Chapter 616: Unleashed Potential

Sun Mengmeng howled into the air. Fire-attuned genetic energy erupted from her body, and her pitch-black eyes burned red. Flame howled and roared around her. She used no technique, but the flames formed a black hurricane with her at its eye. It burned everything in sight; lava rose to the ground where she stood.

The members of Team Zenith and Zhang Hanxiang hurriedly stepped back.

Zhang Lie stood right at the edge of the hurricane. The black flames scorched everything in sight, but he seemed entirely unperturbed and unaffected. He clapped. "Very good, very good! Keep up this strength!"

Sun Mengmeng's explosive strength had reached and even exceeded Zhang Lie's own, back when he had no disaster gene fragments to speak of.

"You're demonstrating incredible potential, Sun Mengmeng!"

Pitch-black flames sparked to life across her bow, causing the flames to grow even more intense.

"[Netherworld's Torrential Flame]!" A frightening fan of flames poured out from Sun Mengmeng's bow, an attack far stronger than the moonlight she had summoned. The intensity of her technique shocked everyone.

The flames arced in the air and fell toward Zhang Lie like a waterfall.

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Soar]!" With one punch from Zhang Lie, the waterfall dissipated into a rain of fire that scattered all over.

The members of Team Zenith hurriedly defended themselves. Fang Yi thrust forward with his spear, deflecting the flames that came from one direction.

Yang Ze waved his greatsword, sending a huge shark swimming forth.

"[Adamantine Aegis: Martial God]!" Sun Xiaowu's body flared with golden light, and runes revolved around his skin. His armor had transformed him into a ten-meter tall golden giant, one that shielded his comrades.

The three simultaneous techniques dealt with the fallout from Sun Mengmeng's blow.

"[Lunarflame Shot: Ninefold Phantasmagoria]." Sun Mengmeng's surroundings began to burn with dark red flames as she launched yet another attack.

Nine purplish-black phoenixes rose around her and shot toward Zhang Lie, but he was able to smash them all apart with just a single punch.

"Is this it, Sun Mengmeng?" Zhang Lie seemed a little disappointed.

From pure energetic output alone, Sun Mengmeng exceeded his former self, but her techniques were significantly weaker in terms of willpower and integrity.

"[Lunarflame Shot]!" Flames burst from Sun Mengmeng's body, but despite her anger, her flames had reached a limit. They grew higher, but their temperature didn't change.

Purplish-black flames gathered on Sun Mengmeng's bow once again, forming an arrow of pure black. The image of a golden garuda, limned in black, appeared behind her. As she loosed her arrow, it seemed to transform into a beam of light, moving so quickly that it bypassed the constraints of time and space, as though it could penetrate anything.

The arrow caused no earth-shattering explosion: Zhang Lie caught it with two fingers, preventing it from moving even a single inch forward.

"Is this it?" He asked again, breaking the arrow with a simple pinch of his fingers.

Sun Mengmeng tried to draw her bow once more, but Zhang Lie appeared before her in the next moment. She immediately transformed her genetic energy into defense, circling her flames inward to push back her attacker.

"It's pointless!" Zhang Lie's palm, covered in a thin layer of spatial energy, pierced through the curtain of flame and extinguished Sun Mengmeng's fire with water-attuned genetic energy.

Sun Mengmeng tried to draw her bow once more, but Zhang Lie appeared before her in the next moment.

"I said, it's pointless!" He gently flicked her forehead, sending her flying out into the distance. She broke the sound barrier and, again, flew into a mountain.

The mountain burst apart. Dust and smoke rose billowing into the air, only to be blown away by pitch-black flame in the next moment.

Black flames, stuck together, flowed like lava along the ground. Wrapped in flame, Sun Mengmeng strode forth. Her pupils had been replaced by black flame, and she looked like a demon who had climbed out of an abyssal pit.

The members of Team Zenith felt the heat creeping up their skin, and even Zhang Lie could sense the heat in the air even through his insulation. "Ah, perhaps I've gone too far."

"[Lunarflame Shot: Extirpation of the Garuda]!" As Sun Mengmeng infused her genetic energy into the bow, the image of a garuda appeared behind her. She released her arrow, which morphed into a human-faced, golden-winged bird in mid-air, radiating red light as it arced through the skies. It began to pulse with red fire, brimming with such energy that it seemed as though it would set the world aflame.

Sun Mengmeng's attack scorched the heavens and the earth, dyeing everything in sight a patch of black.

Zhang Lie watched the display in surprise. "Disaster-grade..."

Sun Mengmeng hadn't exceeded the boundaries of a disaster-grade lifeform, of course, but she did have the capability to take one down. Her techniques had true strength and image behind them; they weren't just shells.

Zhang Lie's eyes turned serious, and space around him began to warp.

"[Rune: Quell]!" A dragonturtle tablet rose into the air, quelling the fire-attuned genetic energy that filled the land.

Zhang Lie punched toward the sky, his water-attuned genetic energy combining with spatial manipulation to instantly quench the flame.

Even Sun Mengmeng, gone half-mad with anger, couldn't hope to surpass Zhang Lie.

"[Lunarflame Shot: Extirpation of the Garuda]!" She pulled her bow taut once more, infusing the rest of her genetic energy within. The image of a garuda materialized from thin air and shot out along with her arrow.

Even before the arrow landed, lava rose out of the ground, igniting the earth and sky alike. It was almost impossible to believe that this was an attack of a second-realm hunter without any disaster gene fragments to her name...