Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

There were no small craters left by the air blades on the ground three meters behind him, and the trees in front of him showed no signs of being burned. He raised his killing blade and slashed forward, but it seemed as if he had struck a phantom.

The blade sliced ​​through the trees, but the trunks remained undamaged. He could touch them with his hands, but couldn't pry off even a single dry piece of wood.

Zheng Zha realized one thing—this was not a phenomenon he could understand, nor was it within the scope of his professional skills. Simulating Xiao Honglu's way of thinking no longer yielded any answers. And if he switched the simulation to Alice or Chu Xuan, his brain would protest and respond with unbearable pain.

He banged his head hard.

“It’s no use, Zheng Zha.” O’Connor’s voice came from afar. “The forest before you is a land protected by the god Anubis. Except through trials, nothing can affect it. You cannot cause any damage to the outside from inside, nor can you cause any damage to the inside from outside. But in any case, you can enter the forest as soon as you reach its edge, and you can come out in the same way.”

“Those monkeys are a problem… at least for now. If you find this too difficult, you can step back for now, and we can figure out a way to get over there together later.” O’Connor thought for a moment, then said, “Perhaps we could try using incendiary bombs. I know of those portable long-range bombers; we can go in, throw them, and run.”

“I know,” Zheng Zha waved his hand. “But it’s unnecessary, because incendiary bombs might not burn completely. Besides, I already have some ideas.”

He took a deep breath and said in a low voice.

"I'll be right back."

................................................

Zheng Zha returned to this sheltered land for the second time. This time, he was determined.

"I'd like to see what kind of monsters and demons you have here," he muttered, gripping his greatsword tightly as he stepped into the forest ruins that had been burned to arid land. The moment he entered, his genetic lock unlocked to the third level, and all the energy in his body was mobilized and ready to be unleashed—he moved forward cautiously, his muscles taut and his mind focused.

The malice that had been as sharp as a blade vanished as if it were a phantom, as if it had never existed in the first place.

“Strange…” Zheng Zha frowned slightly. “Just now I could clearly feel the malice, but why is there no reaction at all now?”

"Do monkeys know how to lure the enemy deep into their territory?" he said softly.

The next moment, he suddenly half-raised his longsword, and the two strands of positive and negative energy converged and clashed within the blade of the killing blade through a [fusion] process. He then pressed the blade down, and with a low shout, he slashed forward, unleashing a small storm from the blade!

The storm then rapidly expanded, transforming in an instant into a fierce gale that swept away the smoke and dust. The howling wind, driven by his will, dispelled the smoke before him, and then crashed into the remaining forest, causing all the branches and leaves to tremble and point towards the back of the trees!

Zheng Zha's vision suddenly became clear, but his eyes, which had been stimulated and strengthened by the innate true energy, found nothing—he stared at the forest, his forcibly magnified field of vision able to accurately capture the grain of dead wood several kilometers away. But he didn't see a single monkey in the forest, not even a monkey's creature.

There were no bone tools, no stone tools, no wooden tools, no iron tools, no machines—nothing at all.

He stepped on the ground in confusion, and the dull thud that returned from beneath his feet told him that there was no additional ambush underground. And since it wasn't underground—he looked up at the sky.

The azure sky was as clear as if it had been washed.

"Strange." Zheng Zha frowned even more. He took a deep breath and took out the amulets that Alice had prepared for the team during her spare time, crushing them one by one. He immediately felt that all his attributes had increased slightly, and a semi-transparent energy shield appeared on his body, firmly protecting every corner of his body.

Something unusual must be going on, and he absolutely did not believe that the native monkey who could make Zhang Jie and the main characters of the story look so bad, and even make Chu Xuan plot against him, could be someone easy to deal with.

He then entered a state of heightened alertness, maintaining vigilance while increasing the length of his steps. With his blood surging, he was able to take nearly thirty meters with each step—no matter what those native monkeys were up to, he would have no problem reaching the black pyramid.

I refuse to believe you can watch me walk into the tower!

