Chapter 1284: Eruption of Energy

The Yeluo chieftain urged, "After the inclusion of the unified world's energy, no one knows how the potency of the potion has changed. The equilibrium between the ingredients might have been destroyed, and it's possible that consuming the potion will put you in life-threatening danger!"

"But the potency of the potion has certainly increased, yes?"

The Yeluo chieftain nodded. "But this transformation is beyond our expectations, and I'm not fully familiar with the mechanism of infusing a world's energy into these potions. I can't predict what will happen."

"Let's test it, then."

Zhang Lie reached into Zhu's protective barrier, attempting to capture the sphere of liquid potion that lay within.

However, the potion seemed to have developed a rudimentary intelligence of its own. It tried to dodge Zhang Lie's palm, but Zhu's barriers had enclosed it in such a small space that Zhang Lie caught it instantly. Even so, the Yeluo chieftain tugged on his hand.

"Your Majesty, please, wait! It's far too dangerous. You might die!"

"Don't worry. I've a sturdy constitution, one that no one else in the third realm can match."

The Yeluo chieftain confirmed once more, "Are you sure?"

Zhang Lie nodded. "If there's a more potent potion, I certainly intend to choose it."

After witnessing what had happened when the members of Team Zenith consumed Potion #4, Zhang Lie realized that higher-quality Potions of the same kind could grant additional bonuses, as if they had been enchanted.

Zhang Lie forced himself to calm down as he brought the potion up to his mouth—but he didn't swallow it.

Zhu asked, "What's the matter?"

"Changed your mind?" the Yeluo chieftain asked.

Zhang Lie replied, "The last time, when I consumed Potion #4, the second realm was unable to withstand the energy I gave off and forced me to ascend. I think I should bid my farewells to everyone right now.

Zhu smiled. "Don't worry, Zhang Lie. I'm around to help you."

Zhang Lie requested, "At least send me to somewhere isolated, please. I'm worried that the shockwaves will level the newly constructed draconian kingdom.

Zhu teleported Zhang Lie to somewhere isolated, then sealed the space around him just like she had done when Zhang Lie was testing the members of Team Zenith. After doing all this, she wrapped the sealed space up in barrier after barrier. Once the preparations were complete, Zhang Lie swallowed the potion in one go.

As the potion entered his body, it began to burn as though he were about to go supernova. Bright light radiated from his skin as potent medicinal power roamed all over his body, which swelled like a balloon.

Zhu, witnessing the situation from the outside, couldn't help but turn nervous.

"He'll be fine, won't he?"

The Yeluo chieftain frowned. "He's too stubborn for his own good. The unknown transmutation of the potion—who knows what will happen?"

Zhang Lie breathed in the potion's energy and circulated it through his body, as though burying seeds deep within the earth and watching them sprout with life.

He sat cross-legged in that pocket dimension, deep in meditation, his body forging itself anew with every breath.

The potion's energy continuously battered his body, pounding it with the force of stars exploding. Even his reinforced bones began to creak and crack.

Any ordinary hunter's body would have exploded, but Zhang Lie was different. His body had been reforged over and over again, and he had maxed out all his genes from the beginning.

Zhang Lie's statement that his body was the strongest among any member of the third realm was no joke; it was stronger than even any inorganic material he had encountered.

His immense foundation gave him the confidence to weather even the worst of the potion's effects as energy exploded all over his body.

Zhang Lie's face took on the color of a boiled prawn and his blood began to froth and boil.

Multicolored light erupted from all his orifices, making him shine like a gemstone.

This immense, almost unbearable pain made Zhang Lie recall his experience absorbing disaster gene fragments in the first realm, of modifying his own genetic code.

His body had been forged and reforged amidst blinding pain; the more he bore, the stronger he would become.

The medicinal strength of the potion was breaking through the limits of his genes once and again.

However, it was far stronger than Zhang Lie himself had anticipated.

He felt as though a hundred suns were exploding within his body, that his blood was turning to lava. His body radiated an incredible quantity of light.

Rainbow mists surrounding Zhang Lie spun, burned, puffed up, and hissed. The mists moved like ribbons fluttering in the sky, dyed with all the colors of the rainbow. They spun around Zhang Lie like skeins of thread, soft as silk, in an explosion of color that was at once captivating and bewitching, as though all of life's mysteries could be captured in that glowing, resplendent light.

Zhang Lie circulated his [Ninecarp Transformation]. With his body filled with energy, each revolution of the framework took mere moments—Zhang Lie seemed to experience ten thousand lifetimes in a single moment, as though he were seeing himself in parallel worlds.

In one world, he became the king of chaos' subordinate and conquered the fourth realm.

In another, he didn't manage to save the third realm in time. In the vast expanse of chaos, he slowly collected fragments of the world, hoping to restore his third-realm body.

In yet another, Li Qianlin was killed by the king of the west in a sneak attack, and he turned into a crazed asura dedicated to slaughter...

Countless Zhang Lies of parallel universes manifested as one, then combined into one body.

Zhang Lie's body glowed; he seemed to be having an out-of-body experience.

Having passed through countless universes without losing himself in any one, Zhang Lie finally came to understand his id, his ego—to glean understanding and experience from all the worlds that he had gone through in other lives, just like when Sun Xiaowu used his Echo of Origins.

However, this transformation went beyond even that. The goal was to marshal the strength of a warlord with one's own body, to walk through life's evolution.

With blood as the sea, bones as pillars, the soul as the sky, the flesh as the ground, arteries, veins, and capillaries as rivers and seas and waterways, and genetic energy as the aether that filled the world…

An indeterminate amount of time passed, but Zhang Lie remained perfectly in harmony with his environment the entire time. Without anyone to disturb him, without any sudden fluctuations to his emotions, he gradually began to smile, a reflection of his heart and inner being.