Chapter 290: A Grave Shock

Zhang Lie's words left the entire room in deathly silence. It was hard for the present hunters to digest the information that he had just presented. Disaster-grade lifeforms, who were one step above even peak-grade lifeforms, bringing disaster where they went...

The hunters of Team Zenith swiftly reconciled this information with the strange tasks that Zhang Lie had given them. Was that why Zhang Lie had assigned them to patrol in all those varied locations? Could they have been where a disaster-grade lifeform was about to appear? And the disaster that occurred shortly after... that had to be the work of the disaster-grade lifeform!

But in that case, how had Zhang Lie managed to take down the disaster-grade lifeform on his own? They had all struggled just to deal with the peak-grade moonlight wyrm!

"Was the disaster in the first realm due to that disaster-grade lifeform, then?" Lin Xiu asked the question that everyone was wondering about.

"Of course!" Otherwise, I wouldn't have had Commander Su sound a red alert for the impending disaster."

How had Zhang Lie managed this? He had predicted the impending disaster, then killed the disaster-grade lifeform only as it appeared, then absorbed its genetic energy to advance to the second realm...

"No wonder I felt a difference in your lifeforce when you walked in. You've advanced to the second realm, haven't you?" Lin Xiu continued. He was almost unwilling to ask; as one of the four sages of China, he had seen his fair share of geniuses, but none were at Zhang Lie's level. He had developed limit fragments as a first-realm hunter, killed a peak-grade lifeform in the first realm, and even discovered and killed a disaster-grade lifeform there as well...

"Master Lin, I was planning on informing all of you and settling my affairs before advancing, but the will of the world insisted that I do so immediately! I initially rejected the demand, but then it tried to expel me from the first realm entirely. That's how the void and cracks in the sky around the Blacksteel settlement occurred..."

Everyone, including Lin Xiu, was dumbstruck. How had Zhang Lie gotten so strong that he could even contend with the will of the world itself? The hunters didn't know what to say.

In the end, it was Lin Xiu who spoke up once more. "Just what grade of lifeform are you now, if you're being so violently rejected by the first realm?"

"I was judged to be a peak-grade lifeform," Zhang Lie replied mildly.

"What?!" Lin Xiu was so shocked that he bolted up, his chair falling down and clattering behind him. "What did you say? The will of the world judged you to be a peak-grade lifeform?"

"Right, a peak-grade lifeform," Zhang Lie replied.

Lin Xiu cursed so violently that everyone else was surprised.

The only peak-grade lifeform they had seen was the peak-grade moonlight wyrm, and they didn't have a good sense for just how stark the boundary between superior-grade and peak-grade was. However, given Lin Xiu's response, it seemed as though something was very unusual.

Lin Xiu himself felt as though he had wasted decades of his life. It had taken him his third-realm advancement before he was finally judged a peak-grade lifeform, but Zhang Lie had achieved it in the second-realm advancement alone!

"Don't you know that the peak-grade designation is the highest possible within the dimensional realm? Of course, with your discovery of a disaster-grade lifeform, things might change, but..."

Lin Xiu took two deep breaths before continuing, "You've managed to transition into a peak-grade lifeform based on just your accomplishments in the first realm, so I can't even imagine what your growth will be like in the future. What happened after you ascended? Which city did you get teleported to?"

"I'm in Qi at the moment."

"Did you meet Xiao Zhengyang?"

"Yes, and he's even assigned me to the special forces of Qi."

"Not bad. Xiao Zhengyang's a good man, and you should be able to work well with him. Now that you're in the second realm, I'd better warn you that it's the most dangerous of the five realms, as well as the one that sees the highest casualty rates among the hunters of the Milky Way. We're just passersby, so if an incident occurs, don't be too prideful. That pride could well get you killed!"

There were simply too many strong hunters among the asura, and they would be able to beat Zhang Lie by sheer numbers alone if nothing else.

"Don't worry—I've always kept a low profile, haven't I?" Zhang Lie reassured Lin Xiu.

Lin Xiu rolled his eyes. "Really? A low-profile hunter who would divulge that he became a peak-grade lifeform in the first realm? I can't stand the look of you right now—it just makes me madder and madder!"

Huffing, Lin Xiu strode out of the room. He had thought becoming a peak-grade existence in the second realm was a notable accomplishment, but Zhang Lie had somehow managed it in the first realm alone!

The members of Team Zenith had been listening raptly to the conversation between Zhang Lie and Lin Xiu. They barely knew anything about the second realm, but none of them interrupted—they simply listened even more attentively.

After all, they too would have to advance in the near future, and it would serve them well to learn what they could in advance. With Lin Xiu gone, they quickly began to pester Zhang Lie with all sorts of questions.