Those Who Block Me, Die!

The Bone-Spike Demon Ape's fist came smashing straight at him with brute force powerful enough to crack space itself.

Li Zhengyang did not draw his spear.

The Indestructible Golden Body was fully unleashed.

The pale golden glow over his body abruptly surged threefold, expanding from a thin layer into thick golden armor that wrapped him tightly from head to toe.

He raised his right fist and met the attack head-on.

Flesh against flesh.

Boom!

A deafening metallic clash erupted. The shockwave peeled up a layer of the wasteland's surface, sending shattered rocks and black dust more than ten meters into the air.

The sound wave spread in every direction, forcing the distant packs of Fifth-Rank Demonic Beasts to stagger back.

The Bone-Spike Demon Ape's ten-meter-tall body froze in place.

It lowered its head.

The bony armor covering its fist, which even a Martial King's full-force attack could not leave a mark on, had cracked.

The fractures spread from its knuckles all the way to its wrist.

Meanwhile, the human standing only as tall as its knee remained perfectly steady. The ground beneath his feet had shattered in a circle, but he had not retreated a single step.

Extreme humanlike disbelief flashed through the Bone-Spike Demon Ape's eight eyes.

It was at the Sixth-Rank Peak.

Even against Martial King-level humans, its strength had always been overwhelming.

One punch could smash apart a small mountain.

Yet this human's body was harder than a mountain?

"Not bad strength."

Li Zhengyang shook out his fist.

"Too bad these bones aren't worth enough."

His right hand suddenly clamped around the demon ape's thick wrist.

The liquid True Essence of a Second-Rank Martial King surged into his arm.

The demon ape roared and tried to shake him off, but Li Zhengyang's five fingers locked firmly around its wrist bone without budging in the slightest.

Then he pulled.

The ten-meter-tall Bone-Spike Demon Ape, weighing several tons, was yanked forward with one hand.

An over-the-shoulder throw.

The demon ape's enormous body flipped once through the air, head downward, before smashing viciously into the black rocky ground below.

Boom!

The ground collapsed in a chunk, and spiderweb cracks spread dozens of meters in every direction. The demon ape's back was embedded in shattered rock, half its bone spikes broken, black blood gushing from the wounds.

Li Zhengyang reached behind his back with his right hand.

The Dragon-Gallbladder Golden Spear landed in his grip.

Blood Qi filled it, and all three blood grooves lit up.

Collapse Formula.

The spear tip descended from above, aimed directly at the demon ape's chest.

The demon ape struggled desperately, its two huge palms slapping in from either side, trying to crush him between them.

Too late.

The golden spear light pierced through its armor, punching through half a meter of chest plating and stabbing into its heart.

The Twisting Formula detonated inside its body.

The demon ape's body suddenly arched upward. Every bone spike exploded at once, black blood spraying from every crack.

Then its body crashed back to the ground and never moved again.

Less than ten seconds had passed from the moment the demon ape threw its punch to its death.

A Sixth-Rank Peak, killed in a single move.

In the distance.

The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's nine tails all stood upright.

Ghostly blue Fox Fire danced wildly at the tips of its tails. It stared in Li Zhengyang's direction, its pupils narrowing into thin slits.

The leader of its kind, a Sixth-Rank Peak Bone-Spike Demon Ape, had died just like that?

It had not even lasted one exchange?

The demon fox let out a shrill screech.

The cry spread through all of Blackwind Pass.

Several hundred Fifth-Rank Demonic Beasts stirred at once, then charged.

This was not a normal attack. It was a suicide charge.

All the Fifth-Rank Demonic Beasts surged toward Li Zhengyang like mad.

Humanoid rats clawed at the ground to accelerate, giant winged snakes dived from the sky, and black rock elementals rolled straight over everything in their path.

The demon fox's order was simple.

Wear him down with numbers.

Li Zhengyang pulled his spear from the demon ape's corpse, lowered his head, rummaged through its chest cavity, and pulled out a Beast Core the size of a fist.

