Chapter 851: Descension of the Great Lords

Feitian's voice heralded the appearance of yet another figure, one whose body seemed to bridge ocean and sky. The lower half of its body was a long serpent's tail. A large ring of silver appeared behind his back. His black palms were so humongous they were half his height, and they sucked in the light around them.

Luo Hou lowered his head and bowed. "Master!"

Vemacitrin's nine heads all smiled at the same time. "Fuzhang, you're finally back. Have your wounds recovered?"

"The injuries I sustained on clashing with the king of the death spirits? Largely."

Vemacitrin smiled again. "To be able to take a palm strike from a crazy bastard like the king of the death spirits and still recover so quickly—even our forefather would be hard-pressed to do the same."

𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"I was simply lucky," Fuzhang replied, sighing. "It's truly a pity for Pozhi. I thought I would be able to rest a little longer, only for him to die so quickly—even among the descendants of the xuluo, Pozhi is outstanding."

Fuzhang was one of the four great lords before Pozhi rose up to that position. He was the commander of the xuluo forces, and among the oldest of the lords. He came from the same generation as Vemacitrin.

As such, they got along rather well. Compared to them, Qiantuo and Luohou were still from a far younger generation.

Feitian replied," Fuzhang, you'll head to this newly evolved world with Qiantuo and Luohou."

Fuzhang nodded. "My life on it, forefather."

"Three of the four lords?" Vemacitrin called out in surprise. "Is this new superior world really that strong?"

If he included Pozhi in the count, four great lords in total would have been dispatched to the world. Four lords was enough manpower to wage war against another ancient superior world—but they were only being sent to deal with a newly evolved one!

The xuluo had always thought of these new superior worlds as pigs that were now ready for slaughter. The xuluo only had four such butchers, and for all of them to be mobilized for a single pig was exceptional. Vemacitrin thought that Feitian was making a mountain out of a molehill.

Feitian roared, "There will be no second defeat. With absolute strength, we will crush the inhabitants of the three thousand worlds and prove that the superior worlds rule over them all. We will annihilate all resistance."

Feitian wanted to make an example of the new superior world that had dared to resist its advances.

He continued, "This time, we lost ten million xuluo. Vemacitrin, pick out ten million fighters among those xuluo you control."

Li Zongming began to familiarize himself with the authority of a superior king, while Zhang Lie dissected the xuluo corpses and Pozhi in order to understand the secret behind heaven's might. Although he hadn't managed to do so, he did discover something interesting.

"As expected."

The moment he saw Pozhi, Zhang Lie felt a sense of familiarity.

After analyzing the bodies of the xuluo, Zhang Lie thought of a hypothesis, one which he had validated by the time he dissected Pozhi's body.

The xuluo were evolved forms of the sura—or, more precisely, the xuluo and the sura belonged to the same genus, like dogs and wolves, humans and apes, or tigers and cats.

Of course, there were still significant differences between the xuluo and the sura. The key connection was between the xuluo and an evolved form of the sura—the asura.

Those sura who had grown strong enough to evolve into asura were genetically distinct from the sura, but they bore nascent similarity to the xuluo. This was a topic worth investigating in more detail: how could the race that had once dominated the second realm, the sura, be so similar to the xuluo of the third realm? Only the asura had been known to have the ability to break through the barrier between these realms, as the hunters of the Milky Way did.

Zhang Lie hazarded a new hypothesis. The sura hadn't evolved into the xuluo; instead, the xuluo had devolved into the sura. Perhaps there was an accident that had caused a xuluo to fall into the second realm, after which point his offspring many generations hence grew into the sura race.

This was why the sura were so unusual among the second realm: they alone had the ability to consume the lifeforce of other species. Zhang Lie's second hypothesis was that the sura had deliberately been placed in the second realm—the hakoniwa, or "garden-in-a-box", theory.

.

Back in the Milky Way, some hunters had suggested that the dimensional realms were artificial worlds created by some yet-unknown entity.

After all, the five realms seemed to belong to parallel universes, but were somehow all ensconced in the same hidden dimension that was accessible to hunters of the Milky Way. Could this stunning artifice have occurred naturally?

Zhang Lie chose not to ponder such a question for the time being. After all, this was information that he wasn't privy to even in his past life, and he would need to advance further to even begin to deduce clues for that question.

"In that case, would I be able to produce peak limit-breaking potions from xuluo bone essence...?"

The reason peak limit-breaking potions couldn't be mass-produced was because they required asura thorns as a main ingredient. Now that Zhang Lie had noted the similarity between the xuluo and the asura, would he be able to substitute materials from xuluo bodies instead?

"I won't be able to use the original recipe, in that case. It'll take some more time..."

Zhang Lie stored all the xuluo bones he had acquired, intending to study them carefully.

Beyond the Zongming world, a gigantic eyeball popped into existence. An inhabitant of the world would immediately notice that this eyeball looked identical to the one that had appeared right before the invasion of the xuluo: Feitian's eye.

Feitian's eye closed and was replaced by a huge black hole, from which emerged a gigantic palm that sucked up all light around it. The palm grabbed at the edges of the hole and forcibly widened it.

Cracks spread out from the hole as another hand emerged and widened the opening.

Fuzhang emerged from the enlarged hole, followed by Qiantuo and Luohou. Qiantuo glanced at the Zongming world with confusion in his eyes.

"This is where Pozhi lost his life? It looks just like an ordinary world..."

As Qiantuo spoke, the entire Zongming world shook. Lightning crackled over the void.

The successful evolution of the Zongming world meant that it was protected by the will of the world. There was a formless barrier protecting it from outside intrusion, and even a superior king wouldn't be able to bypass it easily.

Feitian could only put the opening of the wormhole beyond the Zongming world.

Fuzhang warned, "Remain cautious. None of your predecessors died in battle—the xuluo who possess heaven's might are invincible, but this invincibility breeds carelessness. The deaths of previous great lords is because of carelessness, not combat ability."

As he spoke, twenty million xuluo soldiers emerged from the black hole, filling the void like buzzing mosquitoes...