Thinking this, he remained vigilant as he rapidly advanced towards the black pyramid. With all his abilities activated, Zheng Zha could achieve subsonic speeds even without unlocking his genetic lock. And he easily traversed several kilometers in just a few breaths!

[9 kilometers, 8.7, 8.5, 8.1]

7.9, 7.4, 7.2, 7 kilometers

[6.8, 6.5, 6.2, 6...] He counted silently in his mind, calculating the time and distance. He could feel the distance between himself and the black pyramid steadily decreasing, and in at most half a minute he would be able to cross the ten-kilometer gap and successfully step into the black pyramid!

He suddenly felt a faint stinging pain in the back of his neck...

"Got you!" Zheng Zha roared, stomping his foot forward. The kinetic energy from his subsonic sprint instantly transformed into shockwaves radiating outwards from his toes! His roar was accompanied by a body reacting even faster than his voice. Using the momentum of his powerful stomp, he channeled the remaining inertia into a spin around himself, and his swung killing blade created a blood-red whirlwind centered on him!

--cut!

He heard the dying cry of some medium-sized animal and felt the tactile sensation of a sharp blade slicing through a body. In that split second, he activated the first two stages of his gene lock, which consumed relatively little energy, and caught a glimpse of the attacker's form in the corner of his eye as he rotated.

It was a humanoid warrior completely encased in metal armor, wielding a weapon that resembled an ion beam blade. Its body was covered in equipment clearly ahead of its time, and even after being severed in half at the waist, it still retained a sliver of life.

"Predator? Or Dark Templar?" Zheng Zha couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, his hand relentlessly pressing down on the blade until the warrior he had slashed out of thin air was torn to pieces by the chaotic energy surging at the edge of the blade. And the moment he uttered the word 'predator,' he felt a faint pain between his eyebrows.

He jerked his head to the side, and a supersonic railgun projectile grazed his earlobe as it hurtled into the distance. The protective field provided by Alice's amulet trembled slightly, neutralizing the sonic disturbance's interference with his balance. At the same time, a small throwing knife imbued with a tracking spell was flung from Zheng Zha's hand, accurately striking the invisible sniper three kilometers away a few seconds later.

But that was a few seconds later, and Zheng Zha didn't have the time to wait for those few seconds to pass.

The instant he released the throwing knife, he activated his genetic lock and perception to their maximum. His will swept outwards along the tangible shockwave he had initially created. With this simple physical detection, he discovered that there were at least thirty or forty abnormal changes in the space around him!

The next moment, gunshots rang out like rain!

That's a railgun, firing supersonic projectiles. On Earth, one shot could take down a rhinoceros or an early infantry fighting vehicle.

Zheng Zha was neither an elephant nor a chariot; he was far more robust than either. While dodging was impossible—he had been hit at least twenty times in the instant the gun fired—the protective shield provided by Alice greatly reduced the destructive power of the bullets. When they actually struck him, they caused only superficial wounds.

The flesh wound was so small that it didn't even make him frown.

His gaze suddenly sharpened, and in the brief opening provided by the shattering shield, the positive and negative energies within him, already on the verge of collapse, collided violently under his will. In that gap, which couldn't even be measured in milliseconds, he had fully entered the combat state known as 'Explosion,' and, not content with that, he propelled his energy to an even deeper level!

When positive and negative energies come into contact, it is an explosion. When positive and negative energies merge, it is destruction! And when Zheng Zha exerted the control of the third-order gene lock to the extreme, controlling hundreds of threads of positive and negative energy to intertwine and merge in his middle dantian, everything in his vision turned gray and white.

Grayish-white is not death, but rather a change in how the spectrum is perceived by the retina. Visible light becomes invisible due to the shift in its perceived frequency, leaving only grayish-white. In this grayish-white world, everything seems to slow down.

The monkeys, their concealment broken, continued to pull triggers, but the railgun projectiles, which should have traveled at least four times the speed of sound, appeared to him as slow as dodgeball on a beach. Even though he moved even slower in this gray world, at the pace of a normal person taking a stroll, it was still enough for him to dodge the projectiles and the hands pulling the triggers!

