Chapter 735: Inept RageDuan Zisuan turned back to look at the... line... in the air that separated heaven and earth.
Zhang Lie's last attack had been too abstruse for even the likes of him to comprehend. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ NøᴠᴇlFire.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.
Duan Zisuan was just about to retaliate when he suddenly vomited a mouthful of blood. When he looked down, he discovered that his body, just like heaven and earth, had been bisected in half. He held his body firmly in place with sheer force of will and spite as he tried to retaliate, but Zhang Lie's blades were faster. He cut him vertically this time, quartering him and sending him falling from the sky.
Zhang Lie's attack lasted only for a few seconds, but that was enough. Sky and ground stitched back together, but Duan Zisuan's body was forever cut apart.
Suddenly, however, Zhang Lie sensed something and struck in that direction with his sword—only to have his slash blocked by a combination of void lightning and pale blue flame.
"Indeed, dealing with you is far more vexing than I expected," a familiar voice called out.
Zhang Lie's eyes widened. Duan Zisuan was standing in front of him, wholly unhurt! Hadn't he killed Duan Zisuan and quartered his body?
Zhang Lie glanced down at where Duan Zisuan's corpse had fallen, only to find the pieces of his body replaced by a cracked soulshard.
A soulshard! "I'll admit you do have quite a few treasures," Zhang Lie murmured.
"I certainly didn't expect you would be able to force me to use my second life. I only have one such soulshard, after all." As the king of the realm of a large world, Duan Zisuan had even managed to tame three disaster-grade lifeforms, a testament to his wealth.
Although Duan Zisuan claimed to have only one such soulshard, he could very well have similar lifesaving talismans.
Zhang Lie was initially very confident in his ability to take down a king of the realm of a large world, but given what Duan Zisuan had already pulled out thus far, he couldn't help but feel that he had chosen a difficult opponent.
Zhang Lie was certainly stronger than even two such kings combined, but their artifacts and trinkets made them far more difficult to deal with. Who knew what other strange soulshards the king of the west possessed to drag out this fight?
Nevertheless, Zhang Lie was confident in his strength. "Regardless of how many such soulshards you have, you'll die today! I'm done with my warm-up. Are you prepared?"
Zhang Lie knew that he had to use his full strength to prevent any more of such mishaps. His eyes glowed with all the colors of the rainbow. His heart beat like a dragon's roar, echoing between earth and sky.
Rainbow-colored genetic energy erupted from Zhang Lie in a pillar, then morphed into a dragon that prowled the clouds.
Zhang Lie's own aura grew even more threatening as he unveiled his true strength, causing Duan Zisuan's body to tremble. The void lightning around him began to flicker, and Duan Zisuan had a hard time reining it in.
He felt a sense of fear and foreboding stronger than he ever had before in his life. He had felt some amount of stress when Zhang Lie unveiled his golden qilin transformation, but this was on another level entirely—a premonition of sudden doom.
Zhang Lie's qilin transformation felt like a simple disparity in strength, nothing more, but this rainbow-colored energy made him feel despair.
Duan Zisuan couldn't believe that there was a strength in this world that could eclipse even his own. He launched an opening volley of a hundred strikes of lightning, each like a sharp, black sword.
An ordinary hunter, like one of the aliens spectating the fight, or even the warlord Xing Ying, would be pierced to death dozens of times over, but against Zhang Lie, Duan Zisuan viewed this as nothing more than a probe.
Zhang Lie watched coolly, a calm smile on his face, even as the aliens and elites from the west gaped at him.
The western elites couldn't help but mock him. "What's wrong with this fellow? Is he shocked stiff by the might of our king?"
"He's a sitting duck! Does he really think he can get away with remaining still in front of the king of the west?"
"He must have figured out that he can't defeat our king—he's decided to commit suicide!"
The aliens of the Milky Way frowned as they analyzed Zhang Lie's actions. "His aura and strength have grown to a level that I can't even imagine. Perhaps he's even stronger than the king of the realm now, but how could an ordinary lifeform possess such strength? He must have had to pay a price that we can't even imagine.
"It's very possible that, in this form, the champion of mankind Zhang Lie might be rendered immobile for some time—or perhaps that he isn't in very good control of this form. In either case, this is a critical flaw, but how else would he be able to defeat the king of the west?
"This was a truly exciting fight, but it might end in a very boring fashion."
However, both the aliens and the western elites were wrong. The reason Zhang Lie didn't avoid the blow was because it wasn't necessary to.
The void lightning didn't strike Zhang Lie; instead, it swerved away from him and revolved around him almost as though it were a cat seeking to please its master.
As Zhang Lie extended a finger, a small tendril stretched out from the main body of lightning and rubbed against it.
Duan Zisuan glanced at what was occurring before his eyes in shock. Even he, the owner of this void lightning, was unable to 'tame' it as well as Zhang Lie had—and not only that, it was his lightning, his property, his craft!
His face pale, Duan Zisuan asked, "How did you do it?!"
"Water is the origin of all things."
"Impossible. Impossible! No one can tame lightning to this extent, not even me!" Duan Zisuan had ascended to kingship in part because of his affinity to lightning, but even he had never seen the like of Zhang Lie.
"This is impossible!" Duan Zisuan could hardly believe his eyes. He swiped forward with his claws, summoning even more lightning serpents, imbued with his pale-blue flames—but, as though Zhang Lie were in another dimension entirely, the attack didn't even scratch him.
In the blink of an eye, Zhang Lie appeared right before him,
causing Duan Zisuan to panic. With the authority of the king of the realm and the void lightning he maintained under tenuous control, he tore space apart and fled.
Sweat dripped down Duan Zisuan's forehead as he panted for breath. Just now, he was certain he was about to die.
In Zhang Lie's eyes were mirrored his own fear. As the king of the realm, how could Duan Zisuan afford to let such fear linger around and control him? No, he had no choice—he had to kill Zhang Lie and dispel this fear.
Duan Zisuan howled, fortified himself with courage, then turned back toward Zhang Lie...