The scene was a little strange, but considering that Zhang Jie was a sly old fox, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened!
Either Zhang Jie had played another dirty trick and set Zhan Lan up.
Or this Drone Xenomorph was so powerful that it had killed Zhan Lan!
Of course, no matter which it was, Zheng Zha was furious!
Judging from Zheng Zha's speed and combat prowess, he was almost indistinguishable from a vampire in the legends. That left only one possibility: the newcomer whom the Main God had singled out as having the greatest talent and potential had, at most, unlocked the Gene Lock for the second time and already integrated the combat skills of the vampire clan, making them part of his instincts!
Wang Zhen knew that nearly all the bloodlines available from the Main God were mutant versions.
Of course, that was the tactful way to put it!
The less tactful version was that they were all counterfeits the Main God had made by copying the tiger and drawing a cat!
Put bluntly, they were all fucking bootlegs!
For someone with a cheat like Wang Zhen, they were just something to laugh at. He had no intention of exchanging for one. After all, you paid the price of an authentic product and got a bootleg—not even a carefully crafted, top-tier knockoff.
You'd have to be crazy with money to buy one!
Wang Zhen understood that these bootleg bloodline enhancements from the Main God weren't all traps, either. If you could unlock the Gene Lock, then with its help, these bootleg bloodlines might one day become the real thing.
It was just that the Gene Lock was even more of a trap than these bootleg bloodlines. Wang Zhen didn't want to end up battered and bruised! Better to stick to his own overpowered main profession.
At that moment, Zheng Zha had the Drone Xenomorph reeling, trapped between advancing and retreating, its whole body streaming "blood." He moved as fast as a raging storm, as nimble as a bat in the night sky, and with the eerie, twisting motions of a venomous forest snake. He looked utterly uncanny, as if possessed. No normal person could contort their body to such an outrageous degree, let alone come up with such bizarre movements.
But to Wang Zhen, Zheng Zha now looked exactly like a real vampire, apart from the fact that he wasn't drinking blood!
The vampire clan was famous in the Dark World for its unbelievable speed and agility, as well as claws sharp as knives! Their labels as fallen blood-drinkers were so eye-catching that many people overlooked the fact that, as the Dark World's brightest stars, the vampires would have been wiped out long ago by their enemies—the Church and demon hunters—and their rivals—werewolves and other dark creatures—if they hadn't been powerful.
Wang Zhen had thought Zheng Zha would follow his old path: kill enemies by self-destructing, then return to the God Hall to get fully repaired. He hadn't expected him to take up the vampire clan's fighting style instead.
Life is unpredictable—one minute you're eating intestines, the next they're eating you! But it didn't matter. With me here, changes were only natural! Still, Zheng Zha needed to take a breather. Keeping the Gene Lock open for so long was extremely harmful to his body! Wang Zhen saw that the Drone Xenomorph was "covered in blood" and tottering on its feet. He decided he had to step in, grumbling to himself.
Then Wang Zhen made his move!
As before, he successfully lit the lighter in his right palm. He reached out with his left hand and waved it toward the Drone Xenomorph...
The opening moves were exactly the same as before, but when he controlled the flame with his left hand and sent it flying toward the Xenomorph, its shape changed!
It was no longer a common fireball, but a nail of flame, about the length of a finger, pointed at one end and slightly thicker at the other!
As soon as this orange-yellow flame nail appeared, it shot toward the Xenomorph, which looked as if it was one breath away from collapsing!
"Zheng Zha! Fall back and rest! Your body can't take any more! I'll hold it off for you!" Wang Zhen said with heartfelt sincerity. "No need to thank me! We're newcomers from the same batch, after all. I won't let you go down like Zhan Lan!"
Before he had even finished speaking, Wang Zhen's hands moved faster. One orange-yellow flame nail after another appeared in front of him. With a sweep of his left hand, they shot toward Zheng Zha...
No!
Toward the Xenomorph!
Zheng Zha was simply moving too fast, his actions too strange for an ordinary person to follow. That was why the flame nails aimed at the Xenomorph also caught Zheng Zha, who was closest to it, in their path!
That's right!
That was exactly what had happened!
Wang Zhen was just trying to help someone. He was willing to risk being hurt by the Xenomorph and resolutely used his deeply flawed superpower against it!
The flame nails weren't long or thick, and they didn't look particularly powerful. But in fact, these orange-yellow nails burned at nearly 1,100 degrees!
Zheng Zha's body was currently being driven by his instincts, but even a Mutant Vampire Bloodline with many of its weaknesses removed by the Main God was still a dark creature. It might be immune to ultraviolet light and no longer fear sunlight, but that didn't mean it could ignore fire!
A fire at 1,100 degrees wasn't all that hot, but it wasn't exactly cool, either! At the very least, Zheng Zha, with his C-grade Mutant Vampire Bloodline enhancement, couldn't simply ignore being burned at that temperature!
So when Wang Zhen fired more than a dozen flame nails at Zheng Zha and the Xenomorph, the instincts driving Zheng Zha had no choice but to give up on tearing apart the damn Xenomorph that had nearly killed Zhan Lan. He was only a few more claw strikes away from killing it!
Because even instincts born from the complete fusion and transformation of combat and killing techniques had no desire to experience what it was like to bathe in 1,100-degree flames!
So his combat instincts could only steer his body away from the Xenomorph and use the last of his strength to leap to Zhang Jie's side.
"Zhan Lan... she..." Before Zheng Zha could finish, the combat instincts faded, and the Gene Lock snapped shut. Then came the agony surging from every part of his body. It was like a reservoir that had been holding water for ages, its floodgates finally opening. In an instant, a raging torrent burst forth and swept away his consciousness.
Zheng Zha was like a robot that had suddenly been switched off, collapsing to the ground in an instant, his whole body twitching uncontrollably!
"Heh. Feels good, doesn't it? The longer you keep the Gene Lock open, the greater the benefits—but the backlash gets worse, your organs suffer more damage, and the pain gets more intense!" Zhang Jie murmured, holding Zhan Lan's corpse. "Why bother? Why put yourself through it? Wouldn't it have been perfect to die along with your enemy in battle? Why did you choose to refuse?"
Wang Zhen had to keep his own strength in mind, so he couldn't use an instant Transmutation Circle to take out the badly wounded, near-dead Xenomorph in one fell swoop. But he had still managed to give his power a small boost. Fire Control was no longer just about directing flames; it had advanced to the point where he could shape them. Otherwise, if all he could do was control the direction of the flames, he wouldn't have been able to steal the kill so brazenly!
No!
I'm helping someone out. I saw that Zheng Zha was exhausted and nearly killed by the Xenomorph, so I had no choice but to step in and help him deal with this powerful, terrifying Xenomorph!
"Damn it, you've got barely a sliver of health left—why won't you go down?"
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