As Zhang Lie's scarlet blade flashed, one of the disaster-grade chimera's wings was sliced off. It fell from the sky as Zhang Lie's blade beheaded two more of its heads.

Even so, the chimera didn't give up. With its superior regenerative ability, it began to regrow its wing and right hindleg. The power of the blood moon and black sun condensed around it. Light, darkness, yin, and yang intersected in its domain.

"[Blades, Extinguish]!"

Zhang Lie launched a killing blow. Guicang gleamed brightly in Zhang Lie's hands as he infused more and more spiritual energy into it. From the surface of his spiritual sea came waves charging forward, sounding like stampeding hooves, like raging dragons.

Zhang Lie's spiritual sea expanded greatly, past the confines of his own body. As the mistmeld clam soulshard's energy was infused within the blade, it began glowing with multicolored light, simultaneously illusory and real. A sea seemed to rest in the crack between the two domains, unable to be touched or otherwise sensed.

The transient, illusory nature of the light captivated everyone who saw it.

The sword in Zhang Lie's hands burned with scarlet water-attuned genetic energy. Billowing clouds of red-tinted steam surrounded him as though he were a burning pyre.

The high-temperature steam was so hot that it visibly glowed an alarming shade of red.

This domain of scarlet steam was so dangerous that an ordinary lifeform would likely be vaporized without a trace.

Bu Wentian, watching the fight unfold, couldn't help but be surprised. "Is this you at your peak strength, then?"

The temperature around Zhang Lie grew so hot that his surroundings began to warp. Mirages formed all around him.

One of Zhang Lie's blades glowed with radiant light; the other shone scarlet with water-attuned genetic energy.

The illusory sea combined with the scarlet ocean of reality, the attack simultaneously in the boundary between the real and the illusory, linking together the physical and metaphysical, the real and the abstract.

The two halves of the attack clashed with each other.

The spiritual sea began to burn, as though it had been ignited by the scarlet steam, forming spiritual flame. The scarlet steam, bolstered by the spiritual sea, grew even hotter. Contact with the steam seemed to sap at one's very soul.

Zhang Lie had allowed these two disparate sources of energy to combine, and their merger was so intense that the distinction between the real and illusory began to blur.

The surface of the sea frothed with angry waves, like dragons emerging with the tide.

The waves roared through the sea like galloping steeds, like thundering dragons.

From afar, the waves looked like a coven of flaming phoenixes spreading their wings and taking flight; from close up, they looked like flaming dragons.

These manifestations all drew from Zhang Lie's immense spiritual and genetic energy reserves, along with the sword techniques and willpower that he had honed over countless battlefields.

The spiritual sea seemed to belong to a separate dimension altogether, whereas the scarlet water-attuned genetic energy was in Zhang Lie's current dimension. The two sources of energy were linked and made manifest by Zhang Lie, and they both surged forward as Zhang Lie swung his twin blades.The two blades combined spiritual and genetic energy, willpower and time. All that melded into a tsunami which surged toward the chimera. The combination of these disparate energies was so potent that it could destroy any lifeform's body and soul.

The chimera howled. Struck by the attack that melded the real and the illusory, it was stripped bare and disintegrated, leaving only a disaster-grade core where it once stood.

The will of the fourth realm announced in Zhang Lie's head, [You successfully killed a disaster-grade ???. By consuming the core of the disaster-grade ???, you may receive fifty disaster gene fragments.]

Zhang Lie sighed in relief—not because he had killed the disaster-grade chimera, but because he hadn't destroyed its core from his skill.

The core of the disaster-grade chimera bore six different colors, and it was five times larger than an ordinary disaster-grade core. Upon hearing the will of the world's announcement, Zhang Lie was dazed. The chimera's core would provide 50 disaster gene fragments!

"Just what has Bu Wentian created?"

He had never encountered such an unusual lifeform throughout the dimensional world.

It was evident that this was no natural disaster-grade lifeform; rather, Bu Wentian had created it through some special means. Zhang Lie was very interested in this procedure, and he made up his mind to ask Bu Wentian about it when he had time.

Now, however, Zhang Lie's priority was to absorb the disaster-grade core before him. That would allow him to max out his disaster gene fragments.Zhang Lie cut his palm with his sword, then dripped blood onto the core. The moment it touched the core, the blood was quickly absorbed into its interior. It sucked up more and more of Zhang Lie's blood until it turned blood-red.

Zhang Lie opened his wounds again and again until the core became perfectly transparent. Then, he closed his eyes and began pouring concentrated, black genetic energy from his body into the core.

As Zhang Lie clutched the crystalline orb, brimming with light, he could see a strange and unusual world within. The earth was burning with flame, countless swords piercing through the ground like tombstones. Zhang Lie felt an unusual sense of kinship with it, as though it was already part of his body.

Zhang Lie swallowed the disaster-grade core whole. As it slid down his throat, six different sources of energy exploded within his body.

Disaster-grade energy was rampaging through his body!