Chapter 544: Disaster-Grade Soulshard

Under ordinary circumstances, the will of the world would cordon off any battle that Zhang Lie took part in. For other people, that barrier would be sufficient to curtail the aftermath of the fighting, but Zhang Lie had, without fail, smashed apart all such barriers unintentionally. The will of the world would have to re-establish each cordon it put up in just a few moments.

As a result, it had simply given up—the fight between Zhang Lie and the whirlpool tyrant was beyond its ability to restrict.

Against the two combatants, its barriers might as well have been made of papier mache.

[You successfully killed a disaster-grade dragonturtle and obtained its soulshard.]

Zhang Lie's eyes lit up. Even he hadn't expected to obtain one so early—this was a treasure he hadn't obtained even in his past life.

"A disaster-grade soulshard!" Zhang Lie glanced at the resplendent object that condensed in his palm. Within the soulshard floated an ornate blue-gold ring inset with a miniature dragonturtle whale—it was an equipment-type soulshard!

Zhang Lie's lips quirked into a smile as he stored the ring in his soulspace. He was rich! Although this disaster-grade soulshard wasn't designed for battle, it was an extremely rare spatial-type soulshard that would be a marked improvement over his superior-grade potbellied-toad soulshard.

Not only was it able to store items, it could even store living creatures, perhaps because it was water-attuned. He might even be able to drag an enemy unwillingly into this soulshard, though it didn't possess the same digestive properties that the whirlpool tyrant's stomach did.

Regardless, Zhang Lie was very satisfied with his new acquisition.

After he put on the ring, Whitey floated down with Zhu in tow. The moment Zhu stepped down from the wyrm, she circled Zhang Lie as though she had discovered something novel.

Zhang Lie frowned. "What're you doing?"

"Just what race are you?"

"I'm a human."

Zhu's eyes sparkled. "Are all humans so strong? Can they all become a wolf one moment and a dragon the next?"

Zhang Lie mulled her words over. "More or less. Why?"

As long as these humans possessed a transformation-type soulshard, they could transform into whatever they wanted—a wolf, a bird, a chimpanzee, a gigantic dragon.

Suddenly, he kicked Zhu into the sea. Moments later, she emerged sputtering, "What are you doing?!"

"You smell bad."

Zhu's face flushed. When the whirlpool tyrant had used one of its strongest techniques, she had been so scared that she had peed herself! She hurriedly dove back down into the water to clean herself.

Zhang Lie instructed the moonlight wyrm, "I'm going to be absorbing the disaster-grade core in a moment. Guard me and make sure that that girl doesn't approach."

After the moonlight wyrm devoured the monarch of stars' tens of thousands of souls, it had gained a consciousness of its own, and it was even able to materialize a physical body. At present, it could appear no different from an ordinary lifeform.

Zhang Lie could hardly wait to devour that disaster-grade core. He felt as though he was becoming a gourmet, and this was his food of choice. He wanted to grow stronger and stronger, and the more that craving grew, the more he coveted disaster-grade lifeforms.

Zhang Lie extracted the whirlpool tyrant's core from the left half of its body.

It was significantly larger than the double-headed spider's core that he had absorbed, and it was different in quality as well. The core of the double-headed spider was black and thorny, whereas the whirlpool tyrant's core was like a miniature sun.

The sun's energy swirled within it like seawater. The core was encased in a transparent exterior. Zhang Lie could see a sea of flames burning within, and a starry sky above it.

After extracting the core from the whirlpool tyrant's body, the entire orb turned blood-red.

The orb was about the size of a fist and made of an impressively hard material. It was scorching to the touch, almost debilitatingly so.

This was the genetic core of a disaster-grade lifeform, the source of all their energy—their heart.

Just from holding it in his hands, Zhang Lie could feel an oppressive energy radiating out from it. The heat lapped at his skin, and he felt as though his whole body was burning up.

Zhang Lie knew that this wasn't just a mental sensation. Part of his palm had already blackened as a result of holding it for just a few moments—and his body had already been strengthened significantly with his limit fragments and by consuming disaster gene fragments. Anyone else would have disintegrated upon touching the orb.

Zhang Lie cut his palm with his sword, then dripped blood onto the core. The moment it touched the core, the blood was quickly absorbed into its interior. It sucked up more and more of Zhang Lie's blood until it turned blood-red.

Zhang Lie had to reopen the wound five times before the transformation was complete. Then, he closed his eyes and began pouring concentrated, black genetic energy from his body into the core.

It took him an entire hour before he felt the core start to soften. After another ten minutes or so, the entire core had softened completely. Blood-red seawater flowed steadily within the core, shining with the rays of the evening sun.

When Zhang Lie clutched the orb once more, what he felt wasn't a scorching pain, but rather a palliative warmth, as though he had developed some unusual sense of kinship with the orb, as though it were already part of his body.

Once he felt such a sensation, Zhang Lie couldn't resist his impulses any longer, and he swallowed the core whole. As the core slid down his throat, Zhang Lie felt a fiery, numbing sensation spread throughout his body.

Subsequently, all that energy contained within the core burst apart in his stomach.

"Ah—Ahhh!" Almost immediately, Zhang Lie took on the color of a boiled prawn. He hissed into the air, and his blood began to froth and boil.

Flames burst out of his body; fire erupted over his skin. He became a man of flame, a burning sun.

Despite how resilient Zhang Lie was, he still fell to the ground in unimaginable pain. His head spun as he forced himself upright one stumbling step at a time.

Scarlet flames came out of his mouth and ears, and the skies were dyed a lurid red once more.

Zhang Lie's blood boiled away entirely.

He had never before absorbed twenty disaster gene fragments, not even in his past life. As a result, he didn't know that he had just reached a new threshold of being.

The blood that left his body was replaced by scorching liquid energy, and his heart crystallized completely, burning and fuelling his body like a miniature sun, an immense and frightening source of boundless energy...