The hydra freed the creatures that had been caught in Zhou Ying's vines, turning the tides of battle against her.
"Drag that human female up here," Fenghe commanded.
The hundred-headed hydra writhed toward Zhou Ying, attempting to grab her. However, a green glow of light suddenly flew toward her. The shaman of the wood spirits called out, "As I said, wouldn't it have been best to combine forms and kill him directly?"
Zhou Ying gave the shaman a faint smile. "We didn't know how many aces the sura king had, and it made sense for us to observe prudently. Now's a good time, though."
After all, their transformation wouldn't last for an unlimited duration. If Fenghe managed to outlast them for that long, they would have a long, difficult fight ahead. Furthermore, she was very curious about her strength, and whether or not she would be able to kill a sura king on her own.
She was very pleased with the results: given her strength, it wouldn't be difficult to kill him, but because she lacked a trump card or a particularly devastating skill, it would have been a prolonged battle.
"Very well. Prepare for assimilation!"
Zhou Ying turned her body to face the shaman's, which morphed into a bolt of green light that entered Zhou Ying's body. The next moment, Zhou Ying began glowing like a beacon of nature, fresh grass sprouting from the ground beneath her, pulsing with newfound vitality...