With the slightest movement of his body, white mist appeared on his surface—an air barrier, an obstruction of air. Zheng Zha only felt a slight discomfort before quickly overcoming it, leaving the speed of sound behind.

Then came the killing.

The next moment, the world returned to its colorful appearance.

If someone were to observe during that moment when everything turned gray, they would see Zheng Zha seemingly conjure dozens of figures rushing in all directions in an instant. Each figure, captured by the retina, transformed into Zheng Zha wielding his sword and slashing. This is because his speed only slightly decreased the instant the blade pierced the body!

The resulting gale, caused by the tearing of the atmosphere, swept outwards relentlessly.

'boom--!!!!!!!'

The torn atmosphere erupted. Multiple slashes triggered complex air current disturbances, and in the blink of an eye, the dozens of invisible warriors encased in steel were all slaughtered. Their corpses were torn to shreds in the storm, which then expanded outward and rolled outward, instantly creating a massive sandstorm that could almost obscure the sky!

At the very center of the sandstorm, Zheng Zha was leaning on his destructive greatsword, panting heavily. His skin was rapidly changing from a deep red, with numerous broken capillaries, to a yellowish-white, indicating debilitating damage. Large plumes of slightly crimson mist billowed from his mouth and nose, containing heat powerful enough to melt even the sand swirling in the air!

He gasped for breath, taking out a talisman marked 'Concealment' and crushing it as he tried to adjust his state. The sandstorm was a protective mechanism he had intentionally created, and once the talisman took effect, his heartbeat, blood flow, optical and thermal signals vanished in an instant.

[One-third of the energy was used up... Damn, it lasted less than half a second!]

Zheng Zha couldn't help but reminisce about the days when Alice was in the team. Although this burst of power was a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, if the witches were there, he could easily maintain this state for half an hour without panting! Back when he broke through to the third tier, he used this very move to wipe out that group of ancient angels. And at that time, he only realized that he should break free from the state of destruction when the main god was verifying his captain's authority!

He clenched his fist, his face expressionless.

"I need a support." He emphasized this to himself, "Compared to a wise man like Chu Xuan who only knows how to screw me over, I think I need a support more."

"Next time...next time under no circumstances can we let Margot Royde and Norrell leave the team at the same time!"

He stood there for more than ten seconds until the temporary sandstorm began to dissipate and his vision gradually cleared before he let out a soft breath and continued toward the black pyramid.

He knew he couldn't glide silently through the sky using anti-gravity fields like the witches. So even with the concealment amulet, he would eventually be found by those invisible monkeys cosplaying as Predators or Dark Templars. But he now understood the enemy's level, and even if they further enhanced themselves, he wasn't afraid of them.

[Complete destruction consumes too much resources. Perhaps I should try a weakened version of destruction, hmm... maintaining the state of destruction for only a moment, around tens of microseconds... and then call it Instantaneous Destruction, how about that?]

But that seems to put even more strain on my body... Can I handle it?

He thought to himself as he made his way toward the pyramids. For some reason, after walking for a kilometer, no second wave of enemies attacked.

"Could I have fooled them? Impossible..." Zheng Zha frowned, turning his head to look at the completely exposed footprints behind him. A bad premonition quietly rose in his heart.

The next moment, he found that the ground he was standing on was completely covered by a suddenly appearing shadow.

Yes, it appeared suddenly, without the gradual process of clouds drifting across the sun; instead, a huge shadow was formed on the ground in an instant. It was as if... a transparent pane of glass had suddenly become opaque.

Zheng Zha's 'bad' premonition turned into 'very bad', and when he raised his head, the premonition transformed into a thick shadow that filled his heart.

Want to know the area of ​​your psychological trauma? Fine, I'll tell you, the answer is infinite! Infinite, fucking infinite!

