Chapter 1008: Another RuckusThe decaying king trembled in fear. "I was mistaken. I was blinded by a moment of greed! Please, let me go this once. I'll be a servant for the king of chaos in the future, please!"
"I don't need a disobedient dog." The ink-black man's voice was curt.
With an ear-splitting screech, the decaying king's pitch-black brain was turned to ash. The ink-black man suckedu p the remnants of that ash into his sleeve as the skies rumbled, and a rain of blood fell over the world of black rain.
Zhang Lie sheathed Guicang and Hanguang, asking dubiously, "That wasn't all just an act, was it?"
Nightdemon asked, "What do you mean?"
"Could it be that you haven't killed the decaying king? Could you have hidden it away instead?"
Nightdemon frowned. "Isn't the rain of blood ample proof?" Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ Nʘvᴇl(F)ire.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.
Zhang Lie countered, "I don't know what powers the strongest king, the king of chaos, possesses. Who's to say that you aren't helping out the decaying king because you're old acquaintances?"
Nightdemon sighed. "If you consider me the strongest king, do you really think I would care about the life of an ordinary superior king?"
Zhang Lie frowned. "That's hard to say. Who knows what you're thinking?"
Nightdemon smiled. "I wouldn't want to ruin the friendship that I've worked hard to develop with you over a rule-breaking superior king."
To Nightdemon, Zhang Lie's friendship was worth that much. It wasn't unreasonable—Zhang Lie had already killed two superior kings to date, and he boasted a strength superior to even an ordinary superior king. He was certainly more valuable.
"Is that so?" Zhang Lie still seemed to harbor some doubts.
Nightdemon waved a hand over the fiery sea, causing a pulsing golden heart to fly into his palm. The golden heart was bruised and cracked, but it still seemed to be full of vitality. A superior world's energy leaked out of its wounds.
"The heart of the world?"
Nightdemon replied, "If you still feel uncomfortable, Zhang Lie, I imagine holding on to this will help."
Zhang Lie frowned. "This is the proof of kingship of the world of black rain, isn't it? Can I really take this?"
Despite the fact that the world of black rain had shattered, that the death spirit king had absorbed much of its energy, that there was no living biological lifeform left on it, it was still a de facto superior world, worth more than even a pristine peak large world.
"You're giving me this just like that?"
Nightdemon shrugged. "I don't particularly care for one or two superior worlds. If I want them all, I could easily take control of eight of the nine—and of course, the last one would be my own."
Zhang Lie's lips twitched. Nightdemon's claim was rather arrogant, but given the surfeit of clones on the level of a superior king he seemed to possess, he probably could do as he claimed.
"Didn't you say that we would have to divide up the spoils evenly during the subsequent meeting?"
Nightdemon rolled his eyes. "That's for the largest prize. Everything else can be divided on the spot—if we leave everything to be distributed at the end, no one would be motivated to fight."
Indeed, anyone who fought would be able to claim spoils on the battlefield directly. This would be significant incentive for the forces that each king supplied.
The ink-black man grumbled, "If we really were to divide everything, there'd be far too much to deal with."
Zhang Lie sighed as he looked at the vibrating golden heart in his palm.
The decaying king was no hero, but it had been among the top existences of all three thousand worlds. A moment's mistake, however, had doomed it for eternity.
The decaying king was greedy, but what could it do? The death spirit king had stolen much of its world's energy, and its world was at death's door. If it wanted to revive it, it would have to claim the death spirit king's spoils for itself.
If it could swallow all that world's energy, whose quality went beyond that of a superior world, it might even be able to grow as strong as the king of chaos—but in the end, it had failed.
Zhang Lie kept the golden heart he was handed. He didn't have a use for it, but Li Zongming likely would. "It's time to explain to me what you were all talking about."
Nightdemon asked, "What do you mean?"
"About the doors that you mentioned."
Nightdemon blinked. "Ah, those."
"Can you describe these doors in detail?"
Nightdemon shrugged. "It's no secret. These doors are an easy way to categorize the strength of the various superior kings. Generally, those who ascend to the level of a superior king can sense their path forward in their mind. If you can vaguely sense the existence of a door, you're at the threshold."
The ink-black man picked up the explanation. "The next step is to push open that door. Currently, in the third realm, the only one we know of that has done so is the king of keys. The step beyond that is to step through the door. The death spirit king had just about reached this stage by consuming all these wills of the world and digesting them."
Zhang Lie pondered this information.
In terms of the genes and gene fragments that the hunters of the Milky Way possessed, maxing out disaster gene fragments was likely equivalent to touching the door, or perhaps somewhat beyond that.
In that case, the peak limit breakthrough would correspond more closely to reaching the level of a superior king, and obtaining monarch gene fragments to pushing open the door. The process of acquiring more monarch gene fragments would be akin to stepping through it, and the stage beyond that would be maxing out monarch gene fragments.
The ink-black man asked curiously, "As far as I'm aware, you've already pushed open the door, and you might even have stepped through it. Are you not aware of such things?"
Zhang Lie shrugged. "We of the Milky Way follow a different path."
"What path?" Nightdemon asked.
"Genes—the door to life, I suppose."
"Aliens truly are mysterious, aren't they?"
Zhang Lie asked, "What stage is the king of chaos at?"
"Guess," Nightdemon replied with a mysterious smile.
Just as they were chatting, they suddenly sensed a disturbance from afar. Nightdemon turned toward the direction of the draconian world, licking his lips.
"Interesting. Two worlds are evolving to superior worlds right this moment."
Zhang Lie groaned. "At this time...?" Why hadn't they evolved earlier? The war was already over!