Chapter 913: Appearance of the Bug King

The blood cyclone and black storm clashed in mid-air, as though two armies were duking each other out for dominion of the battlefield. Neither combatant relented; the explosion that resulted from the clash turned the flat ground of the battlefield uneven.

The two combatants exchanged hundreds of blows in mere seconds, bolstered by the strength of their constitution.

The bug king's black punches were able to distort space with strength alone.

Yang Ze watched the fight play out seriously. If he were the one fighting the bug king, none of his tricks or techniques would have any noticeable impact. The bug king's strength had reached such an incredible level that he was able to distort space with brute force alone.

Even more astoundingly, despite the fact that the bug king was equipped with a monstrous physique, it was still on the losing end of this fight.

Even the members of Team Zenith didn't think that any human could best the humanoid bugs in terms of constitution, but Zhang Lie proved to be a counterexample. He demonstrated that humans could dwarf these mutated bugs in every respect.

Zhang Lie's opponent wasn't a "regular" humanoid bug, if these bugs could even be considered normal at all, but rather their king. The bug king's constitution had to be a dozen, a hundred times stronger than that of the bugs the hunters had faced themselves.

The members of Team Zenith didn't know which combatant was the more monstrous.

If not for the bug king's immensely strong regenerative ability, it would already have been killed by Zhang Lie.

A black serpent swooped toward the bug king, only to be crushed by the bug king's grip. An explosion of dark-red genetic energy swept over the bug king as the serpent exploded, but the bug king protected itself with its own ink-green genetic energy.

The bug king's genetic energy was such a dark green that it was all but black. If the humanoid bugs' genetic energy was a potpourri of those of the lifeforms that they had devoured, then the bug king's genetic energy was a potpourri of the humanoid bugs' genetic energy.

With its left hand, the bug king summoned lightning; with its right hand, a storm. Unusually, both phenomena were ink-green, the same color as its genetic energy. Fang Yi grew alarmed as he watched the battle unfold—the bug king was using his techniques!

On the other hand, Zhang Lie wasn't surprised. The bug king had been observing the entire fight from within the bug nest, but it was rather remarkable that it had managed to reproduce the techniques just by sight alone.

As the bug king made its move, Zhang Lie pulled back. A black serpent coiled around Zhang Lie. Its scales turned blood-red and horns protruded from its forehead as it morphed into a dragon of blood.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!" As Zhang Lie punched forward, the blood dragon roared in outrage and shot toward the bug king.

The moment he launched his attack, Zhang Lie retreated at his fastest speed.

The bug king's elemental energies clashed against the blood dragon, which exploded upon taking the brunt of the impact.

The explosion spawned a huge storm of energy. A wave of annihilation exploded around the dragon. Pitch-black energy swallowed everything in the vicinity like a storm at sea, covering up the sky.

"Dojo Leader, don't go too crazy! We're still down here!" The disciples of the Zenith Dojo hurriedly retreated as the pitch-black energy of annihilation sent shockwaves through the entire battlefield.

Zhang Lie's battles were spectacular, but they came with one drawback—a moment's carelessness might cost the disciples their lives.

The explosion of the energy of annihilation that made up the blood dragon's body was on the level of a weapon of mass destruction, one that seemed as though it could even destroy a large-sized world.

However, because he was cognizant of the presence of the disciples of the Zenith Dojo, Zhang Lie hadn't launched his attack at full strength. Otherwise, all of Mars might have been consumed by the impact—Zhang Lie would have destroyed Mars before the bugs themselves could.

The explosion was like a black hole that consumed everything in sight, but once it reached a threshold, the black hole shrunk down to a pinhole and vanished from sight, leaving a vacuum behind. A storm manifested as the air itself cavitated. A hemispherical hole was left behind on the battlefield, as though a bomb with a few megatons of energy had just been detonated.

Even more shockingly, the bug king had survived Zhang Lie's assault. Zhang Lie might not have released his attack at full strength, but the energy of annihilation that he had released was the real thing.

Zhang Lie had never met a being that could survive the devastating energy without having encountered it before. If he could, he wanted to capture the bug king and use it as a research subject.

Even though the bug king had survived the explosion, it was badly hurt as a result. Its black, steel-like exterior was cracked all over, and dark yellow ichor drained from its body. Even its regenerative ability was unable to keep up.

Ink-green genetic energy surged around the bug king like a boundless ocean. Ripples of genetic energy wrapped around the bug king's arms, spinning faster and faster...

Fang Yi frowned. His eyes suddenly grew wide.

A howling gale swept over the battlefield. The bug king stood at the heart of a whirlpool of genetic energy.

Yang Ze's face turned pale. "Is-Isn't this..."

The whirlpool of genetic energy compressed, kneading the surrounding space into a papier-mache ball. The members of Team Zenith finally realized why this sensation was so familiar. This wasn't the first time they had seen the attack, or even the fifth. They had felt it many times before.

Hong Xi's voice trembled. "It can't be..."

She had learned that technique as well, though she hadn't developed it to the extent that Yang Ze and Zhang Lie had. Even so, she had never imagined that she would ever see this technique, which might as well be Zhang Lie's signature technique, in enemy hands.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Soar]!" Ripples of energy spread out from the bug king, warping the space around him. The ink-green genetic energy formed a sickly tide that caused space itself to tremor. Like a raging dragon, the attack shot through the sky.

It was a corrupted version of Zhang Lie's own attack.

The disciples of the Zenith Dojo, particularly the senior ones, gasped in shock. Had the bug king managed to learn one of Zhang Lie's signature techniques?

Fang Yi goggled. For the bug king to be able to reproduce his wind and thunder combination attack was already no mean feat, but it had even managed to copy Zhang Lie's far more advanced techniques!

This sort of ability was absolutely shameless!