Chapter 849: The Zongming World

Zhang Lie understood the situation quickly after recalling what had happened to the xuluo who had failed to use heaven's might.

Heaven's might was a particularly strong racial power, with the ability to skip the process between cause and effect, bypassing natural law and picking out the best future. How could such a ridiculous strength not come with any drawbacks?

More accurately, this drawback was a risk that users of heaven's might took. If heaven's might were to have no effect on its target, the user would suffer karmic backlash—the cause of Pozhi vomiting blood.

Heaven's might was so strong that Pozhi had never encountered any foe immune to it, and he had all but forgotten its risks.

After all, the xuluo just needed to be able to deal an injury to the target with 50% probability, and heaven's might would do the rest. After a few injuries, the xuluo would have over 50% chance of killing the opponent, and heaven's might would take care of that too.

Who could be so strong as to resist heaven's might, especially given Pozhi's own strength?

Pozhi hadn't considered such a possibility until he met Zhang Lie.

Zhang Lie drew closer and stepped over Pozhi's prone body, a boot on his head.

Pozhi found his body growing so weak and emaciated it was as though he were nothing more than bones, as though he had just survived an illness that had brought him to the gates of death. With a quavering voice, he called out, "You can't kill me. The moment you do so, the xuluo world will take revenge. All of you will have to die!"

"I've never feared the superior worlds, and I'll hardly start with the xuluo!" With a wave of Zhang Lie's hand, the black serpent behind him shot forward and began to dissolve Pozhi's body with a mist of black fog.

Pozhi's cries echoed in the world of the east as his body was reduced to nothing.

The death of Pozhi drained the morale of the xuluo, but they didn't retreat. If they were to retreat to the xuluo world, they would face the same fate: death. The xuluo howled, then rushed toward Zhang Lie and tried to swamp him with sheer numbers.

Zhang Lie didn't want to sully his hands against such trash. He motioned to the black serpent, which stuck out its tongue, hissed, and darted toward the xuluo.

Heaven's might was useless against Zhang Lie; it was likewise largely useless against the serpent he summoned. Although heaven's might did manage to do some amount of damage to the serpent, it was a manifestation of energy, and damage to its physical body was irrelevant.

It opened its maw wide and swallowed up large swathes of the xuluo, dissolving them in mere moments.

Red Comet rushed into the air and transformed into a beam of blood that zigzagged through the battlefield, destroying the xuluo it encountered even before they could use heaven's might.

The disaster-grade five-colored dragon likewise made its move, spraying out multi-colored flames and burning the xuluo to a crisp. Try though they did, the xuluo were unable to break through the dragon's defenses with heaven's might.

From ground level, Li Qianlin watched the fighting ensue. Her eyes focused on Zhang Lie, who stood above the heavens like a martial god.

In the blink of an eye, the fighting ended. Zhang Lie had successfully protected the evolving world.

Within Li Zongming's pillar of light, the egg that had formed from the synthesis of the two worlds' proofs of kingship began to crack. A massive beast emerged, with such a strong aura that the pillar of light fizzled away.

It had scales in six colors, with a pair of golden wings behind its back. It had a long, narrow mouth, with eight horns on its head like a golden crown. A ring of light glowed behind him as brightly as the sun. The moment the mythical beast emerged from its egg, runes seemed to flare over the entire world.

As the energy from the evolution condensed and the will of the world descended, Li Zongming began to radiate six-colored light.

After the world of the east evolved into a superior world, Li Zongming's own strength grew by leaps and bounds. His aura revealed the current state of his strength.

Those inhabitants of the east and west who had survived the xuluo incursion found themselves kneeling on the ground, praising Li Zongming's strength.

Now, Li Zongming could immediately and intuitively control natural law. He seemed to be bathed in a golden glow, as bright as the sun, preventing anyone from looking directly at him. If they were to do so, they would feel a scorching pain in their eyes.

After the world's evolution, Li Zongming had gained a shred of divinity, as though a piece of the world had been infused into his own body. That divinity was imbued with a few commandments.

The first was the inability to bear direct witness to a god: if someone weak were to look directly at Li Zongming, their eyeballs would burn to a crisp. Because Li Zongming had just ascended, the penalty for doing so was still weak compared to observing the king of the xuluo, Feitian.

The second commandment was a mark of identity: anyone who noticed Li Zongming's presence in the world of the east would know that he was its king.

The third commandment was a weak form of omnipresence: anyone in the world who mentioned "the king of the east", "Li Zongming", "the king of the realm", or other such related phrases would be overheard by Li Zongming himself.

Li Zongming looked down at the inhabitants of both worlds and began to speak, his voice reverberating through the air. "The merger of the worlds of east and west is complete. From today onwards, neither world shall exist independently. I name the world by my identity: henceforth, this world shall be known as the Zongming world!"

The easterners cheered; the westerners had no choice but to accept this reality.

Li Zongming let out a deep breath. The wishes and expectations of generations of kings of the realm—he had been the one to fulfill them all.

"Rise." With a wave of Li Zongming's hand, the people who had been kneeling down were now supported up by formless energy.

Li Zongming frowned as he noticed the carnage at the venue. Half the eastern world had suffered from the xuluo invasion.

Many of the elite troops had died or were injured, and quite a few inhabitants of the world had gone mad from their brief view of the xuluo king. Some were even turning into monsters. Time flashed in Li Zongming's eyes; he reviewed what had happened while he was engaged in the evolution of the world.

With a huff, he forced those who had gone mad to their knees, stripped them of their recent memories, and waited for them to recover. However, those who had begun turning into monsters didn't revert to their usual selves—as Zhang Lie had claimed, they couldn't be helped any longer.

"A superior world's forces really did show up... Thank goodness he gave me that warning, and thank goodness he was here himself..."

Li Zongming glanced at Zhang Lie, then reined in his energy. He had expected that, once the worlds of east and west combined and the world evolved into a superior one, his newfound strength would be sufficient to defeat Zhang Lie and wipe clean the humiliation from having suffered a loss to him.

Instead, only now did he realize just how frighteningly strong Zhang Lie was.

Before, he had only seen the sea from its surface; now, when he dove into it, did he realize how deep it was. He had known that Zhang Lie was strong, but not how strong. What his evolution had allowed him to do was to comprehend the enormity, the whole, of that strength—but he was as far away from defeating it as ever.

Zhang Lie was like an abyss, but it was only now that he had been able to see his unimaginable depths.

Li Zongming began to sweat. That Zhang Lie hadn't destroyed the world of the east during their fight was a blessing he didn't deserve.

Of course, what Li Zongming didn't know was that Zhang Lie hadn't possessed such strength from the beginning. It was a result of his maxing out his disaster gene fragments.

Zhang Lie landed in front of Li Zongming. "Congratulations on becoming the king of the realm of a superior world, your majesty."

Li Zongming raised his head to the sky and laughed. "Haha, there's no need to be so formal. Just call me father-in-law!"