Deathmatch

"Could that be where the monster called 'Zhou' is holed up?" Ying speculated inwardly.

According to the information provided by the lord of Guan Town, the main threat Jing faced was the assault of this monster named Zhou. As for the other seven states, though there was no clear intelligence, given that Jing had suffered such a calamity while the others remained silent, they were likely too preoccupied to intervene.

"Named Zhou... that fits. The monsters I encountered along the way all fought by manipulating light. So it stands to reason that their leader would excel at the same." Ying calculated to himself. "Let's take a closer look first."

No other monsters lurked within Ying's capital, so Ying advanced unimpeded straight to the outer palace walls. A towering white light blocked everything beyond, its resilience so formidable that even Ying could not force his way through. Yet he had no need to.

"Teleportation!"

Shielding himself with a transparent barrier, Ying's form directly pierced into the interior of the light pillar.

"..."

Inside the white pillar, the heat was suffocating—the air temperature likely exceeded a thousand degrees. Had Ying not condensed a translucent shield around himself beforehand, he would have been roasted the moment he entered. After all, the mere physical enhancement from World Authority could not withstand such heat. Under these conditions, the palace had long been baked into a strange ceramic mass; the once magnificent buildings had vanished entirely.

Once inside, Ying noticed that at the very center of the pillar stood another, narrower beam only about ten meters thick. Instinct told him that the monster Zhou resided there.

"Let me see what kind of being you are."

With several consecutive teleports, Ying arrived outside the smaller light pillar. He pressed his palm down in a virtual gesture. Two enormous hands, seemingly composed of pure blackness, materialized on either side of the pillar, with spatial fissures flickering between their fingers.

"Slap!"

The hands clapped together, striking the light pillar. No collision occurred; instead, the pitch-black palms and the brilliant white pillar intertwined in some strange manner. The pillar warped, its once straight line connecting heaven and earth twisting and bending like refracted light.

"Crackle..."

Spatial fissures devoured and bent the light, further distorting the pillar. Perhaps influenced by the smaller beam, the outer giant pillar began to tremble violently.

"ROAR!"

A thunderous roar erupted from beneath the ground, directly below the smaller pillar. Though wordless, its fury was unmistakable.

"Noticing now? Too late!"

Ying's face twisted with exertion as he pressed his hands together, fully commanding the Authority of Space. Countless tiny spatial fissures linked together, coalescing into a massive rift dozens of meters wide, which severed the smaller pillar cleanly in two.

"Boom!"

The broken halves of the smaller pillar collapsed and dissipated. With its severance, the outer giant pillar shuddered and shattered into specks of starlight. The enormous spatial rift hanging in midair also mended itself under the space's own Repair.

"Ha... ha..."

Ying panted heavily. Spatial fissures were an application of the Space Strangling Authority. Minor cracks were manageable, but his final move—forging a giant rift under the pillar's interference—had drained considerable stamina. Fortunately, he had acted quickly, so the toll was limited.

Yet at that moment, a sudden sense of crisis surged within him.

"Teleportation!"

Ying blinked repeatedly away from the palace. Each time he left a spot, a white light pillar erupted like a volcanic geyser from the ground where he had stood. Only after teleporting clear of the palace did he sense the attack subside.

"ROAR!"

Another bellow rang out as a monster shrouded in light burst from the earth, hovering in midair, locking eyes with Ying from a distance.

"So this is the monster 'Zhou'?"

Seeing Zhou for the first time, Ying was taken aback. He had imagined Zhou would resemble its grotesque avian underlings. But Zhou bore no resemblance to birds at all. It was a lizard, its entire body a gleaming white-gold, about ten meters long, with a single horn atop its head covered in intricate Secret Patterns. Yet many of those patterns appeared damaged, breaking the rhythm of mystery and perfection. Even so, this Platinum Horned Lizard beast was strikingly handsome—a stark contrast to the ugly monsters Ying had encountered along the way.

"Are you Zhou?"

Ying asked aloud. From the creature's lively eyes, he sensed intelligence, unlike the puppet-like monsters.

"Zhou? Hehehe... So it's you. No wonder—who else in this world could ruin my plans?" The White-Gold Horned Lizard let out a strange laugh, then fixed Ying with a meaningful gaze.

This meaningful gaze made Yan feel somewhat uncomfortable.

"So it's me? This lizard beast knows me?" Yan was filled with suspicion. Since the day he was born, he had never left Bauhinia Village. Before this journey, aside from Mountain Ghost, he had never even seen any supernatural being, let alone this White-Gold Horned Lizard.