The Beast Core of a Sixth-Rank Peak was black with traces of gold, its spiritual energy so dense it felt scorching hot.

This thing was worth at least a million.

"Who says no to money delivered right to the door?"

He stuffed the Beast Core into his Space Ring and turned around with his spear in hand.

The flood of several hundred Fifth-Rank Demonic Beasts had already surged to within a hundred meters.

The Dragon-Gallbladder Golden Spear rose.

A sweep.

A dark golden cutting wave flew from the spear tip, fifty meters wide as it swept across the ground.

More than twenty Fifth-Rank Demonic Beasts at the front were cleanly cut in half, their upper bodies flying more than ten meters while still maintaining their charging postures.

The ones behind them filled the gap.

Another sweep.

Another swath fell.

Li Zhengyang advanced with Cloud-Shocking Steps, the spear in his hand spinning into afterimages.

The Collapse Formula pierced through a humanoid rat's skull.

The Twisting Formula shredded a giant winged snake's spine.

A horizontal sweep sent three rock elementals flying.

He killed as he moved, bending down as he went.

Not to dodge, but to pick things up.

Every time he killed a Fifth-Rank Demonic Beast, he casually dug out its Beast Core and stuffed it into his Space Ring.

His movements were as fast and efficient as a factory worker on an assembly line.

Stab, dig, store.

Kill with the left hand, dig with the right.

Whenever he came across especially high-quality beast horns or scales, he would even spend an extra half second cutting them off and putting them away.

The low-rank Demonic Beasts watching from afar were dumbfounded.

What was this human doing?

Was he fighting a battle or collecting scrap?

Five minutes passed.

More than a hundred Fifth-Rank Demonic Beast corpses lay scattered across the ground, and the air reeked of blood.

A piece of snake tail hung from Li Zhengyang's spear. He shook it but could not dislodge it, so he simply tore it off and tossed it aside.

He quickly did the math.

Fifth-Rank Beast Cores averaged two hundred thousand each. One hundred of them meant twenty million.

What a haul.

The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox realized that a group assault was useless and stopped sending its underlings to die.

All nine tails rose at once, their ghostly blue Fox Fire condensing into nine fireballs that hurtled toward Li Zhengyang from different angles.

Before the fireballs even arrived, a wave of spiritual power invaded first.

An illusion technique.

In Li Zhengyang's vision, the wasteland disappeared. In its place was a sea of mist.

A voice spoke from within the mist, seductive and tempting, urging him to put down his weapon and close his eyes.

"Interesting."

Li Zhengyang raised a hand and tapped his temple.

Martial King-level spiritual power crushed forward, shattering the illusion completely.

His vision cleared.

The nine ghostly blue fireballs were already in front of him.

The Indestructible Golden Body was pushed to its limit.

The fireballs struck his body.

Blue flames spread across him, hot enough to melt Martial Sect-level armor.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.

His outer training uniform burned away.

Beneath it, pale golden light flickered over his skin, pushing the Fox Fire outward.

Three seconds later, the flames went out.

Li Zhengyang stood where he was, his shirt burned into strips hanging from his body, yet not even a red mark remained on his skin.

The demon fox froze.

The illusion did not work. The Fox Fire did not work. The group assault did not work.

It turned and ran.

"Why are you running?"

Cloud-Shocking Steps erupted.

The ground beneath Li Zhengyang's feet collapsed into a half-meter-deep crater, and his entire body vanished from where he stood.

The roar of a Sonic Boom exploded behind him.

The demon fox had barely run fifty meters when the sky above it darkened.

Li Zhengyang descended from directly overhead. The Dragon-Gallbladder Golden Spear was filled with all the Blood Qi of a Second-Rank Martial King, the vortex around its tip compressed to the size of a fist.

One thrust.

From above to below.

The spear tip pierced into the demon fox's nape, passed through its entire body, and nailed it to the rock wall.

