Chapter 704: The King's Duties

Even so, more surprises lay in wait for the king of the realm. He was shocked that the disaster-grade lifeform managed to survive Zhang Lie's punch, even if its body was heavily wounded and its skull was one good hit away from shattering.

"It looks like you're quite durable, aren't you?"

𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The disaster-grade lifeform, entirely enraged at the beating it had received at Zhang Lie's hands, made to smash into Zhang Lie with its massive body.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Quake]!" The world shook. The sea quaked. The ground beneath his feet shuddered. Water gathered and rippled out from Zhang Lie. He punched forward, shattering the constraints of space and time. Everything in sight exploded.

Waves thousands of meters tall erupted over the surface of the sea.

The king of the realm tried his best to curtail the disturbance as he grumbled, "Master, can't you hold back?!"

Deep in the sea, the disaster-grade lifeform's head exploded. However, its core wasn't located in its brain, so despite the injury, the lifeform was unruffled. Not only that, a second head poked out of its shell.

By now, Zhang Lie was used to the unusual abilities and techniques that disaster-grade lifeforms possessed, and he took this new development in stride.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Soar]!" Zhang Lie's technique possessed such strength that it splintered space. The distorted space turned the depths of the sea into a void of chaos. Spatial distortions and rends sliced the lifeforms within to pieces, and the disaster-grade lifeform's wounded body grew even more battered.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!" Zhang Lie summoned a serpent, thousands of meters long, with a massive infusion of genetic energy, which began to corrode at the turtle's shell.

Subsequently, he drew Guicang and beheaded the turtle's second head.

"[The Boundless Blade: Yawning Wave]!"

The slim beam of sword energy that this technique now produced didn't seem threatening, but within it was condensed the full force of the sea. It pierced through all the obstacles in its way, then exploded within the turtle's shell, annihilating half its body as it did so.

[You successfully killed a disaster-grade mountainbearer turtle. By consuming the core of the disaster-grade mountainbearer turtle, you may receive one to ten disaster gene fragments.]

Zhang Lie extracted a dark blue core from the turtle, one that looked as though it contained an entire sea within. As he retrieved the core, he felt the entire ocean seem to revolve around it. A prickling sensation filled his palm.

This disaster-grade lifeform was surprisingly resilient, considering it had only just evolved.

After the battle was over, the king of the realm teleported himself to Zhang Lie's side.

"Master, is the battle over?"

Zhang Lie could sense the fluctuations in space coming from behind, but he didn't turn around. "You didn't have to come over just to fetch me."

The king of the realm rolled his eyes at him in exasperation. "Master, do you think I wanted to be here? You don't realize how devastating your abilities are. If I hadn't shown up, countless lifeforms who lived by the sea or within it would have perished. Master, where do you plan to absorb this genetic core?"

Zhang Lie replied, "Right here. Will you guard me?"

The king of the realm shuddered as he thought back to the disturbance that Zhang Lie's fight had caused. "You'd better go elsewhere, Master."

"Right here. Is that inconvenient?"

Don't you damn well know??"It's a little inconvenient..." The king of the realm wanted to scream at his master, but he couldn't get the words out of his mouth.

After all, his master was still his master, and, more importantly, even after ascending to the throne, he couldn't beat him.

In the end, the king of the realm transported Zhang Lie to the top of a mountain.

Zhang Lie cut his palm with his sword, then dripped blood onto the core. The moment it touched the sky blue core, the blood was quickly absorbed into its interior.

Like a wad of cotton, the disaster-grade core continuously absorbed Zhang Lie's blood, dyeing it red, along with the water within it. Zhang Lie had to reopen the wound a few times before the transformation was complete. Then, he closed his eyes and began pouring concentrated, rainbow-colored genetic energy from his body into the core for over an entire hour before he felt it starting to soften.

.

After another ten minutes or so, the entire core had softened completely.

As Zhang Lie clutched the crystalline orb, he felt some unusual sense of kinship with it, 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. His face turned blue, and he began to tremble. His arms and legs turned cold and stiff. Energy ravaged his body, but his blood didn't boil. Instead, it froze over, attacking his body via another vector.

The air crackled. Zhang Lie felt as though he were surrounded by water-attuned genetic energy.

The disaster-grade deep-sea turtle's core was particularly compatible with Zhang Lie, himself a water-attuned cultivator. The core merged easily with his body and began pumping genetic energy within. He felt as though he were situated in the middle of the ocean, feeling his body being battered like waves, genetic energy spreading out from him like waves...

As the waves struck his body, his bones creaked, and his muscles strained under the force. Zhang Lie gritted his teeth and bore with the incredible pain. The pressure of the sea locked up his body, freezing it in place even as energy surged through it.

His genetic energy quickly combined with the deep-sea turtle's. Excess energy vented from his eyes and mouth in a flood of deep blue light. ?The mountain shook. Rock quaked and crumbled as Zhang Lie's framework merged seamlessly with the disaster gene fragments.

Zhang Lie felt the blue disaster-grade energy surround him like a cocoon.

With a shout, Zhang Lie burst the cocoon in a flood of rainbow-colored genetic energy, sending a torrent of water into the air around him. Everything seemed to vibrate, and cracks propagated down the mountain.

The king of the realm, watching from afar, sighed. "As expected of Master—even a small advancement in his strength is enough to cause a mountain to crumble..."

Fortunately, he had sent Zhang Lie up into a deserted mountain, one with nothing at all around it, so it wouldn't matter even if the mountain were destroyed...