Chapter 779: The King of the Bearmen

The bearman warriors had only gone through the wormhole less than a day ago. Considering their experience with the draconians, the bearman warriors should be within the draconian world by now. How, then, had humans passed through the wormhole and into the bearmen world?

𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Yang Ze countered, "Where's the king of the realm?"

The bearmen stilled before thundering back, "I'm the one questioning you! Where are our warriors?"

"Getting information out of you all isn't that easy, is it… To be honest, I'd prefer not to resort to violence. If it were Zhang Lie, well, I suppose he'd 'politely' greet you all. I guess I'll emulate him..."

Yang Ze unsheathed his blade as water-attuned genetic energy burst forth from him. He activated [Mirrored Refraction]. Waves lapped from his longsword, and a great white shark appeared behind him.

Realizing that Yang Ze was about to attack, the bearmen yelled, "Sound the alarms! Enemy assault!"

However, they were too late.

"[The Boundless Blade: Shark Frenzy]!" Waves splashed as Yang Ze swung his sword, a gigantic shark by his back. As Yang Ze infused genetic energy into the technique, the shark materialized into reality, swimming forward as he launched his attack.

The wooden palisade that the bearmen had constructed, that had stood for as long as the forest had been around, fell to the attack. The shark tore a hole in the wood, sending chips of wood flying all over.

All the bearmen present had grown used to the palisade, and it gave them a sense of reassurance whenever they looked at it. That day, however, an enemy had easily torn a hole in the wooden pillars, sparking instant panic among the bearmen.

Yang Ze shook his head. "How poor the quality of this wood is! Could you all have neglected the upkeep of the fence after not fighting the draconians for too long?"

The bearman defense was far too shoddy compared to that of their draconian counterpart. If Yang Ze had attacked the draconian wall in the same fashion, he might have been able to drill a hole through at most, rather than an entire stretch of the palisade—a space large enough that he and any of his forces could easily attack the defenseless interior of the bearmen village.

This was the difference between the draconian and the bearman defense.

The bearmen's ineptitude was evident from their panic at having their defenses breached. If such a situation had happened to the draconians, they would immediately rally and counterattack instead. This difference derived from combat experience. The draconians continuously warred against the Mengtai, and they had trained an elite force of soldiers.

Yang Ze leisurely walked forward as his surroundings filled with white mist. The mist spread through the forest. Shark hordes appeared among the trees and swam past the defensive border.

As the bearmen mustered, they were quickly taken down by the fierce, prowling sharks, giving the white mists a faint tint of pink and dyeing the ground red.

Yang Ze bore the bearmen no mercy: either they died, or he would. Showing kindness to an enemy was akin to treating himself cruelly. His gaze sharp, he strode into the village. He observed the bearmen corpses calmly—if the bearmen hadn't fallen, the humans and draconians would have.

The bearmen had been the invaders, and they had no one to blame but themselves for being counter-invaded by humans.

The one-sided slaughter quickly ended.

The king of the bearmen, sensing Yang Ze's arrival and invasion, retaliated. A cyclone headed straight for Yang Ze, dispersing the white fog he had put up. Claws sliced Yang Ze's body apart.

Yang Ze looked at the two halves of his body in shock, then slowly dissipated into mist—his 'body' was simply an illusion spawned from [Mirrored Refraction].

Over the past year, Yang Ze's understanding of [Mirrored Refraction] had grown to even greater heights. He was now able to spawn such illusions in a split second, and the illusions were as good as real.

He appeared atop the wooden palisade. "Is the king of the bearmen unwilling to face me directly?"

The moment Yang Ze appeared, a claw swiped at Yang Ze's head. This time, however, it remained hovering above its body. It spoke while floating: "I've found you."

To see a decapitated head speaking was a frightening sight. Of course, once he finished speaking, Yang Ze's 'body' slowly vanished once more.

The king of the realm, hidden in the forest, was shocked by his two failed attempts at assassination. He intended on retreating and then finding another location from which to attack Yang Ze, only to notice something to his back.

"King of the bearmen, I've found you!"

The bearman grew alarmed. He hadn't noticed Yang Ze appearing behind him at all! He was hidden on a nearby hill, about five hundred meters from the village.

Yang Ze had traced the king's location via his second attack.

The king of the bearmen was surprisingly intelligent—or, rather, unusually experienced with these sneak attacks. His long-distance claw swipes, which changed direction with the wind, meant that Yang Ze couldn't be certain of their source. However, even though the king of the bearmen could hide the direction from which he attacked, he couldn't hide the energy he gave off.

If Yang Ze couldn't even find a bear hidden in the forest, he could hardly call himself a member of Team Zenith.

The king of the bearmen was about to turn back and attack, only to find his surroundings filled with crystalline lotus flowers.

The next moment, the lotus flowers exploded. Water-attuned genetic energy filled the air.

The short-ranged explosion caused no small amount of damage to the king, who had lost a fair bit of his fur. Countless ice crystals, large and small, had pierced his skin and drawn blood. A trickle of blood seeped out of his mouth.

When the king of the bearmen turned around, Yang Ze saw him clearly for the first time. The king was hardly as magnificent in stature as the champion of the bearmen; instead, he was smaller and thinner than average, only about the height of an average human man. He was roughly of the same size and height as Yang Ze, and his limbs were thinner than those of an average bearman.

Despite his smaller body, his claws were wholly undiminished in size and still half a meter long.

Compared to his bulkier and stronger kin, Yang Ze found the king in front of him a larger threat. His eyes were as sharp as blades, and it was clear he was more than adept with his claws.

Yang Ze curled his finger, beckoning the king forward as he sent all the crystalline lotus flowers he had deposited in the vicinity floating toward him.