Chapter 573: The Sura's WarUnder the rainbow mist, the forbidden regions of the sea were littered with corpses, and the clear blue water had been dyed a garish red. As the fighting grew more and more intense, even the clan leaders were dragged into the melee—too much of their kind had already perished.
The leader of the rampaging sharks roared. Blood circulated rapidly within its body, and blood trailed behind him as he swam forward.
"You giant whales were the ones who caused my clan to lose their rationality. Don't deny it—you whales have been eyeing our territory for a while now. Hand over the culprit who killed nine of my sons!"
The giant whale bayed in rage. "Your sons killed my daughter! Their lives are forfeit, and so is yours!" S~ᴇaʀᴄh the ɴovᴇlꜰirᴇ.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.
As the two races battled to the death with each other, the entire ocean was in turmoil. Waves a hundred feet high swept the ocean as the seafaring races evacuated to land for safety.
The giant whales had a hard time dealing with simultaneous attacks from the rampaging sharks and bone-corroding shrimp, but they were reinforced by their subordinate clans—the seals, manatees, walruses, oysters, and many more whom the giant whales had agreements with.
Many of these lifeforms were peak- or higher-grade, and the rampaging sharks grew stronger and stronger with every battle and every foe they devoured.
The battle that raged between the three forbidden regions impacted all five.
Some oceanic lifeforms, realizing that the defeat of the giant whales would portend doom and unleash the rampaging sharks and bone-corroding shrimp on the ocean at large, joined the battle on the side of the whales.
This was Zhang Lie's first time seeing the true strength of the second realm's oceans, which were almost unimaginably deep. The truly strong lifeforms roamed not the surface of the ocean, but rather its depths.
The seven forbidden regions of the ocean hardly represented its full strength; no, far from it. Thirteen more forbidden regions were known to oceanic lifeforms, though these were deep underwater. The seafaring races only knew of the forbidden regions on the surface of the ocean, but not what lay below.
One of the underwater regions consisted of deep-sea jellyfish, whose tentacles could paralyze with the briefest touch.
The rampaging sharks were forced back by the combined assault of the giant whales, the whales' subordinate races, and the other powers of the ocean that feared the sharks being unleashed. Driven to a corner, they had no choice but to use their trump cards—five peak-grade sharks who were at the cusp of disaster-grade.
Over a few centuries, the sharks had amassed a considerable amount of strength. Knowing that their opponents were wily giant whales, however, they consolidated that strength in a small number of sharks, which roamed underwater and were hidden from the surveillance of the whales.
The whales had once blocked the sharks from expansion, but they didn't kill them all off. As a result, the sharks had united against a common enemy. Under the tremendous pressure and threat of the whales, the sharks grew stronger more and more rapidly.
As the fighting continued, the numbers of the oceanic races dwindled. No one noticed this problem; they assumed that they were simply casualties from the fighting. In truth, Zhang Lie had captured a large fraction of the missing peak-grade lifeforms.
The leader of the giant whales frowned as he oversaw the fighting. "Just what unusual ability have the sharks obtained now?"
Under the rainbow fog, more and more of these peak-grade lifeforms vanished from sight. Zhang Lie smiled at the new farm he had started up, a small patch of ocean wholly his own. He had used the whirlpool tyrant's soulshard to set up a miniature patch of ocean, then populated it with the peak-grade lifeforms he had sequestered from the fighting.
He had instigated the battle from the very beginning. The children of the leaders of the two clans had perished because of Zhang Lie—he had controlled them with his mistmeld clam soulshard.
Not only that, Zhang Lie was sending a large group of these lifeforms into the hands of the rampaging sharks so that they could grow stronger even more quickly.
The rampaging sharks didn't disappoint him. Over the course of the battle, another ten peak-grade sharks reached the bottleneck to disaster-grade. Zhang Lie continued squirreling these lifeforms away as they grew stronger and stronger.
He was very pleased about how his miniature ocean was developing.
With the bone-corroding shrimp around, he didn't have to worry about the source of the lifeforms' food. It was only because of the giant whales' interference that the bone-corroding shrimp and rampaging sharks couldn't work together.
In truth, these two races were particularly compatible with each other—the shrimp would reproduce rapidly, and the rampaging sharks could grow much stronger much more quickly by consuming these shrimp.
As long as Zhang Lie could resolve the issue of the shrimp's food, he would have a factory that could churn out disaster-grade lifeforms at will. In the future, the members of Team Zenith, and even the human race at large, would be able to obtain disaster gene fragments much more easily.
Of course, getting to this point would require far more time and energy on his part.
Back in the human world, another war was waging.
As the schism in the world federation cut deeper and deeper, Hong Tianqi and Amurong's supporters formed two opposing factions that contested control over the Milky Way. Amurong represented old power and the largest conglomerates, whereas Hong Tianqi represented new activism and the representatives of the four prime races.
Simultaneously, the war between the sura and the people of Renhuang had begun in earnest, and it had, by now, persisted for months.
Much of the potency of the Yeluo poison had been stripped by the sura's new techniques, but Renhuang wouldn't give in quite so easily.
The members of Team Zenith showed off their burgeoning skill and growth, killing the majority of the sura kings who participated in the fighting.
"[Blinding Flash: Hundredfold Echo]!" Sun Xiaowu's body split into over a hundred clones, so many they seemed to fill the sky.
"[Golden Divide]!" The hundred clones all used [Golden Divide] simultaneously, coloring the sky in gold. Sun Xiaowu's battalion, composed of none but his clones, was a lethal strike force that could appear anywhere on the battlefield.
"[Birth of the Holy Dragon]!" On another battlefield, a light dragon descended from the heavens like a beacon of shining light, dissipating the black flames that lay below.
Li Feng leapt high into the air and landed on the dragon's head, his sword gleaming brightly as though it had been dipped in liquid light. As he raised the sword to the skies, it glowed and expanded, morphing into a huge blade of light.
On yet another battlefield, Fang Yi pierced the ranks of his enemies like a spear that could penetrate anything...