"Did I forget something?" Yan felt a moment of confusion. Since leaving the village, he had already seen too many strange and discordant things. All these doubts and confusions reached their peak with the White-Gold Horned Lizard's words.

For an instant, he even questioned whether the eighteen years of experience and knowledge he had seen and heard were real, or merely a dream.

Too many doubts weighed down on this eighteen-year-old, newly emerged youth, making it hard for him to breathe.

"You... who are you? Why do you know me? And what do you know?!" Yan stared fixedly at the White-Gold Horned Lizard, his voice growing angry.

Facing Yan's interrogation, the White-Gold Horned Lizard merely looked him over, then sneered: "Can't handle this already? Hmph! How disappointing. With such fragility, what right do you have..."

The White-Gold Horned Lizard didn't finish its words, but the information was immense. Yan, driven mad by the riddles, snapped: "Fine! Since you won't talk, I'll beat it out of you!"

As soon as he spoke, Yan made his move directly.

With a wave of his hand, the space where the White-Gold Horned Lizard stood was stripped away from the normal world. Immediately after, the force of strangulation swept through with the spatial fluctuations.

But what shocked Yan was that the White-Gold Horned Lizard's body turned illusory for a second the moment the strangulation force passed over it, then directly ignored the Space Strangling, emerging completely unharmed.

Its mouth curled slightly, as if mocking Yan's overestimation of himself. Then, a strange force acted on the sealed space. Yan felt that the Space Fragment he had stripped away had re-merged into normal space.

"Only Strangling and Teleportation? How laughable. How could a closed Space Fragment stripped away by brute force possibly trap me?" the White-Gold Horned Lizard taunted loudly.

Hearing this, Yan burned with even more rage: "Take this! Take this! Take this..."

Wind, light, thunder, and fire intertwined, with the strangulation force ambushing from time to time.

But no matter how many techniques Yan exhausted, mobilizing all the World Authorities he had mastered, the White-Gold Horned Lizard across from him remained completely at ease. Its occasional illusory body even ignored all his attacks.

He was being completely toyed with.

That was Yan's true feeling at this moment, and this sense of powerlessness made him lose his reason even more.

"...It seems I was too cautious. Even though it's him, his past mind is still clouded, and he's never undergone any training. He's still too green."

While Yan and the White-Gold Horned Lizard fought each other, a hidden gaze observed them both from the shadows.

After watching for a while, the owner of that gaze lost interest: "It seems there's nothing unexpected. Next, I'll have to deal with it... Damn it, this world restricts me the most. Using even a little power outside consumes so much. Otherwise, why would I..."

The hidden observer gritted its teeth, its consciousness gradually receding.

But neither Yan nor the White-Gold Horned Lizard noticed anything.

Dodging another Space Strangling, the White-Gold Horned Lizard seemed tired of this battle.

"That's enough. It seems your limit is just this. There's no more use for you now." The White-Gold Horned Lizard coldly stared at Yan, who was panting heavily across from it.

Continuously mobilizing World Authorities at full force had drained him considerably. He was now at the end of his rope.

"Want to kill me? Dream on!" Yan glared at his opponent, his aura fierce, but despair crept into his heart.

After calming down slightly, Yan noticed that the Authority the White-Gold Horned Lizard wielded was something he couldn't even observe.

In Yan's view, this meant the other party had surpassed him by over 500 games in solving the Rhino Emperor Game.

And while he had indeed lost his reason earlier, to be fair, he had truly given his all just now.

But no matter how he attacked, the White-Gold Horned Lizard always responded with ease. Such a battle felt utterly powerless.

Facing Yan's furious words, the White-Gold Horned Lizard dismissed them with contempt: "No matter how unwilling you are, it's useless. Once I've dealt with you, it's time to deal with him..."

As it spoke, a silver light shot from the horned lizard's head. Caught off guard, Yan was hit directly by the silver light.

Stasis. Numbness.

Yan suddenly felt his entire being frozen in this moment. Both his body and his thoughts were billions of times slower than before.

Seeing the attack land, the White-Gold Horned Lizard strolled toward Yan as if taking a leisurely walk.

But from Yan's perspective, the White-Gold Horned Lizard seemed to possess the most terrifying speed in the world.

"Move! Teleport!"

Yan roared in his heart, trying to manipulate the World Authority. But this thought, from conception to execution, seemed to take eons. And the White-Gold Horned Lizard was already right in front of him.