Gazing at the colossal, crescent-shaped space carrier, as large as two Hamunaptra ruins, that suddenly appeared in the sky and materialized from its invisible state, and the ghastly green energy sphere, as large as an entire football field, that had just finished charging between the two crescent moons, Zheng Zha's heart remained as calm as an ancient well.

He checked the energy in his body... Ah, that's right, only two-thirds, neither more nor less, just that little bit.

"I hate you, Chu Xuan," he said calmly, his face expressionless as he watched the massive main cannon enter its critical state.

Charging... no, it's the third day since Margot Lloyd left, and I miss her.

..............................

Damn it, 62000 words... I was planning to write 4000 words by midnight and then go to sleep...

And if there isn't even a single option with over 100 votes... I'm really going to cry QAQ!

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Do you think only thugs lack crutches?

As the ghastly green energy sphere transformed into a pillar of light and crashed down, unleashing a devastating wave, Zheng Zha finally understood what he truly lacked compared to other experts of his level.

Destructive power? No, he wasn't lacking in that, because he had actually already dealt with enemies equivalent to unlocking the third stage of the genetic lock, whose strength was close to the extraordinary, several times—first Sesshouin Kiara of the Indian Team, then the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from Final Destination 2. He had faced them head-on. And he was certain that, without unlocking the fourth stage, the destructive power he could unleash at full power was no weaker than theirs.

No, it's not that he's not weaker than them. He's stronger, far stronger. Even the War Knight's divine bow, comparable to a nuclear explosion, he could currently contend with head-on and even suppress when he was at his peak. His biggest problem, however, is how long he can maintain his 'perfect condition'!

Five minutes? Three minutes? One minute?

Ah… if it were just the explosion mode, then lasting five minutes wouldn't be impossible. However, Zheng Zha knew that his strongest mode, without touching the fourth stage, was to activate a deeper level of destruction than the explosion mode. And the time he could sustain himself in the state of destruction—

He lowered his eyes, summoning all the energy he could control before the beam of light struck him. His arms tightened around the Destruction Greatsword he had seized from the Slaughtering Red Knight, and with the infusion of energy, the crimson blade erupted with an extremely bright, blood-red flame, like a dazzling morning star!

He suddenly swung his hand upwards—

[—You can't even last three seconds!!!]

The next moment, the pale green beam of light collided with the blood-red blade in mid-air!

The world fell silent for a moment.

Like a machete cleaving a bamboo tube, the beam of light disintegrated into fragments from its descent at the very tip, defying the laws of physics. Inch by inch, piece by piece, the green receded, and the crimson surged forward. The boundary between blood red and deep green then intertwined and extended into the sky until a second, suddenly appearing, deep green beam of light abruptly fell. Only then did the ghastly green beam, mostly swallowed by the deep red, abruptly collapse, transforming into endless light and heat that blasted in all directions!

A second ray of light, a second silhouette of a ship.

The moment the second, dark, dead moon revealed itself from the void, only one angry curse remained in Zheng Zha's mind—a curse he would have uttered if he had the chance!

[You fucking have more than one of these things—!?]

The tranquil world crumbled at the critical moment of the boundary, instantly returning to chaos. Endless light and heat radiated in all directions, accompanied by a chaotic impact that churned the atmosphere into a boiling cauldron. Centered on the point of impact, nearly three kilometers of ground were utterly destroyed by this terrifying shock and intense heat. The few remaining withered plants were completely incinerated, and the ground even began to melt, transforming into elemental silicon and flowing liquid quartz.

—With his energy almost completely depleted, all Zheng could do was run away with his head in his hands.

................................................

When Zheng Zha's figure reappeared outside the woods, the only emotion that could arise in the eyes of the people who were still sitting in a circle resting quietly in the camp was disbelief.

Unbelievable, incomprehensible.

It was truly unbelievable that Zheng Zha, who was clearly the strongest among them, had fallen to such a state—the guy in front of them was covered in scorching, grayish-black smoke, and with the slightest movement, large chunks of black charcoal, like skin, would fall off his body, revealing new, tender skin.

He looked exhausted, and his bloodshot eyes were filled with a burning, obsessive rage.