Chapter 636: Granite Rhinoceros

As the guards leading the way bowed, Zhang Lie stepped into the wormhole.

A light breeze drifted toward him; it was nothing like a tempest, but it had frightening destructive ability on its own. To most hunters, that breeze would be like the scythe of a reaper.

Without the strength of a superior-grade lifeform, just touching that breeze would inflict serious damage. A weaker lifeform could be ripped apart, chopped into cubes by even the weaker spatial rends.

A thin layer of water appeared over Zhang Lie's body, blocking off the spatial rend that crept toward him.

Wormholes were known to be very dangerous. An idiot who chose to battle within a wormhole could easily destabilize it and let in a torrent of spatial rends, destroying the wormhole in its entirety.

The three genetic lifeforms that accompanied Zhang Lie all reared back, particularly White and Whiter. They felt as thought their bodies could explode at any moment.

In some sense, the mere act of traveling through these wormholes was a form of training. Anyone who walked through them would gain some understanding of the power of space, especially for newly evolved lifeforms like Red Comet. Fending off these spatial rends with one's own power boasted great benefit—at the expense of great danger.

Zhang Lie strode into the wormhole, and the three lifeforms had no choice but to grit their teeth and follow suit.

According to the alcohol tribe's elder, they had originally been the guardians of that wormhole, but as it went into decline and stronger and stronger aliens began showing up through the wormhole, the alcohol tribe had no choice but to block it off. They were worried that someone whom they couldn't afford to offend would head through that tunnel and demand alcohol they no longer possessed.

The alcohol tribe's alcohol was a treasure even among the top worlds, after all, and there would surely be those who sought its recipe.

To be honest, the alcohol tribe had indeed encountered quite a few opportunistic aliens, and they chose to publicize their recipe out of concerns for their own safety. In the end, however, the fruit that was the core ingredient of the brew could be found nowhere else and didn't seem to have any obvious substitutions.

These fruits were precisely the ones that Zhang Lie had given the elder ten huge sacks of.

Since no other power in the third realm was able to obtain these fruits, they were unable to brew the alcohol tribe's alcohol. They had spent considerable effort trying to engineer and develop modifications that didn't require the fruit, but all their creations were significantly inferior.

As a result, the alcohol tribe's alcohol grew more precious by the day. As long as the alcohol tribe held control over the wormhole, it would be able to govern trade for the entire world, but once the fruit-world's wormhole was blocked off by a swarm of demonic bats, the alcohol tribe began to decline. Without access to those essential fruits, they were unable to brew their signature alcohol, and they were eventually forced to give up their claim over the wormhole to the larger worlds.

After quite some time, Zhang Lie and his three lifeforms finally arrived at the exit to the wormhole.

The exit was located high up in the mountains of another world in a secluded location. It was clear that whoever governed the wormhole on this side had chosen to leave its precise location a secret—no one was willing to provoke foes from another world, after all. Perhaps this was a consensus that all the tribes had reached together, but since the elder didn't specify, Zhang Lie didn't know the details behind the decision.

White and Whiter's bodies were all covered with wounds. Blood matted their glossy black fur, dyeing it a deep shade of red. Nevertheless, their mental strength seemed to have increased greatly.

Red Comet's body likewise had a few injuries. Spatial rends had scored a few wounds on its body, but they were nothing compared to what White and Whiter had suffered.

Regardless, it was clear that Red Comet was the clear winner of the ordeal. The whirring of its wings was already generating weak amounts of spatial force, and it had clearly gained a glimmer of insight.

Within the third realm, spatial manipulation would be the domain of the strong. A lifeform or hunter who possessed dominion over space was generally an invincible force.

Zhang Lie retrieved some Yeluo concoctions from his potbellied-toad pouch. The Yeluo chieftain had been inspired by the newly developed sura poison, and the new potions he had made from Zhou Ling's cells were incredibly potent brews that shouldn't have existed in the second realm.

Zhang Lie himself didn't have any need for such potions, but they could be useful for bartering or for his allies in the third realm. He applied the concoction on the three lifeforms, whose wounds healed in an instant.

Zhang Lie didn't know what to do next. After all, since he had been transported to a strange location in the third realm, with no way to contact the human settlements in the realm, he could only hope that he would be able to reach them by slow exploration.

The third realm was immense, and he hadn't ever heard of anyone traveling through it all. Zhang Lie's search was destined to take quite some time.?At the very least, that event won't happen for a while yet. She'll still be safe for the moment.

Zhang Lie suddenly turned to Red Comet. "Can you scout for the nearest city?"

Red Comet buzzed in agreement and flew off in an instant. The effect of its spatial manipulation was obvious—Red Comet was using it to gain a boost in its flying speed.

Zhang Lie suspected that, after going through several more wormholes, it might be able to reach the boundary between peak- and disaster-grade.

Red Comet returned in bare moments. It was waving its forelegs excitedly, a sure sign that it had made a discovery. Given how excited it seemed, perhaps it had indeed found a city. Zhang Lie followed behind it expectantly.

He cut down a few trees and made a simple wagon held together by genetic energy. He retrieved a few vats of alcohol from his soulshard, then stowed them on the wagon and tethered the wagon to White and Whiter, pretending that he was a merchant.

He intended to use that identity to try to find information about the human race, but before he could reach the city Red Comet was directing him towards, the ground beneath his feet suddenly started to tremble.

Zhang Lie turned in the direction of the motion to see a huge rhinoceros-type lifeform chasing a heavily wounded youth, his face gray with dust and streaked with sweat, his clothes so tattered they were barely more than rags.

Compared to the youth, however, Zhang Lie was more interested in the superior-grade lifeform—it represented free gene fragments for him. He stepped forward, transcending the boundaries of space as he appeared before the rhinoceros, stopping the train-like creature with nothing but his palm alone.

Red Comet morphed into a beam of light, whizzing around the rhinoceros and cutting deep into its skin. White and Whiter pounced toward the rhinoceros from both sides of Zhang Lie, and Zhang Lie himself lay a palm sizzling with genetic energy on the creature's skin.

With a low groan, the rhinoceros fell to the ground, bleeding from all its orifices.