Chapter 926: Karmic Strength

Zhou Ying was just about to down the vial in one gulp when Zhang Lie held her back. "Hold on."

Zhou Ying asked, "What's the matter? Please don't worry, Captain, I can handle any side effects that may occur."

Zhang Lie shook his head. "No, it's not that. Take a sip at a time, so that we can identify any changes to your body, collect data, and stop any problems before they compound."

Potion #4 would affect a hunter's genetic code at its most fundamental level, and if something were to go wrong here, even Zhou Ying's boundless vitality wouldn't be able to resolve the problem.

Zhou Ying took a sip. Fire burned her throat and body. It was a scorching baptism.

She felt as though she was experiencing the blood ants' genetic technique, [Bloodbath]. As the potent effects of the potion surged through her body, a scorching heat enveloped her from head to toe, as though she had immersed her entire body in a vat of chili peppers.

Sweat poured down her back, as though she had been running through the rain.

As a disaster-grade lifeform whose body had crystallized, Zhou Ying began to flare with light, which resolved into the color of jade.

Her boundless vitality flooded out of her, sending the laboratory apparatus all around her crashing to the ground. Golden skeins of blood revolved around her body, and Zhou Ying instinctively activated [Avatar of the Fae].

An outburst of green light shielded Zhou Ying. Her hair grew long enough to reach her legs, turning into a green the color of sparkling jade. Green motes of vitality surrounded her like fireflies.

The green slowly leached out of her body as it turned the color of jade. Her body grew stronger and stronger. Zhou Ying's eyes brightened, her pupils flecked with gold.

The Yeluo chieftain was very satisfied. "It looks like you've fully digested the potion already."

Zhang Lie asked, "How do you feel? Does it hurt anywhere?"

Zhou Ying shook her head. "My body feels better than ever. The will of the world informed me that I've received a single peak limit fragment."

.

Zhang Lie and the Yeluo chieftain glanced at each other, both overjoyed.

"Excellent news!" the Yeluo chieftain grew even more excited. "I expect this is a great success."

"No, it's too early for that," Zhang Lie cautioned.

Chastised, the Yeluo chieftain nodded. "You're right, your majesty, it's not time to grow relaxed just yet. We'll have to collect some more data with respect to Miss Zhou Ying's body. We still need to confirm that the potion has been absorbed entirely, and that there are no side effects we need to know about."

Zhang Lie nodded. "If Zhou Ying successfully finishes the entire potion and obtains fifty peak limit fragments, we can be assured of our success then."

Zhou Ying looked toward the vial of Potion #4 she held in her hand with greed, but she knew that it was only sensible to wait.

After the Yeluo chieftain inspected her fully, he declared that she was in exceptional health. Her vitality had grown stronger and richer upon imbibing the potion.

The Yeluo chieftain suggested, "At this point, I think you can try consuming the entire vial at once."

Zhang Lie shook his head. "Better to find an isolated location. I'm afraid the energy released upon consuming the potion will create a mess."

Considering what just drinking a sip of the potion had done to the laboratory, the Yeluo chieftain certainly agreed.

The group headed to the desert of black glass. It used to be a desert of black sand, but after Zhang Lie's evolution here upon maxing out his disaster gene fragments, all that sand had turned to glass.

Zhou Ying swallowed the remainder of the potion in one large gulp. As the herbal energy swept through her body, she felt as though her body had become a world in its own right. What she gave off was no longer vitality—but rather a world's energy.

Zhou Ying's face took on the color of a boiled prawn.

Her blood boiled, and energy rushed out of her body and formed a hurricane around her. The black glass beneath her cracked, and the entire draconian world began to shudder.

𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The draconian sage teleported to the source of the disturbance. "What's going on? What have all of you done?!"

The energy that filled Zhou Ying's body had reached a critical threshold, as though a supernova were exploding. Her body began to crack, and frighteningly dense energy seeped out of those cracks.

The Yeluo chieftain's face grew alarmed. "Something's wrong!"

He hadn't expected that the potion would be so strong.

Zhou Ying's body began to repair herself with her boundless vitality, but even as her wounds closed, they opened up again. Zhou Ying made a pained expression. Crystalline powder spread through the air as Zhou Ying's cells underwent apoptosis. Huge amounts of energy gathered by her heart, and she couldn't help but cough out a mouthful of fresh blood.

The blood that left her body evaporated instantly, revealing just how hot her body had become.

Zhou Ying circulated her technique at full force, sending her vitality throughout her body. Golden and black threads accumulated around her, forming a cocoon that trapped her within, as though forcing all the rampaging energy back into her body.

The Yeluo chieftain asked in surprise, "What's this?"

Zhang Lie, on the other hand, seemed to be familiar with these golden and black threads—threads of karma.

At that very moment, Zhou Ying was undergoing a metamorphosis. Burgeoning genetic energy in her body was destroying it from the inside out even as her vitality healed all that damage. The two forces warred within her, refining her lifeforce and the genetic energy contained within the limit-breaking potion.

The golden and black threads stabilized the two conflicting sources of energy. The power of heaven's might, infused into the potion via the xuluo's bones, activated and skipped past all potential failure outcomes.

There had been the possibility that Zhou Ying's body would decay, unable to handle the stress of the clashes between the two forms of energy running rampant through her body; that Zhou Ying would run out of steam and be unable to fuel her transformation; that Zhou Ying would grow mentally unstable...

All those possibilities were elided over with the help of the power of heaven's might. Instead, success lay in sight.

The cocoon split apart. The black and golden threads vanished in the air, and Zhou Ying was once again surrounded by jade-green vitality. Her advancement had made her dozens of times stronger than before, and gold and black threads shone in her eyes.

Zhang Lie and the Yeluo chieftain sucked in deep breaths of relief.

Zhou Ying had succeeded.

The Yeluo chieftain got to his knees. "Your majesty, my calculations were clearly awry. I never expected the potion would produce so much energy, and Zhou Ying almost died as a result. Please punish me."

Zhou Ying had managed to absorb a sip of the potion successfully, but there had almost been a problem when she downed the entire vial.

If not for the fact that Zhou Ying's body was brimming with vitality as a result of her unique framework, she might have perished. Zhang Lie had made the right decision in allowing Zhou Ying to be the test subject—any other member of Team Zenith really might have died...