The demon fox struggled twice.

The Fox Fire on its nine tails gradually dimmed before all of it finally went out.

Li Zhengyang pulled out his spear.

Then he crouched beside the demon fox's corpse and dug out its Beast Core.

After taking the Beast Core, he stared at the nine fluffy tails for two seconds.

The tails of a Sixth-Rank Peak demon fox were rich in spiritual energy and top-grade materials for artifact refining.

Market price?

He was not sure, but they definitely would not be cheap.

The Short Blade left its sheath, and all nine tails were cut off at the roots, bundled together, and stuffed into his Space Ring.

After finishing all that, he stood and looked around.

The remaining Fifth-Rank Demonic Beasts had already scattered and fled. In the core region of Blackwind Pass, only corpses littering the ground and himself remained.

"Business is good."

Li Zhengyang calculated today's earnings in his head.

Two Sixth-Rank Peak Beast Cores, more than a hundred Fifth-Rank Beast Cores, nine demon fox tails, plus all kinds of high-grade materials.

Even a conservative estimate put the total value above ten million.

It was enough for him to break through several more minor realms.

Just as he was considering where to sell this batch of goods, the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end.

It was not the wind.

It was pressure.

A pressure ten times more terrifying than the Bone-Spike Demon Ape and the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox combined crushed down from overhead.

Li Zhengyang abruptly looked up.

The hundred-meter-long Spatial Rift in midair was trembling violently.

Purple-black spatial arcs raced wildly across it. The edges of the rift were forced apart, doubling its width.

Then, a claw stretched out.

A gigantic beast claw covered in dark golden Dragon Scales forced its way out of the rift. Each scale was as large as a pot lid, and the claw tips scraped across the edge of space, tearing out a string of piercing metallic screeches.

The claw gripped both sides of the rift and forced them apart.

The rift widened again.

A head emerged.

Dragon head.

Vertical pupils.

A muffled roar came from deep within the rift, shaking the ground across the entire Blackwind Pass region.

Seventh-Rank.

Martial Emperor level.

Li Zhengyang tightened his grip on his spear.

It was the first time he had felt the pressure of this level in actual combat. It stood an entire major realm above Han Tieshan's Martial King aura.

A second claw covered in Dragon Scales stretched out and gripped the edge of the rift.

It was still forcing its way out.

Li Zhengyang took a step back. Not out of fear. He was calculating.

Could he beat it?

No.

A Second-Rank Martial King against a Seventh-Rank Martial Emperor—the gap was far too great.

Even with the Indestructible Golden Body and the Dragon-Gallbladder Golden Spear, fighting it head-on would be suicide.

Run?

He could get away.

The Martial Emperor-level creature was still crawling out of the Spatial Rift, its body stuck inside. It could not pursue anyone for the moment.

But once it emerged completely—

The entire Northern Frontier Front would explode.

Fortress No. 7 was one hundred and twenty kilometers away.

At a Martial Emperor's speed, it would arrive in ten minutes.

Once it got there, the entire fortress would be unable to stop it.

Li Zhengyang's Adam's apple bobbed.

He did not retreat any farther.

He pulled the communicator from his pocket and pressed the emergency channel.

"Fortress No. 7 Command, respond if you can hear me."

Two seconds later, Song Qing's voice came through.

"Li Zhengyang? Where are you?"

"Blackwind Pass."

"You went to Blackwind Pass?! That's an S-Rank mission zone. You're alone—"

"Cut the crap. Put Han Tieshan on."

There was a brief pause on Song Qing's end, then Han Tieshan's voice came through.

"Speak."

"The Spatial Rift has been confirmed. It's expanding." Li Zhengyang stared at the dragon head still forcing its way out. "A Seventh-Rank Demonic Beast is crawling out of the rift."

The other end of the communicator fell silent for a full three seconds.

"What level? Are you sure?"

"Martial Emperor level. Dragon form. Dark Gold Scale Armor."