The next morning, the manual Su Zhe had bought was delivered to his home.
With a fortune of 300 million Huaxia Currency in hand, Su Zhe had no intention of pinching pennies. He bought the first four stages of the Nine-Layered Thunder Blade outright, spending 250 million Huaxia Currency after the half-price discount.
As for the money left over, Su Zhe didn't touch it. He planned to pay it back to Su Yongyi after some time had passed.
The main reason he'd bought the Nine-Layered Thunder Blade was to improve his Force Amplitude.
As for the blade technique itself, Su Zhe didn't plan to study it in depth. He could wait until he awakened his Genetic Origin Energy attribute at Planetary Level, then look for a manual suited to him.
If he mastered all four stages, the Nine-Layered Thunder Blade could bring his Force Amplitude to 3.5 times.
The moment he got his hands on the manual, Su Zhe eagerly began studying it.
Half an hour later.
Su Zhe set down the manual with a blank expression.
Even with the accompanying demonstration videos, and the foundation in blade techniques Su Yongyi had taught him, Su Zhe still couldn't get to grips with the Nine-Layered Thunder Blade quickly.
It felt like asking an elementary school student who'd only recently learned addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—and didn't even know quadratic equations—to study calculus. It was like reading a book written in the heavens. He couldn't understand a thing.
Su Zhe sighed.
His cultivation talent really was mediocre.
He'd devoured quite a few monsters during this period, but they'd all been weak, and their talents had naturally been poor as well. His talent had improved, but not by much.
If he wanted to improve his talent quickly... he'd probably have to devour powerful fighters.
For example, if he devoured Thunder God outright, could he inherit the complete Nine-Layered Thunder Blade, or even Thunder God's Lightning Domain?
After thinking it over, Su Zhe gave up on the idea.
Setting aside the fact that he'd immediately make enemies of Hong, Luo Feng, and the other powerful fighters on Earth, Su Zhe himself hadn't sunk so low that he'd lost all humanity.
The Blacklight Virus had made Su Zhe bloodthirsty, but it hadn't turned him into a madman.
Still, if an enemy came looking for trouble, that was another matter.
Su Zhe fell into thought.
In the original story, while Luo Feng was undergoing Possession of the Golden Horned Beast and nurturing a clone, hadn't a few villains appeared on Earth?
One of them had been skilled in the Nine-Layered Thunder Blade, if he remembered right.
Forget it.
First, he'd find a way to kill that Black-Crowned Golden Eagle.
After giving Su Yongyi a heads-up, Su Zhe put on his combat suit and prepared to head to the Wilderness Zone.
Armor was still somewhat useful.
A Series 6 Combat Suit could withstand attacks from High-Level Beast Generals. Combined with Su Zhe's own formidable vitality, it would let him practically ignore the Black-Crowned Golden Eagle's attacks. And with a Series 6 Combat Blade, he had enough attack power to pierce its defenses.
Su Zhe's Claw Form wasn't bad either. Those claws had once belonged to a Silver Moon Dire Wolf at Intermediate Beast General level, after all. But his own strength was a limiting factor, and he couldn't make good use of them.
So he'd have to rely on devouring to grow stronger.
Off to the Wilderness Zone!
County 0231.
After locating the Black-Crowned Golden Eagle's nest, Su Zhe disguised himself as a small Shadow Cat and made his way to the building below it.
"Here... the elevator shaft!"
After circling around inside the building, Su Zhe quickly found the elevator shaft leading to the top floor.
His small body slipped into the shaft. Four or five decades had passed since the Great Nirvana, and the elevator shaft had long since deteriorated. The steel cables were covered in rust. Clinging to the walls with all four limbs, Su Zhe quickly climbed upward.
Before long, Su Zhe reached the top floor.
He made his way through the rooftop access and up to the roof. A nest built from countless dead branches and weeds came into view.
The nest, more than twenty meters across, covered the entire rooftop.
By comparison, the Shadow Cat Su Zhe had disguised himself as wasn't even as big as one of the branches in the nest.
The Black-Crowned Golden Eagle had gone out hunting and hadn't returned yet.
Su Zhe wasn't in a hurry. He waited quietly, using the Blacklight Virus's properties to conceal his presence as much as possible and blend his scent with the odor left behind by the Black-Crowned Golden Eagle.
The Shadow Cat was black to begin with, too. Unless someone came close, they wouldn't be able to spot where Su Zhe was hiding.
About two hours later.
The Black-Crowned Golden Eagle returned to its nest, a High-Level Beast Soldier Single-Horned Wild Boar clamped in its beak. It seemed to be its lunch.
"Caw—!"
The Black-Crowned Golden Eagle seemed not to have considered that anyone might be hiding in its nest. It dropped the still-living wild boar onto the ground and began to feast.
No rush.
Hidden in the dark, Su Zhe watched in silence.
The Black-Crowned Golden Eagle seemed to have let its guard down, but it hadn't folded its wings. It could take off and flee at any moment. If Su Zhe couldn't kill it in one strike, it might escape, and catching it afterward would be difficult.
Su Zhe waited in silence until the Black-Crowned Golden Eagle had just finished eating, at the moment it was most relaxed—
"Boom!"
Suddenly, amid the roar of a gunshot, a bullet from an unknown direction shot toward the unprotected eye of the Black-Crowned Golden Eagle.
"Caw!!!"
The Black-Crowned Golden Eagle reacted quickly, but the bullet was faster. It pierced through the eagle's right eye. Though it failed to continue on and shatter its brain, it enraged the beast completely!
Su Zhe looked toward the bullet's point of origin almost at the same time as the Black-Crowned Golden Eagle. He could just make out the glint of a sniper scope.
Who was ruining his plan?
"Damn it!"
Su Zhe cursed inwardly. Why had a fighter chosen this moment to interfere?!
There was no way to stay hidden now.
The instant the Black-Crowned Golden Eagle was startled, Su Zhe sprang into action. Gripping his Series 6 Combat Blade, he brought it down hard on the back of the eagle's neck. The sharp blade cut through its metallic-feeling feathers and sank into its body!
His strength was lacking, but the weapon's sharpness made up for it.
The Black-Crowned Golden Eagle endured the pain and flapped its wings, wobbling into the sky. In an instant, it was a thousand meters above the ground. The combat blade in Su Zhe's hand was caught in the eagle's bones, keeping him from being flung off.
"Devour!"
Su Zhe gripped the combat blade tightly with his right hand, his body clinging firmly to the Black-Crowned Golden Eagle's surface. His left hand transformed into countless black-and-red tendrils that slipped through the wound the blade had carved and burrowed into the eagle's body, steadily draining its vitality.
The Blacklight Virus was infectious.
Any ordinary creature exposed to the Blacklight Virus would become infected. An ordinary person infected with it could approach a fighter in strength.
Su Zhe had been deliberately keeping the Blacklight Virus under control, preventing it from infecting other life and sparking a Great Nirvana even more terrifying than the RR Virus. But now, facing the nearly berserk Black-Crowned Golden Eagle, he had no time to hold back the virus.
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