Chapter 658: Jian Mo

The Jinghun, by virtue of their natural talents, were troublemakers one and all. They had single-handedly provoked much of the serious fighting within the galaxy owing to their ability to manipulate and control others.

As a result, the other races of the galaxy had largely banded together against them, and the Jinghun had no choice but to lie low in the shadows.

The ninth prince asked, "Master, have you been able to identify something?"

Zhang Lie replied, "These superior-grade lifeforms aren't coming for us—they're just passing by.

Our opponents' objectives are clear. They're trying to get rid of all other living creatures in the hunting grounds."

The ninth prince's eyes widened. "The entire royalty, then."

"Perhaps not everyone..." Zhang Lie smirked.

"Master, you mean that this might be a manmade disaster?"

He glanced in the direction in which the lifeforms had rushed off, and his face grew alarmed. "Father's in danger!"

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Soar]!" Zhang Lie punched forward once more, using a technique with such strength it made the very air warp.

Waves of genetic energy pulped whatever lifeforms they came across.

[You successfully killed a superior-grade thousandeye serpent. By consuming the flesh of the superior-grade thousandeye serpent, you may receive one to ten superior gene fragments.]

[You successfully killed a superior-grade stargleam weevil. By consuming the flesh of the superior-grade stargleam weevil, you may receive one to ten superior gene fragments.]

[You successfully killed a superior-grade deathbane butterfly. By consuming the flesh of the superior-grade deathbane butterfly, you may receive one to ten superior gene fragments.]

He hopped up on White and called out, "Return to the entrance to the hunting grounds! We'll uncover the truth there!"

The ninth prince rushed up onto his mount. Zhang Lie's words from before had changed his perspective on his father. Now that his father was in danger, the ninth prince couldn't sit still.

"We'll go save him!" Zhang Lie leapt over the carcasses strewn all over the ground as he headed toward the king of the realm's golden tent. The lifeforms behind didn't follow him; instead, they began eating their fallen comrades.

Zhang Lie frowned.

The Jinghun had clearly given the lifeforms three orders. The priority was to kill all foreign life around, the second was to devour their fallen comrades, and the third to rush toward the king of the realm's golden tent.

The third command was the objective, but upon arriving at the tent, the lifeforms would focus on carrying out their priority objective.

Zhang Lie was a little worried that the surviving lifeforms would grow stronger and stronger as they devoured each other, much in the same way that he had artificially "grown" disaster-grade lifeforms in his farm, but there wasn't time to worry about such matters now. His own priority had to be to check in on the king of the realm.

White and Whiter rushed forward with full force, ignoring the lifeforms behind them.

On their way back, they saw the third and fifth princes embroiled in battle. The two princes were enemies, but they had allied together to face the threat of these lifeforms. Their backs to each other, they fended off the beast stampede.

The two princes hardly had the time to notice them.

The ninth prince asked, "Master, shall we help them?"

Zhang Lie tilted his head. "Are you certain?"

The fifth prince had tried to kill the ninth prince, after all...

The ninth prince grimaced, but he replied, "They're still my brothers."

Zhang Lie snapped his fingers and had Red Comet zip toward the two princes, easily killing the lifeforms that surrounded them.

Zhang Lie felt that this decision would come back to bite the ninth prince, that the ninth prince needed to be more cold-hearted, but he did as the ninth prince asked. The ninth prince had to experience this truth for himself, after all.

Of course, his help only amounted to killing a wave of lifeforms surrounding the two princes. Whether they could survive would have to depend on themselves.

The third prince noticed a sudden red glow at the edges of his vision. He frowned and shouted, "Isn't that our ninth brother's fourth-level beast?"

"It doesn't matter—focus on breaking out of this mess first!"

With the last of their strength, the two princes eventually managed to free themselves.

𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

After leaving the two princes behind, Zhang Lie suddenly smelled a concentrated stench of blood from up ahead. The ground before them was littered with carcass after carcass.

The ninth prince frowned. "Should we detour?"

"There's no need."

Zhang Lie rushed forward. Before them, superior-grade lifeforms formed a mountain of carcasses, numbering perhaps in the thousands.

Atop the mountain, at its apex, was a man with a black sword. Black, cloying aura surrounded him—killing intent made manifest. Where it combined with his genetic energy, it formed a whirlpool of black, reaching out to its surroundings with what looked like feelers and tendrils.

The ninth prince's face turned pale. "Master, that's Jian Mo!"

"So what?" Zhang Lie shrugged.

Jian Mo slowly raised his head. His eyes gleamed the color of blood. When Zhang Lie fixed his gaze on him, death stared back.

"I've finally found you!" The reason Jian Mo had unleashed such slaughter was in order to find Zhang Lie.

"Master, Jian Mo—Jian Mo's gone mad!" All the lessons the ninth prince had had on the Wang bladewielders came flooding back to him in a moment of intense clarity. These bladewielders could grow uncommonly strong by killing others, but many of them ended up being corrupted by their killing intent through this process, turning them into murder machines.

This was the fate to which Jian Mo had finally succumbed.

When Jian Mo slew the one-armed polearm master who had challenged him, his killing intent rose up once more. Then, however, he had still been conscious and in control; what had caused the madness to descend was the beast stampede.

Jian Mo had no choice but to slaughter the beasts that came his way, and the burgeoning killing intent that resulted was the last straw for him.

When Jian Mo struck, a black slash engorged with killing intent shot toward Zhang Lie. Those fighters who had weak wills or insufficient mental strength would likely be frozen stiff with fear—"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!"—but Zhang Lie wasn't one such.

A black serpent materialized behind his back, shooting forward with a punch of his fist. The serpent devoured Jian Mo's killing intent as it soared into the skies, striking Jian Mo's body with an explosion of corrosive energy and sending Jian Mo flying back.

"[Rune: Control]!"

Jian Mo was the only opponent that Zhang Lie had found even moderately interesting since entering the third realm.

Zhang Lie raised an arm into the air and sent the gravity and anti-gravity tablets crashing down by the monarch's side. Ripples of energy criss-crossed the space whose boundaries were marked by the two tablets.

Jian Mo, mad with killing intent, found the energy in his body rampaging with even more ferocity. Killing intent shot out of his body, tearing skin and flesh apart...