Full health is the kill threshold, no matter if you're a god or a demon!

Liu Nian frowned; this didn't sound like a bluff.

"What is the Eternal Darkness Council? How did you get into this competition zone?" he continued to ask.

"Heh...you'll never know." The Mistborn player's body began to disintegrate, weathering and dissipating like sand. "Prepare to face an endless stream of assassins...Teshu's Saddle..."

"Remember my name... Nigellas... This will be your lifelong nightmare..."

The last two words were spoken very softly, but Liu Nian heard them clearly.

Liu Nian: "This is a bit troublesome. This guy can't even be kept in a pig cage. No wonder he's a race that has successfully advanced... ennn... Teshuan, you'd better pray for yourself."

Liu Nian stood there, his brows furrowed.

A level 135 player from the "Eternal Darkness Council," qualified to enter the lower-tier competition zones...

When pieced together, this information points to a disturbing possibility—

The forces in the higher-level regions have begun to pay attention to and even intervene in the "promotion battles" in the lower-level regions!

What caused this?

Could it be that his status as a "superior" has already begun to attract attention?

"This is really troublesome," Liu Nian muttered to himself.

He originally thought that the promotion war was just a struggle between the six races, and that winning would grant him the qualification to advance.

But now it seems that the waters of this great battle are much deeper than he imagined.

However, now is not the time for deep thinking.

"Let's meet force with force and water with earth," Liu Nian said, shaking his head to temporarily suppress these distracting thoughts.

He glanced at the map; it was still some distance from the Liuli Mountains, where the Abe Bees lived.

Although the battle just now didn't last long, it made quite a commotion and might attract other attention. Who knows what else might pop up!

We need to get out of here quickly.

The most urgent task is to find the Abebe people and solve the labor problem of the floating city.

As for the Eternal Darkness Council... we'll talk about that when they actually come knocking on our door.

Liu Nian was not one to shy away from trouble.

Besides, what does it have to do with me, Liu Nian, that Texiu An killed you?

With four hooves pounding the ground, the figure gradually disappeared into the distance.

The Misty Valley returned to silence, with only the ever-thickening white fog, as if brewing something.

--------------------

Hesdra Nest City, a Tier 4 capital city of the Lepidoptera.

This is a living city, with a translucent biomass dome covering the sky above it. A network of pale purple blood vessels pulsates within the dome, delivering nutrient-rich liquid to every corner of this living city.

The ground is a wriggling fungal carpet made of flesh and chitinous carapace, covered with fine hairs, mucus-secreting glands, and weapons lurking within.

The buildings here are not made of brick or stone, but rather of raised insect sacs, winding cavities, and bizarre spires sculpted from hardened secretions.

At this moment, in the Queen's nest, the level 499 Leatherwing Queen Gorgon pulled his razor-sharp head out of the creep and glanced at Nigellas, who had suddenly come to his senses.

Gorgon's six pairs of compound eyes focused simultaneously on the Mistborn, and he rubbed his mouthparts together, producing a hoarse sound with multiple resonances:

"Woke up so quickly? Has the Abe Bee's 'unformed queen bee' located it?"

Nigellas opened his eyes, his brow furrowed.

He felt extremely uncomfortable on the sticky, wriggling fungal carpet.

But he glanced at the insect king's enormous body and forcibly suppressed his anger.

The level 499 Insect King is nearly the size of a small mountain, resembling a hybrid of a mantis and a beetle magnified a thousand times, covered in a thick, dark purple carapace with a metallic sheen. Six pairs of compound eyes are distributed on both sides of its raised head, each eye refracting a different spectrum, monitoring the flow of all pheromones within the nest.

At this moment, Gorgon's forelimbs were gently tapping the throne base. Each tap caused a slight resonance in the nest's ground, as if the living city itself were part of its body.

No matter how many times Nigellas saw this behemoth, he was always awestruck.

Fortunately, this guy can't move, otherwise no one in this region could beat him.

He took a deep breath, trying to keep his tone as calm as possible: "There was a slight accident."

"An accident?" Gorgon paused for a moment as he struck the throne with his forelimbs, and the light in the lair seemed to dim as well.

The high-ranking Zerg guards standing around unconsciously lowered their bodies, their carapaces rubbing together and making a soft clicking sound.

"You mean, it failed?"

"I encountered an unexpected disturbance in the Misty Valley," Nigellas said. "A strange centaur, whose fighting power was extremely abnormal, defeated my 'avatar'."

"Centaur?" Gorgon's compound eyes, with their countless tiny crystalline facets, simultaneously adjusted their angles, as if rapidly searching his memory bank. "The centaur forces of District 89756… their strongest is Patriarch Laperos of the 'Sunwalker Tribe,' level 99. But even he, I don't believe, has the power to destroy your avatar! Even though it's merely a projection of your weakened level 300 rule suppression!"

"It's not Laperos. It's an unfamiliar name, Theshu's Saddle." Nigellas shook his head. "But his level is only 60, his combat power and strength are seriously mismatched! His skill damage is ridiculously high, and his health is far beyond normal values! You should know what that means! I've encountered an 'Abnormal Being'."

Gorgon fell into a brief silence, and the nest's biomass circulation system began to rumble like the beating of a giant heart.

Its massive body leaned slightly forward, casting a shadow that completely enveloped Nigellas's figure.

"Nigellas, what are you implying? Has a transcendent been born in that region? Or is it that forces from other higher-level regions have intervened beforehand using methods even more covert than your 'Three Assassins of the Mist'?"

"I can't be sure," Nigellas said. "However, he seems to be just passing through, so it shouldn't affect our plans. Samuellas and Caiaras will complete the mission."

"Just passing by? Should I? Hmph!" Gorgon swung its forelimbs violently, creating a piercing whistling sound, as if even space itself was being sliced ​​apart by the creature's scythe. "The Queen Bee is the key to my advancement! Do you know how much I paid to locate that newly born Queen Bee? Buying intelligence from the 'Eye of a Thousand Webs,' purchasing Worldwood to open a temporary inter-regional passage, hiring you three assassins from the Mist Village... And now you're telling me that the plan might be hindered because of a 'strange centaur passing by'?!"

His voice was filled with rage, and the entire insect hive trembled, the blood vessels on the walls bulged, and they secreted a pungent defensive mucus.