Chapter 832: Cleaning Up the Threats

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The river of black serpents swallowed up the red lava on impact; it was hardly a fight. The black serpents then demolished everything in their path and drenched the lava salamander. The lava exploded, destroying the black serpents—the salamander had self-destructed its outer shell.

After doing so, the salamander revealed its red ruby-like body. Its actual body was far smaller in size; its lava exterior was more like armor that was formed from its excellent lava-manipulation abilities.

The salamander's true body was only as tall as a regular human, far smaller than the humongous creature that had been formed out of lava. ?The difference in size made its true body look rather cute, so much so that Zhang Lie was tempted to keep it like a pet, but he quashed that impulse near-immediately. He had to avoid being fooled by the salamander's cute exterior appearance—it was still a disaster-grade lifeform, after all.

The heat that its red ruby-like exterior exuded was over ten times hotter than lava. The moment Zhang Lie thought the true fight was about to begin, the disaster-grade salamander croaked twice. Its eyes leaked out lava as though they were tears, and it turned tail and burrowed into the magma.

Zhang Lie sliced forward, but the salamander was so far that all Zhang Lie managed to cut off was a quivering red ruby tail.

Given the regenerative abilities of disaster-grade lifeforms, it would be able to regrow its tail in the blink of an eye.

"I won't let you escape so easily! [Rune: Float]!" With a thought, the image of a dragontutle manifested behind Zhang Lie, and the runic tablet of anti-gravity appeared above the hole that the salamander had dug.

Black ripples emanated from the gravity-altering tablet, and ancient runes in an unknown language appeared on it. The disaster-grade salamander continued to scrabble in the ground, but it felt a force that relentlessly pulled it up and impeded its motion—and for Zhang Lie, even a minute delay was enough.

With a swing of the blade Guicang, he bisected the disaster-grade salamander.

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

Zhang Lie retrieved the disaster-grade core from the salamander's carcass. It was surrounded by scarlet flames and seemed to be filled with molten lava.

As spatial fluctuations surrounded him, Zhang Lie found himself teleported back to the black desert, where he absorbed the disaster-grade core. Upon doing so, Zhang Lie felt his power grow once more.

Zhang Lie: a disaster-grade lifeform

Techniques: Rippling Walk (pinnacle), Three-Wave Crescendo (pinnacle), Calm Waters (pinnacle), Fists of the Silent Sea (pinnacle), The Boundless Blade (pinnacle), Eclipse (pinnacle), Syzygy (advanced), Ninesoul Dragonblade (advanced), Blade of the Heavens (pinnacle)

Genes: Basic, 160; Mutated, 150; Superior, 150; Peak, 150; Disaster, 80

𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Soulshards: White Grub (superior), Blood Ant (superior), Potbellied Toad (mutated), Eternalspring Cocoon (superior), Dragonwolf (superior), Moonlight Wyrm (peak), Golden Roc (peak), Mistmeld Clam (disaster)

Zhang Lie needed only to kill two more disaster-grade lifeforms to max out his disaster gene fragments.

As spatial fluctuations surrounded him, Zhang Lie returned to the draconian sage's residence.

The draconian sage was smiling as he received Zhang Lie. "Do you need some time to rest?"

Zhang Lie shook his head. "They were just a few small creatures—I hardly need to rest. We'll continue!"

The draconian sage nodded. "I really do admire the endless energy that youth possess..."

"Come on, come on!"

"The fourth disaster-grade lifeform is from the greenskins' world, and was the reason it became a desert. The greenskins' world had initially been rich and replete with resources, but the explosion of the greenskins' population, coupled with the existence of this disaster-grade lifeform, drained what the world could support."

Zhang Lie frowned. He expected that the disaster-grade lifeform was likely some sort of glutton that fed off of lifeforce or vitality in the vicinity, but his guess was completely off the mark.

"The greenskins began to raid other worlds both to get resources and to reduce their population. In addition to that, wars frequently break out within the greenskins' world, primarily with this disaster-grade lifeform as their opponent. The greenskins call her the mother of cockroaches, and she possesses a frightening reproductive ability. She's able to give birth to tons, literal tons, of cockroaches in one go!"

Zhang Lie's mouth spasmed. "So you mean you want me to clean up a cockroach infestation?"

The sage countered, "Not quite. Don't you want some disaster-grade cores?"

"Alright," Zhang Lie accepted wearily. "I suspect the greenskin king had the ability to deal with this infestation of cockroaches, but that he chose not to do so in order to curb the greenskins' own growth. The mother of cockroaches might have an insane reproductive ability, but I can't imagine the greenskins had it much worse."

The greenskin king had likely left the mother of cockroaches around as a threat in order to refine the next generation of greenskin warriors.

Zhang Lie asked, "It'll be easy for me to get rid of the mother of cockroaches, but how will we curb the number of greenskins afterwards?"

The sage replied, "You don't have to worry about that. The draconians' world isn't like the greenskins' world from before. Our world now has the combined landmass of nine medium-sized worlds, and we have far more resources than the greenskins' world ever did. We'd be able to support three greenskin races, not just one. What's more, aren't you all still expanding into other worlds?"

The draconian world, unlike its medium-sized self just a few weeks ago, now had more than enough resources to support even the greenskins.

"Even if you didn't have an invasion plan, I would have made my own move at some point. The draconian world doesn't need any chaff around."

Zhang Lie guessed, "Were you planning to take advantage of the greenskins?"

"Yes, I was—they need the training. Now that the nine worlds have combined, all the alien races in the draconian world are all to be considered native inhabitants, and I'll need to be looking out for everyone even if they don't belong to my clan."

"Oh? You are magnanimous, after all. Teleport me over, then!" Zhang Lie requested.

With a wave of the draconian sage's hand, Zhang Lie found himself surrounded by spatial fluctuations. The next moment, he found himself in a desert, one filled with huge black cockroaches crawling all around him.

Each cockroach looked fierce and was about as tall as a human. The moment they saw Zhang Lie, they began flapping their wings madly. Their probosces leaked with unusual clear fluid, and their bodies emitted a vile, terrible stench.

Upon seeing these disgusting cockroaches, Zhang Lie didn't even bother with his disaster-grade mistmeld clam soulshard. He sensed the disaster-grade lifeform underground and chose to attack with brute force.

As he clenched his fists, blue genetic energy gathered and rippled around his arms. He flicked his wrists, causing a frightening aura to descend on the world. The skies began to darken, and a fish the size of a whale materialized in the air.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Soar]!" A huge wave manifested in the air. The fish slammed its huge tail on the ground and sent a torrent of water surging through the desert...