Tara vs. Sno

Three seconds later, a string of utterly obscure secret words surfaced in his consciousness.

It was a code pieced together from ancient symbols and strange syllables, like some long-lost ritual language.

Qin Feng opened his eyes, his lips moving slightly as he recited the secret words without missing a single one.

"༒ㄉヂヅド༖ཨོཾ༄༅!"

The instant the final syllable fell, the entire temple shook violently.

Sand and gravel came pouring through the cracks in the dome, and the stone slabs on the ground began to split.

Then, with a thunderous boom, a towering figure burst out of the ground!

His entire body was covered in dark green scales, and his thick tail swept an arc through the air. A great spray of yellow sand flew up as he landed on all fours.

He stood a little over two meters tall, his crocodilian snout gaping to reveal a row of jagged fangs. His eyes had dark yellow slit pupils, filled with the confusion and agitation of someone freshly awakened.

"I'm finally alive again!"

Soton threw back his head and roared, spraying spit everywhere.

Then he lowered his head and sniffed the air, spreading his huge mouth into a ferocious grin.

"Been cooped up for so many years. Gotta find something to eat first! Bet there are plenty of buns over there..."

He pushed off with his hind legs, about to leap into the air.

But before his body had risen even half a meter, Qin Feng raised his hand and made a grasping motion.

An invisible hand of energy instantly reached out of thin air and seized him in an unyielding grip.

"Ow!"

Soton struggled twice. Finding himself unable to break free, he turned and bared his teeth at Qin Feng.

"You bun! Let me go!"

If he had not sensed that the other party was dangerous, he would have tried to eat Qin Feng and Tara earlier.

He had never expected that even after he left them alone, they still would not let him go.

What a load of nonsense!

"Don't worry, I'll let you go. Just not here."

Qin Feng tilted his head, studying Soton's fierce yet stupid appearance.

Just then, a sinister voice drifted in from the temple entrance.

"Don't you know better than to take what doesn't belong to you?"

Hearing this, Qin Feng turned to look.

Three figures stood at the temple entrance, blocking the light.

The man in the middle wore a black robe and a metal skull mask, with dense, chilling dark energy fluctuations swirling around him.

Two Taotie Soldiers followed behind him-tall figures in iron-gray metal shells, holding standard-issue energy rifles with their muzzles already slightly raised.

It was actually Sno.

Qin Feng instantly recognized who he was.

After all, as Death God Karl's chief lackey, he made quite a few appearances.

Sno first glanced at the captive Soton before turning his gaze to Qin Feng and Tara.

Behind his skull mask, his pupils contracted slightly.

A Third Generation Super Soldier?

The dark energy fluctuations radiating from this young man clearly placed him in the third generation.

And the burly, dark red warrior beside him put Sno even more on guard.

Although he detected no dark energy fluctuations from Tara, as someone who had lived for tens of thousands of years, his bone-deep instinct for danger told him that the man opposite him absolutely had the strength to threaten him.

When had someone like this appeared on Blue Star?

But Sno quickly steadied himself.

So what if they had some ability?

Karl stood behind him, one of the foremost beings in the entire Known Universe. What gave an ordinary Third Generation Divine Body the right to challenge him?

"Who are you? How dare you question the king's decision!"

Tara took a step forward, his burly, dark red body blocking Qin Feng like a wall. His golden slit pupils fixed coldly on Sno, his voice carrying undisguised hostility.

Sno gave a contemptuous snort.

"So you're merely wanderers from a lost civilization."

He lifted his chin slightly, his tone carrying the condescension of someone bestowing charity from on high.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Sno of the Styx Civilization. This Beast Body warrior is named Crocodile God Soton, a creation made by My God Karl a thousand years ago."

"In light of your ignorance, I can forgive your presumption. Now hand him over."

Sno spoke with perfect composure.

In his view, Qin Feng and Tara might possess some strength, but the moment he invoked Karl's name, they would surely submit.

After all, in the Known Universe, Karl's name was a stabilizing weight. No one wanted to provoke a madman obsessed with researching the void.

Still, his gaze lingered on Qin Feng a little longer.

He kept feeling that he had seen those dark gold energy fluctuations somewhere before, but he could not recall where just then.

Looking at the haughty Sno, Qin Feng suddenly smiled.

"Since I arrived here, no one has dared speak to me like that."

He turned his head and gave Tara a look. "Tara."

"At your command!"

"Teach him a lesson."

"As you command, my king!"

Without another unnecessary word, Tara went straight into action.

Whoosh!

A silver-white streak shot from Tara's waist. The dark silver dagger traced a tricky arc through the air, thrusting straight between Sno's brows.

Sno's pupils contracted sharply. He abruptly retreated half a step, raising his right arm and summoning a gray-black entrenching shovel to block in front of him.

Sparks burst out the instant the dagger struck the shovel's blade, and a piercing metallic clang echoed through the empty temple.

The force of the impact drove Sno back two steps, the hem of his robe sweeping up a cloud of yellow sand.

"To think you even have a dark silver weapon."

After steadying himself, Sno looked at the silver-white dagger, a glint of greed flashing in his eyes.

"It seems I'll be getting a fine new dagger today."

His tone carried absolute certainty, as though he already considered the dagger his.

Over his long life, he had seen plenty of dark silver weapons, but they all shared one drawback.

They could not bind themselves to an owner like genetic weapons could. They could only be controlled through a Super Soldier's dark energy.

If an opponent had greater Computational Power than their wielder, forcibly seizing a dark silver weapon was hardly difficult.

And when it came to competing in Computational Power?

Sno had every reason to feel confident.

He had been granted access to a portion of the Great Clock's Computational Power.

This was the supreme authority Death God Karl had bestowed upon him, an honor unique in the entire Styx Civilization apart from Karl himself.

What could a wanderer from a lost civilization possibly use to compete with him?

"You want my dagger?"

Tara's voice carried undisguised mockery.

"Then let's see if you've got what it takes."

Before he had finished speaking, he closed his right hand around empty air.

After being deflected, the dark silver dagger circled through the air and doubled back, stabbing straight at the back of Sno's neck from an even trickier angle than before.